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Interview: Ask Mandrake Anything
Mandrake, AKA Geoff Harrison, is a heavy contributor to the enlightenment project and has also left his mark on Gnome, XFree86, and a bunch of other excellent free software projects. In real life, he works for VA Research as (surprise!) a software developer. Mandrake is, without question, one of the leading lights of the Linux and free software development communities. Check his Web site, and post any question(s) you have for him below. Answers to most or all of the highest-moderated ones will be posted Friday.
I agree. Hopefully now that the relatively fancy stuff is in GTK maybe they can work on making it slightly faster. It's a nice toolkit to program with.
It'll be interesting to see how the QT themes stuff works out speed wise. Anybody already using them ??
Iggy
I think it's safe to say that Linux users will always demand flexibility and choice.
But there certainly are a lot of popular window managers out there, not to mention our friends KDE & GNOME. What changes, if any, do you foresee in the current Linux model of desktop environments? Will GNOME and KDE agree to some kind of standard? Will each solution specialize further, so as to appeal more to a specific group of users?
Have the GUIs usable with Linux matured to something resembling their final state, or do we have some distance to cover yet?
Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/
QT/KDE themes are a bit confusing, because there are different types. The current KDE themes in 1.1.2 are pretty typical pixmap stuff, not super fast, but I don't have any problems on my PII/350 with a crappy 4 MB on-board ATI.
Qt 2.0 themes, however, can be quite fast. They don't rely on pixmaps, but just override a virtual drawing function. Very cool stuff.
My one flamebait on the GTK/Qt debate: if you use C++, Qt is a dream: pure, object oriented libraries. Not a wrapper like GTK-- (which isn't bad, though) or MFC in windows. If you use C, stick to GTK.
--JRZ
actually it shouldn't place all windows in the same place using automatic placement - I'm willing to bet there's a state save gone awry or a windowmatch putting all the windows there or something really odd... auto-placement should do the smart placement stuff. or try to, at least (it could use some work)
--
Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
I know allen wittenauer (sp?) used to be pretty anal about making sure it worked on solaris. and kainx (the guy who did Eterm).
:)
but since raster and I pretty much just use linux that's the way it goes
--
Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
why isn't it? he did start everything, and he did write more code than I did (I tend to find that's a pretty good judge of things). Besides, he's got a lot of that "black magick voodoo" thing going on most of the time anyways in some of his code. (ever read imlib's rend.c?) he DESERVES more credit than I get. I just happen to get to take the time to talk to folks more these days (lucky raster gets to code)
--
Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
It'd have to be one heck of a lot faster to be worth $100 US. For that much I could get a *lot* more RAM. Unless you're running a signifigantly-less-than-legal version.
I thought that both AfterStep and WindowMaker were GNOME-aware? Or are there features missing?
i meant howto wharf wm* apps... :)
(sorry i wasn't very clear).
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Yes, wouldn't it be great if you could use ctrl-c to copy text from the telnet session. MS must be really stupid not to implement that.
Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that it is very useful to be able to send ctrl-c to a program you run in the session??? Nah, MS programmers are to stupid to think about that, it's probably just an accident.
The careful reader will notice the tone of sarcasm this post should have.
Phobos - Greek word for fear or flight
All the above posts are correct. KDE has a *far* better designed Corba model (KOM/OP), is totally free according to the Debian guidlines, and has a much better base toolkit. The patchwork article has been obselete for months and no longer applies to the QPL license.
Gtk is no fun to code in.
I do think that they are trying to distance E from Gnome a little more, though.
This was the thrust of my question. I realize that E will sit perfectly well on top of any desktop or none at all for that matter. And that it predates gnome and that it used to have an iconbox.
If you look at theme development as a barometer of where the wm is at any given time, there has been a trend away from stand-alone operation and towards integration with gnome. You're seeing fewer themes with slideouts, dropdowns, etc. and more that rely on the gnome panel to do that stuff. However, Raster's departure from RH and the addition of the new features (iconbox, pager, file browser) seem to indicate a move in the opposite direction. Just trying to get some confirmation of that observation from the horse's mouth.
aj
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
In the early days I ran managed to get E (.97?)working on a sun solaris box. How does cross unix platform support working these days?
