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Yet Another GNOME Article

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "More GNOMEy in the news, Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer Business Section, bottom fold - fullspan artical." Mostly about Miguel. Fairly amusing.

5 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. titanic by CmdrTaco · · Score: 2

    I'm testin' here. Don't mind me.
    Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
    Pants are Optional

    --
    Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
  2. Very silly. by jabbo · · Score: 4

    "Even though it doesn't use a mouse and runs on arcane but reliable commands in the complex Unix computer language, Linux software last year was chosen to run 17 percent of the business computers shipped by manufacturers, up from 7 percent in 1997, according to the research firm International Data Corp." -- the author of the article

    Yup, really nailed it there. I didn't realize that my mouse (with which I done cut and pasted the above) wasn't actually being used.

    It's also nice to see their deep understanding of what GNOME is/does. (bloat, crash, not compile... uh, I mean, look pretty, provide a WIMP interface, etc... it's actually not so bad so far, for me)

    Where do these people come from? I mean, is there a DeVry-type place where people can get stupidity training? Does Microsoft furnish free reporters for Linux stories like these? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

    The world may never know...


    --
    Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
  3. Missing something... by Daniel · · Score: 2

    Gnome (and KDE, lest I be flamed by the Slashdot Horde) attempt to provide two things: first a 'consistent' look-and-feel across a wide suite of programs, and second, the "glue" utilities needed for the proverbial "normal user" (whatever that means) to do useful things on a computer. The handy little tools that don't exist in Linux because 90% of linux users (and 100% of linux developers! [ok, these may be exaggerated] ) just drop into a shell when they need to do something 'advanced' like, eg, copying a file. Yes, there are file managers out there already..the idea is to make a file manager, a search tool, a run-program tool, a cute little taskbar/launcher dock tool, a print manager, ... -- all the little things that people rely on all the time and don't notice because (someday! Not there yet) it works so well. The things that are tedious to write as a group of programs, but necessary for the system to be functional as a complete GUI. Think of it as the GNU tool suite of graphical interfaces.

    Daniel

    --
    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  4. Once again, the mainstream press shines by Q*bert · · Score: 2
    So Linux is a Unix-based language that doesn't even use a mouse. Hmmmnn. It's intersting how often journalists want to call Unix a language, even though they identify it elsewhere in their pieces as an operating system, and even give the pat layperon's definition of an operating system ("The basic low-level software that controls hardware, without which a computer cannot start up" is the way it usually comes out. Not bad.) What's interesting about this slip is that the Unix command interpreter --i.e. the user interface, the only part a journalist could see--is a language. So they're really not that far off the mark. In fact, Larry Wall, in his usua l playfulway, calls Perl an extension to the weird and variegated language called Unix (or some such; I'm paraphrasing, obviously) in the camel book.

    It's kind of neat to see the GUI effortsgetting so much press coverage. At last, this is a aspect of Linux's superiority that plan old users can understand. Hopefully the positive buzz will encourage people to give Linux a spin (especially once they see the eye candy that comes with GTK and Enlightenment! Woohoo!) No longer will we have to listen to "Linux is like Unix? Oh, I can't stand all those techie commands. I'll stick to Windowseven though I think Bill Gates is the Antichrist and want to eviscerate him on my front lawn." ;)

    By the way, I'm thinking some of you will be concerned about the fact that GNOME is getting so much more publicity than KDE. I wouldn't worry too much. Th mainstream press is playing its usual game of picking up and article somewhere, going, "Hmmnn, that's interesting," getting a new interview with the article's subject, and basicall cribbing the content of the original. It's a sad ravesty of invertigative journalism, but it sems to be the norm noawadays. (I'm afraid the Internet is encouraging it, too, and detacting from real investigation as lazy writers sit on their asses in front of computers instead of going outside.) Anyway,the practical result for us is that all it takes is one artcle about KDE, and the press hounds will jump on the story and run it to death just as hard as they're unning GNOME now. Just look at all last year's articles about Linux!

    Hmmmmnnn, maybe they should call them"press copycapts" instead of "Press hounds". ;)

    PS: APologies for the typos, of which I'm sure there aremany. Halfway through this article my !@&*^# Sun display got munged.
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  5. Missing something... by Guy+Harris · · Score: 2
    it was my impression that fvwm, kde, enlightenment etc all do the same thing as GNOME (they all are xwindows managers right?)

    Wrong. "fvwm" and Enlightenment are window managers; KDE and Gnome are collections of a bunch of pieces of software, including:

    • a window manager (KDE has "kwm"; Gnome may not have an official window manager, but, as I remember, Enlightenment was packaged with the RPMs I saw);
    • a file manager;
    • libraries that add stuff over and above the raw window system toolkit;
    • GUI applications to let you configure various things;
    • various other things.

    People can argue about whether that stuff is useful, but it's difficult to argue that it's not there....

    See the What is KDE? document and the GNOME User's Guide for more details.