It'll be released with GNOME 1.4...since GNOME 1.4 *is* Nautilus + bugfixes. Evolution team is working hard to try and make the date, and we hope they do!...but tenatively that'll just be sugar. Nautilus and all the new libraries (which it depends on, but are general GNOME libraries developed by HelixCode, Eazel, and Redhat) are driving the actual release date.
You're probably aware that many of the original MacOS authors helped write Nautilus. So it should come as no surprise that all those toolbars and menus and sidebars can be globally turned off, and "always open in new window" turned on. That'll make it work almost exactly like a Mac in terms of opening new windows in a really light browsing mode. We also have a tree view like mac (with files and folders integrated).
Mozilla isn't going to be in the code-base or anything. Its a freaking component. And you can trivially use the GtkHTML component instead (you don't even need to download Mozilla, actually), or any other component. Or you can install *no* components (which will be shared GNOME and application wide) and browse from a standalone browser only. Bonobo (our component model) means flexibility and choice.
I'm not sure what you're trying to drive at for Nautilus. We certainly *do* use GNOME and Linux in a hardcore way. There's no way that Nautilus would port well to another non-Unix OS atm (it runs on Solaris and other Unices, and some unices like FreeBSD ports are currently in progress). Bonobo, GNOME's component architecture, means that we're totally tying into the existing GNOME components...Nautilus will be part of GNOME 1.4 (upcoming GNOME release), after all.
And what's great about Nautilus is that it adds things that even *I* use (I've never really found much use for a graphical file manager before). In some ways, like Medusa, it adds power that the shell doesn't have...that'll put hair on your chest:-)
What you're describing *is* what the Nautilus architecture was designed to do! Bonobo means that we don't have to write into Nautilus the ability to handle all the myriad file types, but another goal of Nautilus is to display useful extended information about files before you open it. That means that anyone (and we might) could write a bonobo control that would plug into Nautilus and would extend the file-info about MP3s to show the id3 tags. We currently do that for images (an easy no-brainer using a pre-existing bonobo component), but the point is that all this stuff is easy for others to do, and we'll be polishing a lot more of this in before release.
BTW, what you're saying about images is pretty useless. I can see probing the ID3 tags being good...and dimensions of an image. But why do you want to see the layer numbers before opening? I mean, you could write this in, but as you said before...just launch the freaking app:-)
Nautilus could probably be 3x faster or more when its optimized (before release). We have major algorthimic slow-downs like n^2 algorithms still in the code, but they'll all go away (and its fairly easy). We're almost to the "Feature complete" milestone, and then we'll be in hardcore performance and bugfixing mode before release. Pavel Cisler, who wrote a lot of the file stuff on BeOS (which is *FAST*, like faster than ls!) is working on Nautilus and intends to give it serious speed boosts.
Sorry to keep re-iterating that title. I want to help inject information into the slashdot discussion so it doesn't go in circles like previous mentions of Eazel and Nautilus have. I hope that'll change now that people can actually see how Nautilus really works. (I wrote an informative response to this comment as well titled "we have fscked the filesystem" or something like that.
I'm sure everyone is tired of reading my posts...but since it doesn't feel like people who have actually tried Nautilus are posting and most Nautilus developers are asleep (for once) at 5am, here goes again.
Nautilus isn't just a fscking file manager. If it was, it wouldn't need all that dependency crap. In fact, most of those dependencies are libraries that we wrote to support Nautilus. And its not bloated. Darin Adler, our chief software architect really is the shit, you should hear the stories about him walking into companies on tours and like rewriting their code during his visit, and stuff like that. Its not bloated. This *is* the underlying architecture for GNOME 1.4. So you want your environment to be uber small? Gee...guess that 2 gig disk (maybe you actually have smaller..? but my home machine is 2 gigs) doesn't have a spare 100megs for your OPERATING ENVIRONMENT. The depencies are totally reasonable for a desktop. When you use Nautilus it *is* a big download because what you are essentially doing is downloading a preview of GNOME 1.4 on top of your old GNOME 1.2. DUH we need new libraries to be installed, if we didn't...well that would mean we hadn't written anything!
And BTW, its all componentized so you don't need to download Mozilla. That's the whole point of Nautilus... So maybe our first fscking tarball release doesn't baby you enough to tell you that, sorry...maybe it should. But this isn't release software, so its going to be a little rougher, yes!
Yes...Nautilus will be able to do things like that. Its not in the preview release (I think...? #1 might be). But our views are totally pluggable using Bonobo and we're writing a "shell" view that will be in whatever directory you're currently browsing. Additionally shell commands will be executable just by typing them (yes, in icon and list views). You can also select files just by typing shell globs. And hopefully when you type a command it will actually contextually be executed on whatever you have selected (optionally, of course).
As for running as root, that's dealt with through PAM and an already written gnome interface that prompts you for a password. We're adding that before the final release, its easy but undone. Have no fear...