I've always had trouble scrounging up all the requred toolkits in order to compile E - primarily things like all the ImageMagick graphic formats. In the future will there be a way to get all the pieces needed to compile together on one website - or something like kde-shared does? ("the search for imlib" comes to mind.)
Mandrake, have you ever seen a communist drink a glass of water?
I'll point you to the User Interface Hall of Shame in hopes of disuading you of the notion that Microsoft creates a good user interface that is also consistent...
Bruce
Did you mount the ale before you tried to compile enlightenment? try "mount -t ale /dev/refridgerator /beer"
Microsoft [..] spends tons of money [..] on useability and the human interface.
your kidding right? check out the Interface Hall of Shame they show that M$ didnt spend tons of money on anything but ad's!
(rant mode on)
IMHO gnome's "try, untry, ok, cancel" is much better then M$'s "OK, Cancel, Apply" ie WTF does Apply do that's diffrent than Ok? ( dont answer that i know alreadly...)
(rant off)
now, yes M$ is consistent, but not easy to use. i would love to have a consistent way to do things, but thats what gnome and kde are for right?
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Is enlightenment going to go the 3D way of desktops ? Some companys were promoting kewl 3D accelerated desktops and with the Xfree 4 accelerator support can we expect 3D accelerated desktop support in E ?
You shouldn't go around indiscriminately mounting things. That borders on perverse and may very well be illegal in your jurisdiction.
(Actually, `stop running Netscape' would probably be good advice, too...)
I like to know when the following things will be possible.
1) In E-term I like to have a picture as background, but I also
like the picture to be 50% transplant.
2) In Gnome I like to have a gtk theme which is
transplant, not just showing the background but also
the windows placed behind.
3) In Gnome I like to be able to place a picture
in the background on every gnome apps. (Like in E-term)
I know from the E page that imlib 2.0 are RGBA based.
So, would this make 1 and 2 possible?
I am looking for information about writing perl scripts to create dynamic web pages that update a mySQL database and that create dynamic web pages based upon the contents of a mySQL database. I'm new to both perl and mySQL. Any assistance would be appreciated. morris@intrex.net
> Linux: the dot in "dot org".
Wonderful signature! (I always thought the "Where do you want to go tomorrow" thing gave the wrong message.)
-- Div.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
I run both KDE and Gnome, It would be great if the two would play nice with each other. My question
is: Are there currently any plans for getting kde and gnome to work together, and if so how far
along is the gnome team? Is the gnome team even talking to the kde team?
This is standard on "high-end" workstations. Any feel for when we'll get it on x86 hardware?
I know this probably gets kicked up the tree to X-level rather than window manager level coding, but you got your hands in that, eh?
Ever say "No thanks, I have enough RAM"?
How would you respond to the four most highly moderated comments in "Ask Slashdot: Comparing the GUIs"?
To summarize the questions in that link, how do you respond to the feelings of some that X is outdated and should be replaced?
Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/
Dunno about questions 1 & 3 but, 2. Assuming that Gnome makes windows look transparent by setting the PARENT_RELATIVE window flag(if i remember right), sibling windows cannot be made to show through. Anything else would be a bit of a hack, and would have to hook into alsorts (as would a soultion to 1).
How soon do you expect a 1.0 release of E?
.15 yet that you would like to see?
What features, arenn't in E
Do not read this
1) Mandrake is a co-maintainer of Enlightenment (more than just a contributer)
2) Isn't it VA Linux systems now?
...nitpicks, I know, but this is Slashdot, for heaven's sake. I expect that > 60% of us keep up with Enlightenment.
And remember, kids: Geoff has nothing to do with Linux-Mandrake.
I, for one, would like to hear about the file browser that they are going to add to the Enlightenment "Desktop Shell". I still haven't found one for Linux that suits my fancy. The new KDE fm may do the trick, though...
--Lenny
as far as picking up an E theme from GTK+ I have to say they're not really designed to work that way - but being able to pick up a GTK+ theme from E will prolly happen in the next month or so. :)
--
Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
I think you're missing the point.
Yes, there are exceptions where you'd need to send certain control characters, as in Telnet, but I *know* I can rely on "Edit:Copy" on the menu, *AND* paste it in any other app that *CONFORMS TO A GUI STANDARD*.
