Slashdot Mirror
GTK/Gimp Coming to Be?
Adrian Ziemkowski sent us
a link to a BeNews article where you can read an
interview with Richard Hess
(the man in charge of the BeZilla project). He discusses
porting GTK and the Gimp to BeOs. Several interesting
comments in this one. Its worth reading.
!first.
BeOS is a little different from Windows, sure, but I've been following the GNOME list (among others) for a while and still don't get the "why don't we port * to platform *?" argument.
Usually, the platform to which people want to port linux apps is somehow not up to the standard of quality that linux has established, so I always have to wonder, why not just run linux?
GIMP already runs on some of the best os's out there, including commercial and free unices alike. I understand BeOS is new and different and is aimed at the creative market more than the technical market, as most Unices are, but as it seems to have (thus far) failed to attract this market, the point of this port still utterly escapes me. From the article, all I pick up is that there are too many cons, no clear pro's for all the effort going into this project.
I sure would like to see Mr. Hess working on bringing some of the user-friendliness of the Mac OS, BeOS, or NeXTStep to the more featureful Linux or BSD, rather than porting _down_ to platforms lacking major features like networking robustness or true multi-user capability.
yeah! :-))
Well, I think it's part of the push to bring the desktop user to linux. What you said about "why not just run linux?" is true for most current linux users.
But it's a powerful tool to get new users to linux. Imagine if linux and other platforms (win32 mainly) had the same apps. As long as linux system administration could be made manageable for these users (I just don't think it's to that point yet), they'd have no reason not to switch. But that won't happen if linux is in it's own little world with applications that only run on linux.
--
Jason Eric Pierce
i think the linux & be people should work together. beos is a very good operating system and i hope it'll be in future an alternative os to linux (i mean: when windows doesn't exist anylonger ;-). beos is much easier to install and configure as linux. what i think is: let's work to gether against the microsoft-people, maybe than there will be beos for the multimedia(music)-applications/games etc... and linux for the parts, were you need a lot of power, like servers, etc.
:-)
linux & beos rulez
cu
Be OS users are used to nice looking, usable GUI. I don't know what kind of reaction one might expect from them after working with GTK. I truly hope that they reject it ... No need to pollute BE with this half-baked GUI attempt.
Its not exactly porting _down_. Yeah, it doesn't have multi-user support, but its a little more advanced than say linux in terms of technology within it. Look at the file system... How many other OSes can you shut off teh computer during a file copy and have it resume when your computer turns back on?
Its more advanced in several other ways...
What most people, probably, like yourself don't realize is that to make BSD or Linux capable of some of the stuff Be is capable of, the each of their OSes would have to be rewritten almost entirely.
For example, in terms of sound, you don't exactly open the driver and write stuff to it. Since the OS mixes 16 cd quality channels of audio internally, you need to be a web on the audio stream and produce buffers. Other programs and the audio server, then consume these buffers and do something with them. The audio server itself plays any buffer produced by any node. This is a little more complex than writing directly to the driver as would generally happen in bsd and linux.
You also have the file system that has attributes and gets 99% throughput for reading/writing large chunks of data. This helps a bit for video.
You also don't have to worry about opening image formats under BeOS. The Translation Kit takes care of that for you. It also converts documents and sound too. You say BTranslationUtils::LoadBitmapFile( "filename" ); and it loads different translators and returns you a bitmap.
In terms of the user, why waste your time? X is way too bloated. People should work on replacing it first instead of trying to enhance it...
Who cares about all this. When are they going to release Be as open source? If I wanted a proprietary closed source OS then I would use Microsoft Windows.
Sure, BeOS doesn't have Unix's networking or multiuser capability (at least yet).
However, the Unix variants also lack BeOS' "major features", such as the 64-bit journaling file system, extensive use of multithreading, and a very clean API. Admittedly, a port might not make use of these advanced features as much as would a native features, but Be's user-friendliness is not what really makes it different. Now when someone brings *these* features to Linux, I would agree that BeOS might be redundant.
So, this project is "porting down" in some respects and "porting up" in others. At least it's supporting an OS that is well thought out and technically very admirable. At any rate, I assume that the people involved are doing it because they think it is worthwhile and interesting.
Blaah. GTK a crappy bloated shit that is is doomed to fail and die
Okay so when is Be going Open Source? As soon as it does then I might look at it, until then Be doesn't exist.
This may be off topic, but looking at DR2 of MacOSX Server (Rhapsody), couldn't they do this also. I still have yet to see the BeOS as a viable solution for any kind of user. Flame me all you want: it's not for network guru's (it's not multi-user), it's not for the standard media users (Photoshop is a standard tool in most companies I work with), It's not for the end user (they would scream "where's my Netscape"). As a standard Linux/MacOS user (MacOS for work) I see that Linux needs only fix a few simple/major things to become great.
