Linux Desktop Summit Program Announced

jrepin writes with this excerpt from an announcement by KDE: "The Desktop Summit is a joint conference organized by the GNOME and KDE communities, the two dominant forces behind modern graphical software on free platforms. Over a thousand international participants are expected to attend. The main conference takes place from 6-8 August. The annual membership meetings of GNOME and KDE are scheduled for 9 August, followed by workshops and coding sessions on 10-12 August."

Comments

Reinventing Windows badly

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_%28software%29

It took forever to deprecate it. I wonder what "cool thing" will be next.

As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Anonymous Coward]

My problem is Gnome / KDE / UNITY all seem to be obsessed with being progressive and messing up common sense schemes that have worked well for years. IMO they should be jailed in the Museum of Contemporary Art and clubbed to death with hardcover copies of Ulysses.

Gnome 2.0 seems to be the epitome of quality design... the menus are all simple and straight forward, good for getting work done.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Datamonstar]

If you like it, use it. The beauty of open source. You can use what you want how you want and leave the other shit alone. If you don't know how, there's bound to be a community of like-minded kooks out there that can show you how.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easier said than done if you don't have the time or inclination to screw with things. I prefer defaults that the distribution in question has been made to work best with. So if most distributions are going to start coming with avant garde desktop designs... it's not good for a lot of us. The same reason on CENTOS I install 2 years old MYSQL with yum and enable innodb defaults via config rather than install 5.5 outside of yum. Couldn't be hassled installing and maintaining it without yum. So yes worthless defaults like Gnome 3 / Unity / Kde 4.* are a serious problem for the future.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[mdragan]

Thing is, these new versions are going to replace the old ones in distributions. As far as I can see there's no KDE 3 in Debian anymore. The same will probably happen with Gnome 2, so maybe you can see the point.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[houghi]

Distro defaults? Then why not try the openSUSE DVD? You can install KDE or GNOME, but also XFCE and LXDE as 'default'.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[gweihir]

You can ignore them. I have been happily using fvwm for over 20 years now. I don't see why I would need anything else or redo all my customizations.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[postbigbang]

You say: Unity.

I don't see any stinking Unity in the program. In fact, I'll imagine that if you wore a Unity t-shirt to that conference, you'd be taken out back and spanked, involuntarily....

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[bregmata]

That's because LDS is for "the community" -- the self-appointed cabal of technocrats involved in KDE and Gnome, not for the great unwashed masses of mundanes who use computers every day as if they were just tools or a means to an end.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[postbigbang]

I'll admit that it seems like sheer heresy. Soon there'll be people burned at the stake. Even the saints of Motif would castigate those pesky Unity people.

I hear they even have the apostasy of having primitives for *tablets*.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought of Joyce being a braggartist... but your analysis fits too...

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto for kubuntu, xubuntu, lubuntu.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[kthreadd]

Yep, but nothing stops you from installing them yourself. At one point, it may become harder as you have to replace outdated libraries or update the source code but it's very much doable.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly somebody is having problems with frigidity.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Jiro]

That's one of the attitudes that is stalling open source: "If you don't like it, fix it yourself or hire someone to do so". Most people cannot fix it themselves, and forking an active project is a big move which requires a lot of continuous maintenance. It's not going to be practical to fork GNOME just because it has a bad user interface.

And to top it off, the people in open source projects tend to be comcentrated among programmers. If the project needs user interface design, documentation, or something else other than programming, the project will be way behind; having a bad user interface is one of the most common persistent problems with the software. (And bad documentation is the other.)

"You can fix it yourself" is supposed to be a benefit, not an excuse. (And don't say that because it's free, there's no such thing as an excuse.)

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like buying a bra, and then complaining it's uncomfortable to wear as a jock strap.

It's not made for always-backwards ultraconservative retards like you, who fear every change, because they assume so much, that it can only possibly be horrible4, that it distorts their view, and they see it like they want to see it, even if it is good.

So if you don't like progress, why don't you use Windoze 3.1 or FagOS 9 then?

BTW: Gnome and KDE are both a p.o.s.. But not because of progress, but because of the opposite: Because of fear of progress (conservatism). Because they rather imitate crappy Windows and 'tardy OS X than do something that is actual progress.

Also: Maybe actually progressive UIs don't fit you, because *you* are a simpleton. If yes, then you do NOT have the right to act as if you are just as good as everybody else. Because then you are a dumbass for a fact, and by the laws of nature, are SUPPOSED to have a harder life!

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is "common sense schemes"?

If desktop environment x won't adapt to everchanging world then it will be left behind -- Gnome 2.0 and its "simple and straightforward" menus will die with 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

Re:As a 49 year old militant feminist grandmother.

[Aquina]

Damn right! More interestingly I haven't read a damn thing about XFCE. I use it for years and will probalby never turn over, simply because it's the same concept all the time and I can rely on that. Besides I think XFCE is not bloated as much as other desktops are these years.

This means...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the year of Linux on the desktop!

Re:This means...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the year of Linux on the desktop!

It has been for several years now... Dr. Göbbels would be very proud if he lived to see the work of Microsoft & Co. propaganda machine.

Re:This means...

[Anonymous Coward]

>>> This is the year of Linux on the desktop!

> It has been for several years now... Dr. Göbbels would be very proud if he lived to see the work of Microsoft & Co. propaganda machine.

Indeed.

I boot a live CD at work and people keep looking at it like it were a monster.
They can't fully grasp the concept of the pager and desktop areas.
I talk about copying by selecting and pasting with one single click; I could be talking in Icelandic and the results would be the same.
M$ managed to slow the minds of users, so that they depend on it like some kind of Landru (see Star Trek).
Now they want the same users to learn that ribbon thing; I feel bewildered by the kind of stupidity necessary to launch such idea.