That's what we're missing. If we can write a bleedin' *KERNEL*, with interfaces to hardware, file systems, etc. etc, why can't some group bash heads and decide on some elementary user interface standards?
No one would *have* to adhere to them, but Damn, it'd be nice if they did, because we'd be able to use this os a *lot* more smoothly!
People, stop pointing out the odd exception as valid reason to not even *form* a rule!
Would you live in a home where every light switch worked differently, the three bathrooms had hot and cold taps on different sides, and no two outlets on the wall were the same?
Why would you use an OS where it's just as difficult and inconsistant?
mindslip
I use both WM and E with both Linux and FreeBSD. I find that they both run relatively fast, with the exception being the mini-window in E 15.5 on FreeBSD.
I have multiple user accounts and tryout both window managers on each. I prefer WM because of the apps that you can use with it (such as wmmon, wmnet, and wmpop3).
E looks the best by far but I feel WM has more functionality. Perhaps E could gain that same functionality such as adding/subtracting virtual desktops on the fly.
Yeah, I had a weird thing for awhile where E would throw up a 10x10 black square on the screen (complete with window decorations.) When I let my mouse hover over the black square, then X session would suddenly die. I later tracked it down to a CDE tooltalk session that was being started at the same time as E was. CDE and E don't mix.
Another question - what X accelerations does E take advantage of, and how does that translate into what X server/video cards we should use for the maximum WM performance?
Sorry... I already got dibbs on those. If you're real nice tho, we might invite you to BBQ when we grill 'em up.
--
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
How does it feel to have a linux dist. named after you?
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Rumours are that mandrake has meet with Amiga Inc to work on some User Interface issues for their new Operating System, is this true? If so, what has been the result of these meetings, and what exactly will he be doing there? Also, any comments on what they're doing?
What is the MPEG video player in the large screenshot located at the bottom of the screenshot page at www.enlightenment.org?
Mandrake doesn't have children! Or is there something Tammy's hiding from him? :)
Incorrect.
F /...
Open up windows telnet, select some text now use the normal keys to cut and pas... er woops.
MS products have about the same level of consistancy in UI that the X desktop does, which is to say, not much at all. Macs have decent consistancy as does BeOS and NeXTSTEP (Open if you please).
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
I noticed this too... with E 0.15.5 But with E 0.16cvs it was much faster
I wonder if the menu items in circles will ever show up in the new Enlightenment project the way they used to be in the old old version.
i was wondering if anyone on this thread remembers win 3.11. the begining of a gui is almost ALWAYS (except for mac) been cluttered with the remnance of a text based interface where there was nothing holding developers to a input standard. eg wordperfect pre 6.1 vs anything else. i remember when windows was so lucky to have an attempt at contiunity and similarity. it stold it from the mac, and the rest is history....
Will E support an option so manual placement is manual *always*. With E and manual placement, new netscape windows automatically place themselves right on top on each other. That's why I use fvwm2 with Style "*" NoPPosition. Unfortunately fvwm2 won't prevent the gnome dialogs from autoplacing at 0+0 :-( I need 100% manual placement. Can I get that?
There are exceptions .. of course. But honestly, which enviroment is more consistent and easier to grasp ?
What kind priorities do your projects have?
Do you spend 50% of your time on enlightenment,25% on gnome, and the rest on other projects.
We all know the strenghs of Enlightenment(customization and etc), but what weaknesses do you see in Enlightenment that you are itching to fix?
There is no comparison. Qt is C++ , and well designed C++ classes for GUI programming are practically only way to go ... ...
You should try creating Widgets in Qt and see how sweet and easy it is
Gnome is fully free software. KDE is based on an application framework with a patchwork license (http://pmitros.mit.edu/patchwork.html). Gnome has a better object model, and stronger core technologies. KDE is more mature. KDE is the best GUI presently available. Gnome should be the best in the not-too-distant future.
I think that's in my sig, but I just love saying it.
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
I totally agree with you about the patchwork license and free software issue. Anyone who feels strongly about using GPL-only software can not really use KDE. /."), because it's stripped down. More importantly, KOM/OP is a fantastic object model with a very easy learning curve, and the KDE2.0 daemon implements an extremely easy-to-use naming system. I've been nothing but impressed by KOM/OP and the thought that went into it, especially as I use KOffice, which is already quite advanced.
