Slashdot Mirror
The Future of GNOME
RPoet writes "LinuxWorld Today has an interview with Miguel de Icaza, in which he talks about what we can expect in the upcoming GNOME versions 1.2 and 2.0. "
He also explains what he & Nat's new GNOME company is up to and assorted other worthwhile tidbits. Not a bad interview.
Advanced users always turn off tip of the day. It's too annoying for them.
"freedom of choice" and "flexability" ... bullcrap?
Do you work for the government?
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
I think the poster was being sarcastic. You took it a bit too literally... except for the part about the root menus.. I think he was serious about that.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If you don't want the main features of GNOME (which is not the GUI but the COM-style object stuff) then there is no advantage. I have been happy with X + Blackbox.
Why are you coming on this site with your propaganda? You use the pronoun "we" in your post in place of "Microsoft" -- are you not even trying to pretend that you're independent anymore?
If this is an attempt to draw developers to Microsoft, it is having the opposite effect. I develop for both Windows and Linux. This business of trolling slashdot with MS propaganda is distasteful. It makes me want to abandon the Microsoft platform completely. If Mr. Ballmer is worried about losing developers to Linux, this is not the way to win them over. I'm willing to work on just about any platform. I'm NOT willing to support companies who play your game.
Please don't respond with the, "but I'm just pointing out how good Windows is" argument. Your post is factually wrong. Most of Win32 is written in C (just like Linux and Gnome). The API is completely in C. Microsoft just provides class library wrappers for people who want to use C++ throughout a project.
If you don't believe me, walk up the hall or across the campus to the guys who actually write code for Windows. Check with them.
I've never had animosity towards the various Windows operating systems. Developing for them has put a roof over my head. However, if you are an example of Microsoft's corporate culture, then I want to avoid using my skills to help your company.
i wish there'd be a simple standard way to do it but there isnt. a simple shell script that adds the command to your start menu on whatever wm youre runnning would be a nice touch to rpm. im willing to bet smIRC doesnt do the same if the user runs afterstep/kde.
> the MAc were about six years ago.
Umm...no. GNOME is far more advanced than both of the aforementioned interfaces were 6 years ago. In many ways GNOME is more advanced than where either of those interfaces are NOW.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Celebrate the finer things in life
Personally, I think the GNOME team should *F*O*C*U*S* a little more on what exactly it is they want to do in the future. The GNOME project has started out with little focus and brings to light the unavoidable "problem" with free software: everyone wants to throw their ideas in. Of course, I'm not saying that this is a bad idea. The GNOME team just appears to throw in every "neat" idea someone gives them (case in point: a fish applet. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? STABILITY FIRST, FISH APPLET LATER.)
The KDE team, on the other hand, comes off a lot more "clear-headed". Case in point: the CORBA issue. The KDE team got a stable product out the door first, THEN came back to add the bloated monster of CORBA to it. The GNOME team, on the other hand, said "let's put CORBA in from the get-go! Yeah! So we can show off this badass CORBA fish applet!" Christ. At least the KDE team has something they can drop their CORBA interface in, rather than turn KDE into a convoluted mess.
Aesthetics. Hmm. GNOME is (dare I say it) pretty ugly. You can dress it up with those god-awful pixmap themes all you want, but it still looks pretty wretched. KDE looks slick. Great icons. Great interface design (bearing some resemblance to Windows, but hey. You want new users to feel comfortable, right? You don't exactly want to throw them into a freaky-looking desktop with a giant foot and weird-looking Rasterman-ized icons.).
Speed. I can hardly believe there are people that claim that GNOME is faster than KDE. Cut down on the crack! With all that CORBA garbage (a fucking fish applet! That just sits there! Using CORBA!), it gets really bogged down. KDE, of course, free from CORBA (IIRC... I don't think the 1.x branch has anything to do with it) is a lot snappier, more responsive. Inevitably, someone is going to come out of the woodworks and claim that their 486DX2/66 with 8MB RAM is as snappy and responsive as ever. Go nuts. I have a P233 with 96MB RAM. I expect GNOME to run flawlessy -- start relatively quickly and overall be so fast it would be just like running a minimalistic window manager. Is it? Not close. Do I expect too much out of GNOME? Apparently I do.
Libraries. Is it just me, or does anyone else get ALARMED when "ldd " yields a list of libraries so long you have to scroll up to see the beginning? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, GUYS. Talk about throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. And linking the esound library even to programs that don't use sound? Cool! Now... do I even need to mention the problem this brings up when trying to DOWNLOAD the GNOME sources (or even packages for that matter)? Once again, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, GUYS. There's like 30 or so goddamn tarballs/packages you have to get! Ever thought about putting that myriad of supplemental libraries in ONE tarball? At least downloading the KDE sources isn't OVERWHELMING; it's just a few tarballs. Sweet and simple.
I'd really like to see GNOME do well -- really. It has great potential (notice "has" -- they can still clean up their act). In the future, the GNOME team should stop acting so high and mighty just because GNOME is completely free software and follow the KDE team's example -- they really seem to have it all together. Don't concern yourself with all sorts of crazy shit like CORBA-izing everything and binding every obscure language under the sun -- Keep It Simple, Shithead.
IceWM handles the panel pretty, even if it isn't compiled with gnome support. Howevever, sometimes it can go haywire, and not respect the panel. If this happens, reshape the panel in someway, like enable then disable autohide, or retract and then re-retract(or track, make it visable again, you know) with the hide buttons. However, if you have been using newer gnome releases (like 1.0+) this won't happen.
I went to try E again, it crashed, probably a fluke, but, I think I will wait a few months before I use it again.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
GMC did "work", and I think it is a GOOD sign that the GNOME developers recognized that something needed to be improved. It shows that the project is still alive and growing.
Well, I'm glad it works fo you but on all machines I have installed GNOME GMC showed all kinds of crashes and usability problems. After months of use of GNOME I was still using MC.
This is a broad accusation you just made about all of GNOME, but you're basing it on one program. Don't tell me KDE never scrapped an idea.
We are comparing apples and oranges here. My "accusation", as you call it, to GNOME is based on the fact that KDE came out first. Of course you scap an idea or two in developing a new project but my question was: do we really need anothe Desktop Manager since KDE is already out ? After evaluating both programs I realized that the answer, for me, is "NO !". All the energy poured on GNOME could have been reversed to create a free themable clone of Qt and help KDE to get more features sooner.
>They also never publish any pro Windows articles
Yes. They also never publish any pro child-abuse articles.
gnome1.2? Stop making crap up.
Ahem. KDE has a new file manager too. Konqueror, it's called. I just read about it on Slashdot. Admittedly, it's a newer story.
yes, but the old one used to work pretty well. GMC never reached the point of being usable.
Once an article has replies, leave the original up!
HOW THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FOLLOW THE THREAD OTHERWISE???
actually ive experienced something like this too..although i wouldnt use the choice of words used i can understand the frustration.. :) .."everyone seems to know about" probably came from posts to the GTK mailing list (around 4 last time i checked with geocrawler..perhaps more now) .. GTK 1.2.3 (stable) doesnt support it.
I agree completely - Tip of the Day is THE most annonying feature ever invented. Couldn't they just have a help page with all of the tips on there?
:)
And besides, advanced users will fiddle around with stuff, and figure it out pretty fast - I know I always do (tip: try reading the man pages/help files
Feel free to fix it, whiner.
you've ruined any continuity to these discussions by downgrading the parent articles, you morons.
exactly his point.....you have to do it yourself if the program package didn't do it.....its ALWAYS the program packager's responsibility to notify the OS which executable runs the app.....
I have 3 letters for you:
C V S
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Celebrate the finer things in life
I haven't seen their specifications, but if it's yet another "everyone must switch to Unicode to get any kind of language support (unless he is already using iso8859-1 that coincides with first 256 Unicode characters)", cyrillic and asian languages support will become a nightmare.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Geographically it's pretty much that way. The only way to get to Redmond is to go over bridges, one of which goes through another city. And that's just to get to Bellevue. Redmond is past it.
...
Ten years ago it was all cow pasture over there. Now it's LA North. Seattle is still the same as it ever was, plus we're more fun at parties.
Lake Washington is bigger than some middle eastern countries
Will in Seattle
I guess that's why Linux is eating everybody else's market share.