I've been using FOSS apps (Openoffice.org, Gimp, Firefox etc.) on Windows since probably 2003~2004. Works like a charm.
On Linux it's almost the same experience, so basically if Linux is not ready yet, Windows certainly isn't -- because IMO Windows is harder to use than Linux!

To me, M$ trained users like Indian elephants: chain them while young and later in life they'll think they can't get free even if tied with a feeble rope.

Who else thinks...

[Haedrian]

That it'll end up in a literal deathmatch?

Re:Who else thinks...

[Anonymous Coward]

We can only hope! Perhaps in the aftermath we might finally get back to having at least one desktop environment that doesn't completely suck.

Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is heading

[Blackout for Hungary]

KDE4: sucks Gnome3 shell: sucks Unity: sucks KDE3.5: good, but dead Gnome2:good, but dead I guess I'll use XFCE just like in old times, and maybe LXDE or fluxbox

When I want Windows i use Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I found something better: http://wiki.pwnoogle.com/Perfect_fvwm_Window-Manager_configuration

Re:When I want Windows i use Windows

[kthreadd]

Fvwm is a great window manager. I use it almost exclusively. One thing that I really like about it that I haven't seen in many other window managers is the ability to use hotkeys to focus on a window which is located in a direction relative to the currently focused window.

Re:The desktop is dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this "facebook" you are talking about?

Re:Interesting times

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wow, you mean they're going to replace Unix pipes with some new system based on javascript? Good riddance to old rubbish! What have Unix pipes ever done for anyone?

where are all the other desktop systems??

[lkcl]

what happened to enlightenment, xfce, fvwm, python-plwm and all the others? i hate to mention EvilWM (1000 lines of c), or XMonad (1200 lines of haskell i believe) as it's hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion around 1200 lines of haskell, but, seriously, why weren't all the other window managers more seriously represented? oh wait - there's _one_ talk (an overview) on the EFL classes: https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/quick-overview-enlightenment-foundation-libraries-and-e17

Re:where are all the other desktop systems??

[gweihir]

what happened to enlightenment, xfce, fvwm, python-plwm and all the others? i hate to mention EvilWM (1000 lines of c), or XMonad (1200 lines of haskell i believe) as it's hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion around 1200 lines of haskell, but, seriously, why weren't all the other window managers more seriously represented? oh wait - there's _one_ talk (an overview) on the EFL classes: https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/quick-overview-enlightenment-foundation-libraries-and-e17

fvwm is alive and kicking. Unlike this new-fangled trash, it is stable and moves very, very slowly, as everything needed is really there. I have been using it for 20 years, with the same configuration (except for some additional menu entries) for 10 years. Stable and usable as pen and paper. This Gnome/KDE stuff is really quite silly. If they work at it for another 10 years, maybe they will get where fvwm already was 20 years ago.

I use fvwm with Debian, and never had any problems so far. And I am _not_ happy unless I have 3x3 desktops and the fvwm pager! Dual-monitors are for wimps!

Re:where are all the other desktop systems??

[KugelKurt]

seriously, why weren't all the other window managers more seriously represented?

No representative of those registered for holding a talk.

Re:where are all the other desktop systems??

[GreyFish]

I'm using fvwm2 right now :)

Re:where are all the other desktop systems??

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: a window manager is not a desktop environment.

Re:where are all the other desktop systems??

[Anonymous Coward]

I still use fvwm too.
But multiple monitors are very useful too. I use 3 monitors, along with fvwm's pager for multiple desktops (4x3).

Re:Interesting times

[GuerillaRadio]

I think I must be a desktop Luddite, because none of the new developments you mention appeal to me at all, with the possible exception of Wayland. I'm now running Debian 6 with XFCE after years of running Ubuntu (since it started in fact - I was running Debian Unstable before then and this new Ubuntu was just that with some bugs ironed out and some polish).

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[tchernobog]

Oh, for trolling sake. Then write your own desktop environment. I hate XFCE and KDE4, but love gnome-shell, for instance. If you are not happy with the Desktop Summit contents, don't go there, or post here. Why wasting bytes here when you have all the choice you need (including cranking up some code?). These people put a lot of effort into a release, and the summit is a great occasion to sit down and try to understand what was rushed, what worked well, etc.

This is free software. Don't like it? Fork it.

Re:Interesting times

[lkcl]

"I'm hoping the newly announced TermKit http://acko.net/blog/on-termkit [acko.net] will be discussed during the open days. TermKit is new concept to replace the decades old Unix pipes with a modern implementation based on JSON."

that's like saying "we're going to replace the millenia-old medium of air as a means of communicating voice with a modern communications system based on the written word".

unix pipes are just an inter-process communications system that has nothing to do with the data that is transferred over it. JSON is a *data* format.

so i have to ask: what the bloody hell drugs are you on??

Yours is an easy cop-out

[Anonymous Coward]

(NOTE: another AC here: just can't bother with the cookies crap needed to login)

Look -- formally you are right. Still I think the "innovators" have some responsibility to tread with some care and try to be inclusive. As just an example, I watch in disgust and fear the firestorm systemd is causing. Granted, nobody loves SystemV, all that rat's nest of scripts with 90 per cent boilerplate and that. Still, replacing that by an intransparent piece of compiled code mechanism and policy all in one big mess: what is that doing to the hackability of the system?

