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."
I think you answered your own question. They insist on shipping Tomboy so they can have a reason to ship mono. Without Tomboy, and without Beagle, the search tool thousands of times more idiotic than Tracker, there would be no reason for anybody to install mono.
I'm a hardcore Gnome user (it's prettier, more "solid", and I like how simple they make configuration, even though I've been a programmer, sysadmin, have used Linux exclusively for about 5 years and am by all accounts a "power-user") but man it bugs me that they chose to use C and then load the language up with 500 different code generators and other shit shoehorned in so that it's hardly recognizable as C anymore. If you're going to do it in C, just give a nice clean API and screw all that Glade, Pango, Orbit, yadda yadda yadda shit. Or, even better, use C++!
I'll never understand the OSS community's C++ phobia. Of course, most of the C++ that comes out of the OSS community makes me want to take up trepanning, so maybe that's not such a bad thing...
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
To be perfectly honest, I sort of like it when configuration options are sort of organically integrated into the application instead of displayed in a long list in some preference panel.
And then again, there are many cases in which it's perfectly acceptable to leave them out altogether.
Simplicity is a beautiful thing. One of the core fundamentals of Unix is that an application does a single job, does it well, and provides output such that it can easily be piped into another application. Gnome and KDE have routinely shat upon this paradigm, and it's only been recently that we're finally starting to return to it.
I've used Xfce quite a bit as well, and despite the lack of advanced configuration options, I must say that everything more or less works the way I expect it to, and it's all rather intuitive. The fact that it's ridiculously snappy is a very nice bonus (remember how "snappy" Windows 95 or Mac OS Classic were? Xfce is sort of like that, but with a real operating system underneath, and a full complement of modern features). The configuration options were sparse, and in one or two cases there were things I'd change, but as far as the whole package goes, I'm a big big fan.
If I want to do something tricky, I'll go to the command line. GUIs simply aren't elegant for every function imaginable, and it's sort of assumed that you know at least a few basic unix commands if you're going to be using something as obscure as Xfce. Besides... how many normal users have to pipe their routing table into grep on a daily basis?
KDE's a prime example of feature bloat. From a technical standpoint, it's probably the better of the top two desktops, but from a usability standpoint, I find it horribly unintuitive. Lots of toolbars full of tiny similar-looking blue icons don't help either. If Microsoft did Unix, it'd look something like KDE.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I think that you're looking back with Pentium-III colored glasses. On a shiny new Pentium I machine of the day, Win95 performance was acceptable but not great. On a typical installed-base 16MB 486/33 machine, Windows 95 was a pig.
The situation was probably comparable to KDE and Vista's performance today on common machines. Unfortunately for these new desktop environments, however, the widening lag of memory and disk bandwidth behind CPU speed means that they probably won't feel "snappy" in the foreseeable future just from hardware improvements.
Strangely they've added a few. The new "Appearance" applet is quite nice.
But "fortunately" screensavers remain unconfigurable. After all, Billy Jon McCann (the sole developer and rule of the Guuh-Nome screensaver universe) says that screensavers that you can adjust settings on are "inherently broken".
GNOME screensavers. Crippled for your protection since 2005.
"Please, just tell people to use KDE"
-Linus Torvalds, December 2005.
Scott
©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
"So yes, the KDE control center is crammed with features, but I only know and use those that I need and I have turned the desktop into a wonderful, simple and sane experience for me. A thing that I can't do with GNOME, XFCE or any Windows."
And that's of course where you're missing the point. GNOME, XFCE and MacOSX attempt to be usable by default. They do this not by removing random features just to spite people, but by conducting usability studies to find out what actually works and doesn't work for people then doing the former by default and fixing the latter.
The fact that you had to hunt around and make changes to make the desktop simple and sane enough to use means that KDE failed to get it right in the first place. Now, this could be because you prefer to have double-clicking on a window's title bar start a ytalk session using a regex over the window's text, or because you prefer to rebind the enter key to double-backspace-n, which is fine - go for your life. But if that's the case you're an outlier (no offence - rejoice in your point of difference!) and you probably shouldn't be making broad judgements about the usability of desktop environments for anyone other than yourself.