If you're really interested you can help us today...Neither would be particularly difficult:-) irc.gnome.org #nautilus...
Linux is great. I like it. X is pretty fscked and makes it hard to do some things. X is great because its so networkable, etc, but X is definitely showing its age. This sometimes limits what we can do. There are things we'd like to do but couldn't because of Linux too, but all in all Linux (do to its draw on Unix) is a pretty good architecture, and at least its really stable:-)
I strongly doubt that you've actually used Nautilus, because it doesn't work like explorer. In fact, I thought we'd be flamed to death for it working so much like the Macintosh, but a bunch of lam3rz saw the sidebar and rather than actually looking at Nautilus decided that it looked like Windows Explorer. Guess what? We aren't exactly running explorer next to our development stations. And I'm not hearing people bitch about other free software products like Evolution, KWord, AbiWord, and KDevelop (not to dis them, they're great products - if somethings good by all means copy the good stuff!) that rip off Microsoft products interfaces DIRECTLY - to the menu organization level in some cases.
So guess what? Its not windows explorer. People don't think of mobile phones as computers, and hopefully Nautilus will be intuitive and physically consistent too. Explorer does a lot of things right, and has some good underlying architecture, but they just don't get the final result right. Its really missing in the "feels right" department. And Nautilus isn't. Even this really preliminary release, slow as it is, should give you a feeling for how cool Nautilus is going to be.
And its not a simple file browser. File browser is stupid and limiting. I'm too tired to really go into why its not, but basically Bonobo means that Nautilus can do a lot more to interface you with your documents, data, code, etc etc.
Besides all this, when you actually use Nautilus it looks nothing like Windows explorer. Nautilus has a lot of great eyecandy. Our sidebar is actually fucking useful too, not just wasted space (though I often prefer to turn my sidebar off, all that being possible and configurable of course). The sidebar allows you to access meta-view components like a tree browser, a drag board, annotations, man/info browser, etc etc (all componentized, so its easy for anyone to add new ones, we just have some sample ones).
Try Nautilus. Those who have just looked at screenshots...Fuck off. Come by the booth at LWE and I'll talk about the architecture. It rocks.
Its interesting that you bring this up. I don't want to go into a lengthy response, but the Nautilus architecture is in place to totally remove the necessity of a conventional filesystem for users who don't want to manipulate it. We won't drive that to the interface for 1.0, but post-1.0 almost all the underlying stuff is in place and will be tied in.
Medusa, which was developed at Eazel and will be part of GNOME 1.4 is a disk cataloger and search tool similar to slocate - except that it indexes far more than just filename. It takes about 30 minutes to scan a normal to large disk, and of course isn't going to be doing this while you're working:-) The index files are pretty small (10 megs or so) and of course optional if you don't want this feature.
So what does this all mean? This means that arbitrary, complex searches take a couple seconds to run. Medusa is *also* interfaced in through our virtual filesystem. So, the term I like to use for it is remarkably similar to what you quote... Medusa *is* a multi-key semantically queried virtual filessytem. And yes, post-1.0 this will be tied into virtual folders that are actually "searches" that will live update as you change the disk, etc etc. And it will be *fast*. That's only one example of all the things Nautilus architecture is letting us do...
"While I support the ideals of this company, namely, to create a user friendly, almost 'mac-like' interface for Linux, wouldn't it have been better to refine a pre-existing one?"
Such as...? I hope you don't say Konqueror, because I'll point out that that was a rewrite too (and a good one too!). Would you like to propose a pre-existing one that had a strong enough architecture that it would have been worth rewriting? In fact, adding necessary GNOME support (bonobo, gnome-vfs, etc etc) would have probably been more difficult than writing from scratch - almost all the original code would have had to have been nixed.
Code is only re-usable if it was written right. Period. And the architecture is part of what makes Nautilus great... You'll hear Miguel rave about bonobo but its true, Nautilus components are really reusable in other applications. And bonobo means that Nautilus *isn't* a total rewrite. There are some great bonobo components like EOG that we were able to just use off the shelf. What we're building is an architecture that means the next file manager revision, even if its by somebody else or a different architecture won't have to be a rewrite. (and yes, I am a Nautilus developer)
The GNOME foundation is far more exciting than "yet another body of big companies trying to ride the wave". The foundation is being formed for and by GNOME hackers and other GNOME active parties (artists, etc) to steer and represent the needs of GNOME. Part of the descision to incorporate a foundation (think the Apache people, or the FSF) *is* to provide a way to interface with big companies, many of whom, such as Sun, are now betting some things on GNOME. However the foundation is not being formed by Sun, Compaq, etc - we're forming the foundation. There will be a corporate advisory committee with fees based the company size for companies interested in GNOME, but its not like they're going to be voting or anything...they just provide (much desired) input.
Any somewhat active GNOME contributor can join the foundation and vote...