Other examples: NetworkManager, PulseAudio, *Kit (many of those examples are CamelCased -- is this a CoInciDence?). I'd hope innovators in the realm of Free Software would take care of interested users, leaving for them a path into hacking the system, starting by little config options, through some shell scripting into hacking C. This means cherishing simplicity at all levels. The opposite tendency seems to be in fashion nowadays. The "user experience" of the absolute novice is paramount -- sacrificing the simplicity and hackability of the system by the slightly more advanced user (all novice users will reach that stage eventually, remember!).

This reminds me of a pattern often seen in proprietary software, especially that kind of software where the ones to make the business decision of buying the package won't be those who will have to use it: it tends to be shiny and easy to use for fitst-timers, but far from the optimum long-term.

WTF happened to this idea of the 1970ies that giving the user a chance to improve her understanding of the system should be part of what's called ergonomy?

So: "It's open source. Do it yourself if you don't like it. And now go away" is almost always the wrong answer.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[sirlark]

WTF happened to this idea of the 1970ies that giving the user a chance to improve her understanding of the system should be part of what's called ergonomy?

Amen! What happened to the idea of a highly customizable system with *intelligent defaults*? The defaults make sure that in the simple case of a straight forward install, it "just works" (which seems to be what most people want). But the configuration is there, easily accessible and well documented.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[Teun]

It sounds like you describe KDE 4.6.

The default install results in a very simple but useful desktop and easy access to anything you could wish for.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[inode_buddha]

These are the reasons why I just switched to Slackware with the GSB Gnome packages. It kinda gets "back to basics" as you describe. It's maintainable by mere mortals. It's transparent. And it Does What I Need(TM).

The side benefit is that I don't have to fight 18 layers of abstractions and *compat libs, etc. Nor struggle with half-baked implementations of new stuff.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[westlake]

The "user experience" of the absolute novice is paramount -- sacrificing the simplicity and hackability of the system by the slightly more advanced user (all novice users will reach that stage eventually, remember!).

Not bloody likely.

The novice user is focused on applications. The OS is only the means to an end.

--- and that is what it will remain. He'll gain confidence and skill in the applications he needs to be productive - or in which he finds some entertainment.

But he will never be interested in spending any time under the hood.

Google understands this. Apple understands this. Microsoft understands this.

But the technical hobbyist, the enthusiast, who has driven the Linux client to a blistering 0.73% share of the North American desktop does not.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling the summit is going to get lynched. I was excited that with Unity's new dock I'd finally have something as productive as Windows 7's taskbar on desktop linux. Perhaps something even better.

It was about my third attempt to find a way to relocate it to another part of the screen that I realised desktop linux usability has probably reached it's peak and will now regress.

Desktop linux is very much an underdog. When you're the underdog you really don't have the priviledge of being able to dictate, well, anything to users. If you want to actually alienate potential users, then go right ahead, indulge your UI designers' whimsy.

Most potential users are already familiar with getting things done in OSX and Windows. Why set up a barrier to them?

Linux is very much an OS without users, if you don't count enthusiasts, admins, die-hards and developers as "users" in the typical sense.

I'm holding out less and less hope of this ever changing.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[drinkypoo]

The Network Manager is just a wrapper around ifupdown, so that follows the Unix way nicely...

WTF happened to this idea of the 1970ies that giving the user a chance to improve her understanding of the system should be part of what's called ergonomy?

Apple.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[Anonymous Coward]

(all novice users will reach that stage eventually, remember!).

No, they won't! Without space to grow into, nothing can grow.

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[Anonymous Coward]

user, user, user, user = me, me, me, me

Re:Yours is an easy cop-out

[A Jew]

Most people I know don't want to customize anything, they just want to use their computers to accomplish a task. The difference between an ordinary user and a super l337 hacker who goes as far as adding panel applets is huge.

I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be clubbed with hardcover copies of The Art of Unix Programming by Eric Raymond -- http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/index.html -- particularly the chapter "Basics of the Unix Philosophy"...

        Rule of Modularity: Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces.
        Rule of Clarity: Clarity is better than cleverness.
        Rule of Composition: Design programs to be connected with other programs.
        Rule of Separation: Separate policy from mechanism; separate interfaces from engines.
        Rule of Simplicity: Design for simplicity; add complexity only where you must.
        Rule of Parsimony: Write a big program only when it is clear by demonstration that nothing else will do.
        Rule of Transparency: Design for visibility to make inspection and debugging easier.
        Rule of Robustness: Robustness is the child of transparency and simplicity.
        Rule of Representation: Fold knowledge into data, so program logic can be stupid and robust.
        Rule of Least Surprise: In interface design, always do the least surprising thing.
        Rule of Silence: When a program has nothing surprising to say, it should say nothing.
        Rule of Repair: Repair what you can — but when you must fail, fail noisily and as soon as possible.
        Rule of Economy: Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time.
        Rule of Generation: Avoid hand-hacking; write programs to write programs when you can.
        Rule of Optimization: Prototype before polishing. Get it working before you optimize it.
        Rule of Diversity: Distrust all claims for one true way.
        Rule of Extensibility: Design for the future, because it will be here sooner than you think.

GNOME: Stop your "War On Users" by hiding user configurations or ripping them out!
KDE: Let up with the eye candy for once! Simple is beautiful.
CANONICAL: Admit Unity is a total failure, ask for our forgiveness and never, ever do it again! /Rant off

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the best comments I have seen so far on the current progress of much of Linux desktop software. :-(

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[oakgrove]

CANONICAL: Admit Unity is a total failure, ask for our forgiveness and never, ever do it again! /Rant off

Taking this into account:

GNOME: Stop your "War On Users" by hiding user configurations or ripping them out!