However, I'd take issue with your comments on the core technology and the object model. Bonobo and ORBit have a lot of good features, but they inherently suffer from GNOME's focus on C-programming and ORBit doesn't even have C++ bindings! While MICO is a very large ORB, KDE 2.0 will actually use tinyMICO, a scaled-down version that cuts out the unnecessary crap. MICO is a very serious CORBA 2.2 implementation, with many more features than ORBit. ORBIT, however, is clearly the faster ORB, much as MySQL is faster than, say, Oracle (ooh, nice tie-in to a recent "Ask
I don't mean to start a flame war. But it is important to look at the details of these implementations. Ideally, we'll get a level of object interoperability in the near future.
--JRZ
Try XFCE, and you'll see how fast a gtk wm can be. However, it lacks most of the eye candy features, without being as plain and ugly as fwm*
Heh.
BTW, that's "have" as in "beget" not as in "own".
That error message is a little bit cryptic. While it's technically okay for the ale to just sit in your fridge, most of the developers haven't tested under this configuration. The recommended setup involves actually -drinking- one or two of those ales before compiling. While this won't actually eliminate the error message, it will make it seem a lot less important.
Hiya Mandrake.. :) I sure I could probably ask you this question on IRC, but it might be good for the crowd to hear an answer.. :)
Q: In your opinion, which makes for better code? A pint of Guinness, a bottle of Evian, or a can of Dew?
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
I used to use fvwm, and the feature I miss the most is smart window placement. Enlightenment 0.15.5 only offers the choice of manual or automatic placement.
I don't like the idea of manually placing every window that pops up. On the other hand, automatic placement just puts everything in the upper-left corner, which means that my terminals cover each other up unless I move them -- a confusing situation at times. Java windows actually have their title bars off the screen.
A smart placement option, which tries to put new windows in un-used desktop space (or at least offsets them by a little bit so that they don't exactly overlap) would be a welcome feature. It's nothing too fancy, but it would help get rid of one minor annoyance.
Thanks for an excellent WM!
First, it seems to me that some of the newer features that you and Rasterman have been working on duplicate features already found in Gnome/KDE. Examples are the new iconbox and the pagers. (They admittedly work *better* than the other versions, but that's not the point). My question is are you heading more in the direction of making e more 'stand-alone' and reducing the coupling with the desktop environment.
Secondly, while I think e is the coolest wm out there due to its almost infinite configurability, its weakness right now is the lack of documentation. I understand that it's still under intense development and it's hard to document a moving target. But I hope that when we get closer to the 1.0 release and things settle down a little, you guys will think about putting together a good doc package. Any comments?
Thanks for your time.
aj
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
X is great and everything, but it's pretty old. If you had an infinite number of monkeys, and they were going to start over on X, what would you want them to do differently? Or, put another way, what is on the top of your wish list of things to change in X?
"There's so much left to know/ and I'm on the road to find out." -Cat Stevens
When Raster left Red Hat, he made several statements that seemed to indicate that E was going to become a full "desktop environment" in it's own right. Does this mean that E's gnome support may disappear in some later release? Or do you plan to continue to support gnome with-in E?
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
PERFORMANCE and OPTIMIZATION:
.xresources and making that a MOTHER_OF_ALL_THEME_CONFIG repository?
How about optimizing the code and getting it to really perform on older hardware? I know that the pace of CPUs make some people think that it's OK to require a 200+ mhz cpu... but reality is that many people have older systems. E on my sparc20 is a bit sluggish. I used WM up until recently for the sole reason that E (and gnome...) made my system too slow...
THEMING and CUSTOMIZING X
How about making E pick up it's theme from a GTK theme. It's really getting confusing to have a GTK theme, a gnome theme, an E theme, etc. Or... better yet, how about reviving
also, how about shipping with a default theme that is completely stripped down and has all animation, funky cursors, tooltips, etc. turned off?
(We really need to come up with better standards for global and user prefs so that every app doesn't need it's own dotfile... also apps should be able to infer setting from the config files of other apps.)