Just wanted to correct a poorly worded artictle (which seems to be being misunderstood here).
-Seth (seth@eazel.com - I don't *necessarily* represent the views of eazel:-))
Do not download GNOME until the mirrors have had a chance to sync. This will be about 0.5-1 day. Just wait. If you do not, *nobody* will be able to get their GNOME. We'll all be fscked ala FreeBe. Its not on the GNOME web site because the download is not ready - it'll be synced soon enough, but only if you wait.
HelixCode has enough mirrors to stand a slashdotting, but only if those mirrors have the code. Every person who doesn't try to pound on the mirrors is 30 more that will be able to download GNOME soon.
Please be responsible members of the community!
(and BTW, gnome people are VERY mad at slashdot right now)
Actually VNC probably wouldn't work very well for this sort of application, unless I understand it wrong (disclaimer: I've only used it for a week). VNC transmits state. Thus it really only handles one instance of X. I believe that for every graphical login you would have to have a copy of the XServer running... Very resource intensive!!!
You might be able to kludge something together, most of the parts are certainely there. But VNC is designed more for network control of a centralized server than allowing generic graphical X logins.
Also VNC *can* be very resource heavy on the server system, even w/o the overhead of one instance of X to login...which is killer if you are serving *lots*. Using a Java XServer has the advantage that it adds no more overhead than is minimally necessary (I mean, you have to run multiple instances of your WM/Desktop and Apps, but other than that).
Those intrepid enough / with spare cycles to throw away may consider setting like this up themselves. It is almost garunteed that workspot will try to stay behind the development curve. While this is good...because it makes for a consistent environment with little change...it doesn't demo Linux's "flashier" side very well. Not to flame, but KDE doesn't make a stunning impression. Yes, its useful, but it isn't very grabbing.   In any case you can easily setup your own similar installation. I've been setting one up for our LUG. It'll give us an URL to refer people to when they want to know what Linux "looks like". I'm using the WiredX java applet, a fine piece of software (it even performs well!!!). You can download it from http://www.wiredx.net.   If nothing else, it demonstrates the flexibility of X right off the bat:) I have gotten so used to it that I was surprised to find a friend shocked when I showed him that I could do this! One easily forgets why one uses *nix, hehe.
Most Linux users have no traditional Unix sysadmin, or user experience behind them. Traditionally the difficulty alone of installing Linux served as a sort of filter against immoral users engineering viruses. If you've ever administered a real system, or know of people who do, you're very unlikely to write a virus (unless you really have issues!).
I suspect that a rash of Linux viruses will come not from an economic depression (though that could certainley cause it too...think Russia), but from the midst of the masses migrating to Linux. While virtually everyone installing Linux, from "script kiddies" to Windows NT converts are scrupulous...you are bound to get a higher percentage of people who would be willing to write a virus.
Now granted, more of these people are incapable of programming such an entity compared with old Unix hands...but where there's a will there's a way. Somebody is bound to kludge together (or even finely tune, you never know) a series of downloaded hacks (hey! free source code!), and write a little code of their own...voila! Microwave virus. And it only takes one good virus to cause serious issues. Particularly because these things almost always encourage copy-cat crime. Odds are we'll see a rash of viruses any time now - whether the economy is strong or not.
Want to believe that even without a high "activiation energy" (ie the work and knowledge to install Linux) the pool of users will remain "clean"? One only has to look at Amateur Radio for a counter-example. For a long time proficieny with Morse Code was required to obtain a license. Now this may not seem like much of a barrier...but it was. When the "No-Code" license was introduced a wave of new radio operators began coming on the air. Now I don't dispute the overall effects of the new license, I think most agree they were good overall. No sense keeping a good thing to an "elite" group of people. But there was one strong negative effect - the introduction of a few, er, less than choice individuals.
Did such individuals exist in the "old world"? Well, yes. But they were a much lower percentage. Now radio had to deal with irritating interuptions and people refusing to follow protocol. A small loss, but many repeaters (stations that retransmit a weak signal) were unprepared and were abused as a result. Protection mechanisms were instituted, but it often took some months during which time a repeater was far less useful.
The long and short is that a company like Symantec (Norton) might find it worthwhile to have a Linux offering prepared. No use deploying it (well, not with scruples at least - I'm sure some morons will bite) until viruses exist. But when they do come, and I bet they will, that company will have a big lead. Other companies would probably take several months to a year to produce. By that time one could really corner the market. Linux users win, some lucky company wins (hopefuly whoever wrote the #*$&#*$&* virus shrivels up and dies). Yay!