What would you suggest Canonical do instead?

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[r7]

What would you suggest Canonical do instead?

A) support Trinity.

B) fork Trinity if it goes the way of KDE4

C) KIS (keep it simple (and cross-platform compatible))

D) hire the right people (i.e., open at least one freaking office in SV/SF)

E) it's all about management

Management has to be well connected to end-users and end-user sysadmins. Management has to know how to review code (diffs) and do good QA (used to be Canonical's leg up on RH). This isn't rocket science. It isn't pur s/w development or pure sysadmin either. It is, findamentally, an issue of experience and good management. To be sure Canonical is the best placed company to be _the_ Linux desktop but they have not, of late, demonstrated a good understanding of how to get from here to there.

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[Grishnakh]

What would you suggest Canonical do instead?

Simple: switch to KDE (4.6) instead. It took them a while, but they've finally fixed up pretty much all the problems with the early 4.0 series, and it's a really nice desktop system now, with tons of configurability (unlike Gnome). It could still use some touching up here and there though, but all the fundamentals are there, and the architecture is much cleaner than Gnome, which is basically just a giant mish-mash of smaller projects arranged in a house of cards.

With the resources of Canonical at hand, they could customize KDE with their own defaults and themes, fix up the few rough edges that remain, port over some of the better Gnome stuff to KDE/Qt, etc.

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[Dogers]

D) hire the right people (i.e., open at least one freaking office in SV/SF)

Why? Because that's where all the developers in the entire world are located?

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[N7DR]

Simple: switch to KDE (4.6) instead

I beg to disagree with that advice. It seems to me that any "desktop" that causes the menu on which you are about to click to disappear because some notification has suddenly appeared elsewhere on the screen is fundamentally broken. Ditto any desktop where a single blocked desktop-eye-candy-thingy can cause the entire desktop to grind to halt.

There are certainly some pieces of KDE that are quite nice. But I really wonder about such fundamental and obvious design flaws that have persisted through to version 4.6. Or maybe I'm the only person who gets annoyed when I click on a menu that suddenly isn't there, or I have to wait for a widget thingy to time out before responsiveness returns to the entire desktop.

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kubuntu?

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[Grishnakh]

Kubuntu is made by volunteers to my knowledge, not by Canonical, and really isn't much more than regular Ubuntu plus the basic KDE packages. Ubuntu, OTOH, has a lot of work put into it by Canonical employees. Of course, some of that work is DE-agnostic (stuff like Upstart), but some is not. Canonical makes lots of changes to the Gnome DE, or at least it used to, and now it's pouring resources into Unity, which is a waste of time. My point is, what if Canonical redirected all those paid resources to work on KDE instead?

One of the big problems with KDE is that it's understaffed: it's made mostly by volunteers, with perhaps a little help from paid employees at SUSE. Gnome, by contrast, has tons of corporate support: Red Hat, Canonical, and previously Sun (don't know about Oracle). KDE has done OK, but it's been rather slow at improving (KDE 4.0 was what, two years ago?), simply because they don't have all the resources Gnome has. If they had more corporate support, this would change. Since users are obviously very disillusioned with Gnome now, and Unity seems to be causing a user revolt, it seems to me it'd make a lot more sense for Canonical (or someone) to switch to KDE which already exists and is in pretty decent shape, and put some resources into that to fix any remaining issues, rather than to try to make an entirely new DE or shell as Ubuntu is doing.

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[Grishnakh]

It seems to me that any "desktop" that causes the menu on which you are about to click to disappear because some notification has suddenly appeared elsewhere on the screen is fundamentally broken.

Hmm, I just tried that out by bringing up the applications menu and inserting a USB drive, and sure enough, my menu disappeared. That's pretty annoying.

Have you thought of filing a bug?

Re:I agree, but not with Ulysses...

[A Jew]

The premise does not support the conclusion.

Re:Interesting times

[drinkypoo]

That's just what I was thinking. Wayland could be really excellent for those times when you're not using network transparency and just want stuff to be fast. I was really disappointed not to see it in natty but I'd like to see it work before it's included anyway.

Huh Huh...He said 'modern' Beavis.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome and KDE keep on REGRESSING, not PROGRESSING. The current teams couldn't be worse
for Linux than if they were paid Micro$oft agents.

Re:Huh Huh...He said 'modern' Beavis.

[KugelKurt]

Gnome and KDE keep on REGRESSING, not PROGRESSING. The current teams couldn't be worse
for Linux than if they were paid Micro$oft agents.

Don't use them. There are plenty of FOSS alternatives around.

Re:Huh Huh...He said 'modern' Beavis.

[IrquiM]

They might do worse if you were a part of them? Your tone doesn't help at all.

If you don't like it - use something else! I'm very happy with KDE4. The fact that you don't like, doesn't mean it's shit. I'm glad not everyone is agreeing on what the desktops should be like - that gives me as a user a selection to choose from!

Re:Interesting times

[KugelKurt]

Wow, you mean they're going to replace Unix pipes with some new system based on javascript? Good riddance to old rubbish! What have Unix pipes ever done for anyone?

They? Currently it's a hobby project by a single guy and so far no backing from any big vendor. I don't know if it's good but that's why I'm hoping that TermKit will be discussed.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[lucian1900]

Fork one of KDE 3.5 or Gnome2. Or build a plasma profile that emulates KDE 3.5. Or port the Gnome2 shell to GTK3 & friends.

Re:Interesting times

[KugelKurt]

so i have to ask: what the bloody hell drugs are you on??

