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Gnome 2.30 Released

Hypoon writes "The GNOME project is proud to release this new version of the GNOME desktop environment and developer platform. Among the hundreds of bug fixes and user-requested improvements, GNOME 2.30 has several highly visible changes: new features for advanced file management, better remote desktop experience, easier notes synchronization and a generally smoother user experience. Learn more about GNOME 2.30 through the detailed release notes and the press release."

138 comments

  1. April Fools! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    April Fools!

    1. Re:April Fools! by ravenspear · · Score: 1

      OMG PONIEEESS!!!!

    2. Re:April Fools! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, great joke - Gnome, ADDING features? Give me a break!

    3. Re:April Fools! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm guessing that no jokes today IS the joke.

    4. Re:April Fools! by Robert+Bowles · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up funny, really. Someone is really taking those moderator points a little too seriously...

      --
      /* MAGIC THEATRE
      ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
      MADMEN ONLY */
    5. Re:April Fools! by mrmeval · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Thank you. Everything they go on and on about is stuff I rip out or chmod -x the executable or copy a bash script over the executable to get what I want.

      --
      I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
    6. Re:April Fools! by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Heeeeeey Fucktard! Notice the title of the site? News for NERDS ring any bells? If you are gonna spam at least TARGET YOU AUDIENCE dipshit! You should be offering us dodgy RAM, fake CPUs, cheap PMPs, refurbed HDDs, off brand SSD, tec. How many fucking nerds you think are actually gonna buy Chanel handbag knockoffs moron?

      Sorry folks, but if there is one thing I can't stand it is bad marketing. I mean really how hard is it to target the spam correctly? He should be over on Digg if he wants to push fricking handbags!

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    7. Re:April Fools! by Artifakt · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Conies are Rabbits, and six of them should properly be counted as three braces of conies and then eaten by Frodo, Sam, and Gollum.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
  2. OMG PONIES! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really not sure if 2.30 is a April Fools day prank or not now...

    1. Re:OMG PONIES! by Eric+Smith · · Score: 1

      Even though I use Gnome, I really don't especially care whether 2.30 is an April Fool's Day prank or not.

    2. Re:OMG PONIES! by PhilHibbs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Og Maciel"? No way is that a real name. Definitely an AF.

    3. Re:OMG PONIES! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reaction of a Gnome user:

      "Canonical is an important contributor." Haha, they didn't wait until the second page to spill the beans!
      "Get T-SHIRTS!" Well, I guess they went for realism.
      "We have deprecated all our APIs" Hahaha, good one! It would suck if we had to port our customers code for their next Ubuntu update.
      "Prepare for 3.0!" Ok, what?
      "Gnome 3.0 screenshot" Don't tell me this is real. Please!
      HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!

    4. Re:OMG PONIES! by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Bonobo and shit were deprecated with Gnome 2.0; with Gnome 3.0, they're removing support entirely, so Gnome 1.0 apps simply won't run.

  3. Headscratch. by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    I don't get it. Not even a peep about it being renamed to KNOME, or about KDE being renamed to GNU/DE.

    I mean, what the hell, Slashdot! Serious news? On this, the holiest day of the Geek Calendar?

    Seeing "support for Facebook chat, and new productivity features" in the same sentence was a pretty good start, but things just trailed off from there. I demand a punchline from this press release, or at least some enlightened puns about how to reduce the window manager's footprint!

    1. Re:Headscratch. by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I mean, what the hell, Slashdot! Serious news? On this, the holiest day of the Geek Calendar?

      Gah. I think the best thing Slashdot could do this April 1st is to just do nothing at all. In addition to being a joke in itself, they would also be recognizing that they simply can never surpass OMG PONIES. Never.

      Using the Internet in general is just painful on the 1st. Everybody thinks they need to do a joke, whether they have a good idea or not, and most of the time it's just an old obvious "joke" that isn't funny anymore. People of the Internet: If you have a good idea, go for it. If not, don't bother.

      That said, XKCD has a pretty good one this year. Hint: Try "make me a sandwich" :)

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    2. Re:Headscratch. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had been playing videogames till after midnight EST. I stopped and did a google search for some Zelda item. The name Kevin Bacon popped up in the forum comments. A few double takes later, I saw the pattern, thought about the date...

      It caused me to warn geek friends on my google talk MOTD which now says

      Wow. Just 1h53m into today --already April fooled at Newgrounds. ( ; _ ; )

      Some bastard must have "wordfiltered" the words "I" and "my."

    3. Re:Headscratch. by Jurily · · Score: 1

      or at least some enlightened puns about how to reduce the window manager's footprint!

      Here you go.

    4. Re:Headscratch. by hcpxvi · · Score: 1

      And then (of course) try
      sudo make me a sandwich

    5. Re:Headscratch. by PhilHibbs · · Score: 2, Informative

      Damn, rm -rf * doesn't do anything.