Ooh. So, my son has a 333Mhz iMac. I am in such awe of you.
...
I like windows, they look good on houses
Will in Seattle
The Wintrolls are using Microsoft's ActiveTroll, of course. It was based on RFC 567849e14 "Proposal for Standard Hierarchical Interface Troll", but MS extended it and built it into the operating system. :)
Of course, OLE is not CORBA. CORBA is useful, cross-platform, and OLE is a joke.
...
But - you knew that
Will in Seattle
And, once W2K ships (in 2002), we can expect Y2KTrolls.
Will in Seattle
I'm not saying his company won't work....but this reads a little like an Onion article or something.
that's just my $0.06 (Canadian) mind you.
Werd.
Rather, I think it is more likely that they want to keep up with KDE, which is about to release 1.1.2 (though some developers wanted this to be 1.2) and which is on the way to delivering on 2.0!
My feelings exactly, I agree 100%. I was just saving time for all the LinuxUsers from posting the same old crap.
It's not a clone. It's an object system based on CORBA with a similar design to OLE. It's not anything close to API compatible. (at least the functions won't have 40 letter names with half of them capital letters :)
Fifth in New Hampshire? Hmmm. I think it's first in Washington state ...
Will in Seattle
I have to agree. I haven't been reading /. lately, but today I've been browsing most of the stories, and I'm thinking that ol' BG and his gang are all over the comments. Must be desperate times on the MS campus. Get out and astroturf when you can't produce good product. Hey, it's worked so far, now hasn't it?
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
C'mon, we dont need to boost the version number that much, surely. Whats wrong with 2.3,4,5,6 etc?
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Nope. It should be a part of Xlib specifications.
Every GUI toolkit links with Xlib. The makers of kwm,E,etc might provide way for doing this as long as you link with their libs which is what I wanna avoid.
Maybe it's because whatever feebs get moderator
priviledges make people who disagree with the majority
'trolls'.
For a bunch of 'professionals' fighting 'rigid FUD ' and whining about freedom, you guys are pretty rigid and prejudiced. Oh yeah, and since I want this to get moderated down (to prove a point), suck my ass.
Initially the GNOME folks were using MICO as an ORB but dropped that. Well, instead of doing the NIH thing, the KDE folks went ahead and slimmed down MICO, and made it faster: voila, TinyMICO.
OLE != CORBA. CORBA is a low-level distributed object programming standard. Bonobo is a library + API for doing things like OLE, based on CORBA.
What Bonobo will do is to allow remote machines to introduce virus to local Linux environment -- just by reading the document. Thanks to Bonobo, the next day we will see Melissa being ported to Linux, without the need of re-compling.
Honestly, I don't know if it's just Gnome, or just Enlightenment, but whoever's fault it is, the configuration of E+Gnome in RedHat is positively the worst window managment system I'v ever encountered.
Think about it. Windows start without focus. You can't click in the window to give it focus, you have to click on the title bar. if you leave the pointer over the title bar, you get a big yellow box explaining how to move the window.
Clicking on it's button on the task bar doesn't give it focus. if it's behind another window, you have to move or minimize one or the other in order to change focus.
Now, these are very simple complaints. I currently use IceWM because it (a) basicly does what i need a window management system to do, and (b) mimics the z-ordering rules OS/2 uses.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Don't forget that the KDE folks have rewritten their file manager for KDE 2.0... It's no longer "KFM" -- it's now "Konquerer" Play fair. *grin*
The menus problem is only a part of bigger issue that causes so much pain for somebody trying to write GUI apps ( and I am currently trying to do exactly that.) The issue is >> lack of standards.
The fact that Debian has a tool to do it automatically doesn't help me much cause RedHat for example doesn't offer that option and even if it did it would be completely different than what Debian does. The same goes for Suse, TurboLinux and whatever else is out there.
I don't like Gnome but I do enjoy whenever something about Gnome gets posted here on /. Whole bunch of Gnome loosers posting ... and I can flame each one of them. That's beatiful!
Additionally MS OLE uses COM whereas bonobo uses CORBA. Huh? No, The KOM/OP object model is far superior since it is almost identical to OpenDoc which is/was a very competent component technology.
I'd agree with that. GMC sucks. That's why it's good they're ditching it.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Window managers are the things that put the borders, title bars, etc. round windows. On MS Windows, Explorer does not perform these functions, so stop lying.
You wasted all that space saying nothing. Bravo. I salute you. GNOME development is almost a year behind KDE. Give them a break. Besides, they made a lot of "correct" design choices as opposed to getting a "slick" product out of the door (which I argue KDE is no slick monster at all). If you really want to see GNOME succeed, then help with the effort. At least make some constructive contributions/comments. Saying that GNOME sucks because of *some*topic*already*tramped*on*last*year* will not make it any better than it is now.
Colorfully but completely well put. I was horrified at the number of little libraries that GNOME insists on having lurking around. That sound thing eventually convinced me - out with Gnome.
Why do "Real Seattlites" have such contempt for Eastsiders. Isn't it all pretty much one big city anyway? Is it the same thing as in NM we always complained about Texans, it's just that we were more spread out?
I was in Seattle last weekend. You have to admit you still have more than your fair share of Starbucks/etc. *grin* If you look in the trash cans on the street they are full of just coffee cups.
Don in Bellevue. (well, I work in Everett)
(I only lived there 7 months so far, moved from New Mexico, so I'm probably not-like-them, whatever that may be.)
I won't use Windows until _it_ catches up with the rest of the 20th century:
- an open API
- support for more than 1 processor family
- compilers/development tools _included_ with OS
- multiple simultaneous users _standard_
- network transparent windowing system _standard_
- usable scripting languages _standard_
- fork()
Come on Microsoft, it's not the 1970s any more...
1) Ok.
2) Ok.
3) While i chuckled. The icons aren't useless. Come on! They link to the red hat site..so they have the red hat logo. One of them links to the Gnome site, and it has the Gnome logo. Certainly makes sense to me.
Werd.
And TowerJ on linux wipes all Java compliant JVMs on windows' arse!
> There is unfortunately no way to get E to play nicely with the panel.
OK, I must have an older/newer version of something on my computer because E works fine with the pager. However, when I go into the office to work, it doesn't work right at all there (clicking on a task doesn't not bring the window to the foreground). I never set anything special to make it work on my machine so I guess it's the version of Gnome I installed. The version I use at work came with Red Hat 6 so I don't know if I just haven't updated Gnome in awhile to run into this problem or if I happen to have a newer version of Gnome than comes with Red Hat 6. What I would like to know is how can I configure E to play nice with the Gnome pager in Red Hat 6? It's not impossible since it works fine on my home machine, but I didn't set anything special to make it work here.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
"If Bill Gates had a nickel for everytime I had to reboot... oh wait, he does!"
That's a lot of nickels if you payed $90 for Windows. I calculated 1800 nickels. Or 1799.8 if you payed $89.99 (like most software retailers charge for the upgrade -- who buys the whole version?).
I like KDE, I like GNOME. They are both nice to me, and I use KDE on my notebook (Travelmate 5000, P90, 16 RAM) wich is kinda slow, and GNOME in my desktops. I like both.
I use enlighthenment sometimes, and WindowMaker others. It's a question of mood. I certainly don't use NT, because I won't pay, no way...Linux just fills all my needs in the office, at home and in the road. I take my travelmate on vacations and amuse myself coding. Yes, I'm a nerd...
But I know what I want from my OS and from my GUI...FLEXIBILITY and FREEDOM OF CHOICE.
If somebody don't like this...well is up to them.
Many friends of mine, installed Linux on their homes just because the look and fell of GNOME or KDE was new and exciting, they visually liked, more than windows9x or NT.
I fell strange watching them swithching OS, just because the GUI,(I switched OS without thinking in the GUI...), but now, in Linux world, they can switch desktops as often as they want.
This is not religion or politics, so keep the flames away, is just a choice.
My Box, my choice
What a waste-of-time, last-past-the post example. Anyway the bindings to GNOME / ORBit are what matters here, not just to gtk+ Also how current are the bindings?
Java sane choice for GUI ? ...
Definately not in 1999
Ever tried to use Swing ??? It so "blazingly fast" it even puts slowest Motif to shame.
GMC was always a piece of shit.