-A standard GUI (not everyone has to use it, but it has to be considered "the standard". One in which the OS boots directly into. Many people would be happy with themes. (We have something to learn in this area from MacOS, BeOS, and even the evil M$!
-SMP From what I now understand of Linux, this is a more serious problem then I originally thought. I'm not a serious programmer, but talk to programmers frequently. BeOS has us licked here (fortunately, there aren't many multiple processor machines out there YET!
-Distribution Why in the NAME OF GOD do we not get linux burned onto the CD's that go out with magazines! We are retarded! Joe blow isn't going to download 100+ megs for an OS that he doesn't understand. I bet we would get it on more machines if they had the CD and a nice article about it to help them.
BeOS isn't open source, I don't feel it's a solution for anything NOW, but once they implement multi-user (sometime this year I hope), things are going to change. I hope it's not the price!
Mitchell out...
While you may consider it "porting down" to BeOS,
because you hold multi-user/networking as supreme,
there are many others that feel it is "porting up."
If you've really read anything about BeOS, you'd
know that it loses all the baggage that Windows
and Unix carry. The API's for BeOS are all OO
C++, which makes it very fun to write code on.
I could go on and on.
BeOS is a step forward in OS technology. It has
the framework in place for a multi-user environment
to be added later, and the networking stack can
always be rewritten to make it more robust.
But I think it'd be very difficult to integrate
the rest of the BeOS features into Linux very easily.
If I were a little cruder, I might say something
like, "I may be fat, but you're ugly, and I can
lose weight."
You sort of hit on this point by your last statement, where you ask Mr. Hess to bring some of
the "user-friendliness" of BeOS/MacOS/NeXT. I
think Mr. Hess is on the right path... bring the
cool parts of Linux to a superior technology.
-thomas
P.S. Don't get me wrong, I like Linux, too. Dual
booting is cool.
>Usually, the platform to which people want to port linux apps is somehow not up to the standard of quality that linux has established, so I always have to wonder, why not just run linux?
Answer: Linux is not for everybody. Further, Linux does not provide everything that other platforms provide. For example, Linux does not yet have an equivalent file system to the BeOS, nor does it have the seamless multithreading/multiprocessing, nor does it follow a client/server OS design, nor do the available GUIs for Linux have some of the more interesting/useful features of the BeOS GUI, such as replicants. Further, from what I understand of the design of Linux, implementing some of the BeOS things in Linux would require vast architectural changes (e.g., user-transparent multithreading/multiprocessing).
>I understand BeOS is new and different and is aimed at the creative market more than the technical market, as most Unices are, but as it seems to have (thus far) failed to attract this market, the point of this port still utterly escapes me.
You don't understand the problem. It's the typical "chicken-and-egg" syndrome: in order to attract attention to the BeOS, it needs applications (and applications that perform equivalent services to those on the platforms the target audience uses). However, in order to get applications, it needs to attract the attention of developers.
This is a way to get another application onto the BeOS that provides equivalent services to what people on other platforms (e.g., Windows) uses.
>I sure would like to see Mr. Hess working on bringing some of the user-friendliness of the Mac OS, BeOS, or NeXTStep to the more featureful Linux
or BSD, rather than porting _down_ to platforms lacking major features like networking robustness or true multi-user capability.
How do you expect the BeOS - or any other OS - to become more featureful if nobody develops for it? Is this a variation on the "Linux is the only worthwhile OS" argument? Where would Linux be now if in 1994 some hack on a newsgroup said, "I wish those people developing Linux would go work on making Windows a better OS." and the crowds actually followed? Or is this a thinly-disguised gripe against the fact that non-Linux/non-*BSD operating systems are all proprietary and closed-source?
I understand your passion to make Linux the best OS that it can be. Linux, however, is not for everyone. In many respects, Linux has a lot of mindshare territory staked out. Does Linux really need another GUI? Another command-line shell? Or yet another web server or browser? Do Linux users really want yet ANOTHER office suite? BeOS represents a much different architectural mindset, with vast tracts of application landscape relatively untouched. Linux tends to make a lot of people feel "crowded", and the BeOS provides a refuge where they can develop applications for problems that haven't been solved yet on the BeOS. For some things, the BeOS provides an entirely different way of doing the "same" application. If that same developer worked on Linux, they would be stuck in another design.