Why do you insult me just because I am hoping to see some discussions about it happen at DS? Talking about it is not going to hurt anyone.

Re:Interesting times

[KugelKurt]

I think I must be a desktop Luddite, because none of the new developments you mention appeal to me at all, with the possible exception of Wayland.

No one is going to force you to not use old technology. It's all FOSS.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[sensei moreh]

I personally prefer LXDE, but XFCE seems to be very close to GNOME2.

Give that man a cigar!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, do it now.

Re:Interesting times

[houghi]

1 person talking about Emlightenment and it isn't a KDE and GNOME summit? LOL.

I am sure that there are a LOT of cool things going on, like even more bling. I am also sure that a LOT of people went from Windows to Linux, because it looked shiny and had a cool spinning with programs on it.

I however want just something that works with multiple screens (No Xinerama) and NVidea and just lace programs on the workspace I want them on.

I do not need icons on my desktop that I can't see or anything else there. I do not want to drag around my programs from one place to the other. I have multiple desktops that I can switch to with the press of a button. (No animation needed for that)

And most of that I can get with XFCE (and Devilspie)

So it sounds like an exciting place where people will be hyped about things and stuff while forgetting what the Desktop is actualy for. Showing programs. It sounds a bit like an organisation who succeeded in what they wanted to do and now just go on and on and on.

Re:Interesting times

[Confusador]

No one is going to force me to use it, but if the things that I like that are fundamental to the desktop stop being supported, eventually something else I use is going to force me to choose between using their software or my preferred desktop environment. The longer I can keep the things I like supported, either by encouragement, donations, or doing it myself, then the longer I don't have to make that choice.

Re:Interesting times

[KugelKurt]

Considering that the latest OpenBSD release still ships KDE 3.5 etc., I think you can be sure that old technologies you like are supported for quite some time into the future.

And in good ol' capitalist tradition you can also pay someone to support that stuff for you.

Calm down...

[Anonymous Coward]

...(s)he's not insulting you, but rather your drugs ;-D

On a more serious note "replacing the decades old Unix pipes with a modern implementation based on JSON" (I quote you) does indeed sound like some bad-ass marketing talk, sorry to say that.

Re:Calm down...

[KugelKurt]

...(s)he's not insulting you, but rather your drugs ;-D

I should calm down? I wasn't insulting anyone. I just commented on the story.
He makes it sound as if I am responsible for TermKit. I've just read a news item about it yesterday and I find that it's a candidate for discussion. That's all.

On a more serious note "replacing the decades old Unix pipes with a modern implementation based on JSON" (I quote you) does indeed sound like some bad-ass marketing talk, sorry to say that.

WTF? Are you serious? If I was to market TermKit I'd placed more prominently in my post, not just two short sentenced somewhere in between. If anybody is hyping it, it's you and lkcl for concentrating only on two sentences from my entire posting.
I don't want to discuss it here. I'm not qualified to. Not my fault you two don't understand what "I'm hoping [it] will be discussed during the open days" means.

Re:Interesting times

[KugelKurt]

1 person talking about Emlightenment and it isn't a KDE and GNOME summit? LOL.

Desktop Summit started out as a collaboration between GNOME and KDE and it still mainly is, though it's not their fault representatives from most other unrelated projects are not interested in participating.
This time only one Enlightenment guy and one WINE guy.

It is only the second Desktop Summit in history, so give it some time to attract more people from other projects. There mere fact that both Enlightenment and WINE are represented shows that the initiators are interested in broadening the scope from the original concept to merely co-host Akademy and GUADEC together.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE is already forked, and attempts are being made to make it compile against both Qt3 and Qt4.

http://www.trinitydesktop.org/

Though now with the Rapture, I guess it's time to rename it to Carl Sagan Desktop.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't like it? Fork it."

Can people PLEASE stop with this bullshit "don't like it? Then fix it yourself!" argument? Like it or not, linux is about communities, ideals, and shared tools now, just like your nation is. You might as well be saying "Don't like the new laws? Then start your own country!". In either case, it's disenfranchising, and wrong-headed.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Anonymous Coward]

But still sucks.

There seems to be a disconnect

[obarthelemy]

between what the devs want to do, and what the users want. In a commercial company, this conflict is handled by management weighing in on the side of users/customers. In OSS projects, the devs have free reins to play with new concepts, technologies, paradigms... whether anyone else is interested at all, or not. My take is that Gnome, KDE and Unity have evolved into cool geek research labs. 5-10 years from now, we might be using some ideas that originated there. Right now, most users want and need a simple interface that Just Works and emulates the Windows they know, not some buggy half-finished avant-garde stuff.

The main quality of an OS is to let me use my hardware and apps with minimum fuss.

Re:There seems to be a disconnect

[devent]

But in commercial products you are stuck with the product for good or for worse. Best example, is Windows Vista or Office with the ribbon interface. In OSS products you are free to choose and to change.

You want a simple interface, why you don't just use Xfce or Enlithement? I like where KDE4 is heading, I dislike Gnome 3 and Unity.

Re:There seems to be a disconnect

[IrquiM]

between what the devs want to do, and what the users want.

You meant to say "and what a few, loud mouthed users want." Right?

Re:There seems to be a disconnect

[Requiem18th]

My own take is that they've become chasers of the next big thing. They want to be able to be described better than Mac rip-off or Windows rip-off.

But yes, long live gnome 2.

Re:There seems to be a disconnect

[KugelKurt]

In OSS projects, the devs have free reins to play with new concepts, technologies, paradigms... whether anyone else is interested at all, or not. My take is that Gnome, KDE and Unity have evolved into cool geek research labs.