I take your bet :)
Windows was not written in C++. Win API is C based so check your facts before you post crap like this.
(MFC is basically wrapper around Win API)
on the gnome mailing list archives it was claimed that the KDE people weren't open to changing OpenParts and doing shared development. Whether or not this is true is another matter.
Regardless, both KDE and Gnome have publicly committed to interoperability, so I wouldn't get too worried.
...or they might design an API that would be implemented by a library separate from Xlib and not specific to KDE, E, etc., so that an application doesn't have to be linked with some particular desktop environment's or window manager's library.
Now, it might be nice if that library became a part of Standard X, so that one could, in theory, count on it being on every system that has X; I don't see why it would matter whether the routines were in Xlib itself or in some other library that's part of Standard X.
Unfortunately, "in theory" doesn't mean "in practice"; regardless of whether those routines went into Xlib, or into a separate library, in X11R6.5, or X11R7, or whatever, that wouldn't help people who had Boring Old X11R6.4 or Boring Old X11R6.whatever-Based CDE or whatever.
Putting it into a separate library might make it slightly easier to add it to a system with an old version of X - you wouldn't have to replace Xlib, you could just add the library.
So perhaps it should become part of the X11.whatever specifications, but that doesn't mean it should necessarily become part of the Xlib specifications.
What kind of name is that ? Is he some fucking "latino" motherfucker ?
Bah, I botched the quote I saw someone had:
.05);
"If Bill Gates only had a nickel for everytime Windows crashed... oh wait, he does!"
Implying that
bill_gates_net = (number_of_all windows_crashes_throughout_time *
> Other thing that surprised me: GNOME Filesystem?!
It's a 'filesystem' that exists purely as a user library. This is a REALLY GOOD THING!! There is a serious need for 'virtual filesystems' that don't require kernel interaction-- for instance, connecting to an FTP share or a remote Windows machine. Requiring the kernel to mount a filesystem requires root priviliges, which you DO NOT want to mete out to any old GUI user application. The GNOME filesystem will let apps browse tar files, connect to SMB shares, etc., without risking the stability of the system in the process.
(I'm pretty sure KDE is doing the same thing...)
Being the fastest ORB in existance is like being the leper with the most fingers.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Solution: Multiple workspaces is a possibility. Default is only one workspace. In the "Daily Tips" or whatever your equivalent is, have a tip that says "Did you know... that you can have multiple [workspaces | virtual screens | desktops]? Just [fiddle option thingamabob under menu whatsit]." So the advanced users eventually run across this feature and use it, but the beginner doesn't get confused by it.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
thee file manager, be nice to thumbnail images.
.xvpics comes to mind)
imlib may be good for this, actually id like
something where it checks for a flag on the mime
type to run a little prodeure defining how to make
the icon, the obvious use is to thumbnail
images, but someone creative may come up with
other uses too. (render a tiny imges of a 3d file
with a little logo of that program for example,
or have different color spreadsheet icons based on
the rest of the name)
to anyone who worries about slowing down the file
managers, switch statements are practically free
and the time to thumbnail an image is only used
once (again the ubiquitus
the first time and when the image changes.
seems like i may get my wish about being able to load an image into an existing gimp process...
Gnome is using a known good technology which already has a ton of users.
That's exactly NOT the case! Bonobo isn't OLE2 compatible, it is just similar. So the big OLE2 userbase is of no use at all.
KOM/OP is modelled more after IBM's OpenDoc architechture, which many would describe as superior to OLE.
But the main point is: Decent design is not a matter of just copying a design draft from another platform. It has to be adapted to the characteristics of UNIX.
Implementation is *very* important in this respect, as the object model is the very basis of the whole system, which should be rock solid.
KOM/OpenParts is successfully used for more than a year, while Bonobo is just entering beta stage...
Miguel started Bonobo, because he wanted to have his own work in GNOME (and thus the total control over it), not because it as any better than KOM/OP.
You can get themes for Windows too and you've been able to get them since Windows 95
What, the collections of a few bitmaps, a background, some cursors, and default window colors? I think most Linux themes are more flexible than that.
For example, not a theme issue directly, but KDE will allow menus to be attached either to each application, like in Windows, or the top of the screen, like on Macs.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Excuse me sir, but you are dumb.
I'm tired of listening to this by GNOME backers because it is utterly false.
KDE already has bindings for C++, Python, and Smalltalk, and Java is coming along nicely. I'm aware of GNOME bindings for C, C++ (but the C++ bindings are piss poor), python, and guile. It's just a metter of writing the bindings if you want them.
Second, have you read the docs for GNOME's orb ORBit. It has _only_ C bindings. Mico contains bindings for 3-4 different languages if I remember correctly. Now KDE is moving towards their own ORB, tinymico, a hack to mico to reduce memory usage. I'm not sure of the bindings for it.
Basically, you are dead wrong. There is nothing about the GNOME design that makes it particularly language agnostic, and its orb is very limited. KDE is at a point of being eqaully capable to GNOME in terms of language bindings, and I'm certain, given time, it will pass it.
You are the master of the obvious. Why do you feel the need to state the obvious. Do you really think there is anyone who does not already understand that?
Ah 4DWM. Care to post your .fvwmrc -- I'd love to see it. Otaku
Well, I don't know about the design of OLE.
I for one would like to have compile time checking of types and method function signatures. The VB design gets around this pretty nicely, I admit, but if I don't want to program in their IDE, or I'm using some other kind of a language I want to connect with activeX, then it makes debugging a much bigger chore.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A bug that everyone "seems to know about".
Did you actually report it?
> You don't understand. It is not how many WM Microsoft provides, it is ability to uniformly
> access menu entries and things like that. There is no such option on Linux.
Clearly this makes Linux a poor choice for clusters doing numerical computation, right?
"The M$ OLE system is not a bad design"
Sorry. OLE/ActiveX is not a good design for the following reasons:
1) It's too complex.
2) It has serious security problems due to the use of the variant structure which exposes the type of the information being transfered to potentially malicious interceptor programs.
3) It cannot be used to properly implement automatic snap-in conections within a compositional environment because it is not a true message passing model. A message passing model is inherently non-blocking.
4) It does not provide a symetrical male/female mechanism for connections. Complementary connectors are a must for automatic connector creation given either a pre-existing male or female connector. It would also automatically match the message type between sender and receiver. This would eliminate tons of errors.
5) It uses a reference count. This can lead to serious reliability problems if a connected object crashes or hangs.
There are other flaws but these will do.
Louis Savain
Computation is really communication.
I think the reason people complain about speed is because they do have slower machines. One of the Linux promises has been that you wont need to upgrade every year just to run common apps properly. On my P200 both KDE and GNOME run reasonably fast, but I guess there many people with 486 or P75.
If you look at it from a real user interface standpoint rather than a personal preference standpoint Mac OS does much better than Windows, and just about everything else out there. That doesn't mean you or anyone else has to like it of course, it just means it follows more of the rules for good UI.
Are there any really UI-oriented people working on GNOME? It seems to be it could benefit greatly from this. Trying to match the Windows interface is not a good goal for the OSS community, because frankly Windows isn't very good at UI.
Since you don't have to worry about the bottom line, the OSS community is an ideal environment to test out new ideas and do things that haven't been done before, and it would be especially great to see that happening in the UI department as Linux tries to get a hold in the desktop market. To the typical user UI is much more important than buzzword compliance. If Linux can be made easier to use than Windows, Microsoft will truly have something to fear on the desktop.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
There will probably be something like this in the near future. Fortunately, it won't get in the way of us who have no desire for such thing :)
I don't know why anyone would want to run this crap anyway. I hate Linux !
He's mexican, you fool. Like Salma Hiyak.
Sure you can use C++ with KDE, but that's the ONLY language you can use.
Check the KDE developer pages for bindings to other languages (Perl, Python,...).
Why there's no C binding? Why would you need one? You can write your functional application code in C and use it (e.g. kfourir does that). Writing a GUI in C is insane, and if you *really* don't like C++, have a GUI builder create the GUI code for you.
GNOME allows you to use ANY language. C, C++, Java (a far more sane choice for GUI coding) and a whole slew of others have bindings available for the GNOME ORB.
Nonsense. You need bindings for GNOME as well, and mostly they are outdated. Even C++ is a problem: The gtk bindings are usable, but the GNOME bindings aren't.