The BeOS is a different way of doing things, something Linux couldn't emulate unless the whole OS design were overhauled, something that isn't too likely to happen anytime soon. Linux is designed to have the look-and-feel (and robustness) of UNIX, but contrary to popular Slashdot opinion, that UNIX legacy limits some things. Further, with the design of Linux solidified over the past seven-and-change years, there is only so much you can change about Linux before it no longer remains true to the Linux ideals. BeOS doesn't carry that heritage, and differs radically from Linux in many areas. Is it really so terrible that people want to explore something different?
Does that mean when you close your eyes ;)
I can't see you?
I'd love for the WuFTPd problem to happen to an Open Source OS.... Its just waiting to happen... Then when it formats your drive, how good will open source be again?
And I suppose *you* have coded for both the BeOS API and GTK+? Having programmed both systems I can tell you that gtk+ is in many ways similair (if not easier, once gtk+ docs get up to standard :-) than the BeOS API. The major difference is fact that the BeOS API is C++ based (with all its limitations) while the gtk+ API is written in C but still completely Object Oriented.
:)
The only thing I miss in gtk+ is the inter process/thread messaging system (BMessage and familiy) but I'm sure we'll get something similair soon (CORBA?)
It will be interesting to see how they tackle the C to C++ API bindings
In the meantime I suggest you get some real hands on experience first before blurting out your shit next time, ok?
Its never going Open Source. Unless you plan to program for it, unless you plan to rewrite the scheduler, or implement virtual memory over the network, don't even bother asking for open source. It doesn't benefit you at all. Freeware would be sufficient for you.
On the same note, I wish Digital Unix was Open Source so it wouldn't have the reputation for the most stable OS available.
I don't know about the others, but I like Becasso.
It seems to me that BeOs is much better suited for desktop applications than Linux. My ideal setup, in fact the one I use, is a BeOS client connected to a Linux server. This lets me run just about anything server wise and allows for a fast easy to use client. granted the Gnome and KDE systems are very nice, but for most people (ie the normal joe enduser) Unix will allways be somthing to be feared.
First of all. OS/2 isn't dead. I've never seen IBM back out of support. Never. Have you seen Aurora? Its quite impressive, and like always super stable and fast. Be's been around for 8 years or so now and still sticking to the same principles and goals it was started on. Its just only been open to the public for general use for a few months.
the great thing about any OS is that it can be modified. People think that just because the linux kernel is available its completely modifiable. Where's the documentation for all of it ? I had the biggest pain in the ass time writing a FreeBSD driver the other day because there is no documentation. Any OS is configurable. Yeah you might actually have to get off your ass and write the company. I know from personal experience that Be loves to implement user and programmer Ideas into the OS. They love giving people information to, so if you want to change something internally in BeOS, its generally not that much of a problem.
So, since you have the ability to configure BeOS, and since its been going strong now for as long as linux, has Intel's support (this we see in Intel's processor demonstrations, especially upcoming ones), and is more advanced, whats the reason not to use it?
For Media... Unices are dead. Ask SGI about that one...
The fact that it cost $80? How much was that last game you bought? Or the last couple of times you at at McDonalds... Or that last pair of shoes...
Because its NOT open source, Be will be getting support for the Monster Sound and SB Live shortly... If only that came to the Open Source community. The open source community can only contribute so much in the current world we live in. Companies like Creative Labs don't like giving specs out about products.
I love Linux's support from the Open Source community for DVD playing... Way to go on that one.
Who writes these headlines? Rob or the contributor?
X is COMING here. Y is GOING there.
Geesh.
SB Live is only good for games.
diversity good. choice good. options good. monolith bad.
linux good. BeOS good. *BSD good. amiga good. CP/M good. digital UNIX good. Solaris good. AIX good. IRIX good. foo good. bar good. baz good. mindless dogmatic technobigotry BAD.
I've seen Richard's code, this is not something we should be excited about...
..and it sounds like vaporware to me. Richard Hess has been making lots of noise in mozilla land for a while, especially about bezilla, but I have yet to see him actually produce anything besides NSPR for BeOS, and he didn't even do that port, Matthew Zahorik did.
gobe's Productive (a BeOS Office Suite) has a simple art program that supports GIMP plug-ins :)
Most of you missed the point he was trying to make... Open source didn't get linux support for it. People keep saying you'll get more hardware support if its open source... No, Be freely allows people to develop drivers and they hand people the information and even give them support. Open Source only allows for others to take from you. Like the amp source.
The support for the OSes don't really matter that much, he was pointing out that this didn't come from Open Source.
Be should be open source so that we can catch steal all the cool shit and put it in linux in an attempt to make it a cool client OS...
That's because there are more talkers in Be land than doers.
