I'm afraid you misunderstood me. Actually, I prefer GNOME to KDE as a desktop. And I wasn't accusing anyone of KDE-bashing. I was merily agreeing the the person who saw GNOME lacking in a few areas. And I was pointing out that it is important to have a solid framework.
You make a good point. The GNOME community, while it does have a good number of users, does tend to attract developers, and most of the work tends to be in development and making development easier, as you say. I would also like to see more work being done in the area of production of apps, better desktop environment, etc. This is where some cooperation with the KDE team could go a long way.
Having said that, GNOME is much more than just a desktop or a set of applications. GNOME is an application development framework. I think it's crucial that this is a very solid framework. That's why seeing the work being done on the libraries and things like Glade is so exciting for me.
I also run GNOME/Enlightenment on a K6-2 450. Mine has 128 Mb RAM and 8Mb Video RAM, and it is blazingly fast. I also run GNOME/Enlightenment on my P166 box with only 24 MB RAM and 1Mb video memory and it runs perfectly adequate. It's comparable to when I run Win95 on the same box. As some of the others have suggested, get the latest RPM's. That could be a big part of your problem.
When Java was first announced, I bought into a lot of Sun's hype surrounding it. It seemed that they were a company truly intent on destroying Microsoft. And that pleased me, because I saw Microsoft as the Evil Empire, intent on controlling and monopolizing everything, beginning with the computer industry. And yes, they were intent on demolishing Microsoft, but for the wrong reasons. They wanted to harm M$ because Microsoft was a thorn in their side...they were jealous of the success in Redmond. They were envious and coveted what Microsoft had. I've seen Sun time and time again over-hype technology and mislead the community into thinking that they are a company devoted to being open for the sake of the community. The truth is, it's all a bunch of bull. Sun just wants to benefit themselves.
Like many of you I used to be a devout Java follower. I saw it as the next Big Thing. But with time, I got sick of Sun's tactics, and their stronghold on the source and API, and gave up on it pretty much altogether. I have absolutely nothing against commercial software. I am, however, against companies who hoard and maintain a stronghold on API's, document formats, algorithms, and the like that are in widespread use, simply for the purpose of making a buck. That is precisely why there is a need for truly Open Source software. Not just so that we can have a free OS and free apps to go with it. Yes, there is a need for that...I don't think people should *have* to pay for those things unless they want to..but it goes beyond that. It's a social imperative that we have open standards and open source libraries to hack with, and open document formats. Without them, innovation is truly stifled. Without them, we don't have widespread scientific advancement. We humans thrive in an environment in which we can share ideas. We build on each other's discoveries. That is why Microsoft's recent barking about how they ability to innovate has been stifled is ludicrously hypocritcal. That is why Sun saying they are victimized by companies like Microsoft who stifle innovation is absurd in light of their history of maintaining strongholds on technologies like Java. Almost any company will claim to be the victim if it will benefit themselves, but the truth is, folks, they're just out to make the extra buck and gain more control over you. What's at the root of all this is greed. Most of us, in their position, though we might refuse to admit it now, would behave no differently. Whether you believe the Bible or not, you may at least appreciate the truth of this verse:
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.--I Timothy 6:10
We need open source software, open standards, and an environment in which we can share our ideas and innovate, in order to keep ourselves in check.
What will they do when Microsoft is gone, and it's a Sun vs. Linux world???
I think it is a bit naive of you to assume that Microsoft will just "go away." While Open Source software, and Linux in particular may present a threat to the monopolistic stronghold that Microsoft enjoys now, they are not just going to "go away." Believe me. As much as it hurts to say it, I think we'll be seeing Microsoft as a dominant player in the computing world for a long time. They have so much money and resources, they can adapt to (embrace and extend) just about anything that is thrown at them.
Could you give us a rough timeline of what we can expect to see coming from the GNOME project in the next months, and years? Could you give us an idea of when we can expect to see the 1.0.50 and 2.0.0 releases of GNOME? And what will those releases look like?
Here are a few thoughts coming from a CS undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. There are a number of ways in which we college students, faculty members and consultants can react.
1.) Start Linux/Unix User Groups and clubs on your campus. This is a great way to help students get started learning Unix and to show them that they do have freedom of choice. Lots of students have heard about Linux through various media, but don't know where to begin. Show them your Linux desktop, let them poke around, help them install Linux on their machine. Have weekly meetings where you can do installations, field questions, take on projects, etc.
2.) Get involved (if possible) with managing the workstations and servers on your campus. There are usually opportunties to help out in this area, and if you get involved, you will have a better forum for voicing your opinion.