A "GNOME ORB" doesn't exist, except in your fantasy. And Java is a) not usable with GNOME (KDE has some support) and b) a very 'closed' environment, meaning bindings aren't easy to do.
You are stupid and your life is very pointless
And you know that Mathias Ettrich who did the KDE port is also the founder of LyX project ?
Yes. You are right - it doesn't have to be located in Xlib as long as it is toolkit independant.
Do you have an URL where I can get more info? Thanks in advance.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Instead of posting inane crap that you know nothing about, read correct information straight from the source.
GNOME Component Architecture white paper
Thanks.
You've made some valid points, but I feel some clarification is in order:
This is not to say that Gnome has no problems... I'm constantly deleting core files from my home directory. But I'm using Gnome with WindowMaker at home and at work every day, and I'm quite pleased with it. I don't suffer from any of the usability issues you've described. The problems you mention are Raster's issues to deal with, not Miguel's.
Ok, the *.desktop format is also going to become the KDE standard. Then it would pretty much become the linux standard. It won't be that hard too, since the *.desktop format is just the *.kdelink format without all of the K's. I am not sure if it is done, but I would bet CVS KDE uses it now. So the work is being done, its pretty trivial (could be done with a script, in fact here is a link to one), and now they can worry about Bonobo/CORBA/KOM/OpenParts.
Also, If you compile IceWm with gnome support, it reads gnome menu's (both for the user and the system menus).
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
ORBit bindings for a variety of languages exist - I know C++, Eiffel, and Ada ones exist, and ORBit is designed to easily allow adding bindings for new languages.
Yes, we know that Mathias was the founder of LyX. Then,he went off to work on KDE, and the rest of the LyX team carried on by themselves... until he showed up and pissed them all off by porting it to KDE without talking to anyone who was still working on LyX. They've since made up (afaik), but it was certainly ugly for a while.
GNOME has added non-standard features to ORBit that makes it very hard to change the ORB.
It's apparently not even possible to use other ORBs to talk to ORBit-linked programs via IIOP anymore.
And there is no evidence that ORBit is faster than other speed-optimized ORB like OmniOrb, and it has very little features in comparison.
.fvwmrc is NOT source code. It's a configuration file for fvwm that can be as simple or complex as the user wishes it to be. It contains plenty of remarks to help a new user figure out what can be done. The writer is not claiming to fix bloat or bugs in anything; he is simply expressing an understandable preference for a much smaller, simpler and more streamlined window manager as a way to *avoid* bloat and bugs in other WM's.
Hope this helps!
**>>BELCH
You might also want to make yourself aware of the GNOME bindings for Objective C, TOM, perl, Eiffel, and wide variety of other languages.
I don't know if Miguel or anyone that matters will ever read this but here's a suggestion:
Put the smack down on Gnome developers that fail to include "start menu" things with their distros. If rpm doesn't facilitate this intelligently then EXTEND the spec for Gnome apps!
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
Which is the entire point of the OLE-like stuff in question! It lets you use a separate spreadsheet, word processor, graphics program, etc, and still combine different things in one document rather than forcing you to use one giant app that does everything to make documents containing different types of data.
It's not quite on the level of using piping to tie together tiny apps, but such tricks are hard to pull with GUIs.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
What happened to all the window managers that were meant to come with Linux that didn't look like Windows 95? They don't seem at all popular. KDE and the GNOME Window Manger both bare strong resemblance to Windows apart from the bar at the bottom is bigger. Now the flame wars are Gnome V KDE not Gnome v some other Window manager. So if the Windows interface is so bad why isn't a window manager with a new innovative interface the most popular. It's becasue Windows is the most user friendly. People say the mac is user friendly but why is there no Window manager emulating that.
This is not trolling this is a fact: RedHat should have configured Enlightenment properly before packaging thier distribution. Shipping a product which would be many peoples first experience with GNOME (and also many newbies and magazine reviewers) and the Window Manager didn't work as expected is just unforgivable particularly when you consider how much they charge for their boxed set. Quality control does not seem prime concern at RedHat.
I don't know why everyone insists that writing a GUI in C is insane. It's not. Writing a GUI with GTK+ in C is pretty darn pleasant, actually. If you want _unpleasant_, I'm sure we can dredge up some examples.
And it's nice to write the GUI in the same language you write everything else... GUI builders can't handle all your gui code unless you're just doing a static form. If you are dynamic form or something else, you'll always need to write code.
I was using the latest one and it had this problem. I had to downgrade to fix this.
I really wish they would keep these things small, fast, and stable.
If I wanted a Mac, I'd go out and get one. I'm using linux to avoid all this bloat.
Let's say I'm not interested in COM-style embedding parts of apps in other apps, or session management, or internationalization features.
Other than that, what's the advantages of running GNOME vs just GTK-only apps?
The part that is not obvious is why people have to bitch about something they don't even want to use. As the previous poster said, you don't have to use it, so why are you bitching about it?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If it will become one then great ! ...
Another issue resolved
I think it's pretty obvious that GNOME + Harmony frightened Troll into changing the Qt license. If they did not, they would have lost all the KDE developers to the Harmony toolset and many others to GTK+.
The main reason ws the fact that Open Source made sense for them. They make their money by selling support to big companies, who are usually conservative about licensing and try to avoid "freeware".
When OpenSource became accepted, this was no obstacle anymore.
But of course, Harmony was a real threat to the existence of the company.
I like gnome, but i'm not very concerned with the panel or the file manager. I'm looking forward to Gzilla and their office suite.
If only someone could construct a new interface for graphical applications. My favorite at present is WindowMaker as it is relatively different from the rest (please no flames about how it too is a clone of next-step fame)
What is on Gnome's side is that gtk seems to be relatively common. Anyone have any stats on the number of applications in gtk, qt, and others? Num of coders?
Anyone know what WindowManager will be gnomes next favorite now that enlightenment is estranged?
I can't wait to see what the next version of enlightenment contains, as I recall mention of it too having greater functionality
Actually, I like what Gnome is doing, release early and often, just like Linux.:)
If you find bug(s), please report them. As with any opensource project, more people find bugs the better.
Reusing KOM/OpenParts would not have been very practical since last time I looked, there is no C binding for KDE, maybe I'm wrong.
As for "vapour stunt," you must not use mc. Anyhow, attacking opensource developer is wrong since if you don't like what they do, don't use it.
As I said, ALL gnome apps should be using a *.desktop file for putting a shortcut on the foot menu. All gnome apps that I get do this. If it doesn't it is not a real gnome app. However, the gnome developers aren't the rulers of some world order, so they can't MAKE anybody do this. The only thing they should do is don't provide a link on the gnome website to an app that doesn't install a *.desktop file.
Could you tell me what you mean by no standard. It seems about as good as a standard as you can get, considering there is no law on breaking them.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
Yeah, Linux is fifth in the popularity ratings!
Isn't Gnumeric the only GNOME app of the ones you mention? Or have ABIWord and GIMP switched from pure GTK+ lately?
I suspect that all these people whining about memory usage could use a quick refresher in how memory works in UNIX. This goes for the people who say "X SUCKS because it uses 25 megs of RAM!" when they have a 16 meg TNT card in their computer, too. Newsflash #1: the X server mmaps the video buffer into its address space! (For the less clueful out there, this means subtract your video ram from the memory usage reported by the X server). Newsflash #2: Libraries are also mmaped into the address space! (So is the executable for that matter).
Ok, so all these libraries are getting counted multiple times, they still all add up, you say? UNIX demand pages executables and libraries into memory, so big, featureful libraries are good, since you only pay for the parts you use! (well, in 4kb chunks on intel, but you can't have everything).
This should all be put in a "troll-FAQ" somewhere; I'm tired of seeing the same stupid trolls over and over again. Yes, X, GNOME, and KDE all have flaws, some of them large, but NONE are insurmountable, and the progress in all these areas (Have you seen XFree 3.9 yet?) has been amazingly rapid.
Bonobo (Pan Paniscus) or pigmy chimp, endangered species. Homosapien's nearest cousin in primate. They are similar to human in sex behavior, who fscks alot among them, practicing incest, poligamy, everything. everyday is mating day. no season no shit.
just for info
Their JVM kicks your ass.
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
Well "pissed them all off" is probably a bit off.
He just did it the Linus' way: Shut up and show me the code!