The GIMP is nice. Its not more powerful, its just the average web page designer who warezed photoshop, doesn't really know how to use it. Sure they can import a picture, draw fonts on it, and use filters and layers.
If the GIMP was more powerful, you'd start seeing professional imaging studios use it. I mean where's GIMPs PANTONE support and multiple color space support?
Thats where photoshop really shines... but there's plenty more.
It doesn't particularly need it, Becasso is quite nice, and the image editting software in Gobe productive supports GIMP plug-ins... It has for some time.
I just want to say that 99% of the time having the source code means nothing. Documentation is so much more important than source code.
Be wont release the source because it simply isnt an option for them.
Ben.
One Reason why desingers use photoshop is because their clients walk in with photoshop documents, not GIMP files.
Photoshop is a good program. I use it professionaly. Given the choice, I'd use Photoshopover GIMP, but I do hope GIMP does well and continues to mature.
You think that writing code for BeOS only benefits BE. Do you mean only BE employees will be using you code?? Wrong, it will benefit BeOS users and Be which will inturn make you benefit from it.
How you might ask? Well, if BeOS users benefit
from it they will continue to use BeOS which will
give BE money so that they can continue in developing and improving BeOS which will mean that
you will have it even easier to improve your application. What goes around comes around!
Then comes the question why develop for BeOS when you can have the above happening with any other OS? Well, because BeOS is not opensource, meaning that a company is getting money to *support* both
developers and users and they are forced to keep on improving it to make money, this contrary to Linux where nobody is in charge or motivated (money is a good motivation for most companies) to
put in features users and developers want.
Moreover, Be is technically superior for any kind of applications that are not server oriented (which is what most people anyway use, 99.9999% are not sysadmins, nor wish to Be!).
BeOS has an easy to use API, it has good threading
and SMP handling, a very fast filesystem, an
overall good design it's got creative people listening (as oposed to any other company) to
what users and developers need to have improved.
It's being improved in rocket speed even though
it already is superior in many areas.
It's stable, fast, consice and easy to use.
What more can one ask for?
Multiuser some schitzofrenics might say, well
it's not intended for that use, but it will probably get it in the future, right now Be is
prioritizing other stuff that is *much* more
important for an media OS.
I say, use Linux if you want to work with servers.
But for development and productivity BeOS is
far superior....
My website at http://members.xoom.com/mozilla5/beos/ lists most of the open source programs that have been released for the BeOS. Right now, it's just a list so I guess it should be called version 0.1. It doesn't even mention the ongoing development on yet to be released projects such as Mozilla, Crystal Space, Apache and of course the Gimp. But it does give you a taste of how many open source projects are for the BeOS.
it's not a closed source OS. Unlike MS Windows, the API's are open and documented to the best of their ability. Also their compiler is open source
The more fanatical OSS folks are really out to lunch, particularly when they claim that ALL software MUST be open source.
This makes about as much sense as refusing to buy a car unless it comes with enough information to allow you to build another one.
All the talk of "total world domination" is naive and downright embarrassing.
um..what does gimp have to do with networking robustness and true multi-user capability? I thought it had everything to do with threads and fast graphics and an easy to use GUI. Of course, Be is working on making the BeOS multi-user and rewriting the networking but that's another story
You guys act like a bunch of code whore faggots. All I see when someone mentions another app that isn't OSS, is you people bitching that it blows, its not worth anything because the source isn't available. God forbid anyone make money from their efforts. And if one person posts and says you can make money from OSS projects, i will personally find them and shoot them in the head. Yes nimrod, you can make money, but it won't be enough to keep a large company afloat. Granted Be isn't there yet, but i think they will be soon.
heh someone is porting GTK so now you're bringing up KDE. How many apps are for KDE/QT anyway?
I could go on ranting for hours, but the point is, that software should be evaluated for what it is, how it looks, how it performs. Not how it was made.
Friend, I am sorry you are so disappointed with free software advocates, but the above thought of yours is only an opinion and not a fact, just like the free software position that you are arguing against.
Your priority is technological excellence; my priority is technological freedom. I won't try right now to convince you of my priority, but I hope you at least agree that this issue does come down to one of priorities.
I was about to bitch and moan about the same
thing, but you said it a hellava lot better
than I would have. The majority of the people
yelling for open source wouldn't even bother
looking, let alone using it if Be were to release
it. Open Source has its advantages, and disadvantages, and whatever Be decides to do in
the future is fine with me. It's the ultimate OS
in my eyes, and regardless what OS might bring it,
I have total faith the Be Dev team can do just as
much on their own. Be forever!
yeah, everyone that says 'faggot' is a hillbilly.
