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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."
April Fools!
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!
I love Gnome, but is looks so outdated these days...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.
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.
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.
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!
" If you can't fix it - give it more features! "
Did God say that after giving women boobs?
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.
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?