    6. Re:Headscratch. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but try 'look'. And then use the 'go' command in the expected way. Awesome!

    7. Re:Headscratch. by IrquiM · · Score: 2, Informative

      Doh! You forgot sudo!

      --
      This is blinging
    8. Re:Headscratch. by beanpoppa · · Score: 1

      I like it. I think more web sites should go to a CLI implementation.

    9. Re:Headscratch. by MonsterTrimble · · Score: 1

      Is it wrong that I prefer this style to XKCD's normal page?

      Or that it makes me want to go home to use my Linux box?

      --
      I call it 'The Aristocrats'
    10. Re:Headscratch. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but sudo rm -rf / makes most commands unrecognizable.

      Interestingly, some stuff, like $ [sudo] make me a sandwich still work after removing the root directory.

    11. Re:Headscratch. by StayFrosty · · Score: 1

      I demand a punchline from this press release, or at least some enlightened puns about how to reduce the window manager's footprint!

      Enlightenment isn't the default WM in Gnome anymore :-) Oh, you talking about the footprint logo thingey there.

      --
      "Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
    12. Re:Headscratch. by pearl298 · · Score: 1

      This was GREAT, but I still think Redflex Van Tarred And Feathered is the very BEST April Fools gag I have seen this year!

      Redflex is the Australian company that is running and promoting these idiotic "traffic cameras" that are supposed to save us from bad drivers, Al Quaieda, halitosis and all forms of evil.

      Especially when you look at the full "fess up" video: April FOOLS!

      HMMM - is there an Aussie word for FOOL and FRAUD?

      OH YES its : "Redflex"!

  4. OnceBittenTwiceShy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Hah! Bring it on. You won't get me this year!

  5. Don't fall for it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just say "GNO".

  6. need some better visuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I love Gnome, but is looks so outdated these days...

    1. Re:need some better visuals by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I love Gnome, but is looks so outdated these days...

      All the cool UIs have buttons on the left. Someone should do that for Gnome.

    2. Re:need some better visuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      GTK+ simply can't compete with Cocoa, QT or even Winforms.

    3. Re:need some better visuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Buntu 10.04

    4. Re:need some better visuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Buntu 10.04

      It's not the buttons on the left... it's the fact that you sir, made me realize this month's ENTIRE release it's an anagram for Buntu 04.01.

      Just found a good reason to wait until 2012 Ubuntu end of the world edition. That should last me another few years into... oh shit.

    5. Re:need some better visuals by IBBoard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If modern = hideous shine effects (ala Windows....and Mac...and KDE) then give me Gnome any day. I want something I can manage to look at all day if I have to, not something that burns my eyes after half an hour. As for themes, I like Sonar these days - nice, well executed and not too bland.

    6. Re:need some better visuals by Stumbles · · Score: 1

      When that happens, call me. I'll be at Millieways having lunch.

      --
      My karma is not a Chameleon.
    7. Re:need some better visuals by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 1
      If modern = hideous shine effects (ala Windows....and Mac

      wait what? the mac does not have hideous shine effects. I just took a pic of some of the native apps (itunes, safari and the system preferences) and I see no shine effects. I guess the window buttons, but they are so small, that does it really count as being overly shiny?
      http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7720/screenshot20100401at440.png
      Said that, I do prefer gnome over kde.

    8. Re:need some better visuals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe he/she is talking about the shiny (and shitty) dock.

    9. Re:need some better visuals by natehoy · · Score: 1

      Gnome "rebooted" like the Star Trek franchise. Apparently they hired Abrams, because what you see is lens flare.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    10. Re:need some better visuals by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      All the cool boys smoke, wear shoes on their hands and a onion on their belt! We must do that too!
      Oh, and tomorrow they plan to jump off a bridge! We should totally do that to!
      Just so we will finally be accepted by $retardedJoeRandomLUser!

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    11. Re:need some better visuals by IBBoard · · Score: 1

      The dock, and the scroll bars, and the buttons (although that was in 10.3 that I last saw the buttons), and the pretty much every single icon for the huge majority of apps. The main title bar and other widgets are a bit better than the Vista/7 shine, though.

  7. Windows Evince Printing Support? by Culture20 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Evince on Microsoft Windows(R) now includes support for printing, PostScript and comics.

    Now I know it's April 1st.

  8. Can we please just shoot this turkey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I don't put a lot of faith in DE developers that can't fix a simple "Show/Hide hidden and backup files" problem in their file-browser. It's only been how many years?

    Seriously, I set it to show hidden/backup files and tar up a directory (after checking the files) and SENT MY BOSS BACKUP AND HIDDEN FILES THAT I DID NOT WANT TO. That could have been the end of my little world!