Hey daddy! get offa me, yer crushin muh marlboro's!
eGabriel is offended at the fact i pointed him out of a crowd.. hehe.
I dual-boot between BeOS and Debian Linux. Be is great for websurfing and email...it's fast and pretty as hell. Other than for doing my server-stuff/programming, the one application that keeps me booting into Linux is the GIMP. I, for one, would fucking _LOVE_ to have it ported. I look forward to the GIMP's port more than to Mozilla's.
Don't forget that if free software does not do a given task, there is also the moral imperative of helping to develop free software that does the job. FWIW, the FSF advocates using proprietary software for the sole purpose of helping to develop a free software replacement.
How do you woo these programmers into developing on an OSS OS but on a proprietary h/w platform? OSS is good. Proprietary is good. What ever is technically best and gives the features that my app needs in oder to beat out the other developer is what I code on. Period. Why would I cripple my app just so I can say I support OSS????????
It's hardly the Open Source community's fault that Creative (as well as other hardware manufacturers) refuse to listen to reason. People do not buy hardware because of the drivers, they buy it for the hardware. And even if they don't want to release the driver source, releasing the specs would be unlikely to hurt. Noone is going to clone your hardware interface anyway, people aren't writing to specific hardware anymore, they write to libraries.
Exactly what is "user-transparent multithreading/multiprocessing"? Linux supports both SMP and multithreading. SMP is completely transparent (once you have a kernel compiled for it), though of marginal use if you have only one single, single-threaded process that makes heavy use of processor power. Multithreading is transparent to the user, though not to the programmer. Does BeOS have some sort of magic multithreading that the programmer doesn't need to know about?
I don't believe in that. If it really worked that way, I think you would have apps deadlocking all over the place. If you don't explicitly write for multithreading, it will not work reliably.
From what I have understood, the BeOS has a separate thread for each window (widget?), but that is not the same thing. It might improve responsiveness, but it does not really improve performance for CPU-bound tasks. To do that, you have to take multithreading into consideration when you design your program.
Posted by Soco:
I don't think it even gets close to the 80% line of photoshop functionality. I don't even know all of the features, but of what I've used of each, only general functionality of photoshop is present in GIMP. Its photoshop looking and feeling, but like you said its not meant for professionals printing majors. Linux doesn't have great color matching for printing and such... I think MacOS still rules the world on that one.
As for helping, as cool as gimp may be. I don't like writing UI code in C++. Instead Im working on a program for Be in C++ that will use GIMP plugins...
Posted by Soco:
/source on them. Kinda Creative originally, who charged for their hardware SDKs. For some reason, they don't want people to know the internal architecture of their chips and how their programmed. Thus meaning that the OSS community is going to have a much harder time getting drivers than a commerical company like Be. Which you could then draw the line (using some fuzzy pencil that doesn't quite draw in a straight line) that an OSS OS would receive similar criticism. Its harder for them to get the information...
I don't think he ever said it was the OSS communties fault. I think he just said that because they release the source, the companies who produce the cards won't release the information
Which in terms of an OS it almost makes senese to not have it Open Source just to get hardware support from these shady companies that dominate markets like the low end Sound car market.
BeOS is a little different from Windows, sure, but I've been following the GNOME list (among others) for a while and still don't get the "why don't we port * to platform *?" argument.
The BeOS has nothing in common with MS Windows--not merely "a little different." Since you seem to know little about the BeOS, go to www.be.com and examine it for a bit. If you're still nonplussed, you may have to just accept it that some of us still don't really like UNIX, and prefer simpler solutions.
Usually, the platform to which people want to port linux apps is somehow not up to the standard of quality that linux has established, so I always have to wonder, why not just run linux?
Because Linux doesn't have as efficient SMP scalability as the BeOS.
Because Linux is not for computer novices, and the BeOS is.
Because the "standard of quality" you mention as belonging to Linux has nothing to do with running the sort of apps the BeOS already has available for it--apps which are not available for Linux (like Cinema 4D XL: c.f. http://www.maxon.de/)
GIMP already runs on some of the best os's out there, including commercial and free unices alike. I understand BeOS is new and different and is aimed at the creative market more than the technical market, as most Unices are, but as it seems to have (thus far) failed to attract this market, the point of this port still utterly escapes me. From the article, all I pick up is that there are too many cons, no clear pro's for all the effort going into this project.
If there are no apps, there are no users, a plight Linux users should be more than aquainted with. As a graphics professional, I don't believe using GIMP is a reason to break with, say, the Mac OS, no matter how 'superior' Linux is for networking purposes.
Clear Pros: Be gains an app a lot of people seem to like, possibly gaining a few more users, and more firmly establishing it as a media OS.