I think few of us familiar with the sort of hacks we deploy on our systems, the sort of tricks a *nix system can perform...would deny the feasibility of writing a virus. To do so would be...naive. Now that I think of it, though I realize acting before the fact isn't the strength of the free software community, it would probably be good to begin working on a feasible free program soon. Hope we never would have to use it...but... It would be bad, bad, BAD for Linux systems to be crippled for 5 months, admins cowering in fear, because of a rash of viruses. That would take major PR recovery...and Linux really isn't that strong. Remember, the media likes biting those it adored mere months ago. Makes for good news.
The digital millenium copyright act certainely posses distinct dangers to existing leeway under copyright laws. But it also forces the law to "smarten up" about the digital world. That said, there are *good* clauses, like specifically allowing reverse engineering for compatibility. BRAVO!.
Before people snipe at it based on the above (which is certainely a valid perspective), I would highly encourage people to peruse the bill for themselves. Its long, yes, but very clear and direct as these things go. The complete text can be found online, but there are also many good abridged versions! Give it a shot....this is a very accessible and important document for all of us (even non-americans).
Sometimes I think its better to institute a clear law I agree with less...than to continue using a decrepit and unreliable set of rulings. AT least now I have some idea of the "official" stance on things.:-)
This is a great chance for people to try out the latest gnome-core....including such "enhancements" as the gnome-weather applet and a Macintosh-like menubar (the legendary foobar). Slurp it down boys and girls!
Apologies. I clearly misunderstood the abilities of the card. I didn't understand it had abilities even before the computer was powered. I concede entirely.
While I can envision some cases where having serial IO would be valuable so early in the boot process, the fact is that monitors and keyboards are now so cheap, abundant, and portable as to render serial IO archaic. This is particularly true because one can use the serial ports for IO once your *nix is booted!
And for the random cases where your BIOS has been scrambled by interplanetary nuclear forces, grab the monitor off the desk...6 feet away (!).
I'm sorry, but the old way does not make it the right way! Use the cheap-hardware trend...there's essentially no reason today for anything but a monitor (and most of us use ethernet once the system is booted, anyway:)
Being skeptical is probably good, but do you really think that privatization of everything is the right way to go?
No...certainely not. Which is why I'm merely skeptical;-) I think its good for slashdotters to make sure we do not judge with a double standard. On the one hand "Slashdoters" tend to stand for technological awareness, on the other hand they often rile against government involvement.
We need to seriously ensure we do not allow for things that benefit us directly, but violate long term "guidelines" we apply liberally to slaughter our foes. Its proper to carefully scrutinize our actions awhen there is vested interest in our violating our standards. We should be more careful and liberal in controlling ourselves, in spite of the nobility of certain causes.
I think the sig I see flying around is appropriate sometimes "Slashdot: open source closed minds". Sometimes I think the truth is that we are so open-minded that our brains leaked onto the floor! About the same effect:) Just wanting people to think w/o mob rushing in a popular direction.
Parts of the US already offer this through the library system...particularly Kitsap County in Washington. This was originally instituted as text-based dialup access over 5-6 years ago...pretty progressive. The idea was that the internet was becoming a major information source, and the library is responsible for providing people with information. Pretty sharp reasoning if you ask me!
That said, this represents still another progression. While a library is often (not always) a government controlled agency, having a city take such a progressive stance is interesting. The question becomes...is it the city's place?
Now my first reaction to this was pleasure. "Gee...that's really cool. That a city government would be so encouraging of technology." But further reflection begs the question of necessity. For instance, do you think that the internet access will be of the same quality as a commercial provider? Maybe initially...but think of AT&T when it was government run.
While this doesn't sound like a monopoly, per se, it will be much harder for a small ISP to stay in business. Maybe even a large ISP (though big business has a way of bullying government and vice versa). The net effect to the citizens of Hamburg may be sub-par service.
A simple thought experiment makes the danger very clear. This is very similar to the "what if everyone littered" argument...but bear with me. What would happen if every city in every "wealthy" nation began providing internet access to its citizens? The short term effects would be very positive! This sort of connectivity is bound to change life as much as the car or the telephone. The problem comes in the long term. While cities would probably try to continue providing high-quality service, demand for high-tech faster connections would drop dramatically. Small companies with innovative ideas that would have survived in a competitive market will probably go out of business.
Status quo will become the normitive in communication (as opposed to today's computer market where the status quo is actually change!).
I expect to hear a lot of cheering about this on slashdot...and this may be good in the short run (or maybe in the long run if the government quickly pawns this off competitive companies once life is saturated with internet use...a good thing IMHO). But its worth evaluating the potential dangers and not embracing such action based on immediate emotional reactions.
I remain skeptical concerning government involvement...even when I agree with the direction being pushed
History has shown that the most positive trends tend to be towards privatization of technology! Remember that the citizens of Hamburg will be paying for this...in the long run. This isn't just free connections. And it seems likely that the city "ISP" won't run at as low cost/per connection as a struggling private company. Just a guess;)
Slashdot Mirror
It'll be released with GNOME 1.4...since GNOME 1.4 *is* Nautilus + bugfixes. Evolution team is working hard to try and make the date, and we hope they do! ...but tenatively that'll just be sugar. Nautilus and all the new libraries (which it depends on, but are general GNOME libraries developed by HelixCode, Eazel, and Redhat) are driving the actual release date.