3.) Sign petitions, make phone calls to the network admins, and do anything else you can to show the people who make the decisions, that you want freedom of choice. This may not seem like it can make a difference, but it can. If those in charge of making platform decisions hear students and faculty members voicing their opinions about freedom of choice in platforms, they will at the very least think twice about going the NT route.
As for the state of things, at WashU, I'm very fortunate to be going to a school that has long been a player in the world of Unix development. WU-FTPD, the most popular ftp daemon on the 'net began development at WashU. Most of our servers are Unix-based. We have a rather large sparc station lab. We do of course have NT labs as well, but I don't see the Unix element going away anytime soon. There is too much Unix development that goes on here. I've had a number of professors encourage us to get Linux installed on our home computers so that we can gain invaluble experience working on that platform, and so we can do the projects at home that we would ordinarily have to do in the sparc lab. There are dozens of students in the CS department (and other departments) who have Linux servers running on their ethernet dorm-room connections. It's been a lot of fun to watch the growth on campus.
Thanks for pointing out other solutions.:) I wasn't trying over-advocate Linux. Just pointing out how trivial it is to set Linux up as a router. Many people already have old 486 boxe(s) that they don't really use, or old macs, so it would not cost them a thing, except for maybe the prices of a few network cards, to set up a linux router.
Indeed home networks are on the rise. People are beginning to realize that you don't have to have expensive equipment to have a network, nor do you have to be a company to benefit from one. Home networks allow you share resources such as the internet connection and file and print services with computers of varying platforms such as Win95/98/NT, and Mac. Linux Makes it trivial to set up a router that might otherwise cost you a bundle.
While this contest is cool in the sense that a better game will be produced, and those who enjoy hacking will get a shot at some cool work and the chance to win something, this should not be viewed as a charity or embracing Open Source on the part of Loki or Activision. The source code doesn't get out since the contest is held in a secure location. All they have to do is give away a computer, and they get 1440 man-hours of hacking by the elite. Pretty darn good deal for them if you ask me.
The "networking professionals" around here use Debian GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD (And occasionally Solaris if the boss requests it) Red Hat is not even in the running due to their hasty releases & apparent lack of any real testing, quality control or attention to security issues. The Linux distribution I'd give the undisputed "most tested" title to is Debian. I agree completely. Debian is very well tested distribution...I'd agree it's the most tested and stable. When I was referring to "networking professionals," I should have clarified my statement. What I meant was networking professionals who haven't really had much experience, if any, with GNU/Linux. They are more likely to try Redhat, because of the media attention, support, etc.
I think Mandrake and Redhat are beginning to move in slightly different directions. This does not have to be a Bad Thing. It is not suicide for Redhat to move in a different direction than Mandrake. Redhat, afterall, is the distributor with the IPO, stock soaring, major corporations backing it, and is the most widely used distribution. It all depends on what markets they are going for and whom they are trying to package their product for. Are we talking about a distribution targeted at networking professionals, corporations, consumers? I assure you, this is something Redhat is seriously thinking about. I think Mandrake may be have been a bit hasty releasing 6.1. I fear there are many lurking bugs and issues. Mandrake 6.1 may be an excellent distribution for us geeks who want the bleeding edge and tons of software (some of which Redhat doesn't include), but is a network administer interested in trying out GNU/Linux for some mission critical service going to opt for a distribution with a prerelease of the kernel and other relatively untested packages, or is he/she going to opt for the distribution that is the most widely used and supported, and fairly well-tested?
...But don't take my word for it..try it out. I plan on ordering a CD from CheapBytes as soon as it's available.
Does anyone else think that many of the packages in Mandrake 6.1 are just a bit premature? For example (see the announcement):
- Linux-Kernel: 2.2.13 (pre4) - Enlightenment 0.16-dev5 - GnomeICU 0.66 (according to the GnomeICU Homepage, 0.66 hasn't been released yet..it's still in developement!
And there are other examples of software that has barely been tested...
And while I respect the fact that they are no longer basing their distribution on RedHat, they do claim compatibility with RedHat. I fear that by releasing their distribution prior to RedHat's release they risk some incompatibility.
Redhat now has a chance to "one-up" Mandrake's distribution if they choose to.
Here is a link to an article by Richard Stallman that I'm sure a lot of you have read. It talks about "free hardware" designs and why he sees no social imperative for free hardware as he does for free software. I personally agree that there isn't the social imperative for free hardware designs, but at the same time I think free hardware designs would be very beneficial to corporations, students, and the consumer...in fact the consumer would most likely benefit the most since there would be an accelerated rate of development and competition (just as free software breeds this type of acceleration--look no further than the KDE and GNOME camps for an excellent example of this).