But as you (obviously) aren't a user of the BeOS, I can't really expect you to understand that.
Ergo, there are no benefits for you. Just us users.
I sure would like to see Mr. Hess working on bringing some of the user-friendliness of the Mac OS, BeOS, or NeXTStep to the more featureful Linux or BSD, rather than porting _down_ to platforms lacking major features like networking robustness or true multi-user capability.
It's really a pity professionals like yourself have such malformed opinions of our actual needs. Perhaps you should consider spending more time talking with those of us who have no use for another platform, or a multi-user platform, or those of us who just don't want to deal with the hassles and inconsistencies Linux presents to those of us who are used to dealing with a different UNIX (IRIX in my case) or simpler, more task-oriented OSs.
This isn't satisfactory. If Linux runs SMP just fine, can you provide an appropriate technical article that contradicts the testimony I keep hearing regarding the inefficiency of Linux's SMP implementation?
And just how close to being 100% user transparent is it? Can a user install Linux from a standard distribution without needing to do anything else?
What about adding processors to the hardware? Is that, too, transparent, or should I expect to be required to recompile the kernel for further support?
gtk is just way too f'ugly to go on BeOS and GIMP needs a much more intuitive interface beofre it thinks of moving to a system that has a GUI that ISNT some grand hack
---------------------------------
HotsOS home http://hotsos.8m.com/
That's about all there is to say. Linux is far from being a perfect OS (I'm not saying BeOS is perfect either). Sure, everyone could work towards improving Linux, but why? Diversity is a good thing you know - or do you want to just turn the whole Windows situation on it's head and have Linux be the only OS in the world with no competition? Perhaps you do, but I assure you it would be a bad thing.
/mnt/othermachine/c /mnt/othermachine/d
/etc/hosts (fun in pico/vi/whatever). //othermachine/C /mnt/othermachine/c
//othermachine/D /mnt/othermachine/d
/etc/rc.d/init.d/samba
Linux still (and possibly always will) lacks in the usability arena. I know everyone says that's not true any more, but I assure you it is. Take for example I had to talk my brother in law through permanently mounting his Windows drives (from another machine) on his Linux box. Currently this goes like:
mkdir
mkdir
add othermachine to
smbmount
Check that worked.
smbmount
Check that worked.
Add the above to
Add smbumount also to the above file.
This is just one example among many config options of problems with Unix style systems. See the "Unix haters handbook" for others.
And before you bite my head off - I love Linux. It's my only OS now. But that's because I can, not because it's easy.
--
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Another platform to play FreeCiv on ;)
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
what I want to know is, how easy is it to make a platform-agnostic GTK app, or, in other words, one that will run on linux, win32, and other platforms.
;-)
AFAIK, any application which just uses calls from GTK+, GLIB, and GDK can be ported to any platform which has those libs without modifications. That doesn't guarantee what happens if you use Unixisms or Winisms in the rest of your code though..
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
You haven't answered the question. What is this magical wand that Be has waved? Every time someone tells me about the BeOS they say "multithreaded multithreaded multithreaded" and if I ask them what they mean, I get a puzzled look. I'm really curious to find out because it sounds like a nifty feature and I want to know more about it. But everyone just says, "Your app automatically gets muitithreaded". Multithreaded apps have a significantly different structure, both logically and programmatically, from singlethreaded apps; the only thing I can think of that wouldn't cause tons of deadlocks and races is that Be does all non-blocking IO and GUI stuff asynchronously in another thread. So what is the incredible architectural change that couldn't be replicated by building a real GUI for Unix that actually has multithreaded libraries, and then multithreading the widget sets (and rewriting them to spawn lots of threads ;) )? I just don't get it either. Could someone explain to me explicitly how this magic feature works?
Actually, I guess one obstacle to this in Unix would be the limited number of threads on a lot of systems..
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Because, as shocking as this may be to some, the average artist doesn't care whether or not his graphic development workstation can also be a robust multiuser network server.
Because despite your implication to the contrary, more graphics applications have been delivered or announced in the last year for BeOS than for Linux. In addition to Unix ports like POV-Ray and netpbm, there's Gobe Productive, ArtPaint, Becasso, DTPicView, ImageElements, Anime, Boo, Natural Paint, BeREND, BackLight, and the in-development Cinema4D, Tave Mozart and a replacement for BeStudio.
See,the shocking truth is that it's possible for someone to actually--hang on to your mouse, now--want to run BeOs *for the applications!*
So why consider porting GIMP to BeOS? Because some BeOS users might find it nice to have a free, open source program out there as an alternative to some of the commercial programs.