LX development was (and still is) steady, but slow.
KDE was all about having a usable productivity environment fast. So klyx was in the best interest of KDE.
Separating the GUI layer from the rest takes a lot of time, and it wasn't a high priority of the lyx team. That's why we still wait for such a version (both gtk and KDE based).
Once this separation is done, a new port will be rather easy, and as the new klyx will likely be based on KOM/OpenParts, a rewrite would be required anyway.
In a nutshell: Matthias Ettrich did exactly the right thing.
I just loaded up GNOME on RH 6.0 and I must say its a joke compared to my girlfriend's MacOS interface. GNOME is where windows and the MAc were about six years ago.
Even KDE, which is still a joke compared to the MacOs interface, blows GNOME away.
Very interesting read about the upcoming KDE 1.1.2 and KDE 2 beta.
> Tell me why the reverse NIH argument couldn't be made against KDE's object model?
Well, because KDE's object model was started *before* baboon (or bonobo or however its called today)?
I wrote a C binding for Qt. Extending it to KDE was trivial (just edit the headers into a simpler class description format for a script that actually did the binding).
How trivial? Well wrapping Qt, including writing the script mentioned above took a week, and I did it just to win a USENET argument.
Now, why did this binding never evolve further? The interest in C bindings for KDE and Qt seems to be limited to people that don't code, for the most part.
This seems to come up every time GNOME or KDE is mentioned. Yes, Windows already has a tried and true desktop which is easier to use for some people (since GUI ease-of-use is a very personal thing, some like one GUI and other like another. Choice is good!). And Linux is only reaching the stage of having a useful desktop system (KDE is already there, and GNOME is getting there rapidly as well), so it can't be called "tried and true" yet. But -- Linux isn't a "real" operating system? How's that again? It boots up my computer and runs all my programs, delivers my E-mail, etc. If that's not a real operating system, I don't know what is. And in terms of the "catch-up", you can just as easily (more easily, IMO) argue that Windows is playing "catch-up" to UNIX in all areas *but* the GUI. Networking and communications (E-mail, WWW, FTP, newsgroups) and security are just some of the areas that UNIX has long been good at and in which Windows is just playing "catch-up". (And in security particularly, Windows still has a long way to go).
And why not use Windows? Well, there's really no reason not to, if it's the right tool for the job. See, I'm neutral in the OS holy wars -- I don't care what you use, and I'll use the right tool for me. I don't use Windows because Linux does everything I need, has higher quality in many areas, and costs me $89 less than Windows (a very important consideration on a college student's budget!). Also, I happen to not like Microsoft's monopolistic practices, so I guess I'm not all that neutral. But if a Microsoft product is the right tool for the job, I'll use it.
Sorry. You'll get no flames from me.
"Hey! You're one of those condescending UNIX users!"
"Here's a nickel, kid. Go buy yourself a real operating system."
- Stolen from Dilbert (I think) and changed a little
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
You can't just ask that question and drop it! Dammit! I want to know how it is.
:)
So, how is it?
Corndog
What's the point of all this bragging about ActiveX-like capabilities when there are missing major parts like for example way to automatically add something to start menu. This is all hogwash, it only looks half-decent on the surface, underneath there is nothing to support that. Everything has to be done manually ( KDE is not perfect, but much better in this regard)
Go grab your copy of Inside Windows NT, and actually read it (it actually isn't a bad book). The kernel-GUI relationship is very similar to the way it always has been in UNIX. There are a few difference, NT integrates GDI at a very low level, which allows for a bit faster of drawing to the screen. This is a good thing. The GGI project's KGI does a similar thing, but probably won't find its way into the linux kernel for a while, if ever. Some core linux deveopers don't agree with the assertation that having your video drivers in kernel space is a good thing.
As for the GUI, under windows explorer.exe and friends, that's just as abstracted from the core OS as KDE or GNOME or $WM is from the core UNIX OS. The Win32 subsystem runs above kernel space in NT just as X runs above kernel space in UNIX. Now, under NT if the Win32 subsystem dies, the kernel dies. This is because it is assumed without the Win32 subsystem your machine is worthless. This is a bad idea, IMHO. Furthermore, it is quite possible to replace your GUI (explorer.exe) with something else. Lightstep comes to mind as an alternative. You can also use things like zsh (which I do on my work machine a lot).
The primary difference in terms of GUIs is that UNIX gives you a lot more freedom, flexibility, and customizability than Windows NT does, plus problems up in the Graphical Engine section (X or Win32 layer) are less likely (it still not fool-proof) to take down the machine under UNIX.
No, it was not gnumeric (is that spanish for something?) that was the problem. Just what the application was, escapes me now but it certainly required a large number of libs.
We have a GUI built into the OS so we don't have to worry about configuratuion.
In fact, it's so built in that driver code runs in the kernel space. All you have to worry about is a poorly written device driver that can bring down your system. Nice try, NT child. A GUI add-on to Linux grants freedom. Why run a server with a GUI when the GUI just sits in RAM 99% of the time doing nothing but hogging resources?
Please don't confuse me with the Windows advocate who replied to my message. I was comparing GNOME with KDE, not with Windows; Windows makes me retch.
--
I think you are right. Lack of standard GUI i hurting Linux position as a workstation terribly.
But , try to mention that - you will get tons of post of people defending "freedom of choice","fexibility" and all that bullcrap.
Gee, I guess the Micro-Trolls are out in force today, huh? Is this the best that the anti-Linux task force can muster.
:P
I fart in your general direction.
One of the things I like best about a separate GUI is that if an app hangs, I can kill X and restart it in a few seconds rather than have to reboot the whole OS, like when Word locks up twice a day here at work.
"If Bill Gates had a nickel for everytime I had to reboot... oh wait, he does!"
as it is
No. Mac interface is hardly usable - if you wanna look at the state of the art look at Windows. Seriously.
Unless you are speaking about KDE 1.0, this is nonsense. Contrary to the rest of the software world, KDE become faster in 1.1 and even faster (and more memory efficient) in 1.1.1. Now it is definitely faster than Gnome while using about the same amount of memory. But don't you use Gnome CORBA applets: memory consumption will skyrocket! And BTW, I didn't know Win 3.1 had integrated mail, news and internet browser capabilities with transparent network support...
The are still only GTK+ apps however they both have bonobo componets and will be included in the GNOME workshop office suite
Yup, and you are tied to the GUI that you get shipped with it. With X you can run any window manager that you damn well please, and there are lots of them. You can configure the desktop the way YOU want it, rather than the way that someone else told you to like. I would say that the inferiority lies in something that is unchangable. You don't even have to run X/desktop/GUI/whatever with linux, thereby giving you a system that also takes less resources if you don't need graphics. Linux will always be inferior as it doesn't come with a GUI as standard and is only as an add on. We moved away from a separate GUI shell when we ditched Win3.1. I suggest you lot should do the same or be left in the past Oh yeah, I forgot that MS products are the wave of the future. :)0
They probabably wouldn't be working on KDE anyway, unless it was bassed on C. I guess you could say this about a lot of things. I think about all of the stuff on the freshmeat and think "How about a good 3d editor, word processor, web browser, e-mail client, whatever instead of all of this crap". But I guess that crap (irc clients, gui clients to stuff I never heard of, etc) is usefull to somebody.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
I'll grant you windws has come a long way - my point is that GNOME is horribly retarded.
Nah, it's because you're a bunch of republicans. Alright, check that, it's not because you're republicans, it's just that voting republican is one of the symptoms of whatever disease it is the eastside's got.
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
Now, I am new to the Linux Community, and I can understand that a lot of us don't like MS, one of the reasons I uninstalled windows. But, since when did everyone here start the antimicrsosoft campaign? so many people here have said "if yuo don't like it, don't use it. don't bitch about it." So why does MS get treated differently? I'm looking for good information here, and all I seem to be able to find anywhere is that Linux is better than Windows, and that someday, linux will kick windows out of the desktop market, and that "If Linux can be made easier to use than Windows, Microsoft will truly have something to fear on the desktop."
Why are we trying ot make MS fearful? why not just put out a better product, and advertise it? If linux is better, then MS already has something to fear. If not, then lets stop talking about this damn issue and make it better!
Additionally... I would advise that you reserve judgement on KDE 2.0's performance until it's actually released.... instead of rough benchmarking mid-development code.