    Gnome - what a cluster-f*ck, heheheh!

    1. Re:Can we please just shoot this turkey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Seems to be a lot of Linux/Gnome/KDE bashing on slashdot these days. Makes me think that the Microsoft Trolls have come out to play.

    2. Re:Can we please just shoot this turkey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I don't put a lot of faith in DE developers that can't fix a simple "Show/Hide hidden and backup files" problem in their file-browser. It's only been how many years?

      Seriously, I set it to show hidden/backup files and tar up a directory (after checking the files) and SENT MY BOSS BACKUP AND HIDDEN FILES THAT I DID NOT WANT TO. That could have been the end of my little world!

      Gnome - what a cluster-f*ck, heheheh!

      Note to self: don't store "WhyIHateMyBoss.txt" on company equipment.

    3. Re:Can we please just shoot this turkey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use DWM but I still think that Gnome is way behind both OS X and Windows 7 in terms of aesthetics and usability. GTK+ is also really primitive compared to other modern UI toolkits.

    4. Re:Can we please just shoot this turkey by TedRiot · · Score: 1

      Luckily a boss that can open tar files doesn't exist.

    5. Re:Can we please just shoot this turkey by IBBoard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seriously, I set it to show hidden/backup files and tar up a directory (after checking the files) and SENT MY BOSS BACKUP AND HIDDEN FILES THAT I DID NOT WANT TO. That could have been the end of my little world!

      That's your fault for thinking that a visual setting has anything to do with a filesystem operation, and for not checking what you send. A couple of years ago I got caught out the other way - File Roller was ignoring . folders, which was a PITA because I kinda needed them.

    6. Re:Can we please just shoot this turkey by vtcodger · · Score: 1

      ***Seems to be a lot of Linux/Gnome/KDE bashing on slashdot these days. Makes me think that the Microsoft Trolls have come out to play.***

      Could just be folks admitting that Unix has a lot of problems also. OTOH, if I use Unix (which I do), I get mediocre software for a bit less than it's worth instead of paying too much, I don't have to worry about licensing, and I don't have to deal with the $#@(&% registry.

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    7. Re:Can we please just shoot this turkey by natehoy · · Score: 1

      No, it's people who use the command line. After all, you don't see a lot of bash bashing.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  9. You know what they say... by arielCo · · Score: 3, Funny

    " If you can't fix it - give it more features! "

    --
    This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
    1. Re:You know what they say... by Korbeau · · Score: 5, Funny

      " If you can't fix it - give it more features! "

      Did God say that after giving women boobs?

    2. Re:You know what they say... by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did God say that after giving women boobs?
      No, before

    3. Re:You know what they say... by IrquiM · · Score: 1

      No - boobs came after he decided he couldn't fix...

      --
      This is blinging
  10. The Benefits of Moving Backward by William+Ager · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's interesting to note that, in Nautilus, Browser-mode is now the default over Spatial-mode. Years ago, in the 2.0 days with whatever-that-company-was-that-made-Nautilus and the wonderful new HIG and whatnot, the switch to Spatial was heralded as a major improvement and modernization. Now, like many of those huge and bitterly disputed changes, the grand step forward is being reversed with only a slight mention.

    And yet, despite the reversal of so many of those improvements, I do think it's making Gnome better; it's just taking a very long time for the idealists of days past to realize that their ideals didn't really work in the real world.

    1. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by clang_jangle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      All those apparently counter-productive "improvements" implemented by Gnome and KDE these past few years worked out really well for me. They taught me not to rely on a one-size-fits-all-full-bloat DE and instead work with more minimalist tiling WMs and custom scripting the rest for myself. So much nicer, faster, cleaner, and more satisfying, plus I learned a lot. My desktop never looked better, and my productivity has never been higher. :)

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    2. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by jrumney · · Score: 1

      Windows 7 also uses browser mode. It is just Gnome following the pack again.

    3. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      The only thing I want is slightly smarter window management. If a non-gnome application opens its icon is highlighted in the task bar as a new window. Clicking on the window minimizes the new window. What I want is a task bar option to never minimize.

    4. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by arose · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I strongly preferred the spatial back in the day, because the browser mode was next to useless. The breadcrumbs convinced me to switch back, but it took a while for browser mode to actually become better, instead of just being familiar to Windows Explorer users.

      --
      Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
    5. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Homburg · · Score: 1

      Windows has never had a spatial file manager, hasn't it? That's one of the things that pisses me off every time I find myself using Windows.

    6. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 95 used spatial mode by default, everyone hated it, and the default was changed in all subsequent versions.

    7. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Windows 95 had a poor imitation of spatial mode, and OS X copied it, leaving a poor taste in everyone’s mouth. The only good spatial file managers are Mac OS Classic and Nautilus.

