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."

Comments

I have to ask...

[Chlorus]

Since this is a new GNOME release, what configuration option did they cut out now?

Re:I have to ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

"For GNOME 2.20, the control panels have been reorganized slightly to reduce the number of control panels, making it easier to find what you need."

From the release notes page for 2.20. On can only assume this means they've gutted the whole thing and you now have the option to choose between 2 lovely colorschemes, everything else has been set at the factory.

Re:I have to ask...

[Constantine XVI]

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")

Re:I have to ask...

[moosesocks]

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.

Re:I have to ask...

[imr]

off topic: On my via epia xfce is actually slower than KDE.

The problem with xfce or gnome is not the choice they made per se, but the fact that you can't actually get out of them. If you happen to be a person that don't fit what they see as a regular user and what is good for you, you just can't have a good experience with their desktop.
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 wonderfull, simple and sane experience for me. A thing that I can't do with GNOME, XFCE or any Windows.
And before you actually dismisses me as a KDE fanboy: I was a GNOME user prior to their stance on "forced down your throat" usability. I had also all "regular users" I knows of try the GNOME desktop so that I don't force my choice on them and they all prefer KDE. So this is not a representative panel, it's just a familym but they are supposedly the target of this usability choice, but either because its defaults are windows like (wife used windows at work before they switched to Linux), either because they can turn it into a strange unbearable carnival of colors (youngsters), either because they can drag and drop all their heart between applications (grand parents) or because I can heavily customise it to suit my day to day work, everybody chose to use KDE.
I'm sorry, but when I use the console it doesnt force me to use that command to another because it's "THE right way to do it", I can choose whichever I see fit for the job and pipe them into an unthought of combination.
That's the part I like about the unix philosophy.
To me the GNOME usability choice were not made to suit the users, but to suit the helpdesks. Users are versatile, I dislike and I'm even worried by this computer behavior which asks the user to fits the system and not the other way around.

Re:I have to ask...

[mike_sucks]

"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

Arr!

[ackthpt]

frist ps0t?? natalie pr0tman with hot gnomes etc etc etc? No really, I love GNOME, and Ubuntu, and I'm really going to love GNOME 2.20 in next month's Ubuntu!

It be an enhanced GNOME. Didn't ye get the email?

Enahnce your GNOME, stay up longer, get better performance from your GNOME, have great timing and more control over your power! contact XXXXX@yahoo.co.uk.

scupper me, all we were t'were pirates!

Re:Power Management?

[Jeffrey Baker]

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.

Oh, great

[MT628496]

I just finished compiling 2.18

Re:tomboy

[Jeffrey Baker]

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.

Re:Power Management?

[orra]

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.

Re:SLASHDOT SUX0RZ

[Anonymous Coward]

8====D

Why the long face? Or am I missing something? :--D

Re:power management?

[Tribbin]

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

Re:SLASHDOT SUX0RZ

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Celine Dion emoticon.

Re:Unix Gnome

[fm6]

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?

Re:performance?

[raddan]

I must meet your sister.

Re:Lameness

[pherthyl]

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.