You're probably aware that many of the original MacOS authors helped write Nautilus. So it should come as no surprise that all those toolbars and menus and sidebars can be globally turned off, and "always open in new window" turned on. That'll make it work almost exactly like a Mac in terms of opening new windows in a really light browsing mode. We also have a tree view like mac (with files and folders integrated).
Mozilla isn't going to be in the code-base or anything. Its a freaking component. And you can trivially use the GtkHTML component instead (you don't even need to download Mozilla, actually), or any other component. Or you can install *no* components (which will be shared GNOME and application wide) and browse from a standalone browser only. Bonobo (our component model) means flexibility and choice.
I'm not sure what you're trying to drive at for Nautilus. We certainly *do* use GNOME and Linux in a hardcore way. There's no way that Nautilus would port well to another non-Unix OS atm (it runs on Solaris and other Unices, and some unices like FreeBSD ports are currently in progress). Bonobo, GNOME's component architecture, means that we're totally tying into the existing GNOME components...Nautilus will be part of GNOME 1.4 (upcoming GNOME release), after all.
And what's great about Nautilus is that it adds things that even *I* use (I've never really found much use for a graphical file manager before). In some ways, like Medusa, it adds power that the shell doesn't have...that'll put hair on your chest :-)
What you're describing *is* what the Nautilus architecture was designed to do! Bonobo means that we don't have to write into Nautilus the ability to handle all the myriad file types, but another goal of Nautilus is to display useful extended information about files before you open it. That means that anyone (and we might) could write a bonobo control that would plug into Nautilus and would extend the file-info about MP3s to show the id3 tags. We currently do that for images (an easy no-brainer using a pre-existing bonobo component), but the point is that all this stuff is easy for others to do, and we'll be polishing a lot more of this in before release.
:-)
BTW, what you're saying about images is pretty useless. I can see probing the ID3 tags being good...and dimensions of an image. But why do you want to see the layer numbers before opening? I mean, you could write this in, but as you said before...just launch the freaking app
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
Nautilus could probably be 3x faster or more when its optimized (before release). We have major algorthimic slow-downs like n^2 algorithms still in the code, but they'll all go away (and its fairly easy). We're almost to the "Feature complete" milestone, and then we'll be in hardcore performance and bugfixing mode before release. Pavel Cisler, who wrote a lot of the file stuff on BeOS (which is *FAST*, like faster than ls!) is working on Nautilus and intends to give it serious speed boosts.
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
Sorry to keep re-iterating that title. I want to help inject information into the slashdot discussion so it doesn't go in circles like previous mentions of Eazel and Nautilus have. I hope that'll change now that people can actually see how Nautilus really works. (I wrote an informative response to this comment as well titled "we have fscked the filesystem" or something like that.
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
Its not the Eazel logo. I work at eazel, I haven't seen that graphic except on the homepage. whatever...
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
I'm sure everyone is tired of reading my posts...but since it doesn't feel like people who have actually tried Nautilus are posting and most Nautilus developers are asleep (for once) at 5am, here goes again.
Nautilus isn't just a fscking file manager. If it was, it wouldn't need all that dependency crap. In fact, most of those dependencies are libraries that we wrote to support Nautilus. And its not bloated. Darin Adler, our chief software architect really is the shit, you should hear the stories about him walking into companies on tours and like rewriting their code during his visit, and stuff like that. Its not bloated. This *is* the underlying architecture for GNOME 1.4. So you want your environment to be uber small? Gee...guess that 2 gig disk (maybe you actually have smaller..? but my home machine is 2 gigs) doesn't have a spare 100megs for your OPERATING ENVIRONMENT. The depencies are totally reasonable for a desktop. When you use Nautilus it *is* a big download because what you are essentially doing is downloading a preview of GNOME 1.4 on top of your old GNOME 1.2. DUH we need new libraries to be installed, if we didn't...well that would mean we hadn't written anything!
And BTW, its all componentized so you don't need to download Mozilla. That's the whole point of Nautilus... So maybe our first fscking tarball release doesn't baby you enough to tell you that, sorry...maybe it should. But this isn't release software, so its going to be a little rougher, yes!
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
Yes...Nautilus will be able to do things like that. Its not in the preview release (I think...? #1 might be). But our views are totally pluggable using Bonobo and we're writing a "shell" view that will be in whatever directory you're currently browsing. Additionally shell commands will be executable just by typing them (yes, in icon and list views). You can also select files just by typing shell globs. And hopefully when you type a command it will actually contextually be executed on whatever you have selected (optionally, of course).
:-) irc.gnome.org #nautilus...