Before the CVS server died, Geoff was working on KDE hints, so I'd guess he'll have them pretty much done by now, but we can't get at them right now :(
--
David Coulson (TechNoir)
themes.org Senior Developer
Before the CVS server died, Geoff was working on KDE hints, so I'd guess he'll have them pretty much done by now, but we can't get at :(
--
David Coulson (TechNoir)
themes.org Senior Developer
What is more important in finding a coding job: writing 100,000 lines of open source code or getting a technical, quantitative oriented degree like CS with good grades? So far a lot of students swear by open source projects but when we look at people who actually get paid to write software some have written open source projects but all have CS degrees and usually well above average grades.
Dear Kevin
Have you remembered to take your medicine lately?
Rambling incoherently about elves when the rest of us are talking about X11, Gnome and E.
I don't really care what kind of guy this Mandrake fellow is. He could be a very very naughty boy, and I would still use X11, Gnome and E.
Why are people always so intent on juding by appearance and not on merit?
I guess you conviced a lot of people not to run out and install E though. It's always nice to acomplish something, isn't it? Good boy Kevin.
Talking all that jazz.
There was no real point to this comment, was there? Oh yes, how can GTK and E be streamlined? Vector-based widget drawing?
Wah!
Now the real question is why he won't give her oral sex?
Rasterman recieves all of the credit for enlightenment. Do you feel this is fair?
> Keep in mind you have at least one guaranteed
> sale!!!
Make that two guaranteed sales. Too bad I can't moderate that one up...
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
E isn't bloated.. you obviously haven't tried it lately.
Geoff, how did you get the ``Mandrake'' handle? Were you a fan of the cartoon comic that featured the crime fighter Mandrake the Magician? I grew up reading the funny papers and Mandrake was my favorite (oh, I also loved The Phantom).
After programming for a while I noticed that I was repeatedly using the same tricks to speed up development time (I started using templates and virtual functions). What change to your programming style has helped you the most, and do you have any specific time saving tips?
The resolutions have to be the same.
I've recently noticed that over the years my tighty whities have become yellowed and streched. Further, they are no longer compatible with the new glibc 2.x libs.
Which underwear do you find most linux compatible? Boxers? Briefs? Hanes? Calvin Klein?
Are you aware of any open source underware projects?
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Oh Yes I dig the Mandrake too. Here is a link for Mandrake the Magician.
It said ask anything *blah*
Obviously it's desirable to have both, but the degree is definitely more important IN THE LONG RUN. Especially if you have high marks and really are learning a lot. Of course, this all assumes you're from a pretty good school (there are a lot of crappy colleges where anyone can graduate with a CS degree). Anyone can write code, but once you start getting paid to write software, you have more responsibility and you really have to make sure you do things right. In other words, you have to be an engineer, not just a coder. Unless you've done something very out of the ordinary, the code doesn't necessarily show a lot. Relevant experience from summer or co-op jobs would be just as valuable. 100 KLOC is a lot though, so if you've written THAT much yourself, you probably wouldn't be asking this.
A very important thing to remember is that working on large projects as a professional developer is vastly different from working on small projects, or even medium-sized projects with a few other open source developers. I did quite a bit of programming on my own before I started University, including some medium sized projects (around the size of E). However, when I moved on to a large, object-oriented C++ project on a co-op job, working with a large team of programmers, it was a completely different experience for me. Until you actually work on such a project, it doesn't matter how much code you've written in the past. It takes experience to make the transition from being a mere coder to being a software engineer. Banging out code is easy, and you'll find that on a large project there are many other challenges you'll have to deal with.
But working on those open source projects if you can, it certainly doesn't hurt.
Let's be honest. Does anyone seriously care? Applications, whatever toolkit they use will work on any system that has the toolkits set up properly. The question is, which wm do you prefer, and do you have the toolkits installed. Gnome and KDE support only their own supported toolkits. Better to have both toolkits installed properly and have a standard X11 window manager in use. It's more efficient, and more stable. Use Siemens RTL wm.
The version Siemens RTL that I have does not -make- properly. Can anyone advise me how to change the code so that it will work for X11R6. Thanks.
Hi, it's best if you use http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/rhalos instead of http://members.xoom.com/rhalos the people will not be bothered by all the crap Xoom advertisements and javascript.
