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GNOME 3 Delayed Until September 2010
supersloshy writes "Contrary to popular opinion, GNOME 3 will not be released in March next year. It has been delayed until September 2010, six months later. According to the news message, this is because 'our community wants GNOME 3.0 to be fully working for users and why we believe September is more appropriate.' GNOME 3's main goal is to re-define the ways people interact with the desktop, mainly through a new UI design (currently called 'GNOME Shell'), while GNOME 2.30, set for release in March, will have a focus on being stable. An early visual tour of GNOME 3 has been posted at Digitizor."
for POST in $(cat slashdot); do
beGrammarNazi $POST
done
I couldn't resist.
That isn't true. Blizzard rarely releases a game on time, they are of the up-most quality, and they are money driven.
I'm glad that we can make such broad sweeping generalizations these days, that Microsoft now represents the entire private sector.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
All GUI experiences I had always were some combination of stuff that's around since ages. Artistic freedom in CS is at its best when it is heavily curbed. Hell, saving your document in MS Word has become an art form. Even my Mac, which allegedly comes with the most wonderful GUI on the planet, drives me up the wall. All I want and all we need is Firefox, Eclipse, a terminal and Openoffice and plain and simple menus with it. Anything else just plain and simple. Brothers unite and let's get back to the roots. I say "No more rotating, sliding, enlarging, diminishing menus!" Saving a document is best done using a simple key sequence :w
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Gnome3 looks unusable anyways, delay it forever. Go through the early tour and tell me that is more usable. I've no idea wtf they were thinking.
Lose the ability to 1click to open aps. Clock takes a huge chunk of real estate. The aps button is needlessly large and boring text. Opening a common folder takes more time now. This is just my first look at it but still wtf...
Do we laugh or cry? It's like KDE and Gnome are in some sort of frantic struggle for who can botch desktop Linux the most.
I hope some commercial company like Google puts grownups to work like they did with Android on some replacement for these two basketcase projects.
80% percent of the tour looks like stuff in the current gnome. I mean we already have a NetworkManager and you already get a calendar when you click on the clock.
Virtual desktops get more recognition. The UI is more modal and Mac like. So what if their default configuration has just the one panel? Thats how I configure it anyway.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yeah, lots of people will be in an uproar! There are millions of problems with Gnome 3! For starters, it won't be enough like KDE 3, so everyone will think it's broken when there's really no problems with it!
Until then the Gnome developers can just keep using their Apple laptops running OS X, as that seems to be all they ever to write about. Makes me wonder if they even use Gnome. In the meantime, I'll be sticking to Fluxbox. While they keep making things for Joe Average (who won't use Linux).
"Gnome3 looks unusable anyways"
I just switched to Ubuntu 9.10 it has been ok. Very rough, buggy, and unpolished compared to Windows but I really wanted to soldier on.
Seeing this Gnome 3 garbage just makes me want to throw my hands up and go right back to Windows.
Something is very, very wrong with the Gnome developers to have them honestly thinking this fiasco of an effort is going to attract anyone but the most diehard of existing Linux users.
Grow the fuck Gnome devs. No one wants yet another retarded attempt at 'reinventing' the desktop. It's a solved problem. People have work to do with their computers. Gnome 3 is nothing but juvinille wanking.
This isn't what I'm missing in Gnome. I'm missing desktop sharing and conferencing software like Livemeeting. I'm also missing some ease-of-use dealing with very simple things like cutting and pasting a link to a windows share and using it to look at a remote directory without having to edit all the slashes.
Instead, some *person* for want of a better word, thinks I need to have yet another new way to select the same applications, wants to "improve" (i.e. remove the choice from) the task list to be *more* application-centric (so retrograde it's laughable).. What a waste of time. What about an Object-Oriented or task-oriented desktop? How about some *actual* innovation? Being force-fed this kind of thing is pretty unpleasant;.
This is all just my personal opinion.
...but from an Ubuntu scheduling perspective this sounds like good news. The last thing Ubuntu needs for its next LTS release (10.04) is a big new jump to GNOME 3. It'll be nice to have an LTS that will let less bleeding-edge users wait until GNOME 3 has a year and a half of polish, integration, and (most importantly) actual user feedback to upgrade, while still retaining full support
Plus, it'll be just plain interesting to see how Mark Shuttleworth reacts to this frankly rather iffy-looking overhaul. (Oh well, so much for not commenting about it.) Although let's be nice - the screenshots in the link seem to be design mockups, while in the actual screencasts they seem to have solved the billions-of-elipses problem.