    8. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may be interested in the very first option in the "Folder Options" dialog. It is "Open each folder in the same window" (default) or "Open each folder in its own window". The option has been there for as long as I can remember.

    9. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by the_womble · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Gnome also dropped support for XSMP, breaking compatibility with almost any non Gnome app, to do it more like Windows (and a fatuous MS derived use case about closing laptop lids).

      Then there is a centralised config database.

      And people use Gnome because KDE is too much like Windows (i.e. the default theme has the panel at the bottom).

    10. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Wrong - there's no such thing as a good spatial file manager, unless you're too retarded to figure out how to use a proper file manager like Windows Explorer.

    11. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by atheistmonk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Personally I think KDE is the one that is actually making the real advances. I think I really noticed this when they reinvented the desktop where everything is a plasmoid, instead of the desktop simply being a dumping ground.

    12. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Pecisk · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Gnome also dropped support for XSMP, breaking compatibility with almost any non Gnome app, to do it more like Windows (and a fatuous MS derived use case about closing laptop lids)."

      No one dropped it, XSMP code was in terrible state and did more harm than good. There are new gnome session in works for GNOME 3.0 to fix this.

      "Then there is a centralised config database."

      And it is bad why? :) Not mentioning that it is NOT a binary nightmare which are loaded at startup and leaks memory like hell. It is pure text xml files, with very good descriptions what each feature means. Heck, you can grep them and support user with changing settings from command line! Still, even then apps aren't forced to use gconf/dconf, it is only when you want to be a part of official release.

      "And people use Gnome because KDE is too much like Windows (i.e. the default theme has the panel at the bottom)."

      How this remotely connects with what you said above? People use GNOME for very different reasons, and I think default position of panels are least thing which makes people to choose one or another.

      --
      user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
    13. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by IBBoard · · Score: 1

      And people use Gnome because KDE is too much like Windows (i.e. the default theme has the panel at the bottom).

      How this remotely connects with what you said above? People use GNOME for very different reasons, and I think default position of panels are least thing which makes people to choose one or another.

      Not just that, but openSUSE just has a bar at the bottom by default and I personally much prefer it. All the professional usefulness and good apps of Gnome with themes you can use all day without getting eye burn, and only one bar. I've set my Fedora machine up the same as well.

      That said, I do use Gnome Do a lot, so I don't tend to use the bar for anything more than a list of apps and my clock!

    14. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 95, you noob.

    15. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by massysett · · Score: 1

      Same here. I had been a happy KDE user, but then they went to KDE 4. It lacked polish and crashed everywhere. This reminded me of my first experiences with KDE, which had finally been cleaned up with the later releases of the KDE 3.5 series. KDE 4 seemed a step backward. This caused me to look at other window managers. I found the tiling window managers. They are so much better to use--it's the first time I feel like an actual window manager (not desktop environment, but window manager) is actually a useful thing that makes me more productive. The window managers that come with the desktops just dump windows onto the screen willy nilly. I'd spend time moving them around. I used both xmonad and awesome a lot but have settled on xmonad. Neither is easy to configure but xmonad's documentation is better.

      Similarly, the move to Amarok 2 caused me to look at other ways to play music. I never found Amarok to be all that stable--sometimes it would simply vanish from my desktop--and it had lots of annoying bugs. When Amarok 2 came out I started looking for other ways to play music, deal with portable music players, and get podcasts. Now I use hpodder to get the podcasts, gnupod for the iPod (though I switched to a Sandisk Sansa, so I don't need gnupod anymore), moosic to play the music, and just mplayer CLI and screen to play podcasts and radio streams. To browse my music I use tree. Each of these programs is practically bug-free, which is much less frustrating than dealing with a crashy GUI program.

      The folks at KDE and Amarok do great work, but it seems to me it's easier to write a stable, well-documented program when it sticks to doing one, relatively small task.

    16. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/13/175252

      They should have listed to Steve. Spatial interfaces turn the users into janitors. There's just no ideal way to pre-arrange all your folders so that there's no overlap, sure you can do it for a few if you're always working on the same, but eventually you need to use one of the other half million folders on your system and the windows end up blocking. Yaaaay, now time to play the tile game on your screen.

      If your window manager doesn't allow spatial folders and you desperately want it for a particular batch of windows just make a virtual desktop screen to hold them and arrange them exactly how you like then switch to it when you need it. Best of both worlds.

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    17. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by hey · · Score: 1

      This page says GNOME 2.6.0 started spatial but now we have GNOME 2.3. Going backwards with the version numbers
      http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html

      Also on wiki
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gnome-2.6-en.png

    18. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by pmontra · · Score: 1

      And people use Gnome because KDE is too much like Windows (i.e. the default theme has the panel at the bottom).

