I'm still waiting for Mozilla/Firefox to integrate the Reload and Stop buttons into one button. Why are they seperate? Since Mozilla has ripped everything else off from Opera, why not this basic interface decluttering idea? Right now, I have grayed out Stop button that only ungrays when the page is loading. Stop and Reload should be the same button, toggling when a page is loading and when it has finished loading.
To win the average idiot, you need simple layout, bright colors, and hand-holding wizards.
To win the average idiot, you need to do two things:
1.) Make something fun to use. That encompasses everything from a pleasant visual look to a simple yet powerful interface. Something most OSS lacks.
2.) Don't call them "idiots." They're not idiots just because they have enough of a life to not treat browser and operating system wars like religious crusades, like we do.
For those curious, here's a Pinstripe gallery
on
A New Look For Firefox
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· Score: 2, Informative
Here's what Pinstripe looks like. Goes to show OS X still has the most beautiful, pleasant, and clean-looking GUI around; no wonder everyone tries to rip it off yet fails:
Face it - It took a Rio engineer to answer the question that most of Slashdot have been asking for years. It's not like Apple have been forthcoming with it.
In the greater scheme of the Apple consumer base, Slashdot is like 1% of that.
A bunch of nerds demanding to know whether Apple's music player supports some open source file format that the majority of computer users don't even care about isn't on their list of priorities. AAC has already been proven time and time again to be better than Vorbis (as has WMA).
However, mentioning a flaw in the competition to any sort of audience certainly is a priority to an engineer at Rio.
This seems to be the norm on Slashdot. Is anything posted these days that's:
* Not false. For instance, "Microsoft Changes Its Tune Again On SP2 Installs" is a big fat lie. What Slashdot posted last time was a rumor. Microsoft never said SP2 would install on pirate copies.
* Not already known for months. Again in the previous example, Microsoft said MONTHS AGO that SP2 wouldn't install. The rumors were dismissed And as you pointed out, this story has been known for TWO YEARS.
It seems very little of value is really posted these days other than news from yesterday's OSNews, reposts, or falsehoods.
Than those are moron techs. "Hey, I'll use a well-known pirate key because I'm too lazy to get the real key!"
Look, people, pirates don't have a right to the service pack. Microsoft has never said SP2 would install on pirate copies. Slashdot is flat-out lying about this one in its headline. When they reported last time that SP2 would install on pirate copies, it was merely a rumor that the submitter sent in and the editor posted. Microsoft immediately dismissed the rumor at WinHEC the next day--of course, that didn't get reported here. Same thing with WinFS being "cancelled." It was a flat-out falsehood that people gobbled up to mock Microsoft some more (much to everyone else's amusement).
You can't trust this place for real, factual tech news anymore. What's worse is that 80% of Linux newcomers start coming here and base their worldview almost entirely on Slashdot headlines. If you followed this place as they do, Microsoft has "changed its tune again on SP2 installs." It absolutely hasn't--it's a complete lie. But nothing will change around here. Journalistic integrity and fact-checking is just not a consideration for CmdrTaco, despite this website being the bastion for Linux and geek news right now.
Before, Microsoft was evil because they were using piracy to spread their monopoly. Now, they're evil because they're not allowing those poor lazy techs and those poor little software pirates to install the SP?
They never said they'd allow SP2 to install on pirated copies. It was a rumor that Slashdot reported as fact (surprise, surprise). Microsoft immediately dismissed the rumor at WinHEC. It was reported on several of the Windows websites. For at least a month now, it's been known that SP2 wouldn't install on pirate copies.
Not only is Slashdot finally catching up, they're yet again pointlessly bashing Microsoft. Slashdot invented something they decided on, and now they've invented a "turnaround" on that decision. Neither happened.
Please, if you're going to report on Microsoft, can you at least have as much integrity about it as, say, Activewin? Care to do a little fact-checking first? The very day Slashdot said SP2 would install on pirate copies, I went over to Wininformant, and Paul Thurrott reported that it wasn't true. You simply can't trust this place for valid tech news anymore...
What's really insane is how people were bashing Microsoft last time for allowing SP2 to install. "They're just doing it because they want piracy in order to spread their monopoly!". Now they're being bashed again when it's revealed they never planned to let SP2 install anyway--last time Slashdot just reported a rumor as fact, as usual. "Microsoft just wants people to buy their product legally instead of pirating it, those bastards!"