Being force-fed this kind of thing is pretty unpleasant
If the was Microsoft, and you didn't know better, then perhaps it's fair to say you are being "force fed" this change. However, this is OSS, and nobody is forcing you to use Gnome Shell. You have options: stick with Gnome 2.x, use XFCE, KDE or any of the other window managers available. Just stop whinging about how you don't like it.
Maybe they're trying to innovate and do something new and different. I don't share your doubts but if I did, I would rather give them the benefit of any doubt then criticize before I had even tried the software. It seems to me that they're in a tough spot: do what UIs have been doing for a long time and get accused of copying rather than doing something new, or do something new and get bad word from people who reject the free software out of hand at their "first look".
Digital Citizen
Why is this a preview if they don't want people to say what they think?
You really aren't going to help F/OSS by calling people whingers - it's a kind of whinging in itself.
This is all just my personal opinion.
Lack of taskbar makes it unusable.. Ubuntu remix way is so much better than this.. so gnome people.. please stop working on useless stuff like gnome 3. I was considering giving some money to the foundation but when i see where they're heading to.. no thanks.
What GNOME really needs (in my mind): * better dual screen support * customizable virtual desktops (different layouts for work, entertainment etc) - would be cool if the second display could be one virtual desktop * fixed theme management (everything should be configured from one place) * "run as root" in the menu under right mouse click * "open terminal in current location" * better drag&drop * better networking configuration (usb and bluetooth modems) - like to see why something isn't working. etc gnome doesn't need new menus..these are already great. maybe a search bar for programs in the application menu. like in win7 and mac
Yeah, yeah. Windows control 99.99% of germs, I mean desktop computers.
I've been freed from Windows for about 4 years now, and there is no way in hell i am going back. I barely tolerate it on my netbook (hardware driver issues), and I install linux on all of my other machines now for these reasons:
1. I spend 95% of my non-work computing time in Firefox.
2. I spend 95% of my work computing time in Firefox and Eclipse.
3. The other 8%, there are linux software for those.
4. I use Virtualbox for the 2% of the time I _need_ Windows.
In return for not using Windows, I gain:
1. I don't worry about firewalls, or anti-virus software.
2. Complete incremental backup of computer to network drive, usb drive, whatever.
3. nfs, and sshfs. They really are awesome. Windows/mac users don't even know what they are missing.
And most importantly:
4. New OS every few months, FREE. FOREVER..
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
it looks like GNOME is now copying MacOSX instead of Windows *eye roll*.
At least now their copying something that at least works, but still, they're copying, and thus ensuring that they are always playing catchup, and creating an inferior product. This is not a new problem, and has been talked about repeated on /. 2005, 2006, and even last June. With the notable exception of Firefox, there hasn't been anything original, innovative, and well good from the F/OSS community, which is very disturbing.
Hell, read some CHI, USENIX, and SIGIR papers people! Stop making a poor facsimile of two years, and start making the next five. Ask yourself, why the hell is Wave coming from Google, instead of us?
I'm also missing some ease-of-use dealing with very simple things like cutting and pasting a link to a windows share and using it to look at a remote directory without having to edit all the slashes.
If gnome (and linux in general) wants to escape the geek-in-a-basement marketshare, it has to focus on the average non-tech user. And no, pasting a link to a windows share is not what this user does.
Instead, this user is interested in finding "that god-damn file" that he saved somewhere yesterday morning and has no idea where it is. He doesn't organize his files, he doesn't care about file hierarchies, he just wants his file. He also wants to easily find that openoffice window that got lost in the 20 windows he opened and never closed in the last hour. Believe it or not, no desktop environment makes it really easy to do such basic stuff.
IMHO Gnome Shell and Zeitgeist is a step in the right direction for the average user.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Make a system any idiot can use and only idiots will use it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You are aware that OS X natively supports NFS and MacFUSE works exactly like Linux FUSE?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
nobody cares.
Nobody except the millions of people like me who use Gnome. The current version is near-perfect and the new one seems to have lost all the good points and added nothing. OK, all the desktops on screen at once could be useful once in a while, but WTF! If it ain't broke (and it ain't), don't "fix" it.
Smivs on the intertubes!
Thanks for your deep insights, I am now convinced that the Gnome people should listen to anonymous trolls like you to make their decisions.
My first reaction when I saw this news was that it was delayed specifically for the Ubuntu LTS release. Probably just a coincidence though, but everybody likes a good conspiracy theory.