      I removed the top bar of my gnome desktop because it's on the way of my apps there and moved everything into the bottom one. And yes, I don't use KDE because it's too much like Windows but I could switch if gnome 3.0 kills the way I like to use my computer as in the demoes I saw.

    19. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by spazimodo · · Score: 1

      I hate minimized windows (well, I hate overlapping windows in general but haven't found a tiling WM that's 100% what I want either.) If you're using Compiz, in CCSM you can disable minimizing windows. In Window Rules, put "Any" (without quotes) in the Non Minimizable Windows field. This makes the various ALT-Tab window switchers actually useful since they won't show minimized windows (or at least Scale won't.)

      You can also set Always On Top rules here which is helpful for those apps that create child windows that don't appear on the taskbar (for example, the login dialog in Outlook through Wine. There is a special place in hell for whoever at Microsoft thought child windows and dialogs should be allowed to fall behind other windows without providing any way to get to them without minimizing all the other windows and hunting for them.)

      --

      Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
      Millennium Crisis Line: 0890 900 2000 [calls cost 50p/min]
    20. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows Explorer is a joke, not a proper file manager. And that has nothing to do with being spatial, it just doesn't have any features.

    21. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by arose · · Score: 1

      There is nothing wrong with a config database, it's just that the Windows Registry isn't one. It's a catch all, store anything under the sun database.

      --
      Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
    22. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by spitzak · · Score: 1

      It would be really nice if they could figure out how to hide the task bar so it takes ZERO pixels. In every version for years "hide" has meant a huge 6 pixel grey border, which you can at best reduce to 1 pixel by using gconf. Since KDE has been doing this for years you can't blame some X defect for this.

      Also they need to fix damn click to raise. I want to turn it off, but those idiots doing the window manager somehow wrote this option so it ignores the *programs* attempt to raise the windows. This is USELESS and breaks lots of software that assumes that raising and mapping a window will make it visible. Comon, get your f**king act together and fix this!

    23. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      KDE 4.x is nothing like Windows.

    24. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Openbox

    25. Re:The Benefits of Moving Backward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well who would have thought that you can actually *change* the defaults in GNOME?

      Personally I'm an Openbox fanboi and GNOME sux, but so does KDE in an even worse way.

  11. Typing in paths by Dwedit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How can we make Gnome better? I know! Let's take away that useful button that lets you type in paths. And then yell at you for being stupid when you don't know that button had a Hotkey (Ctrl+L) that still works, even with the button missing.

    Stay classy, Gnome devs.

    1. Re:Typing in paths by dargaud · · Score: 3, Funny

      Thanks, that single 'feature' was the reason I switched all my machines to KDE ! Ctrl-L you say ? Too Ctrl-Late.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    2. Re:Typing in paths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, that single 'feature' was the reason I switched all my machines to KDE ! Ctrl-L you say ? Too Ctrl-Late.

      Are you that flighty in all aspects of your life? Rather then spend a few seconds on Google seeing if there is an easy way to do what you want, you decide to make a major software change on all of your machines. Yikes. I hope you were just trying to make a bland joke.

    3. Re:Typing in paths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't find a gconf-key you can tweak to put that button back either. Is there one?

      Taking the button out by default is bloody stupid. (If they've removed it entirely and you can't put it back via gconf, that's fucking stupid.) The beauty of a button like that is that it sits on the side out of the way where most people can just ignore it, but a curious person can click on it and discover a feature they mind find to be very useful. No one's going to discover Ctrl-L on their own.

    4. Re:Typing in paths by Pecisk · · Score: 1

      I have never used that button and it has caused confusion of mine several times. I *always* used Ctrl+L. And giving how popular Firefox (or any mainstream web browser as application) is, I think most of users who care knows that Ctrl+L gives you possibility to change location.

      --
      user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
    5. Re:Typing in paths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pfft point-and-clicking is so teeny-boppy :P

    6. Re:Typing in paths by Dwedit · · Score: 1

      I always used F6 in Firefox to get the location bar, it's the traditional shortcut key for switching between panes in a multi-pane window. That key goes way back to QBasic, you would hit that key to switch between the Help area and the Code area, and also works in text editors with a splitter, like TextPad or Visual Studio. It just so happens that the Firefox developers decided that F6 would be a nice key to go to the location bar for some reason. Maybe because the URL bar is like a second pane in a window. But if there is no visible pane (like in Gnome), how would you ever guess that there was a keyboard shortcut key to turn a series of buttons into a textbox?

    7. Re:Typing in paths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Criticize me will you? Well, that's it; I quitting /. and moving to digg!