Productive accepts GIMP plugins; it doesn't use GIMP code. There may be legitimate questions over whether this is kosher under GPL (since GIMP plugins are standalone programs, my understanding is that it is, whether or not it's appreciated), but make sure you're asking the right question--Productive itself != GIMP. And I'll stand by my assertion that there are more 'advanced' graphics creation applications for BeOS now than there are for Linux. (By 'advanced,' I mean to exclude programs like 'Sketchpad' on BeOS and 'Xfig' on Linux. Nobody try and defend Xfig as a powerful program, either. Its ability to export TeX figures is cool, but beyond that it sucks rocks.)
I am always astonished that 'the community' has no appreciation for the fact that a commercial company demonstrates enough trust into the OSS tools to use them for their development. How many other commercial companies can you name which do the same in public? And all bugs found and fixed in these tools by Be engineers are reported back to the maintainers, so the community does profit here.
I too would prefer to have the source of BeOS (for example too see where I could improve the memory allocator), but the blind OSS fanatism some people show here is really over the top.
Oh well, nobody's going to read this anyway, not with all the new news.
Nope.... It isn't. That's why it is the MEDIA OS, and not the "NETWORK SERVER OS".
Last time I checked, and I COULD be wrong, but are still images the ONLY media around? Be has 3D support ( Blender in a few weeks, Cinema 3D too), a *WHOLE* lot of audio support (they just announced 26 audio companies supporting BeOS), Video Editing/Capture support (MediaDV, MGI VideoWave)......
The Mozilla port is coming along nicely, and is in line for release with the rest of the Mozilla ports. (Including Windows and Linux).
Before Linux even comes CLOSE to a normal enduser OS, it needs to be MUCH more easily configured..... No user is going to settle for fucking with runlevels, kernel recompiles, etc. Even things like XF86Config and WindowMaker are far too complicated for "Plug-n-Play Windows/MacOS users".
They don't want to screw with stuff like that....
But even if the SMP performance is improved to a point closer to BeOS', it still has a major problem.... Lack of multithreaded applications... Sure, all the different processes move towards the same goal, threads would have better performance.
Be's real SMP power is that the OS is SO multithreaded... Not to the point of excess (It still runs great on single processor machines), but to the point where the OS scales amazingly.
And in Linux's defense, SMP performance is improved drastically in the v2.2 kernel... It still isn't where it should be, but it is MUCH better.
I think before you start worrying about how well distributed Linux is, you need to make it more user friendly, especially the Installation.... Redhat installs quite nicely, I got it on with no problem.. But it still requires too much technical knowledge...
Linux has PLENTY of press, and the people who feel able to try it out, will... They can get their hands on it from a ton of sources... The people who aren't eager enough to go hunt down a distro for themselves, aren't ready for Linux...
Pssst.... Open Source isn't the end-all solution.... There is plenty of Free/Open software for BeOS. I personally don't see any advantages in Be going Open Source. It is very rapidly developed as it is now (a 6-9 month development cycle for new major rX.0 releases, you don't see that ANYWHERE else, not even Linux), and Be is VERY open to suggestions for change.
And as far as Multi-user goes, I acknoledge that some people (including me) REALLY want multi-user, it isn't going to break the back of any of the users they are currently aiming at. It is on its way........
seanf();
As long as it doesn't duplicate any ugly "look-and-feel" crap from Windows or what I've seen of GTK+ applications under X11. BeOS's GUI is simple and clean; don't ruin that please.
Agreed. Gimp is a decent program, but until the interface is cleaned up, I can't use the damn thing.
-lx
They mentioned my package PyGTK, which was a nice surprise. Overall a pretty good article. I hope they are successful in their GTK port to BeOS.
This is very good.
:-)
For BeOS its a must, since the big problem is the lack of software, and there are many GTK+ apps.
For GTK+ is a benefit, since it will allow their apps to be used on BeOS too.
Also, since GTK+ is being ported to Win32 and (maybe) OS/2, it will be a new standard,
and there wont be more "only for windows, sorry" programs.
Viva la revolution.
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Linux runs fine on anything from one to sixteen processors. With kernel 2.2.x, this has gotten better. Linux handles SMP just fine.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
Every one seems to think that We need a standard GUI for Linux. Nothing could be farther from the truth. What we need is a Common Object Request Broker :) With CORBA, any desktop will do as long as it supports common objects. This would give the same drag and drop support for all desktops. As for a standard GUI that ships with your Distro, try either KDE of Gnome. Most major distros come with at least one. KDE is a little more 'cooked', but GNOME is looking good. As for Be, I have tried it , and I didn't see the point. It's GUI is marginal, KDE is much nicer, and it has little to no software support. If I am going to run Linux apps, then I am going to run Linux.