:(){
I'm yet to be convinced that that is the correct approach. Users should learn to save their god-damned files somewhere sensible so they can actually find them again, and close windows when they're done with them. This isn't a technical user, this is a user with a clue, for goodness sakes. If you're so dumb you can't learn the concepts behind these tasks, I really do wonder whether you are suited to the operation of a Turing machine.
[FUCK BETA]
It looks like the task bar is missing. It looks like you have to click more to get where you want to go. It looks shiny. If I wanted all that I'd go to windows. Maybe I will. Windows 7 isn't bad at all. Hopefully when 3.0 IS released it will be customizable to get it back to where it was!
Imagine you were looking to buy a new car. Going to a dealership, you are presented with a sedan that is marketed as "redefining the way drivers interact with their automobile." Getting behind the wheel, you discover that standard conventions like the steering wheel, turn indicator, gear shift, accelerator and brake pedals have all been replaced with New and Improved devices that the salesman assures you are so much Better.
Would you buy the damned thing?
I'm sick and tired of coders who pretend they are cognitive psychologists or ergonomics experts.
Just implement a standard GUI using normal conventions. Anything more and people like me will either find ways to turn the bullshit off, or we'll avoid using your product.
Microsoft is about to learn this the hard way with their new bullshit replacement for the task bar.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The idea of designing a new approach to the desktop is commendable and shows one of the advantages of open source. If people doesn't like it they can switch to other alternatives. The idea of making it work well is also a positive innovation on some well established practices of both the FOSS and proprietary camps.
However there are for sure some strange things in this Gnome Shell.
On the positive side, the large Activities menu could be very useful on the forthcoming generation of touchscreen computers because it provides a larger target for fingers than the menu items we have now. It reminds me a lot of the interfaces used by some Linux distributions for netbooks it is seems good. Maybe it's not so handy for computers that only have a mouse (too much travel).
Finally I hope that the top bar can be moved to the bottom because I just hate top bars. They are placed right where my eyes look by default but they are the less important piece of information on the screen. Apple made it totally wrong IMHO and MS improved their design, maybe the only time they did it.
So, I'll be using Gnome Shell in its present form? Maybe I'll give a try but I bet I'll soon switch to something else, back to Gnome 2 if I can. Other desktops I so for Linux look to much like Windows, something that cannot be good considering all the years I had to use it and never liked the way it worked.
Gawd, the hell. I want a system that forces the user to organize his stuff. I'm sick of seeing desktops so cluttered with icons that there's no room for anything else. I wouldn't mind shoving that Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface down their throats. I mean, I make my desktop a mess too, but I clean up my shit eventually. Tons of people (like my sis) simply DON'T, EVER. EVERYTHING GOES ON THE DESKTOP. That's ridiculous. Can't understand the concept of folders? No computer for you!
Circumcision is child abuse.
Except that it isn't. According the GnomeShell page on Gnome Live, "Much of the code of the shell is written in Javascript and Clutter and GNOME platform libraries via GObject Introspection and JavaScript bindings for GNOME."
GObject Introspection is actually quite cool IMO, it makes it much easier to create bindings from dynamic languages libraries that use GObject, like the GNOME platform, GStreamer, etc.
> Um... taking time doesn't necessarily mean it gets done right.
Indeed. To date, the best Gnome release was version 1.4, which came out just eleven months after the previous release and was a significant improvement in a number of ways. Gnome 2, in contrast, seems to actively get worse with each passing release. Well, except for gnome-terminal. gnome-terminal is actually better. Everything else is worse.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
And that's it, this. People in the future are going to want their cellphone to be a major part of the computing experience, and when they get home, toss the thing on the desk and it just reopens on the monitor there. The focus should be on making that transition really smooth and consistent.
Right now it is backwards, try to force a desktop OS on the phone or synch it, etc, nuts. The phone os will be more important, the phone hardware will be powerful enough to do most tasks, and the monitor and keyboard on the desk will just be an extension of that primarily, and where your big storage lives. It will *have* to focus on being functional on the phone, then be able to scale up smoothly to a larger screen, and fast.
The next generation practical GUI/desktop therefore should start focusing on that next big step. Whomever gets their first with functionality and smooth transitions and synching wins. Android might be it, but one of the phone OSes will be it for sure, for most people, it won't be gnome or KDE at this point.