Before the flame replies pile up, I now realize this person has nothing to do with the Linux-Mandrake project.
:-D
I apologize profusely from every pore...
Whenever I try to compile Enlightenment, I get an error saying my fridge is out of ale, even though it isn't. I tried stocking my fridge with different kinds of ales, to no avail. I even tried removing everything not beer from my fridge, and that didn't work either. Can you help me figure out what's wrong?
You've been involved with some of the later XF86 development, and you run xinerama on your machine, (as evidenced by your screenshots) so my question is this:
Can Xinerama run on two monitors at different resolutions? I know they have to be the same bit-depth, but it would be nice to be able to buy a 19" monitor and use it alongside my existing 17".
You left Atlanta and all of us ALE'ers hanging! How could you?! :) Just kidding. 1) What does your normal work day consist of? Do they basically let you develop E and Gnome and whatever else all day, or do they have their own treacherous plans for your programming ability? 2) What's the future of E have in store for all of us inquiring minds?
On my P1-233MMX-Matrox Mill II system, GTK applications like E, the Gnome suite, and stand-alone applications like FreeCiv display (at times) sluggish interface response and slow screen draw times. Complex interfaces can often be seen drawing in or updating widget contents in sequence.
It can be oddly reminiscient of my old 25Mhz Amiga running a 3rd party widget toolkit like MUI.
My questions for Mandrake are:
1) Where does the fault lie - X, GTK, E, the application, or "all of the above"
2) What efforts are being made to increase performance?
3) Do you think we'll ever see optimisations like hand-tweaked assembly in the GTK event loop, or in the widget redraw code?
DG
Here's a log of the SlashNET Forum with mandrake a few months ago if anyone wants to look over it.
Why did they name the Mandrake distrobution after him?
How do you add borders to the sides of windows? I've altered the configuration files (you know, the .c files) but all I've been able to do is move the borders away from the window, not actually make them wider.
Hey moderators, you can give me a "Flamebait" or whatever the hell you want, but don't stick some lame -1 on me. I'm not some troll pulling a "first post" or speaking in l33t speak or going on a "Mandrake sux, E sux," rampage.
Geoff really did design and implement the "Elf Buddy" e-mail lists for claus.com while working at Intellimedia.
If he doesn't even have the foresight to think that a child might outgrow the idea of getting e-mail from an Elf, how can he be expected to co-produce (or whatever) a window manager which should have a very clear design plan from day one.
Besides that, he's extremely childish. If someone asked to be removed from your mailing list which didn't have instructions to be removed from it in the mailing or on the list's homepage, would you go running around to 12 other ones to sign him up? I should hope not.
I'm just posting a true story and would like to have the rest of the Slashdot community read it as it might influence their decision to run out and install E. Don't give me some high 4 or 5 rating so that my question goes to Geoff, I don't want it to. I'm just stating my opinion on the man based on my experience with him in a rhetorical question style.
If this is too much for you to handle or if you don't want to admit to yourself that he may not be the demi-god you wish he was, that's fine, but don't opress me with a -1.
~Kevin
:)
They didn't.. While drawing a line between SemiFamous_Linux_Guy and Hot_New_Distro() based on the name Mandrake isn't in itself a bad deduction, it becomes a rather irritating one after thirty posters have read in earlier posts that Mandrake != Mandrake-Linux and yet spew the same foul odor as their earlier brethern.
.sig: Now legally binding!
My question for Mandrake is: Why are you such an arrogant asshole? I have talked with a lot of people who write free software, and you seem to be the one who takes the cake. "I could get a job coding anywhere", etc.
This may not be an appropriate question, but here goes... What, if any, efforts is Mandrake making to either support, or encourage development of support, within XFree86 of the higher end video accelerators? I realize hands are often tied by how much information the manufacturers are willing to divulge, but since much of what drives the PC market is entertainment (games) it seems in the best interest of those promoting Linux as a viable desktop to make Linux a viable gaming environment.
- Eagles may soar, but weasel's don't get sucked into jet engines...
Linux, at least in the sense of "Mandrake Linux 6.0."