  12. Sooo.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Us RHEL users will see this in 1-2 years. Whee.

  13. It's more like maitanance release...and I like it by Pecisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm GNOME regular since 2003 and all I can say is these 2.x series has been great ride. Yes, there where stuff which were broken, there where people who said that features are taken away, but still, I'm very productive in this desktop and trust me, I have worked with and supported every mainstream and not-so-mainstream desktop under the sun - it is one of the best. Apple gets it first, but GNOME guys cleverfully tries to integrate that stuff what matters. So kudos for all GNOME developers for these series and while I'm still a little bit cautinous about shell, I think it will turn out good in the end (it was quite usable when I tried it during Jaunty).

    Beyond usual "small stuff" which is nice to have (like fully working Evince on Windows, giving you good alternative for Adobe Reader or FoxIt), I really like Vinagre improvements. In quite short time, it has become de facto VNC viewer for GNOME platform, and finally there are color bit settings for those with dialups or other slow links.

    --
    user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
  14. Yay! by Korbeau · · Score: 1

    "advanced file management, better remote desktop experience, easier notes synchronization and a generally smoother user experience"

    I requested those *specifically*!

    1. Re:Yay! by JohnBailey · · Score: 1

      "advanced file management, better remote desktop experience, easier notes synchronization and a generally smoother user experience" I requested those *specifically*!

      So Gnome2.30 was your idea..

      --
      It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
    2. Re:Yay! by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      So you're saying Gnome 2.30 was your idea?

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  15. The features I'm still waiting for... by 2Bits · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1) A sync framework built-in, for syncing different mobile devices. Everyone has one or more mobile devices now, nothing works really well. My Windows Mobile phone, PDA, my iTouch, etc, are not working well. SynCE and Multi-sync are not up to task (yet). This might be a Linux issue, but it would great too if Gnome could provide a nice syncing framework, if no one at a lower level would want to pick it up. Anyway, I really don't care where that issue should be lied in, I just wish my mobile devices work nicely with my linux laptop. It's annoying having to manage my contact, calendar, task list etc in Windows inside a VirtualBox, in order to be able to sync.

    2) Evince should take a look at PDF Xchange PDF viewer. I want to be able to add notes, highlight, etc, in my PDF ebooks. Installing PDF Xchange Viewer on Wine is an ugly solution (font and UI are way ugly), and it's too slow.

    3) F-Spot is slow...

    4) Anjuta, can we do emacs key binding yet? Haven't used it for a while though.

    5) Network Connections should apply network settings after changes, not having to ask users to restart networking service or reboot. Ok, probably just an Ubuntu issue.

    6) Gnome should wake up probably after a suspend. I have no such issue with other desktop or WM, just Gnome. I tolerated it so far, coz I don't do suspend that much, and prefer to hibernate. But it's still annoying when you need to do it.

    7) iBus seems to have a bad habit of hanging from time to time, especially when you are typing too fast, and you have to switch between input methods very often. And start up is slow too.

    I'll try the new version soon, hope to see some of my problems solved. Regardless, thanks a lot for the hard work, really appreciat it.

    1. Re:The features I'm still waiting for... by KiloByte · · Score: 0, Troll

      3) F-Spot is slow...

      And what exactly did you expect from a program written in Mono? It has been pushed in due to political considerations, not because it's usable.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:The features I'm still waiting for... by zlogic · · Score: 2, Informative

      Conduit is a very promising sync framework. I've used it a year ago, sync over ssh failed, but the project is really nice, allowing to create complex sync rules with an easy to use GUI.

    3. Re:The features I'm still waiting for... by arose · · Score: 1

      F-Spot is slow...

      Worse, if let it, it eats metadata at night; I'm referring to the madness they do with time zone conversion. Even if you convince it to leave your pictures alone it will still fuck with how time is displayed...

      Thankfully not only is it not part of Gnome, but a good alternative seems to finally be getting of the ground.

      --
      Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
  16. April Fool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    April Fool!

  17. tried it 4 years ago by timmarhy · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    I ran screaming for the hills. dependency HELL.

    gnome seems to straddle this useless position of being less polished and feature packed then KDE, but slower and more comlpex then XFCE4.x I love XFCE btw it's a great wimdow manager.

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    1. Re:tried it 4 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I ran screaming for the hills. dependency HELL.

      you should try a little something we call APT.

      gnome seems to straddle this useless position of being less polished and feature packed then KDE, but slower and more comlpex then XFCE4.x I love XFCE btw it's a great wimdow manager.

      part of the point of gnome is that it's not bursting with so many ridiculous options that the next version will be out before you finish configuring your desktop. xfce is nice but it lacks some very nice functionality that gnome provides. i really dislike that in xfce you cant move applets to the positions you want without first adding a zillion spacers.

      a few things have changed in the past four years so perhaps it's time to give it another try.

    2. Re:tried it 4 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really, 4 years ago, then you're not able to comment on a recent version are you.

      Dependency "hell" is what people scream when they dont have a better reason.