Funny, I happen to prefer the windows GUI (even though I run Blackbox at home -- how's that for fast and minimal?). One of my main problems with both of those is neither Apple or MS has gotten a clue and created a native implementation of multiple workspaces. So they are behind in some respects (not to mention configurability).
> We even support Java and we're the fastest performer with Java.
Well, according to the courts as well as the spec MS does not support Java. Like it or not, Sun owns the trademark on Java so if they say an implementation must adhere to a certain standard to be called Java then they are right. Taking away standard core functionality (e.g., RMI and JNI) and trying to claim that your product is still compatible is just bogus.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
GNOME is pretty primitive is some ways, and not the best designed piece of software I'll grant you. Gnumeric is a pretty nice spreadsheet, but that's about all I see of great value in GNOME (of course the fact it dumps core regularly on my machine doesn't help).
KDE is light years more advanced IMHO.
The Mac GUI is superior to the Windows one. It's also impossible to copy. A Linux GUI needs to coexist with existing applications. MacOS GUI has features that would make that impossible. For instance, the menu bar is at the top of the screen (rather than each window). It would be necessary to rewrite all existing X apps to support that. The win95 GUI is a cludge, but a backwards-compatible one. Any app will run under it, no matter how it was written. It's a hodgepodge of GUI styles.
What an odd statement.
... All the energy poured on Linux could have been reversed to create more Windows applications and help Windows to get more features sooner."
"We are comparing apples and oranges here. My 'accusation', as you call it, to Linux is based on the fact that Windows came out first. Of course you scrap an idea or two in developing a new project, but my question was: do we really need another desktop operating system since Windows is already out?
If you can point out why the above is wrong, chances are, you'll have a jump start of figuring out why we need *BOTH* KDE and GNOME.
FLAMEBAIT! :) If only I had mod-points.
Werd.
I now hear talk about a "new" file manager, one that uses GNOME VFS. What's the reasoning behind the switch? Why not continue with GMC? Does anyone know?
GMC is not very extensible, very powerful, very stable, or very usable. It was originally developed just to get something out of the door quickly, I think... and then they started thinking about it, and decided that they could do MUCH better.
I agree. But what is missing is uniform GUI with uniform interface to accessing start menu ( or whatever it is there.)
This bug(#875) has been reported for months, before the 1.0 release in fact. Yet, after all of the updates, it is still around.
No, I can't fix it myself, becuase I have no idea what is wrong. I looked at the code before, and it wasn't obvious. It would be best for the authors of GMC (or maybe it's the panels fault) to fix it.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
Reading the posts above just about everyone is offtopic. Not one post about what people think about the future of GNOME. It's either KDE people who think they are gods gift to the world. Windows people who don't know any thing about linux anyway or just plain old trolls.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
IBM spent godawful amounts of money researching what people found easy to learn and use, and the result is the OS/2 2.0 interface. Win95 largely copied that, with the addition of the start menu and task bar.
But you still can get software for Windows that will radically change look and feel of your desktop. The crucial difference is that when you do it on linux you have to reconfigure all the menus, everything manually and on Windows it will automatically be there ( thanks to APIs that allow programmers to access this stuff)
This sounds a lot like the GNU "info" utility... Rather than providing a simple HTML viewer and putting all the docs in standard HTML format, we could stuck with this ugly, hard-to-learn piece of proprietary crap. Why? Because the invented, so they feel like they have to keep using it.
I don't think it's because the Windows gui is so user-friendly (OS/2's and BeOS' both whip it's ass!) It's simply because the people making the decisions have no imagination or design sense whatsoever. That's why I use Windowmaker on Linux and CDE on Solaris.......although I'm starting to look seriously at XFce (http://www.xfce.org) for Linux.
But that flexibility comes at the step price !
You change your WM on Linux - you are in for a couple hours of recreating your menu entries and stuff to accomodate all your apps...
This is what sucks about X way of doing things.
windows' GUI.. ugh!
I personally _love_ afterstep (although right now I run KDE..). Windows' GUI isn't so userfriendly, it's just that large numbers of people have been working with Windows for so long that they're used to the GUI. For pete's sake, if you'd been working with Blackbox, Afterstep, WindowMaker, etc, for all of your "computing life," you'd say it/they were userfriendly too! It's a matter of what you like, and how bad you're willing to get used to it, and how much you actually use whatever it is you're using so that you get more and more acquainted with it.
Insert mind here.
It's really sad to see how Miguel just doesn't get it that a common object model is vitally important. In order to push his baby Baboon he declines all efforts from the KDE folks to cooperate.
Bonobo is the worst example of the Not Invented Here syndrome in the Gnome camp. It clones a M$ OLE-like interface, and does nothing more than KDE's KOM/OpenParts.
KOM/OP is designed to be portable so it should be no problem to use it in a gtk environment as well. But Miguel argued agressively against it for no rational reason.
Unfortunalety we may end up having two incompatible object models due to Miguels ego.
And this is *much* worse than just having different toolkits...
Nuh-uh! If you were running The Chosen Distro [Debian], you'd just select and install the window manager package you want and be on your way. Debian has a program called 'menu' that automagicly sets up root menus for you. The menu entries reflect what is currently installed on your box. Never need to fuss with editing your own menus again. --Ian Debian GNU/Linux -- http://www.debian.org
People. Use Debian. It can add menu items for you. Easily.
Sheesh.
Werd.
Please, goto your NT box, and kill explorer, and tell me what you see.. Wow, it's still running, but with nothing on the screen.. It then immediatly RElaunches explorer..
Explorer is what provides the GUI.. As a matter of fact, you can replace explorer with something like Litestep, and have the same functionality, aka, another 'Window Manager' beside's explorer..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
You're saying that the advantage of windows over linux is that you don't need to configure your window manager (explorer.exe)
That would be because Microsoft only provides 1. If you'd prefer, you can just stick with the one default WM in linux. THen you never have to reconfigure. Just close your eyes and pretend you don't have choices if that's what you prefer.
You don't understand. It is not how many WM Microsoft provides, it is ability to uniformly access menu entries and things like that. There is no such option on Linux.
As a few people have pointed out, debian does offer that in a program called Menu.
I've never used it myself, but now that i know it exists, i'm going to look into it.
Yeah. It can, I have heard that one. But you know what ? I would rather do it manually than be forced to used that definition of user unfreindlines they use for package managment ...
This was true a couple of years ago when I started using linux.
It is not true with the two wms I use most frequently, kwm (aka the window manager of KDE) and Windowmaker. In windowmaker you start and app and you drop the produced icon somewhere. In KDE you create shortcuts just like the Mac and Windows, or even drop that icon on your K-Menu.
These fetures are cool and damn useful. However, you miss the point. The point is sure I have to do some configuration if I want to customize my desktop. You have to do the same thing under Windows, MacOS, NeXTstep, BeOS, OS/2, ect. The difference is that I get to choose which GUI best fits my needs instead of MS or Apple, or Redhat or $VENDOR choosing for me.
In short, yes, a bit of configuration is necessary if I switch my windowmanager, but that's an extra option I have that I wouldn't have with other systems. If I choose one windowmanager and stick with it, I have no more configuration to do than I would under a lot of other systems. Finally, if you really don't like having a choice, you can just stick with whatever the default WM for the system is.
Simply put, there are no disadvantages of this system over the way windows' users aproach their GUI.
I haven't looked at the CVS versions for a LONG time, but I can only hope that when 2.0 comes out, it'll be stable..
The more they rush, the worse they make Gnome look..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I tried GNOME and Enlightenment but found them to be big and slow. With fvwm I'd stay logged in for days or weeks without a problem. With GNOME/Enlightenment I had to log out at least daily to reclaim memory. Fvwm is _much_ faster too. I'm a longtime SGI/IRIX user. My .fvwmrc file is setup to mimic 4Dwm as closely as possible. Anybody else?
I HIGHLY recommend it for people stuck using windows at work who wish they could use Linux. it may still be windows, but at least it looks nice. :) You can get Litestep HERE. Try it...you'll thank me. :)
Werd.
I now hear talk about a "new" file manager, one that uses GNOME VFS. What's the reasoning behind the switch? Why not continue with GMC? Does anyone know?