I'm seeing this kind of "MMO style" user interface more and more, where the desktop becomes more and more obscured by locked down immovable user interface elements. I've gotten used to the task bar on Windows and the Menu Bar on the Mac and the Panel, I can deal with that, there's one box and it's pretty small and I can stuff everything into it... but Microsoft keeps turning menus into big obtrusive blocks (ribbons and sidebars and the start panel and so on) and this new Gnome scheme seems to be putting this horrid scheme on steroids.
No, no, no, ten thousand times, no.
I noticed filesystems on MacFUSE have a greater tendency to crash, actually. Makes it quite frustrating to use for long periods of time.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Don't Confuse "Utmost" with "Upmost"
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
My experience with *inexperienced* users always shows one thing that no Desktop GUI seems to have addressed/solved yet: the User who does not care whether the program they want is already running or not, they just want to use it. At the moment you look to see in one area if, say, you have a web browser already running and if not then you start one. This is one step too many. The User should just have one button to press per app and then the GUI decides whether to simple bring an existing app window to the front, or start the app for the first time. (Some programs play well with multiple startups, others do not.)
I was thinking of it somewhat differently. My thought was:
"I'm glad that they aren't doing this for a year. By that time KDE4 might be nearly as useful as KDE3.0 was."
FWIW, I'm currently using Gnome, but I'd used a KDE desktop since the days of Gnome1.x. (When they changed that out, I switched to KDE...over the same kind of usability issues that have currently caused me to switch back to Gnome.)
It's not merely bugs, it's design issues. Interface designers don't seem to be able to design a new interface without including so many usability problems that it's nearly always a disaster.
(N.B.: The KDE2.x->KDE3.x wasn't a major change in the interface. The major changes were under the hood, and showed up as bugs. There are known ways of dealing with bugs. They don't work perfectly, but they exist. There don't seem to be known ways of dealing with basic UI design errors. Not even ways to collect the information that would let you know that you've made a mistake.)
To me this looks like a massive redesign of the interface. And it looks terrible. (Quite esthetic, but terrible from the usability standpoint.) I could be wrong, because I'm judging from still images, and I don't know how or why those images were selected, or how common it is for the system to get in that state.
The dual bar design is excellent. It allows one to have a constant display ot the most common tools used, and the currently active applications, in a very small area of the screen. The images showed render the screen unusable when that information is being displayed. Quite very much not good. Twice as bas as double plus ungood.
So I'm really glad that it won't show up for another year. Maybe by then they'll have realized a few of their mistakes. And I don't mean bugs, I mean design errors. Until then ... well, the latest revision of KDE4 was approaching the usability of Gnome. It still has a ways to go, but a couple of more revisions and I may be able to switch back to it.
P.S.: Eye-candy is all very well, but it doesn't have much, if anything, to do with usability. It often seems to be an inverse relationship. And usability trumps eye-candy any day in my use.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I find I get closest to what I had on real kde running xfce with the kde backend and the kde applications. I use the new QGtkStyle which makes the kde /qt applications use gtk to draw the widgets. and compiz expose and cairo-dock (I don't like the always on top of the xfce panel). This gives me most of what I had with kde 3.5 and compiz except different wallpaper per desktop.
I just got done trying kde 4.3 for 3 weeks. It is to much of pain to get it to give me MY desktop not what they fucking want to give me.
Most of the applications are as good as the old ones (the only complaints I see are 2 i don't use konq. and amorock).
Since the kde devs. now talk about options being bad! sort of like gnome did from 1.4 ->2 i don't see kde ever going back to a useful desktop os again. I think they are going for the new name of KCE K Cellphone Environment.
Oh I was the same as you in I used gnome 1.4 and tried gnome 2 could not get used to how unfriendly it was to configuring what you want and moved to kde.
Might want to use a different calculator, though. By my count, you have accounted for 105% of your computing time...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I hope they use the extra time to make things stable, organized, configurable and documented. More descriptive tooltips would help, too.
I recently installed Fedora 11 and in only 3 weeks I've lost the abilty to see the top of the cube, to focus on no windows, to zoom using the scroll wheel, and to bring up a menu by clicking over the desktop. Compiz configuration is hopelessly disorganized. Advice from user forums points to menu entries that don't exist and suggest changes that have no effect.
On the plus side, gnome has the first edge flip I've ever used that is good enough that I don't turn it off after a few days. Now if they'd only make an option to require an ALT key or button press for edge flip and I'd be a lot happier.
Also, it crashes occasionally, but I don't know for sure that the fault is with gnome and not firefox or something else.
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