Unity is a commercial project. It just happens to be under GPL. It's controlled by Canonical alone. It is not a community project. Not at all.
Qt is in a similar position, although Nokia is moving it into a community project.

GNOME and KDE, yes, they are community projects. And you know what? They don't any mere user anything. They never have and never will.
Most do all their work unpaid as a hobby.
And both projects never evolved into geek research labs because both projects were never ever bound to the will of their users.
That's how community projects work and if you don't like it, don't use their code. Simple is that.

Right now, most users want and need a simple interface that Just Works and emulates the Windows they know

Please back up your claims with facts. Who are those "most users"? Have you any credible study that proves that "most users" want Windows-like Linux distributions?
If so, how come that XPde http://xpde.holobit.net/ never gained a significant following and became dead in 2003? Considering that commercial distributors have to earn money to stay alive, it would be logical that -- if users wanted it -- XPde would have gained commercial backing.

Lindows also emulated Windows and didn't attract enough paying users to stay alive.

If "most users" prefer Windows' GUI, why is the iPad more popular than any Windows-based tablet PC?

not some buggy half-finished avant-garde stuff.

The main quality of an OS is to let me use my hardware and apps with minimum fuss.

I thought they want Windows quality which obviously means something buggy. And why are "most users" interested in your hardware?

Re:There seems to be a disconnect

[obarthelemy]

not really. Have any the the devs actually asked typical users what they wanted, and double-checked that they weren't being lied to ?

"typical user" needs to be defined, it can be a Linux user, a typical PC user, a knowledgeable computer user, a home user...

"being lied to" is frequent, there is usually a huge discrepancy between the lofty things people say when asked to think about something (yes, widgets are nice, yes, I want an interactive connected desktop...", and what happens in reality (this PC has no internets ! the thing I click on the bottom left to get it is not there !)

Re:There seems to be a disconnect

[obarthelemy]

there's 2 issues with changing:

1- it requires skill and knowledge, and it is frightening. As a newb linux user myself, I'm not sure which UI I should be using, and I don't have the time nor guts to install the handful of them (unity, kde, gnome, xfce, lvwm...) that seem major. Testing a UI in depth takes time (say 1 week of use, 1 day os setup ?) and may fail (my last attempt to switch to xfce led me to a completly passive screen, with a nice background image, but I could not find any menu, input zone.. nor support on the forums. I honestly don't want to try anymore and hose another install.

2- it rises the question of support. I f I use the mainstream default, I'm fairly sure i'll be getting updates and support. If I stray to another solution, both will probably be worse, or at least I have the perception they will be.

Also, in closed-source products, you DO have some choice. For example, much is being made of Unity having a vertical left-hand menu. I just dragged my Windows taskbar there, to see if I like it (I'll give it a week). Also, as a counter-example, LibreOffice does NOT have a "ribbon" option, just the plain old menu: those who actually like the ribon are left stranded. Well, they probably deserve that ^^

Re:There seems to be a disconnect

[Anonymous Coward]

And the main quality of an OS is to not have a user interface on it but just interface for hardware and software. Too many people mistakes OS (operating system) and the user interface (UI) (and GUI and CLI). Linux kernel is the operating system but KDE SC and GNOME are just user interfaces for desktop methaphora. Bash is just a another user interface for user but in different methaphora than desktop. None of the user interfaces are part of the OS or OS serves them, at least on Monolithic OS architectures. But in Server-Client OS architectures some has even tried (and failed) to serve a user interface by the OS. Example Windows 95, 98(SE) and ME. Microsoft made stupid move to integrate the user interface to MS-DOS operating system (or actually vice versa) but now after MinWin project for Windows 7, they actually understanded to move the user interface off the NT operating system to own separated programs.
On Unix side, no one even thinked it would be smart move in first place to allow *nix operating system (Like Linux kernel) to have the user interface on it as it would make OS more unsecure and bloated and slow.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Kabloink]

The biggest problem I see isn't the radical design change of Gnome 3 or Unit, but the lack of customization. We once criticized Windows for being fairly rigid in that matter, but Windows now looks in comparison to these new desktop a tweaker's dream. Someting I thought I would never say.

So, in a way I would have to agree they suck at the moment, but I hope the project leaders will come to their senses and realize people like to be able to customize their desktops to some degree.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[tchernobog]

If it is a nation, start paying taxes and do military service. Then you can have your say.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[devent]

Is that the "XXX sucks but YYY is great" thread?
KDE3: good, KDE4: great, Gnome3: sucks, Gnome2: sucks, Unity: I don't care

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[kthreadd]

Well, at one point the development of a piece of software might change. Should it keep going in a straight line just because you liked it that way?

Re:Interesting times

[hedwards]

I take it you don't run Ubuntu...

Re:Interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

TermKit is new concept to replace the decades old Unix pipes with a modern implementation based on JSON.

You don't seem to understand TermKit: it does support pipes (only when writing to stdout it has different behaviour) and while it can use JSON, it is not dependent on it.

Re:Interesting times

[KugelKurt]

I take it you don't run Ubuntu...

No, I don't. So? Is there anybody forcing everyone to use the latest Ubuntu version with locked settings? No.
You can still use an older release, install outdated software from a PPA, or switch distros completely.

Sounds like a good idea, just...

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

...just what exactly do they need KDE and UNITY for?

Re:Sounds like a good idea, just...

[KugelKurt]

...just what exactly do they need KDE and UNITY for?

What does Unity have to do with the Desktop Summit?