As for running as root, that's dealt with through PAM and an already written gnome interface that prompts you for a password. We're adding that before the final release, its easy but undone. Have no fear...
If you're really interested you can help us today...Neither would be particularly difficult
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
Linux is great. I like it. X is pretty fscked and makes it hard to do some things. X is great because its so networkable, etc, but X is definitely showing its age. This sometimes limits what we can do. There are things we'd like to do but couldn't because of Linux too, but all in all Linux (do to its draw on Unix) is a pretty good architecture, and at least its really stable :-)
I strongly doubt that you've actually used Nautilus, because it doesn't work like explorer. In fact, I thought we'd be flamed to death for it working so much like the Macintosh, but a bunch of lam3rz saw the sidebar and rather than actually looking at Nautilus decided that it looked like Windows Explorer. Guess what? We aren't exactly running explorer next to our development stations. And I'm not hearing people bitch about other free software products like Evolution, KWord, AbiWord, and KDevelop (not to dis them, they're great products - if somethings good by all means copy the good stuff!) that rip off Microsoft products interfaces DIRECTLY - to the menu organization level in some cases.
So guess what? Its not windows explorer. People don't think of mobile phones as computers, and hopefully Nautilus will be intuitive and physically consistent too. Explorer does a lot of things right, and has some good underlying architecture, but they just don't get the final result right. Its really missing in the "feels right" department. And Nautilus isn't. Even this really preliminary release, slow as it is, should give you a feeling for how cool Nautilus is going to be.
And its not a simple file browser. File browser is stupid and limiting. I'm too tired to really go into why its not, but basically Bonobo means that Nautilus can do a lot more to interface you with your documents, data, code, etc etc.
Besides all this, when you actually use Nautilus it looks nothing like Windows explorer. Nautilus has a lot of great eyecandy. Our sidebar is actually fucking useful too, not just wasted space (though I often prefer to turn my sidebar off, all that being possible and configurable of course). The sidebar allows you to access meta-view components like a tree browser, a drag board, annotations, man/info browser, etc etc (all componentized, so its easy for anyone to add new ones, we just have some sample ones).
Try Nautilus. Those who have just looked at screenshots...Fuck off. Come by the booth at LWE and I'll talk about the architecture. It rocks.
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
Its interesting that you bring this up. I don't want to go into a lengthy response, but the Nautilus architecture is in place to totally remove the necessity of a conventional filesystem for users who don't want to manipulate it. We won't drive that to the interface for 1.0, but post-1.0 almost all the underlying stuff is in place and will be tied in.
:-) The index files are pretty small (10 megs or so) and of course optional if you don't want this feature.
Medusa, which was developed at Eazel and will be part of GNOME 1.4 is a disk cataloger and search tool similar to slocate - except that it indexes far more than just filename. It takes about 30 minutes to scan a normal to large disk, and of course isn't going to be doing this while you're working
So what does this all mean? This means that arbitrary, complex searches take a couple seconds to run. Medusa is *also* interfaced in through our virtual filesystem. So, the term I like to use for it is remarkably similar to what you quote... Medusa *is* a multi-key semantically queried virtual filessytem. And yes, post-1.0 this will be tied into virtual folders that are actually "searches" that will live update as you change the disk, etc etc. And it will be *fast*. That's only one example of all the things Nautilus architecture is letting us do...
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
"While I support the ideals of this company, namely, to create a user friendly, almost 'mac-like' interface for Linux, wouldn't it have been better to refine a pre-existing one?" Such as...? I hope you don't say Konqueror, because I'll point out that that was a rewrite too (and a good one too!). Would you like to propose a pre-existing one that had a strong enough architecture that it would have been worth rewriting? In fact, adding necessary GNOME support (bonobo, gnome-vfs, etc etc) would have probably been more difficult than writing from scratch - almost all the original code would have had to have been nixed.
Code is only re-usable if it was written right. Period. And the architecture is part of what makes Nautilus great... You'll hear Miguel rave about bonobo but its true, Nautilus components are really reusable in other applications. And bonobo means that Nautilus *isn't* a total rewrite. There are some great bonobo components like EOG that we were able to just use off the shelf. What we're building is an architecture that means the next file manager revision, even if its by somebody else or a different architecture won't have to be a rewrite. (and yes, I am a Nautilus developer)
-seth (seth@eazel.com)
The GNOME foundation is far more exciting than "yet another body of big companies trying to ride the wave". The foundation is being formed for and by GNOME hackers and other GNOME active parties (artists, etc) to steer and represent the needs of GNOME. Part of the descision to incorporate a foundation (think the Apache people, or the FSF) *is* to provide a way to interface with big companies, many of whom, such as Sun, are now betting some things on GNOME. However the foundation is not being formed by Sun, Compaq, etc - we're forming the foundation. There will be a corporate advisory committee with fees based the company size for companies interested in GNOME, but its not like they're going to be voting or anything...they just provide (much desired) input.