I think its great for linux if they don't let pirates patch. At least one pirate will get hit by a virus and switch. And it will boost the "MS is just a viriid up piece of junk, so switch" argument.
Congratulations, you got a software pirate to use Linux. One more warez/mp3 asshole in this community, posting on Slashdot about how evil the RIAA is supposed to be for going after copyright infringers, meanwhile criticizing the next company who violates the copyright of the GPL...
One way or another, people here are going to bash Microsoft for anything they do. They let SP2 install, they suck. They don't let SP2 install on pirate copies--gasp, forcing warez d00ds to actually buy shit--they suck. Show a little level-headed rationalism here, people. Pirates don't deserve a service pack, and if they get hit with a virus, fuck 'em. Not my problem. Not yours. It's theirs for not buying and not patching.
Of course caps lock is necessary. It's necessary for whenever you want to type in all-caps without holding shift the whole time. I can think of dozens of examples of this. Hell, where I work, the blank fields on our contracts must be typed in all caps. I wrote a screenplay once, and you need caps all over the place. When I'm coding, I write some macro names in all-caps.
No, the caps lock shouldn't be removed or replaced. It's handy to have a key that allows you to toggle lower to upper caps so you don't have to hold shift.
Microsoft didn't "change its tune." Slashdot reported on a rumor that SP2 would install on pirate copies. Immediately afterward, Microsoft stated at the WinHEC that the rumors were false. Wininformant reported it the very day after.
Slashdot is reporting this like Microsoft just now changed their decision. For one, they said this already LAST MONTH, and two, they never said SP2 would install on pirate copies anyway.
The fact that you think a freaking Slashdot news story ever discredited anything shows your anti-"M$" agenda to begin with. Nobody discredited it. You meant to say that a bunch of Linux fanboys expressed how much it was "flawed" just because they like Linux and they said so.
To think Slashdot ever had the integrity and journalistic know-how to ever discredit anything is ludicrous. This place is the Aint-It-Cool-News of the technology sector.
Once again you missed the point entirely. Slashdot is not a "Linux only" site.
But it is absolutely an extremely pro-Linux, pro-OSS site. I don't see what relevance defining the scope of the intended subject matter has. The fact is, Slashdot is anti-Microsoft yet takes Microsoft ads.
Recently, however, Linux Today has added a new client to its list: Microsoft. Not only are Microsoft-sponsored advertisements appearing on that site now, but the ads are downright anti-Linux.
How long has it been since Slashdot has been displaying Microsoft ads? I mean, what the fuck?
Today, there is a flash ad on the top-right hand screen that is a case study of the convenient store 7-11's TCO study between Linux and Microsoft. Ultimately, Microsoft won the study and the CIO of 7-11 is quoted (in the ad that is running on Linux Today!) as saying: "...the TCO for the Windows Server System approach was 20% less expensive than Linux." The fact that this ad is appearing on a cornerstone Linux community website is an absolute outrage.
Yes. It is, isn't it? I see the exact same ads on Slashdot all the time. OSDN takes money from "evil" Microsoft all damn day, and the frothing posters seem to be none the wiser, or look the other way to bash Microsoft some more. If a website is going to bash Microsoft yet take money and display their ads, I will declare that they have lost all integrity.
A bunch of people calling on a boycott against a website for accepting money from a rival company. They do this by posting on a website that accepts money from the same rival company and sticks their big ads everywhere. This from the "free speech" community.
Slashdot is corporate-owned; I don't think a lot of people realize that. The very day Slashdot stuck banner ads on their stories was the day it lost all credibility for me. Of course, VA Linux strikes back with their "tech news" site by conveniently posting a lot of misleading articles negative toward its competitor. Sleaze goes both ways.
There used to be Kuro5hin to go to, but that place is a complete mess. Slashdot remains the unfortunate bastion of geek news on the Internet at the moment. I pray for something more open to replace it!
It's a fact of life that Microsoft is going to have to own up to if they want to stay on top. They raised the beast, now they need to teach it the rules.
Which is why the Windows Update configuration prompt absolutely will not go away until you tell it what you want Windows to do about Critical Updates. I've seen Slashdotters complain about how XP "nags" you about things when you first run it, but it's the smartest thing to do. And if you tell it not to download any patches or not even tell you about them...you know where the fault lies. One can rightfully criticize Microsoft for missing the flaw in their original software testing, but at some point, personal responsibility comes into play. This was patched way back on April 13th!