I don't say this to be contrary, either -- I agree with you that it's a shame that cut-and-paste (among other things) is less consistent in Linux / Unix / various graphical interfaces than in Windows, but as people have pointed out, Windows has a lot of inconsistencies / inexplicables which (and this is the important part!) it's harder to find answers clarifying than with Linux.
I mean, "In order to End your session, go to the button labeled 'Start'" is pretty offensive.
I'd certainly say that Linux, as embodied in RH / Mandrake 6.0 (can't speak for others) is on par with Windows in intelligibility, *once installed*. And that is from a person who can find electronic devices very frustrating.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Do you think that a newer release of X will be sufficient to carry linux for a few more years or do you think a project like berlin (or some other windowing system) deserves more programming weight put behind it? Is X11 fit to carry all of the linux graphical weight or is it becoming a dinosaur?
-Pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
Nightmare innit? He's good but a few more /* comments /* would be great.
just a simple question
where you at AMIGA HQ ?
(some office somewhere kids)
if so where they wanting to know about E ?
or where they after you for all your other work !
if so can you tell us what they wanted to discuss was it a job or advice ?
cheers
john (have a beer) jones
a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Yo're so right. Apart from all the wms that emulate the W95 look, lets make GNOME and KDE look the same. Sorry, that's a little rude. I have to admit that W95 has a great UI, but that's only because they stole from NeXTStep, Amiga and the Apple Mac. With all our egailtarian objectives that wer have, I'm sure we can do it just as well. After all, If our platform is anyhing, it is a Darwinian eveolving system. The best UI will come from people downloading and using it.
I hate to admit it, but how can Linux, with all of its different developers, develop a coherent UI strategy when there's not one agency in charge. Ctrl-C to copy, Ctrl-V to Paste is -the- standard. Can you copy an image from gimp and paste it into a wp file? Maybe that explains M$s dominance inb the US. US-MS, EU-OSF
C is crap, but C++ is not much better. To bolt an OOP onto an ancient procedural language was always asking for trouble. I can't wait for Metroworks and Borland.
Hey Mandrake! How is the perl/gtk book coming along? I'm already drooling in anticipation! Can you give us a ballpark figure on when it will be published? Or how about a topics list? Any info would be greatly appreciated!!! Keep in mind you have at least one guaranteed sale!!!
I have questions:
;)
;)
1) How do you cope with having to read Rasterman's code?
2) Are the groovy features of the G400 (like DualHead, TV Out, etc) going to be supported in XFree 4?
3) Can you swing me a job at VA?
(OK, you can forget #3)
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
Hi Mandrake,
How important do you think a component object model is for Linux, and do you think that Bonobo will be the answer for developers looking for an activeX type infrastructure for linux?
Geoff Harrison (Mandrake) has little or nothing to do with the Mandrake-Linux distribution. Please limit your questions to the scope of his work! (Enlightenment, a WM/desktop shell, XF86, xripple, etc) Now my question(s)?.. Why has the weak gradient between a Window Manager/Desktop/Shell been made into such a clear cut, line-in-the-sand issue? In the past, a WM was expected to provide all the features X didn't. Now the field has fragmented. Why? How does the rapid escalation of hardware performance (and availability of accelerated servers) affect Enlightenment? Are there times at which you say 'I could put in this new three-phase atomic pixel effect for window close, but can't because it would take a week on a 486'?
.sig: Now legally binding!
May I have your children?
You have GNOME support in Enlightenment. Do you ever expect/hope to support KDE?
I like how this post was moderated up!
Mandelrake, how much do you think X cripples the full potential of E? What are some of the disadvantges of using X, memory, speed, video, legacy code, bottlenecks? Should X be rewritten or should something new be created that takes less memory and CPU, which could be optimized for the desktop? Do you believe X is bloatware? How about we get some input from rastaman, since I hear you know him?
I believe Linux still has quite a ways to go towards being a viable desktop OS for ordinary people. I tried using Linux recently, with a free Red Hat 6.0 GPL distribution on the web. I wanted to believe that it could replace windows...and yes it could, but at an immense cost in time lost to fiddling with the system. I had four problems that I remember the most:
.conf file...unacceptable.
1) Couldn't change desktop color depth or resolution easily. Had to go into
2) Couldn't increase mouse speed easily. Could only adjust acceleration. Had to use xset console command...unacceptable.