    3. Re:tried it 4 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet I am apparently too slow to use this shift key in my Slashdot replies.

  18. Nautilus bookmarks... by Garble+Snarky · · Score: 1

    Has the Nautilus "Places" ordering bug been fixed yet? I'm not a developer, but seriously, how hard can it be to allow the user to drag and drop items in the "Places" widget? The nearly identical bookmarks can be drag-and-dropped. I wouldn't even care, if the default ordering made ANY sense at all, but its not alphabetical, not chronological, its COMPLETELY random as far as I can tell. Why can't somebody fix this?

    1. Re:Nautilus bookmarks... by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 1

      Why can't somebody fix this?

      Did you submit a bug report? Perhaps they don't know about it.

    2. Re:Nautilus bookmarks... by somersault · · Score: 3, Informative

      It depends, it's a dynamic area so additional devices are added and removed a lot, you'd have to have some way of defining where they went too, I don't think a simple drag and drop would work for that. I've never even thought about the ordering before, it seems sensible enough though (however it is slighlty different on the system Places menu and Nautilus sidebar). Home folder, desktop, filesystem, external drives, trash.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    3. Re:Nautilus bookmarks... by juhaz · · Score: 1

      I'm not a developer, but seriously, how hard can it be to allow the user to drag and drop items in the "Places" widget? The nearly identical bookmarks can be drag-and-dropped.

      It's not hard at all to allow drag and drop - what is hard is being able to meaningfully remember and integrate the changes made when some device isn't there. If you drag something to the top-most location, unplug it, drag something else to top, and put the first stick back in, which should be the first? And where should the other one go?

      The bookmarks are simple, because they only change when you change them.

    4. Re:Nautilus bookmarks... by Garble+Snarky · · Score: 1

      Old comment, but...

      I have a dual boot system with "filesystem" and "windowsboot" partitions on my main drive, plus three internal hard drives that are always connected, named "mediaI", "mediaII", "mediaIII". The order at the moment is:

      filesystem
      network
      mediaIII
      windowsboot
      mediaII
      floppy drive
      mediaI

      I just can't imagine what ordering scheme would result in that list. Sometimes the three media drives are not "monotonic" - II will be first, then III, then I.

      I'd even be happy if it were random, but consistent over time.

  19. It looks really nice. by PottedMeat · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Imma try it.

  20. Gnome vs. the gnome web site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the new release of Gnome is as good as the web site, I'm not interested.

    By the way did they fix that fucking file open/save dialog box yet?

  21. I used to be a spacial junkie... by pizzach · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...but I still do not use browser mode, either. Instead, I am now just using the terminal 99% of the time. The spacial implementation in Gnome failed for me because it was way too clunky. For something that is supposed reflect placement of real objects in real life, you really need to be able to interact with them with both hands in order for it to be enjoyable. In other words, there needs to be many more keyboard/mouse/mouse-keyboard commands for mass window management. Sometimes, it just doesn't work piddling with every single window individually every single time.

    • Where is my option-click to close all the windows of an appliciation?
    • Where is my option click outside of the window to hide it?
    • Where is my ctrl-shift-w to close all windows of an application?
    • Where is my option-click for my taskbar window button to bring all windows of that application to the font?
    • Why can't I click this same window button to hide all the windows that just came to the front?
    • Where is my system level ctrl-~ to switch between windows of a single application?

    Because of this, spacial in Gnome always felt lame in a lot of ways like how spacial in Windows 95 was lame. Spacial just doesn't work if you try to use it with an arm tied behind your back. Now granted, since moving to Gnome from Mac OS, I have fallen in love with modifier-drag combination for moving windows around. Shift drag is also pretty fancy. We just need more of those kinds of things.

    --
    Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
    1. Re:I used to be a spacial junkie... by yoyhed · · Score: 1

      Where is my option-click to close all the windows of an appliciation? Where is my option click outside of the window to hide it? Where is my ctrl-shift-w to close all windows of an application? Where is my option-click for my taskbar window button to bring all windows of that application to the font? Why can't I click this same window button to hide all the windows that just came to the front? Where is my system level ctrl-~ to switch between windows of a single application?

      In KDE?

      --
      WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
    2. Re:I used to be a spacial junkie... by arose · · Score: 1

      Where is my system level ctrl-~ to switch between windows of a single application?

      In the keyboard shortcuts, bound to ctrl+alt+tab by default. Now let me get out of the way of your rant.

      --
      Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
    3. Re:I used to be a spacial junkie... by juhaz · · Score: 1

      Where is my system level ctrl-~ to switch between windows of a single application?

      Alt-F6

  22. But does it depend on Mono by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it does, then I shall be switching to an alternative. If not, then there's hope yet.

  23. Sawmill/Sawfish? by dltaylor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone got sawmill/sawfish running on a recent library set?