-mike
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Gnome is pretty darn good about "developers, developers, developers".
Like how? Look at how much code reuse goes on in KDE vs Gnome. Every KDE app has the same spellchecking engine, every KDE app has the same text editor component, the same menu structure, the same shortcut configuration, the same widgets, dcop, etc, etc. Kontact, the KDE equivalent to Evolution, is just a small shell around all the individual components. KDE4 extends this even further, by making more powerful components available to developers. In a Gnome changelog, on the other hand, you see changes like "gedit gets editable toolbars" or "somegnomeapp gets gnomevfs support". You will never find something like that in a KDE changelog, because all the apps get all those features for free with the framework. I find it absolutely mindboggling that Gedit would have to manually add support for editable toolbars on gnomevfs, and then even find it worth mentioning in the release notes. It really shows that the libraries are not nearly as simple to use, or there is some kind of impediment to using them.
This kind of thing is evident when you look at resource usage between the desktops too. Why is it that KDE and Gnome use similar ammounts of memory when Gnome has so many less features (I'm not saying more features are better, but you can't deny that KDE has more features than Gnome). I'd be happy with a simple desktop like Gnome (it is much prettier after all) if it also was lighter on resources, but it isn't.
If you use Gnome, you'd do well to try Epiphany. Firefox doesn't follow any of the Gnome conventions: it looks completely out of place in a Gnome desktop. The GUI for Epiphany is much more responsive and I get to tag my bookmarks. There's also the little gem of writing your own quick searches as easily as adding a bookmark. You like Firefox. Go ahead. Gnome users who try to stick with Gnome apps for a consistent look and feel should be on Epiphany, though.
Put identity in the browser.
The fact that you had to hunt around and make changes to make the desktop simple and sane enough to use means that KDE failed to get it right in the first place.
By that rationelle, in my case neither KDE, GNOME, XFCE, Windows, OSX, BeOS, OS/2, Fluxbox or indeed any other windowing system I have ever seen has "got it right" out of the box. Every "power user" has their own little bunch of tweaks that help them work better - for instance, I find windows unusable without X-mouse from TweakUI. This doesn't mean that windows is shit - I'm perfectly happy to accept I'm not a default user.
The OP's point was that, with DE's like KDE, actually give you the OPTION to change the default behaviour in a reasonably simple manner. Yes, there's alot of buttons to press, and 99% of users will never need to bother setting up a special rule that opens all Konsole windows on virtual desktop 4, xinerama screen 2 - but for the users who DO desire that functionality it's an absolute godsend. Last time I set up a GNOME desktop for myself I couldn't find a way of doing this, but when you know what you want KDE makes it pretty simple.
What *would* be good is if both KDE and GNOME adopted "beginner/advanced" toggle buttons in their configuration dialogues. To a novice user, KDE has too many options, to a power user GNOME has too few.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
And it looks to me that you are missing his point too. Currently Gnome is mainly used by Geeks (ie advanced users). They like to keep control of their installation, that is what Linux is all about until today.
But the Gnome "market department" wants to go mainstream (excellent long term target). And thus they need to "make things simple".There is a clash between their current clients and the target they've got in mind. They can't satisfy both with an unique interface IMHO. Read Geeks posting on slashdot. A lot have stated that they have migrated from Gnome to KDE. It became even "trendy" since the Linus comment.
I guess they should deal with two profiles: simple and advanced. You hide/simplify features in the UI for simple users and keep them for the advanced profiles.
And that is why Gnome, XFCE and especially Apple (hatesit!hatesit!hatesit!) completely fail to make a decent GUI. There is no default user. It might come as a surprise, but people are not the same. What's fine and intuitive for me is a hell for someone else. Really. Users should be able adjust the GUI to their wishes, not the other way around. Defaults are for people who don't care enough to change it. Which is a reasonable choice by the way, and should be supported by the system. KDE is the only GUI i ever used that gave me the possibilities to adjust it's behaviour exactly to fit my intuition. The holy grail of THE perfect GUI that fits THE intuition of THE user is a fiction. It seems only KDE understands this.
Trust me, I work for the government.