Slashdot Mirror
GNOME 2.20 Released
Gimli writes "GNOME 2.20 has been officially released. There are a number of enhancements and improvements to things such as power management, Evince (the GNOME document view), Totem (the video player), and note-taking application Tomboy. There are also some changes to GNOME's configuration utilities with an eye towards streamlining them. The timing is impeccable, too: 'This release coincides with the tenth anniversary of GNOME's existence. The project has evolved considerably since its earliest incarnation and has become a global phenomenon. Used as the default environment in popular Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora, GNOME is widely used by Linux desktop users and is supported by a growing community of companies and independent developers. GNOME 2.20 will be included in the next major releases of many mainstream Linux distributions, including Ubuntu 7.10, which is scheduled for release next month. Users who wish to try it now can use the latest Ubuntu 7.10 live CD images, or the latest build of Foresight Linux. You can also check out the release notes."
All previous GNOME releases had a problem where the volume control would wake up every 100ms to poll the mixer settings, which prevented the CPU from entering and maintaining deep sleep states. The new volume control does not do that, which may be good for a few watts at the outlet. Other applications have undergone a similar treatment.
As I understand it, GNOME Power Manger runs a DBUS service. This can be used by clients to inhibit sleep. This is very useful; it means when you're watching a movie in Totem the screensaver won't cut it in, and nor will your monitor turn off, merely because you haven't touched the mouse during the last 5 minutes of intensive movie watching. So I'd say there are good reasons for your desktop environment controlling power management.
From the version currently in Gutsy, they basically threw all the appearance-related apps into one mega-app. I haven't noticed any missing functionality (in fact, the fonts and toolbar applets are unchanged), though I would appreciate if Ubuntu came up with a more useful "simple" Compiz app (it's currently "off", "on", "insane")
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
You try to sleep and then ...
Gnome mixer asks: "Did alsa change volumes? Did alsa change volumes? Did alsa change volumes?"
It would distrub me; as it would disturb your laptop.
Like somebody sleeping next to you repetitively asking: "Are you already asleep?".
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=302979&cid=20675217
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
There are actually only three major Unix vendors left: Sun, IBM, and HP. All provide GNOME as the default desktop.
SGI is still around, but they no longer sell systems that run Unix. Their flavor of Unix was IRIX, which only ever ran on MIPS, and that CPU is no longer cost-competitive for big iron. So SGI sells Itanium and x64 systems running Linux. FWIW, their default desktop is GNOME.
Dell is also a Unix vendor of sorts, since they sell a fair number of servers running Solaris. Guess what the default desktop for Solaris is?
It's silly to call Apple a "Unix vendor". Yes, MacOS is built on top of Unix. But they're not part of the Unix marketplace. Almost nobody buys them to run Unix software, by which I mean software that's coded against traditional Unix APIs. Almost all Mac software is coded against Apple's proprietary APIs, and isn't available on "other" Unixes. The fact that Apple found it convenient to code those APIs on top of Unix APIs is an implementation detail that matters not at all to 99% of Apple's customers.
BSD has no vendors. Just a few enthusiasts.
That leaves SCO. Do we really want to talk about SCO?