Bitch Bitch Bitch

[srobert]

Well let's all demand our money back!
  Reading through the comments you'd think that people were being forced to use KDE or Gnome, because there isn't anything else, that they had to pay for, it and weren't given the source codes.

Re:Bitch Bitch Bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how whenever some valid complaints are given regarding the direction or state of certain open-source projects someone will always come back with this cliche statement. True, we aren't paying for it. But guess what, that doesn't necessarily make the complaint any less valid.

Re:Interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: only when writing to the screen it has a different behaviour.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[r7]

have to agree they suck at the moment

KDE4 and Gnome3 have set the Linux desktop back nearly a decade. All of our plans to convert desktops from Windows have been put on hold, indefinitely.

Question is why. Why have these two key window managers not only gotten worse but become worse than any window manager since CDE?

Part of it has t be a lack of design guidelines. It also has to be due to a lack of leadership, designed by committee, lord of the flies and all that. But that can't be all there is. I know this isn't all because a friend of mine is one of the contributors and I know he works for Microsoft on the side. Open source desktops won't be viable, if you ask me, until they've solved these 3 fundamental issues.

I'm certain we can't become unified behind unity

[Anonymous Coward]

Good desktop workspace design has been an issue for quite some time. The Gimp finally got things straightened out. Some still complain about the UI in Blender, but its a million times better than it was (ok, I was being modest: a billion times better), but Gnome was (is) better than Unity, and yet I have Unity. Now to be fair, I have become somewhat accustomed to Unity, and have figured out all the tips and tricks, but I still don't have access to as much at a glance as I did with Gnome. Sure, I can 'get there', and the search tool will bring up apps, but if I have menus with great gobs of stuff, then I can see things that I don't have to remember or type in to find. Work still needs to be done. We don't follow Apple in the back end (indeed, they take from us), but when it comes to the GUI, we all take from them.

Re:Interesting times

[hedwards]

Wooosh.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[fnj]

Your parent is merely pointing out that KDE and Gnome have both headed down the toilet, and Unity is STARTING OUT in the toilet. This is obvious to anyone. The bloody desktop developers have turned into wankers chasing stupid directions that are NOT user driven, ruining perfectly good products. They could use an injection of reality. They are screwing up big time. Not in terms of technical quality, but in terms of basic direction. A lot of users care about that. The process is broken. If developers don't care what users want, then to hell with them.

It's not up to users to fork software and develop it themselves in a more sane direction. It's up to developers to get a grip on the real world.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[fnj]

"Don't like it? Fork it" when directed at users in a sneering manner is snobbery of the highest order.

There is a reason for the complaints

[fnj]

You would do well to listen to users, because they are like, well, the users. If developers who see themselves as designers keep screwing up the design, nobody will use it, and if nobody will use it, nobody will want to support development, and the platform will wither. My guess is that, due to the disgusting crap coming from Gnome, KDE, and Unity, one of the basically far superior desktops such as Xfce or LXDE will gain momentum, fill in the few missing pieces they have, and save the day for the platform, but I hate to have to bet the future on it.

Re:There is a reason for the complaints

[Tranzistors]

After using Gnome 3 for a while I notice more and more how old design was broken. Sure, the new one isn't without quirks, but it is not because of design, but more like lack of polish here and there.
One could hope that these new deigns will die, but the actual developers seem to actually like it. I seriously doubt that there is substantial amount of gnome-shell bashers, who actually develop for gnome-panel (btw, in the new gnome panels are still there and are developed).
And if the Xfce or other "classical" desktops will not reign supreme, it will be because the new designs are better, right? Better as in more people like to use it.

Re:Interesting times

[ChunderDownunder]

a few days ago fabrice from qemu announced linux running inside a browser.
By progressively replacing linux components with JS, emulation becomes lighter?

Re:Interesting times

[spitzak]

TermKit looks incredibly stupid, it's the same koolaid as "powershell" where the main program needed is "serialize" so that you can convert your "objects" into text and actually get some work done.

JSON fortunatly *is* text so at least they won't do that (though there is going to have to be some way to strip the "JSON-ness" from it so that the piped program treats it as text). But since it is text the existing pipes can send it! Just choose the right program.

The developer of TermKit seems infatuated by the idea that "cat foo.png" should display the picture. No it shouldn't, it should be sending the bytes in the picture to stdout. Maybe the terminal on the end can recognize it is a .png and display if you really think that is kool. But that won't work if "cat" is required to recognize it and wrap it in JSON.

Hey better yet, why not just have the command "foo.png" display the picture. This is done by looking up the application needed for a file and running it. This amazing ability has been done by GUI desktops for 20 years now. I know people may find it hard to believe, but "look up the application needed for this file" is not linked inseperably to mouse clicks. By thinking REALLY REALLY HARD, I bet you can figure out how to program it to happen without a mouse click! Of course this has apparently eluded Linux and WIndows and OSX and every other programmer for decades so maybe it is not as bloody obvious as I think it is...

Re:Interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Seriously, it's got a CamelCaseKit name -- that in itself tells you right away that it's going to be an inefficent POS that breaks things that were working just fine for decades and replaces them with something that only covers the five use cases the single individual who invented it thought of, and is largely undocumented so nobody else can fix it.

At least that's what ConsoleKit, PackageKit, and PolicyKit were, and I see nothing to indicate that TermKit is going to break the mold.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Anonymous Coward]

Fork one of KDE 3.5 [...]

Already done : http://www.trinitydesktop.org/

"Desktop summit program"

[Anonymous Coward]

Drat, here I was, all set for the program to hold a summit on my Linux desktop. Participants could tweet in. Maybe IBM's Watson gets his own window...