BTW, I have to respond to all the "GNOME sucks as a desktop flamebait". GNOME stands for "GNU Network Object Model Environment". The innovations are largely to provide GNU-licensed protocols for object sharing between GUI applications. GNOME IS NOT A GUI, GTK+ IS THE GUI GNOME USES! GNOME does come with some basic applications that make a fairly basal desktop. For the most part, all you see when you start GNOME is a little panel and some icons. If that's how you judge GNOME, then you're judging the book by the cover.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
--
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
HAL9000
There are no specs to extend, it's the fault of the packagers for not putting in the start menu. For example, take a look at my SmIRC (you can find it on freshmeat). If you install the RPMs, you'll have SmIRC added to both the Gnome start menu, or the fvwm2/AnotherLevel menu, if you're running those window managers. It's just sloppy packaging, that's all.
--
Moreover, as a developer, I can't see myself wanting to develop for a desktop environment written in C, when I can develop for one that's written in C++. I don't think C has much of a future for the development of distributed, component-based applications.
--
I've been a strong advocate for GNOME since version 0.3. I knew about KDE but I decided to "suffer" a little in order to promote real free software. Then I talked with some of the folks of KDE at the last LWCE and decided to give KDE a try. KDE rocks. These guys not only did a GUI that works today but they spent a good deal of time and effort in making everything consistent and simply a pleasure to use. I agree, it looks a little too Windowish but this can be fixed easily with both KDE 2.0 and themes or using E for the WM (the development version has KDE support). If the widget set was the big problem that caused the creation of a new project, GNOME, I'm disappointed in that decision. It would have been much faster and simpler to write a free version of Qt, in other words help the Harmony project, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. The current version of GNOME is far from being complete or even comparable with KDE. The file manager never worked and now the GNOME team decided to rewrite completely. Not a good sign. Excuse me but I believed that one of the strong points of of OSS was to promote code reuse, with GNOME we keep rewriting code over and over. Since KDE is an Open Source project, if you don't like something about it just grab the code and change it. Last time I checked the KDE folks where more than happy to see more people helping them and they showed good attitude and realist goals.
Take care,
--Paolo
May be people have enough of Miguels big-mouthed attitude. He really gave GNOME a bad name considering his remarks about KDE or the false information by releasing premature stuff as the ultimate thing.
GNOME is nice, looks pretty and has some 'personality', although the recent RedHat plans to turn it into a windows clone will likely kill that.
BUT, PLEASE don't state it has the necessary maturity to move on to a totally new version.
KDE made big improvements from 1.0 to 1.1, and even 1.1->1.1.1 was a big step. KDE 2 will be totally new.
So why hould anybody be excited about Miguels babbling. He just reiterates what has been promised for ages (some Gnome advocates even state its already implemented).
The really sad thing, however, is that Miguel wants to go with Baboon instead of working together with the KOM/OpenParts guys.
Here goes another chance of cooperation...
He is just pointing out that coding GUI in C is insane...
Does it seem like there's much more NT/Win trolls in here than usual? What gives?
We need a new name for these posters. My suggestions: wintrolls.
--
dumbtrolls :)
Okay, I agree with that, default configurations for the average user should have a single screen. But what about people who aren't "average" users? Can someone become familiar with an environment first, then find out about multiple workspaces that is rumoured to exist? Is that a bad, counter-productive thing?
No, RedHat has a few flaws that make their configuration act unintuitive even for Windows users. A Windows user expects: 1) When they open a new Window it has focus 2) When they click anywhere on the Window it gains focus 3) Icons are meaningful RedHat's default: 1) When you open a Window it normally doesn't gain focus. 2) Focus is only gained if the titlebar is clicked. 3) The icons down the side mostly have the RedHat logo.
Evidently you have decided that we must all cater to the lowest common denominator. Our schools do it, newspapers, television, I refuse to lower myself down to using one screen just because someone else can't comprehend it. One size does not fit all. If you're going to use that argument, Don't read books, some people are illiterate! Don't use the web, some people don't understand!
The average user needs to have us help them configure things. I'm not saying my grandmother should run GNU/Linux, she should use what ever is easy to use and works. But she should have the choice. My mechanic fixes my car, I fix their network so they can order parts. Do what you do best and use what works best for you.
One Last Thing, in KDE you can turn the virtual desktops off.
Yeah, right.
ROTFL
Will in Seattle
i should point out that gnome 1.2 has several "undocumented" bugs that everyone seems to know about but no one does anything about. Heres an example : try adding a GtkHScrollbar to a GtkText Widget ...it shows up fine but doesnt actually work..a fact thats not documented anywhere that i can find. The text example has thoughtfully turned linewrap off so you wouldnt notice that horizontal scrolling is not supported. damn it ppl - DOCUMENT non working code..at least display a warning or something...dont just leave it there without any explanations.
There are alot of things that will be interesing to the future of Gnome
1. Enlightenment - Raster after his departure from redhat has said that he wants to turn enlightenment into a DE on its own and that if gnome support gets in the way, he'll leave it out. Gnome should always allow one to use any window manager but it really needs a default gtk based wm. For the transitioning windows user and users that are not "computer geeks" need a wm that only does what gnome doesn't, no extra menus and buttons and window behavior like that of windows. They need to be able to change event sounds and themes in ONE place.
2. Esound - The gnome people are gonna be ditching it and creating their own sound mixing daemon. What we really need is a universal sound mixing daemon that all linux apps use. We can't expect mom and dad and other "computer illiterates" to change sound daemons or turn off a peticular sound daemon to run different apps and games.
3. Wizards - The Gnome people are working on alot of fancy stuff, what about stuff future users are really gonna need like printer and internet connection wizards. The people that linux is going after, the "computer illiterate windows user" usually hops on his PC to do 2 things, print stuff and surf the internet. Gnome and Kde have GUI dialers but they need to be more user friendy. As a sidenote, does anyone know why the Gnome-network package wasn't included with RH6.0, it had a gnome-ppp a gui dialer that would be easier for beginners that writing the scripts.
4. Toolkits - isn't it a little annoying to be using 4 or more commomn toolkits in linux. GTK themes in Gnome are beautiful but only on GTK apps. Another thing, are ISV's gonna use GTK or something that has commercial support like QT. Personally I think they'll end up using QT. Also I heard that KDE is gonna make gtk themes compatible with KDE Themes, this would be very cool.
5.But it looks too much like windows - It has to, Gnome and KDE are going after windows market share, it has to behave similair to windows to make transitioning linux user feel comfortable. If you don't like Gnome there are plenty of other WM out thier that look nothing like windows. And forget what whats really bad about windows, not necessarily its plain boring looks, its stability!
Personally I like KDE and Gnome, I use gnome because I like the themes and the toolbar applets. But I think that for alot of users, users that actually like windows they are gonna be more comfy with KDE. I also sincerely hope that the KDE and Gnome people work together. Its a win win situation.
Explain to me why multiple workspaces are bad. I found them useful in grouping together related windows. Web browsing in one workspace, ftp connections in another, development in a third, and some software documentation in a fourth, on a 14 inch monitor running Blackbox. And, I've read somewhere that BeOS's workspaces can have different color depths, which is pretty usefull if you are say, making a webpage that has 24 bit images, and you want to see what it looks like at 8 bit color. Why is it nonsense? (And somebody please respond, I hate being insulted w/o anybody explaining my ignorance).
What X is lacking is an API to interface with WM to do things like adding, replacing menu items etc...
This API would give programmer a chance to implement many things automaticaly. There is really no reason why these things are left solely to the user. It is computer after all, it can easily handle issues like that.
The GNOME acronym came first, the explanation later. I guess they just wanted to have a funny counterpart of "Troll". In the beginning GNOME had very little to do with networking. Even CORBA is pretty useless without an object model, Gnome panel applets are not considerably more powerful than Window Maker applets, despite CORBA.
GNOME IS NOT A GUI, GTK+ IS THE GUI GNOME USES!
Well, not quite. GNOME extends/adds many widgets, thus GNOME apps look a bit different than plain GTK apps.
In fact, GNOME (like KDE) is a GUI, a desktop 'manager', a app development framework and (soon) a distributed object framework based on CORBA. Unfortunately GNOME will likely be incompatible to the much more advanced KOM/OpenParts object model that KDE uses, and they use non-CORBA-compliant authentication, which may even make IIOP communication impossible.