This brings me to this point. The only reason Linux has garnered so much attention from the developers and the press is because it is Open. Developers find it much easier to develope if the source is available, and the tools are open. It will be hard to attract OSS developers to Be, if the developers feel that they are developing for a proprietary OS, and one companies profit. If a developer writes code for Linux, he feals that he is writting for everyones benefit, at least that is how I feel. If I were to write specifically for BeOS, I would feel that I am writing for BeOS's benefit only. In that case, I would want the big bucks. Since BeOS is so marginal, that wouldn't happen. It also bothers me that BeOS finds it necessary to borrow most of its Apps and development tools from the OSS community. If you are going to benefit from the OSS community efforts, than you should give back to that community. SHOW US THE SOURCE.
Don't get me wrong, I don't intend to bash on Be developers, or even the OS itself. Instead, I question the philosophy of the company behind BeOS. Take the leap of faith, open the source, you
will be glad you did. We OSS developers would love to contribute to BeOS, if only we were given the right environment to do so.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
The articles mentions that the GTK libraries have been ported to win32 and OS/2 as well... what I want to know is, how easy is it to make a platform-agnostic GTK app, or, in other words, one that will run on linux, win32, and other platforms.
Ultimate goal here would be that I could develop and use the same programs as my less fortunate friends who are stuck using the win32 platform at this time. Also intertwined in that is the encroachment of open source software into the win32 platform, where even the (semi)free(in the beer sense) software is closed source. I would hope this could help open up win32, and perhaps replace the current closed source shareware and freeware environment.
--LeBleu
If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.
The point is, it only handles it just fine. One of the major things about BeOS is it isn't just fine SMP support, it is excellent, thorough SMP support. Be will really shine on 16 processors, because the entire OS, and all standard applications, are heavily threaded. How many programs do you have to be running under linux before it can use all 16 processors at once?
It will take a very, very long time for linux to ever acheive this. In fact, an OSS OS that is more modern, including features such as Be has, may be the OS that replaces linux a few decades down the line. (Yes, the implicit assumption is that linux is going to replace windows in between now and then. Both OSes are somewhat archaic, linux is better at adapting new features though, and has a much more sound foundation than windows.)
Disclaimer: I've never actually used Be, just read about it... It looks *really* cool, but the price is outside my meager budget, otherwise I'd try it out on the 3rd partition on my machine.
--LeBleu
If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.
Check http://www.freeciv.org/ -- yesterday it
was announced that the GTK+/GNOME client would
be part of the upcoming stable 1.8.x releases.
For quite some time now I have been reading /. religiously. Up until now I haven't posted, but after reading the load of garbage posted here today, I'm just pissed off enough to post.
The OSS community (of which I consider myself a part) has made great strides in recent years and especially in recent months using Linux as the great demonstrative work that OSS is a viable software development model. Unfortunately, the general feeling that I get from many OSS advocates (the OSS folks that seem, in a large part, to have their mouths attached to the wrong part of their anatomy) is an extremely arrogant greater-than-thou attitude. The only thing that does is to leave a bad taste in the mouths of people that may be wondering what OSS is all about. Understandably so. I know what OSS about, and the attitude still makes me sick to my stomach.
BeOS is not open source. Be has repeatedly stated that they will not make it open source. Fine, leave it be. There is a large part of BeOS that actually is distributed completely with source. Sure, the kernel and libbe.so isn't given out in source form, but every single one of the demos and many of the applications that ship with BeOS have their source included as an optional install. How many of you repeatedly posting that 'until it is OSS it does not exist' would even bother to look at any of the source and/or understand what you were looking at if it were made OSS?
I think that, to many, OSS is something of a religion that does little more than breed close mindedness. Where is it written that in order to develop open source applications for a platform, the platform itself must be open source? Where is it written that the only software of any value is open source? Get off your high horses, open your eyes, evaluate the software that is available, whether it is open or closed source, and take the software for what it is rather than what development model was used to produce it.
I could go on ranting for hours, but the point is, that software should be evaluated for what it is, how it looks, how it performs. Not how it was made. BeOS, to me, is a breath of fresh air. It isn't for everybody. It is a relative newcomer to the operating system 'market' and as such has its growing pains to go through. Linux has gone through them too don't forget.
That's why creative hired Jon M Taylor to do linux device drivers.
The GNU tools example is bogus.
The Metrowerks tools are very good. They just didn't have a good x86 version at the time.
The PowerPC version is very good. It produces good code and runs faster than gnuPro tools do.
I prefer the GNU ones myself, but the gnu tools are not orders of magnitude better.