Re:Interesting times

[drinkypoo]

It's actually beyond trivial to do in Windows and I believe it's just as easy on Linux. On Windows, however, it is linked to extension. On Linux it's done by magic (literally) and handled with binfmts.

I run applications, not desktops

[knorthern knight]

It seems the the desktop developers have forgotten what computers are for. They're used to get things done; email, web-browsing, documents, spreadsheets, scientific calculations, video games, etc, etc. *THAT* is why I bother getting a computer in the first place. I use ICEWM because it stays out of the way, and lets me run apps.

I don't go for this garbage about...
* it's relational
* it's 4th generational
* it's got abject ornamentation
* yes folks, thanks to multiple inheritance, it's both a toothpaste and a floor wax

When a desktop environment requires MySQL as a dependancy, you know they've gone off into la-la-land.

Re:I run applications, not desktops

[vandamme]

I just want to get my TV dongle to work, share with the Windoze box on my home network, and try to find where my system settings went when I upgraded to Unity. I got over Wobbly Windows pretty quick.

Re:Interesting times

[Khashishi]

I guess JSON is a response to Powershell's .COM piping. It does add more power, but also more complexity. The terminal is already pretty scary to people. I hope it isn't too difficult to use.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried hard to like GNOME Shell but I have several problems with it, such as
- the statement about reducing distraction. Its current form actually is very distracting, much more so that its GNOME 2 (seriously, with multiple windows open I have to Alt-Tab, arrow... arrow and that's NOT distracting?)
- they seem to be solving problems that I really have not seen anyone bring up. Where was the overwhelming requirement for "less distraction"?
- the base font change still leaves me scratching my head. It's harder to read, dimmed text is almost unreadable without highlighting the selection, and the font just seems more "plain" than the one it replaced
- wasted space in EVERY window toolbar. I keep hearing it was not "designed for smartphones/tablets", but it sure seems oriented to those appliances...
- less choice, more "why would you do that" and (my personal favourite) "it spoils the GNOME experience". In other words, the priority is to please its developers more than its users.

I really do appreciate the effort that goes into software development. I'm saddened, however, by what appears reversion to the old data center approach: we know what's good for you...

I hope the GNOME developers step back and really listen to the cries of their users. If those users didn't care they would just move on... they are (at least I am) lamenting what looks like steps in the wrong direction. Please prove me/us otherwise.

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Tranzistors]

- the statement about reducing distraction. Its current form actually is very distracting, much more so that its GNOME 2 (seriously, with multiple windows open I have to Alt-Tab, arrow... arrow and that's NOT distracting?)

Alt-tab distracts you from what exactly? Your previous work? The less distraction thing is more about hiding stuff that has little nothing to do with what you are working with. And all the extra stuff (task switcher, quick menu, system tray, workspaces) are just one key press away.

- they seem to be solving problems that I really have not seen anyone bring up. Where was the overwhelming requirement for "less distraction"?

It seems you didn't read discussion about how annoying should the "application is ready" (when in task switcher icons blink). That stuff is very distracting. There were numerous solutions, like make it blink very slowly. Now it is hidden far enough. Only once it states loudly, that it is ready, then sits in the corner and quietly waits.

- the base font change still leaves me scratching my head. It's harder to read, dimmed text is almost unreadable without highlighting the selection, and the font just seems more "plain" than the one it replaced

I sure hope you filed bug report. For me it is more readable.

- less choice, more "why would you do that" and (my personal favourite) "it spoils the GNOME experience". In other words, the priority is to please its developers more than its users.

Fist, features are expensive. Somebody has to actually code AND maintain them. If the features are not used and tested properly, they tend to have nasty bugs, which in turn ruin the experience. Second, I have seen users ruin their desktops beyond repair.

Re:Interesting times

[spitzak]

You are correct that all systems now offer a command to do the double-click.

OS/X is probably the best, they have a command called "open".

Windows officially has "dllopen /a /b/gobblygook /x=..." (I don't know what it is, actually, but it is a command to locate a function in a dll and run it). I thought they also had a command called "open" but I have been informed that this is more like a built-in alias in cmd.exe. Because this is actually in the shell, it is perhaps getting the closest to my request.

Linux finally has one, with the amazingly intuitive name of "xdg-open". They did not use "open" because they did their usual blind panic about compatibilty and worried that somebody somewhere was using the ancient "open" command that has something to do with screen (besides the new open could probably detect this and call the old one).

I think also you can make a reasonable claim that executable files with "#!" at the start on Linux/Unix work this way.

NONE of them are doing what I want, where you type the name of a file and it selects what to run. There is no reason for executable files to be special. This would get the effect that the powershell wannabes think is so kool, while allowing prefixed commands to be used for "nerdy" stuff, like "cat" meaning "stream the bytes to stdout", which I admit is not something users normally want.

Re:Interesting times

[Anonymous Coward]

JSON isn't Javascript, but that's okay, I don't expect linux nerds to realize how their life could be made easier. It's Javascript-derived; you can easily use it with a ton of other programming languages.

Re:Interesting times

[drinkypoo]

NONE of them are doing what I want, where you type the name of a file and it selects what to run.

Sigh, no, you really don't know what you're talking about. example for windows - Linux stuff on Wiikipedia

Re:Don't really like where "Desktop Linux" is head

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the "XXX sucks but YYY is great" thread?
KDE3: good, KDE4: great, Gnome3: sucks, Gnome2: sucks, Unity: I don't care

Couldn't agree more :)