Here is a link to an article by Richard Stallman that I'm sure a lot of you have read. It talks about "free hardware designs and why he sees no social imperative for free hardware as he does for free software. I personally agree that there isn't the social imperative for free hardware designs, but at the same time I think free hardware designs would be very beneficial to corporations, students, and the consumer...in fact the consumer would most likely benefit the most since there would be an accelerated rate of development and competition (just as free software breeds this type of acceleration--look no further than the KDE and GNOME camps for an excellent example of this).
Agreed. If assumption is correct that there will be more good moderators than bad moderators, it would follow that if moderators were allowed to moderate any comment they see fit, overall the system would balance itself out. The good moderators, regardless of their opinions on a topic such as KDE vs. GNOME would moderate a comment based in the content of the comment itself, not the views of it's author.
This is sort of off-topic, but it would be really sweet if there were a checkbox or some such widget that you could select before posting a reply that would automatically quote the text of the original message with a line-prefix like ">".
It has been my understanding that at least in the past (with the exception of Mandrake 5.3), Mandrake has based their distribution on the Redhat releases. Have they decided to part from this strategy now? They seem to be ready to release 6.1 before Redhat's release of their 6.1 product. Anyone in the know?
1.) You can meet developers, sysadmins, businessmen, and the like from all over the world. This extends your connections and enables you to learn from others.
2.) You learn about new products and services being offered by hundreds of different companies. 3.) You gain more technical knowledge through various seminars and tutorials.
4.) You have the opportunity to ask questions of representatives from companies and development projects that you might not otherwise be able to ask.
5.) You get free stuff.
6.) And overall, you begin to get the larger picture of what's going on in the community. This can be very inspirational...causing mass excitement to build inside you, feeling that when you leave the conference you are ready to take on the world...
Excellent point. I'm glad you brought it up. Arrogance by those claiming to be the intellectual elite annoys me because it's so narrow-minded. And I see this type of arrogance so often in those who are proficient with computers.
Some of the most humbling experiences I've had were when I have had opportunties to meet some truly talented folks who didn't display their talents in a flashy manner, nor did they boast of their great abilities, nor did they look down on others for not having their gifts. I've known musicians that fit in this category, graphical artists, chefs, carpenters, and others.
I'm not lumping the whole lot of us in this category, of course. In fact, one of the aspects of the Open Source Community that has so drawn me in is the frequent willingness of its members to help those who are less knowledgable or at times less talented than they. I believe that is something that will carry our efforts a long way.
Humility and selflessness are the outshoots of wisdom, rather than cliche or a warm-fuzzy feeling.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth..
> GNOME is where windows and > 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.
A properly tuned and maintained NT server will be very fast and pretty darn stable too. It won't approach the stability of Linux, perhaps, but it will function a whole lot better than many Linux advocates will suggest. ------------------------------------------------ ---- Jamin Philip Gray jgray@writeme.com http://students.cec.wustl.edu/~jpg2/
Slashdot Mirror
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Having said that, GNOME is much more than just a desktop or a set of applications. GNOME is an application development framework. I think it's crucial that this is a very solid framework. That's why seeing the work being done on the libraries and things like Glade is so exciting for me.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Like many of you I used to be a devout Java follower. I saw it as the next Big Thing. But with time, I got sick of Sun's tactics, and their stronghold on the source and API, and gave up on it pretty much altogether. I have absolutely nothing against commercial software. I am, however, against companies who hoard and maintain a stronghold on API's, document formats, algorithms, and the like that are in widespread use, simply for the purpose of making a buck. That is precisely why there is a need for truly Open Source software. Not just so that we can have a free OS and free apps to go with it. Yes, there is a need for that...I don't think people should *have* to pay for those things unless they want to..but it goes beyond that. It's a social imperative that we have open standards and open source libraries to hack with, and open document formats. Without them, innovation is truly stifled. Without them, we don't have widespread scientific advancement. We humans thrive in an environment in which we can share ideas. We build on each other's discoveries. That is why Microsoft's recent barking about how they ability to innovate has been stifled is ludicrously hypocritcal. That is why Sun saying they are victimized by companies like Microsoft who stifle innovation is absurd in light of their history of maintaining strongholds on technologies like Java. Almost any company will claim to be the victim if it will benefit themselves, but the truth is, folks, they're just out to make the extra buck and gain more control over you. What's at the root of all this is greed. Most of us, in their position, though we might refuse to admit it now, would behave no differently. Whether you believe the Bible or not, you may at least appreciate the truth of this verse:
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.--I Timothy 6:10
We need open source software, open standards, and an environment in which we can share our ideas and innovate, in order to keep ourselves in check.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
I think it is a bit naive of you to assume that Microsoft will just "go away." While Open Source software, and Linux in particular may present a threat to the monopolistic stronghold that Microsoft enjoys now, they are not just going to "go away." Believe me. As much as it hurts to say it, I think we'll be seeing Microsoft as a dominant player in the computing world for a long time. They have so much money and resources, they can adapt to (embrace and extend) just about anything that is thrown at them.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
1.) Start Linux/Unix User Groups and clubs on your campus. This is a great way to help students get started learning Unix and to show them that they do have freedom of choice. Lots of students have heard about Linux through various media, but don't know where to begin. Show them your Linux desktop, let them poke around, help them install Linux on their machine. Have weekly meetings where you can do installations, field questions, take on projects, etc.