:-))
Any somewhat active GNOME contributor can join the foundation and vote...
Just wanted to correct a poorly worded artictle (which seems to be being misunderstood here).
-Seth (seth@eazel.com - I don't *necessarily* represent the views of eazel
HelixCode has enough mirrors to stand a slashdotting, but only if those mirrors have the code. Every person who doesn't try to pound on the mirrors is 30 more that will be able to download GNOME soon.
Please be responsible members of the community!
(and BTW, gnome people are VERY mad at slashdot right now)
-Seth Nickell
Actually VNC probably wouldn't work very well for this sort of application, unless I understand it wrong (disclaimer: I've only used it for a week). VNC transmits state. Thus it really only handles one instance of X. I believe that for every graphical login you would have to have a copy of the XServer running... Very resource intensive!!!
You might be able to kludge something together, most of the parts are certainely there. But VNC is designed more for network control of a centralized server than allowing generic graphical X logins.
Also VNC *can* be very resource heavy on the server system, even w/o the overhead of one instance of X to login...which is killer if you are serving *lots*. Using a Java XServer has the advantage that it adds no more overhead than is minimally necessary (I mean, you have to run multiple instances of your WM/Desktop and Apps, but other than that).
-nullity-
I am nothing.
Those intrepid enough / with spare cycles to throw away may consider setting like this up themselves. It is almost garunteed that workspot will try to stay behind the development curve. While this is good...because it makes for a consistent environment with little change...it doesn't demo Linux's "flashier" side very well. Not to flame, but KDE doesn't make a stunning impression. Yes, its useful, but it isn't very grabbing. :) I have gotten so used to it that I was surprised to find a friend shocked when I showed him that I could do this! One easily forgets why one uses *nix, hehe.
 
In any case you can easily setup your own similar installation. I've been setting one up for our LUG. It'll give us an URL to refer people to when they want to know what Linux "looks like". I'm using the WiredX java applet, a fine piece of software (it even performs well!!!). You can download it from http://www.wiredx.net.
 
If nothing else, it demonstrates the flexibility of X right off the bat
-nullity-
I am nothing.
Most Linux users have no traditional Unix sysadmin, or user experience behind them. Traditionally the difficulty alone of installing Linux served as a sort of filter against immoral users engineering viruses. If you've ever administered a real system, or know of people who do, you're very unlikely to write a virus (unless you really have issues!).
I suspect that a rash of Linux viruses will come not from an economic depression (though that could certainley cause it too...think Russia), but from the midst of the masses migrating to Linux. While virtually everyone installing Linux, from "script kiddies" to Windows NT converts are scrupulous...you are bound to get a higher percentage of people who would be willing to write a virus.
Now granted, more of these people are incapable of programming such an entity compared with old Unix hands...but where there's a will there's a way. Somebody is bound to kludge together (or even finely tune, you never know) a series of downloaded hacks (hey! free source code!), and write a little code of their own...voila! Microwave virus. And it only takes one good virus to cause serious issues. Particularly because these things almost always encourage copy-cat crime. Odds are we'll see a rash of viruses any time now - whether the economy is strong or not.
Want to believe that even without a high "activiation energy" (ie the work and knowledge to install Linux) the pool of users will remain "clean"? One only has to look at Amateur Radio for a counter-example. For a long time proficieny with Morse Code was required to obtain a license. Now this may not seem like much of a barrier...but it was. When the "No-Code" license was introduced a wave of new radio operators began coming on the air. Now I don't dispute the overall effects of the new license, I think most agree they were good overall. No sense keeping a good thing to an "elite" group of people. But there was one strong negative effect - the introduction of a few, er, less than choice individuals.
Did such individuals exist in the "old world"? Well, yes. But they were a much lower percentage. Now radio had to deal with irritating interuptions and people refusing to follow protocol. A small loss, but many repeaters (stations that retransmit a weak signal) were unprepared and were abused as a result. Protection mechanisms were instituted, but it often took some months during which time a repeater was far less useful.
The long and short is that a company like Symantec (Norton) might find it worthwhile to have a Linux offering prepared. No use deploying it (well, not with scruples at least - I'm sure some morons will bite) until viruses exist. But when they do come, and I bet they will, that company will have a big lead. Other companies would probably take several months to a year to produce. By that time one could really corner the market. Linux users win, some lucky company wins (hopefuly whoever wrote the #*$&#*$&* virus shrivels up and dies). Yay!
I think few of us familiar with the sort of hacks we deploy on our systems, the sort of tricks a *nix system can perform...would deny the feasibility of writing a virus. To do so would be...naive. Now that I think of it, though I realize acting before the fact isn't the strength of the free software community, it would probably be good to begin working on a feasible free program soon. Hope we never would have to use it...but... It would be bad, bad, BAD for Linux systems to be crippled for 5 months, admins cowering in fear, because of a rash of viruses. That would take major PR recovery...and Linux really isn't that strong. Remember, the media likes biting those it adored mere months ago. Makes for good news.