Installing security patches is just a fact of life for absolutely any major operating system, Linux included. Distros release security advisories all the time. This isn't a criticism of any specific company. You know where the real blame lies--on the mouthbreather morons who think it's cool to dick with people's computers to begin with.
What a surprise it wasn't mentioned that this was patched months ago, right?
This vulnerability is the LSASS Buffer Overrun Vulnerability, already patched way back on April 13. Slashdot probably had at least two or three articles on it back then as well if you wanna do a search for "sasser."
If you haven't patched after two months, you're just the same as all those people who got hit with Blaster, which was also already patched beforehand. Linux distros issue security patches for their vulnerabilities weekly and nobody complains, but when Microsoft releases a patch, suddenly it's this huge issue to run a tiny executable that plugs security flaws, and then people bitch at Windows two months later when a virus comes out to exploit it...
Just saying. How can one criticize their security if they won't apply their security patches? Almost all major software is gonna require a patch eventually. I don't get this steadfast need to avoid patching Windows boxes while freely recompiling Linux kernels on a whim for production servers when a minor point release comes out.
*cough* Window Maker? XFCE? ROX? Enlightenment? There are tons of window managers and desktops that don't use a taskbar+start menu interface.
The discussion is about the two major, most popular choices--KDE and GNOME. The rest lack even more functionality than those two do, so I didn't realize they had relevance to this discussion.
Want X dead? Y-Windows is the answer
on
The GNOME Roadmap
·
· Score: 1
Their IRC channel is active, and they're already working on the widgets. They plan a 1.0 release within a year. Full hardware-acceleration, network transparency, and a complete replacement of X with a user-level X-compatibility layer. The PDF describes all the reasons why they're replacing X. Stuff even I didn't know.
Those are being done on the X level in the new x.org server. Not GNOME's problem.
Anything is better than KDE's completely hilarious, amateurish icon label dropshadows. They don't even fade out gracefully. How did anyone think that should be something to include in an official release?
Someday, just someday, I'd like to see hardware acceleration. The Y-Windows boys are already planning it.
One of the MSDN tech videos demonstrated a guy writing a 10-50 line XAML app that updated his website blog for him via.NET.
We're basically chasing someone's tail again--as we have done for the past 10 years. I agree with another poster here, I want a working desktop first. Where's the sane development API? Oh, I forgot, everything is about "choice" and we need 23 different libraries, APIs, and window managers that all conflict with each other (I have to install two entire fucking desktop environments to be able to run each other's apps! Amateurish and unprofessional). For crying out loud, my GNOME memory footprint is sucking up more RAM than XP does on my laptop. I don't even want to think about that krudgy slow thing we call KDE...
How is it geeks can get so many things right--Linux kernel, Apache, PHP--and so many things wrong--KDE, GNOME, XFree86, and basically anything attempting GUI usage? It's like when it comes to moving away from the technical stuff and actually getting creative and interacting with people, geeks fall short not only in social life but in their application projects. Not a troll but a real observation here--the problem is who is developing these projects and how they approach them, which is illustrative of the community as a whole (including Slashdot)...
Exactly. Package management is a distro issue, *not* a desktop problem.
Absolutely, 100% wrong. Your abitrary mindset is the primary problem. "I've randomly decided that application installation should be handled by the distro!" No reason or proof or logic is given.
How will you ever have a seamless, professional, sane desktop environment that doesn't even have an installation/uninstallation API? The very idea is so backwards and laughable, I fully expect Linux to take another 10 years to reach the level XP and OS X are at now.
Since Linux crunchies are absolutely dead-set on never replacing the interface failures that are taskbars and start menus, I want to at least be able to have applications install their links on the menu and give me shortcuts to their uninstallers automatically.
I want to be able to just download an installer for an app onto my desktop and double-click it. A desktop environment should keep track of the desktop applications it has installed. Forgive me, but I want my desktop to be self-aware of what the hell it has installed and how to uninstall them. We're trying to compete with OS X and Windows here!
You have two options:
Do it in "bundles" like OS X, where applications install to folders in an Applications directory, and you can remove the program just by dragging the folder to the trash.