3) Modems, plug-and-play, hardware drivers: installing any of these is a real pain. Even the HOWTOs and such sound vague on this point. This is the most important problem I see now.
4) Documentation: trying to solve 1-3 I found out how bad the documentation is for Linux. Searching the web eventually would tell me what I needed to know, but the searches were long and arduous. Eventually found a "knowledge base" somewhere that had some decent stuff, but still pitiful.
So my question is, what is being done on the desktop front to make this sort of system maintenance easier? Linux is easy enough to use and install software on, but configuration stuff is a total bitch.
Oh yeah:
5) Used RPM to install KDE 1.1.2 or something like that. This caused KDE to crash whenever I went into the control panel, something related to sound, when I had no sound card installed. But, the only way to tell it crashed was that the icons wouldn't open. Shouldn't have to CTLALT-# to a different console just to find out that KDM crashed.
In a lot of ways, E is optimized. By itself, E runs fine on a 486 if it is run without gnome.
Sounds like a bad idea to me. I do not like GNOME and GTK-themes. I don't like GNOME period. Having said that, I don't think it's a good idea to tie E-themes to gtk-themes or anything else. Frankly, I think the more independent direction that E has been taking lately is wonderful.
Come on, do you really want gtk themes that write into yourOh, and a mother-of-all-themes repository exists. It's called themes.org and while it's not as small as an .xresource file, it does exist. By the way, here's my question for Mandrake:
hmm. funny how people always attack raster and mandrake. when i met mandrake at lwce he was a very cool guy.
...
Bitchslapped? Give Rob a bitchslap from bitchslapped.com.
We've all read how it's ludicrously expensive to live/work/etc. in the Valley. How do you make ends meet?
i hope they get the GL/dualhead support, so it can be VERY fast.. i heard dualhead was a software thing? do we have enought doc to get it working? and GL?
---
You have screen shots of your xinerama-enhanced desktop and even showed it off at Linux Expo. How would one go about installing and playing with it? Are there RPMs somewhere for relatively painless uninstalls? I guess I could always install a test linux environment in VMWare and not worry about screwing up my system... :-)
Actually, that was written by Ed Howe.
in fact, the only way you got my email address was by whois'ing intellimedia.com.
in fact, I had absolutely nothing to do with that - most of what I did at intellimedia involved writing code for airtran (an eastern seaboard airline). I don't know (nor do I care) why you got spammed about it - but I can promise you I had nothing to do with it other than forwarding each of the emails you sent me to other people who were actually involved with it.
--
Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
Microsoft, as much as we love to hate them, spends tons of money (which I'm sure Enlightenment doesn't have by comparison) on useability and the human interface.
I can rely on the same keystrokes, the same mouse clicks, a consistant Clipboard, the same file dialogs, etc. etc., no matter what Windows app I run.
Linux apps, be they for KDE or Enlightement, or any WM, seem to be as different from one another as possible. This is all in the name of "We're Unique!", which seems to translate to "We're Unusable and have a HUGE learning curve!"
What, if anything, is going to make Enlightenment/Gnome/KDE/Anything else, more usable than one another? Themes are lovely, but a pretty face is only skin deep.
Can we at *least* "steal" some of MS's better ideas for use in "our" environment?
Comments?
mindslip
What do you think makes GNOME fundamentally different from KDE? Or do you think that GNOME and KDE are a duplication of effort?
Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/
void do_GTK_event_loop {
/* Intel assembly goes here */
/* Sparc assembly goes here */
/* Alpha assembly goes here */
/* Platform-nonspecific C code goes here */
#IFDEF IA32
#ENDIF
#ELSE IFDEF SPARC
#ENDIF
#ELSE IFDEF ALPHA
#ENDIF
#ELSE
OK, so this my not be 100% syntactically correct, but you get the idea. Hand-tuned assembly for often-repeated code for popular platforms, and C code for everyone else.
It Can Be Done. The question is - is it worth it?
Who would win in an all out iron-cage brawl between you, Raster, Tammy, Miguel, and Rob?
.sig this pop I as Watch
I need this information for a current scientific endeavor.
+--
stack. the off
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)