-nullity-
I am nothing.
The digital millenium copyright act certainely posses distinct dangers to existing leeway under copyright laws. But it also forces the law to "smarten up" about the digital world. That said, there are *good* clauses, like specifically allowing reverse engineering for compatibility. BRAVO!.
:-)
Before people snipe at it based on the above (which is certainely a valid perspective), I would highly encourage people to peruse the bill for themselves. Its long, yes, but very clear and direct as these things go. The complete text can be found online, but there are also many good abridged versions! Give it a shot....this is a very accessible and important document for all of us (even non-americans).
Sometimes I think its better to institute a clear law I agree with less...than to continue using a decrepit and unreliable set of rulings. AT least now I have some idea of the "official" stance on things.
-nullity-
I am nothing
This is a great chance for people to try out the latest gnome-core....including such "enhancements" as the gnome-weather applet and a Macintosh-like menubar (the legendary foobar). Slurp it down boys and girls!
-nulity-
I am nothing.
Apologies. I clearly misunderstood the abilities of the card. I didn't understand it had abilities even before the computer was powered. I concede entirely.
:)
-nullity-
I really am nothing.
While I can envision some cases where having serial IO would be valuable so early in the boot process, the fact is that monitors and keyboards are now so cheap, abundant, and portable as to render serial IO archaic. This is particularly true because one can use the serial ports for IO once your *nix is booted!
:)
And for the random cases where your BIOS has been scrambled by interplanetary nuclear forces, grab the monitor off the desk...6 feet away (!).
I'm sorry, but the old way does not make it the right way! Use the cheap-hardware trend...there's essentially no reason today for anything but a monitor (and most of us use ethernet once the system is booted, anyway
-nullity-
I am nothing.
Being skeptical is probably good, but do you really think that privatization of everything is the right way to go?
;-) I think its good for slashdotters to make sure we do not judge with a double standard. On the one hand "Slashdoters" tend to stand for technological awareness, on the other hand they often rile against government involvement.
:) Just wanting people to think w/o mob rushing in a popular direction.
No...certainely not. Which is why I'm merely skeptical
We need to seriously ensure we do not allow for things that benefit us directly, but violate long term "guidelines" we apply liberally to slaughter our foes. Its proper to carefully scrutinize our actions awhen there is vested interest in our violating our standards. We should be more careful and liberal in controlling ourselves, in spite of the nobility of certain causes.
I think the sig I see flying around is appropriate sometimes "Slashdot: open source closed minds". Sometimes I think the truth is that we are so open-minded that our brains leaked onto the floor! About the same effect
-nullity-
I am nothing.
Parts of the US already offer this through the library system...particularly Kitsap County in Washington. This was originally instituted as text-based dialup access over 5-6 years ago...pretty progressive. The idea was that the internet was becoming a major information source, and the library is responsible for providing people with information. Pretty sharp reasoning if you ask me!
;)
That said, this represents still another progression. While a library is often (not always) a government controlled agency, having a city take such a progressive stance is interesting. The question becomes...is it the city's place?
Now my first reaction to this was pleasure. "Gee...that's really cool. That a city government would be so encouraging of technology." But further reflection begs the question of necessity. For instance, do you think that the internet access will be of the same quality as a commercial provider? Maybe initially...but think of AT&T when it was government run.
While this doesn't sound like a monopoly, per se, it will be much harder for a small ISP to stay in business. Maybe even a large ISP (though big business has a way of bullying government and vice versa). The net effect to the citizens of Hamburg may be sub-par service.
A simple thought experiment makes the danger very clear. This is very similar to the "what if everyone littered" argument...but bear with me. What would happen if every city in every "wealthy" nation began providing internet access to its citizens? The short term effects would be very positive! This sort of connectivity is bound to change life as much as the car or the telephone. The problem comes in the long term. While cities would probably try to continue providing high-quality service, demand for high-tech faster connections would drop dramatically. Small companies with innovative ideas that would have survived in a competitive market will probably go out of business.
Status quo will become the normitive in communication (as opposed to today's computer market where the status quo is actually change!).
I expect to hear a lot of cheering about this on slashdot...and this may be good in the short run (or maybe in the long run if the government quickly pawns this off competitive companies once life is saturated with internet use...a good thing IMHO). But its worth evaluating the potential dangers and not embracing such action based on immediate emotional reactions.
I remain skeptical concerning government involvement...even when I agree with the direction being pushed
History has shown that the most positive trends tend to be towards privatization of technology! Remember that the citizens of Hamburg will be paying for this...in the long run. This isn't just free connections. And it seems likely that the city "ISP" won't run at as low cost/per connection as a struggling private company. Just a guess
-nullity-
I am nothing.