Do it like Windows does, where applications register their locations, tell Windows how to uninstall itself, and adds appropriate shortcuts and entries in the start menu and "Add/Remove Programs" dialog.
High school Linux zealot: "B-but we have a hundred possible external package managers to run all that!" Yeah, good luck remaining 15 years behind everyone in the GUI department just because nobody can be arsed to stop working on new sidebar buttons and integrated blogging functions in order to create a sane API in the vein of Cocoa and.NET for people to develop for. Until then, GNOME and KDE are exactly what they were when they first came out--hacky desktop emulators stuck on top of X to make it look like Linux is in the same league as Apple and Microsoft in the desktop market. "Look, we have an integrated browser too! Look, a taskbar! 7 second app startup time? Ignore that, here are more screenshots!"
You want a litmus test? The day someone can buy a printer that comes with a CD, stick the CD into the drive, a menu comes up to install the binary driver, and afterward the printer works. All done in a Linux desktop. Then it would truly be the "year of the Linux desktop (tm)". At the current pace, that is definitely not going to ever happen with either KDE or GNOME. They both are horrible desktops, and people overlook it because they don't want to admit that Microsoft still gets this part right. To Linux guys, it's a penis length test of shoving in as much pointless crap as possible to compensate for the lack of very basic functionality.
The hell? Linux isn't different at all
on
Ten Years of BeOS
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Linux is different because 1) there's now a huge pool of free (beer) GUI software so users can give it a real shot
So instead of buying applications, they have to download and/or compile them. It's still getting a whole bunch of new applications that are mere shells of the commercial implementations they're trying to emulate. You may as well not even consider them in the equation.
2) even before those apps came along, there were plenty of text-only apps that met the needs of Unix users of the day. Those were available for BeOS, too, but the users who wanted the ultimate GUI didn't care whether bison and nn were available.
Linux is different because it has the same GNU text apps that all the other UNIX-clones have?
The only, ONLY way Linux is different is that it is Open Source. The hacky desktop emulators Linux has are completely horrible, yet nobody will change them, except innovative people like those hacking on Y-Windows. Otherwise, Linux is just a haven for anti-"M$" zealots who think computer operating systems are something to actually expend energy being religious over. To the rest of the world that actually has a life, there are more important things to consider--like getting their work done (as opposed to spending four hours getting godawful XMMS not to skip with a standard soundcard).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still waiting for Mozilla/Firefox to integrate the Reload and Stop buttons into one button. Why are they seperate? Since Mozilla has ripped everything else off from Opera, why not this basic interface decluttering idea? Right now, I have grayed out Stop button that only ungrays when the page is loading. Stop and Reload should be the same button, toggling when a page is loading and when it has finished loading.
To win the average idiot, you need simple layout, bright colors, and hand-holding wizards.
To win the average idiot, you need to do two things:
1.) Make something fun to use. That encompasses everything from a pleasant visual look to a simple yet powerful interface. Something most OSS lacks.
2.) Don't call them "idiots." They're not idiots just because they have enough of a life to not treat browser and operating system wars like religious crusades, like we do.
Here's what Pinstripe looks like. Goes to show OS X still has the most beautiful, pleasant, and clean-looking GUI around; no wonder everyone tries to rip it off yet fails:
Pinstripe Firefox Gallery
Face it - It took a Rio engineer to answer the question that most of Slashdot have been asking for years. It's not like Apple have been forthcoming with it.
In the greater scheme of the Apple consumer base, Slashdot is like 1% of that.
A bunch of nerds demanding to know whether Apple's music player supports some open source file format that the majority of computer users don't even care about isn't on their list of priorities. AAC has already been proven time and time again to be better than Vorbis (as has WMA).
However, mentioning a flaw in the competition to any sort of audience certainly is a priority to an engineer at Rio.
Why do people insist on thinking that ipods and itunes are all just about the store? The majority of ipod owners DONT use the store.
Because the store exists to drive iPod sales. Apple operates it at a loss specifically to do such. They've publicly stated this.
This seems to be the norm on Slashdot. Is anything posted these days that's:
* Not false. For instance, "Microsoft Changes Its Tune Again On SP2 Installs" is a big fat lie. What Slashdot posted last time was a rumor. Microsoft never said SP2 would install on pirate copies.