B/A
"fix if yourself, you have the source". "its still in beta", "its not even bayta yet" Hell, if I had time fix bloat/bugs in WMs, I would just write my own WM.
I am disappointed to see the high amount of flames and trolls taking place. If people actually take the time to read about what Gnome is doing with CORBA, XML, and bonobo. People are immediately assuming that bonobo and CORBA are going to bring on more bloat, but the idea behind these concepts is to reduce bloat and increase power. I have been following Gnome development fairly carefully, and I am very impressed with what they are coming up with. They are making great effort to implement everything correctly and elegantly. They are redoing their file manager to make it more powerful, faster, and more embeddable. Their new mailer is going to be truly next-generation. Their gnome-workshop will include the Gimp and Gnumeric, which are both already very advanced applications, as well as AbiWord, which is developing nicely. They are also working with the LyX people to do a *correct* gnome port, rather than how the KDE people did it; they will be using the LyX gui abstraction code to do things cleanly. Gnome is an extremely nice environment, and it is very configurable. Gnome 1.2 and Gnome 2.0 will be very impressive products, and they will be far more streamlined and faster than the previous generation. Please withold your flames until you actually research what GNOME is up to.
I mean, they take about 5 minutes ordering their lattes. Real Seattleites know their barristas and will say "Yup" in response to the question: "You want your regular, Jim?".
Besides, we drink Chai or tea in the real Seattle nowadays.
Will in Seattle
I think they've been given marching orders again. After their dismal failures in the InfoWorld fora, they've decided slashdot is the enemy.
Hey, guys, lighten up. Go to HempFest or something and get a life.
Will in Seattle
Uhhh..
I saw about 15 posts from you saying that linux isn't worth it because the menus dont' get added automatically.
Someone tells you that you can add them automatically, and you say that you'd rather do it manually than use the tool that is provided?
I always wonder why people like you bother talking. You just want to complain about problems. You ignore any possible solutions, and then just go on doing what you normally do.
You're not interested in learning anything, just convincing yourself that your way is the right way.
I agree, trying to add OLE gigo would be a waste. Better off getting decent CORBA implementations anyways - more bang for the buck and better able to integrate into the enterprise.
And don't even get me started about OLE+ - what a turkey.
Will in Seattle
You go install Litestep and see if all of your menus work. They wont. You have to edit the step.rc that comes with the default litestep theme or whatever theme you install. it's a hassle. it takes a while to get it like you want it. (though there now are utils to help do this ;) Other than that i love litestep. if they could smash all the bugs it'd be a win9x/NT dream.
Despite Miguels plans with no code to back it up, Gnome development has become very unfocused and uncoordinated. As evidence of this look at the mailing lists archived at www.gnome.org. There is no direction for Gnome in the future. Contrast this to KDE, which already has a ton of working code for KDE2.0 (screenshots are on www.jorsm.com/~mosfet/screenshots.html) that does more than the Gnome vapour....
That has nothing to do with X. X is for network transparent display management on a basic level, not much more.
What you want, is a standardised spec for accessing window manager features. The makers of kwm, E, window maker, blackbox etc. are currently working together to provide that.
In the meantime distributions like Debian and SuSE (susewm) offer automatic menu generation through custom solutions.
KDE has already had it's one slashdot story this month. Now all the rest must be Gnome coverage.
Which, sad to say also applies to Windows 2000.
...
Actually, I should say, it's not that it hasn't been tested, it's just that noone did anything to fix the problems found in the tests, because "they were not cosmetically significant".
I remember the old days with MSFT and how, if it was a bug, you just coded to create an error message to pass certification, not actually fix the code
Will in Seattle
I like fvwm as well, but it too has bugs. Sometimes when I place new windows on my screen, it changes to another virtual desktop. And it is annoying that Netscapes find dialog does not get focus automatically.
Regardless, Bonobo's object model is far more sane than KDE's mess (look at the number of class members of their respective base classes). Miguel and et. al. nicely stole the best working ideas from OLE, OpenDOC and JavaBeans and they have crafted a very clean well thought out system. KDE's model evolved out of an immature research project, and it shows.
This is a Unix and technology oriented site, where KDE is appropriate. Windows is not.
No comment has been scored down, not even obvious trolls. Come on, at least get the ones in all caps.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
I submitted this story about the KDE interview. Let's see what Slashdot does (bets anyone)?.
KDE is the one here guilty of NIH. The M$ OLE system is not a bad design, althout the MS implimentation is garbage. Gnome is using a known good technology which already has a ton of users.
No *you* don't understand. Of *course* you can uniformly access menu entries under NT for *all* of the WM because it only provides 1.
You can simulate this effect under linux by only using 1 WM. You will find that all your menus are uniform.
Duh.
Sheesh, everyone on slashdot knows who "owns" slashdot. And it's not Red Hat. I should know, since I now "own" Red Hat and it isn't one of the Red Hat assets.
Nice try. Cafeteria shut down in Redmond, troll?
Will in Seattle
That statement was ridiculous. Sure you can use C++ with KDE, but that's the ONLY language you can use. GNOME allows you to use ANY language. C, C++, Java (a far more sane choice for GUI coding) and a whole slew of others have bindings available for the GNOME ORB.
Well, it depends on what you do. For your needs, perhaps. For me, I'm still undecided between KDE and GNOME. I look forward to the next versions of both.
Will in Seattle
After reading yet another Slashdot story full of comments about the instability and slowness of GNOME, I am forced to shout this from the rooftops:
.60's GNOME integration is great.
What the hell is wrong with you people?!
I'm running GNOME on a modest system - a PII/233 with a Taiwanese warehouse overstock video card barely able to run at 1024x768x16bit. Everything about GNOME is extremely responsive, extremely stable. The very first 1.0 release did have some issues, none of which I found to be that troubling. They're fixed now. GNOME hasn't given me a moment's trouble in months. There's simply no reason for this kind of bulldata to be spread on Slashdot.
Reasons why my milage may vary:
1. I compiled GNOME myself. I simply don't trust someone to package a complex system with lots of dependencies and have it work flawlessly on every setup.
2. I don't use Enlightenment. I'm willing to bet most accusations of slowness have to do with this sluggish, quirky window manager from the depths of heck. I've been a WindowMaker user long before GNOME, and
The first poster was a troll.
E is good.
love the sig.
- GNOME should focus on stability and maturity instead of fancy new features
- GNOME should have gone with KOM/OpenParts (i.e. ported it to gtk, at least be compatible) instead of making their own, half-baked version of an object model.
Like this, it just seems to be another vapour stunt of Miguel de I.This is not all that window managers do.. They do Window Managment.. What to do with a window when I minimize it is a perfect example.. That's why it's called a Window MANAGER.. Notice the manager part in there?
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Good name. You will be written up in the FAQ as the originator of the phrase. Sadly, in ten years, noone will remember what it means.
;-)
Will in Seattle
I'd assumed that the reason that the desktop icons had the RedHat logo on them was that they were ``links'' back to web pages on www.redhat.com and it made sense to me. If you don't like that icon... change it.
I doubt that that particular generalization is valid. I found the default settings OK but not quite to my liking (perhaps a little annoying). Big deal. Change 'em. I found the default settings for CDE on DEC UNIX and HP/UX fairly execrable as well (hey, I'm not a big CDE fan but it's better than nothing; certaintly better than the Win95 laptop I have to use to read the company cc:mail). Again, big deal. Change 'em.
Geez. Can't find anything more important to whine about than the default icons? You GUI whiners slay me. ``[insert-despised-vendor-name here], their distribution blows chow because it come out of the box exactly the way I like it.'' Puhleez.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Slashdot is chock full of Linux bigots who've never been confronted with the truth. I can only speak for myself, but my critical comments are intended as a public service for the unwashed(!) masses.
And I use neither Windows nor Intel products.
So sayeth the MicroSoftie. And the folks in Redmond wonder why people are fleeing from them. Just keep rooting for your team that way tweedledum, the fans on this side of the field are laughing our butts off at you. "Windows is packaged with Solitaire. Linux is distributed with Doom. You can have your deck of cards, I'll take a chainsaw!"
It might be good standard for GNOME but I happened to run KDE on one box and IceWM on another.
It doesn't do me much good that GNOME apps have some sort of internall standard , does it ?