    If so, got a link?

    It had Gnome compatibility, but didn't clutter up the desktop with real estate-stealing nonsense or kick off a bunch of annoying memory- and disk-hogging "features", such as indexing, that I don't want, as do both Gnome and KDE.

    1. Re:Sawmill/Sawfish? by knarf · · Score: 3, Informative

      Saw{mill|fish} is just a window manager. It is not a desktop environment. In gnome terms it compares to metacity, not the whole gnome desktop. If you want to run just a window manager you can do that with any of the available window managers. If you like programming your window manager in Lisp then saw{mill|fish} is a good choice but there are many other extensible window managers out there.

      I run a gnome desktop without all those memory-hogging misfeatures like indexing. It has a 17 pixel high gnome panel on the top so the rest of the screen is completely free for useful stuff. Use a theme with small window borders (eg. Mist or Metabox) instead of those huge gaudy monstrosities which many distributions seem to favour. Well-configured gnome is actually one of the least cluttered desktop environments I have found.

      --
      --frank[at]unternet.org
  24. Why is F-Spot still there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To justify the presence of the Mono libraries. Why else include this dreadfully slow application when there are much faster, more fully featured, rival applications ready to take its place.

    Miguel must have all his fingers and each of his twelve toes crossed right now, because Mono is the only justification for his salary and share options at Novell. Even the men in suits would get a bit suspicious if none of the software the Miguelistas were producing was used by anyone. At least forcing users to use it creates the illusion that it is needed. Without the inclusion of Mono, Miguel and his band of happy followers would be out on their sorry asses (well, maybe not asses, donkeys perhaps, and even then probably just the one between the lot of them).

    But really... why is F-Spot still there?

    1. Re:Why is F-Spot still there? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Care to recommend an alternative? I'd look myself, but repo descriptions are hardly... Well, descriptive. You sound like you've used a few, and know enough about them to make an informed recommendation.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    2. Re:Why is F-Spot still there? by arose · · Score: 1

      Try Shotwell, it's still yound, but seems to have entered a development spurt and is adding (useful!) features rapidly. If you don't shoot raw 0.5 should do just about anything f-spot did, with the addition of auto generated events.

      --
      Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
    3. Re:Why is F-Spot still there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check out http://www.yorba.org/shotwell/
      I haven't used or tried it but it seems to be a valid alternative.

    4. Re:Why is F-Spot still there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where is F-Spot? Surely not in the official GNOME release that this story is about. Care to get your facts straight?

  25. I love slashdot by HyperQuantum · · Score: 1

    These kinds of funny posts make reading /. absolutely worth it. Thanks!

    --
    I am not really here right now.
  26. XKCD spoilers by penguinchris · · Score: 1

    If you want to spoil the fun, all the commands are spelled out clearly in the source code (the link to which I'm sure you can find).

    Try "hello joshua" :)

    1. Re:XKCD spoilers by MonsterTrimble · · Score: 1

      Try 'sudo apt-get upgrade'

      --
      I call it 'The Aristocrats'
  27. GNOME is Nice by hduff · · Score: 1

    but the original explorer.exe shell it mimics has fewer bells and whistles, so that's a more user-friendly and better designed UI experience.

    GNOME 3.0 might be better, though. I join all GNOME-istas in hoping so! (And hoping for an eventual fix for the Save File dialog -- it's a tough problem.)

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  28. SPOILER ALERT by QuaveringGrape · · Score: 2, Informative

    Some command spoilers. I didn't look in the source, this was just some messing around:

    apt-get
    This APT has Super Cow Powers.

    apt-get moo
    (picture of cow)
    ...."Have you mooed today?"...

    emacs
    You should really use Vim.

    vi
    You should really use Emacs.

    hello
    Why hello there!

    exit
    Bye(CLI terminates)


    I was disappointed at the lack of a python shell and "import antigravity". I just really felt like flying today.

  29. Bad marketing by sourcerror · · Score: 1

    I always wondered why it's called gnome. Why couldn't they give some more sensible name, like Midget Widget Toolkit.

    (By the way "gnóm" means clumsy in Hungarian. But I guess it doesn't sound better in English either.)

  30. w00t, skill upgrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    guest@xkcd:/$ whoami

    You are Richard Stallman.

  31. Re:It's more like maitanance release...and I like by Yaa+101 · · Score: 1

    I miss one thing in Vinagre that is there in the regular terminal, that is copy/paste from local or even virtual machine to the shell on the remote machine, yes I mainly work with ssh instead of vnc.
    I do like the bookmarks for remote sessions, saves a lot of time and typing the ssh command.

  32. Re:It's more like maitanance release...and I like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vinagre is garbage. It is incompatible with uvnc and tightvnc, and it only lets you set a password of at most 8 characters. Nice security there!