2.) Get involved (if possible) with managing the workstations and servers on your campus. There are usually opportunties to help out in this area, and if you get involved, you will have a better forum for voicing your opinion.
3.) Sign petitions, make phone calls to the network admins, and do anything else you can to show the people who make the decisions, that you want freedom of choice. This may not seem like it can make a difference, but it can. If those in charge of making platform decisions hear students and faculty members voicing their opinions about freedom of choice in platforms, they will at the very least think twice about going the NT route.
As for the state of things, at WashU, I'm very fortunate to be going to a school that has long been a player in the world of Unix development. WU-FTPD, the most popular ftp daemon on the 'net began development at WashU. Most of our servers are Unix-based. We have a rather large sparc station lab. We do of course have NT labs as well, but I don't see the Unix element going away anytime soon. There is too much Unix development that goes on here. I've had a number of professors encourage us to get Linux installed on our home computers so that we can gain invaluble experience working on that platform, and so we can do the projects at home that we would ordinarily have to do in the sparc lab. There are dozens of students in the CS department (and other departments) who have Linux servers running on their ethernet dorm-room connections. It's been a lot of fun to watch the growth on campus.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
...But don't take my word for it..try it out. I plan on ordering a CD from CheapBytes as soon as it's available.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
- Linux-Kernel: 2.2.13 (pre4)
- Enlightenment 0.16-dev5
- GnomeICU 0.66 (according to the GnomeICU Homepage, 0.66 hasn't been released yet..it's still in developement!
And there are other examples of software that has barely been tested...
And while I respect the fact that they are no longer basing their distribution on RedHat, they do claim compatibility with RedHat. I fear that by releasing their distribution prior to RedHat's release they risk some incompatibility.
Redhat now has a chance to "one-up" Mandrake's distribution if they choose to.
Just a few thoughts...
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
This is sort of off-topic, but it would be really sweet if there were a checkbox or some such widget that you could select before posting a reply that would automatically quote the text of the original message with a line-prefix like ">".
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
2.) You learn about new products and services being offered by hundreds of different companies.
3.) You gain more technical knowledge through various seminars and tutorials.
4.) You have the opportunity to ask questions of representatives from companies and development projects that you might not otherwise be able to ask.
5.) You get free stuff.
6.) And overall, you begin to get the larger picture of what's going on in the community. This can be very inspirational...causing mass excitement to build inside you, feeling that when you leave the conference you are ready to take on the world...
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Some of the most humbling experiences I've had were when I have had opportunties to meet some truly talented folks who didn't display their talents in a flashy manner, nor did they boast of their great abilities, nor did they look down on others for not having their gifts. I've known musicians that fit in this category, graphical artists, chefs, carpenters, and others.
I'm not lumping the whole lot of us in this category, of course. In fact, one of the aspects of the Open Source Community that has so drawn me in is the frequent willingness of its members to help those who are less knowledgable or at times less talented than they. I believe that is something that will carry our efforts a long way.
Humility and selflessness are the outshoots of wisdom, rather than cliche or a warm-fuzzy feeling.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth..
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
I have 3 letters for you:
C V S
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
> 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
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
A properly tuned and maintained NT server will be very fast and pretty darn stable too. It won't approach the stability of Linux, perhaps, but it will function a whole lot better than many Linux advocates will suggest.- ----
-----------------------------------------------
Jamin Philip Gray
jgray@writeme.com
http://students.cec.wustl.edu/~jpg2/