* Not already known for months. Again in the previous example, Microsoft said MONTHS AGO that SP2 wouldn't install. The rumors were dismissed And as you pointed out, this story has been known for TWO YEARS.
It seems very little of value is really posted these days other than news from yesterday's OSNews, reposts, or falsehoods.
Than those are moron techs. "Hey, I'll use a well-known pirate key because I'm too lazy to get the real key!"
Look, people, pirates don't have a right to the service pack. Microsoft has never said SP2 would install on pirate copies. Slashdot is flat-out lying about this one in its headline. When they reported last time that SP2 would install on pirate copies, it was merely a rumor that the submitter sent in and the editor posted. Microsoft immediately dismissed the rumor at WinHEC the next day--of course, that didn't get reported here. Same thing with WinFS being "cancelled." It was a flat-out falsehood that people gobbled up to mock Microsoft some more (much to everyone else's amusement).
You can't trust this place for real, factual tech news anymore. What's worse is that 80% of Linux newcomers start coming here and base their worldview almost entirely on Slashdot headlines. If you followed this place as they do, Microsoft has "changed its tune again on SP2 installs." It absolutely hasn't--it's a complete lie. But nothing will change around here. Journalistic integrity and fact-checking is just not a consideration for CmdrTaco, despite this website being the bastion for Linux and geek news right now.
Before, Microsoft was evil because they were using piracy to spread their monopoly. Now, they're evil because they're not allowing those poor lazy techs and those poor little software pirates to install the SP?
Microsoft "changes tune again?"
They never said they'd allow SP2 to install on pirated copies. It was a rumor that Slashdot reported as fact (surprise, surprise). Microsoft immediately dismissed the rumor at WinHEC. It was reported on several of the Windows websites. For at least a month now, it's been known that SP2 wouldn't install on pirate copies.
Not only is Slashdot finally catching up, they're yet again pointlessly bashing Microsoft. Slashdot invented something they decided on, and now they've invented a "turnaround" on that decision. Neither happened.
Please, if you're going to report on Microsoft, can you at least have as much integrity about it as, say, Activewin? Care to do a little fact-checking first? The very day Slashdot said SP2 would install on pirate copies, I went over to Wininformant, and Paul Thurrott reported that it wasn't true. You simply can't trust this place for valid tech news anymore...
What's really insane is how people were bashing Microsoft last time for allowing SP2 to install. "They're just doing it because they want piracy in order to spread their monopoly!". Now they're being bashed again when it's revealed they never planned to let SP2 install anyway--last time Slashdot just reported a rumor as fact, as usual. "Microsoft just wants people to buy their product legally instead of pirating it, those bastards!"
I think its great for linux if they don't let pirates patch. At least one pirate will get hit by a virus and switch. And it will boost the "MS is just a viriid up piece of junk, so switch" argument.
Congratulations, you got a software pirate to use Linux. One more warez/mp3 asshole in this community, posting on Slashdot about how evil the RIAA is supposed to be for going after copyright infringers, meanwhile criticizing the next company who violates the copyright of the GPL...
One way or another, people here are going to bash Microsoft for anything they do. They let SP2 install, they suck. They don't let SP2 install on pirate copies--gasp, forcing warez d00ds to actually buy shit--they suck. Show a little level-headed rationalism here, people. Pirates don't deserve a service pack, and if they get hit with a virus, fuck 'em. Not my problem. Not yours. It's theirs for not buying and not patching.
Of course caps lock is necessary. It's necessary for whenever you want to type in all-caps without holding shift the whole time. I can think of dozens of examples of this. Hell, where I work, the blank fields on our contracts must be typed in all caps. I wrote a screenplay once, and you need caps all over the place. When I'm coding, I write some macro names in all-caps.
No, the caps lock shouldn't be removed or replaced. It's handy to have a key that allows you to toggle lower to upper caps so you don't have to hold shift.
Pointless Ask Slashdot question!
That doesn't matter much when hitting the tab key fills out the rest of the name anyway.
Microsoft didn't "change its tune." Slashdot reported on a rumor that SP2 would install on pirate copies. Immediately afterward, Microsoft stated at the WinHEC that the rumors were false. Wininformant reported it the very day after.
Slashdot is reporting this like Microsoft just now changed their decision. For one, they said this already LAST MONTH, and two, they never said SP2 would install on pirate copies anyway.
Has anyone online ever called a "boycott" that actually turned out successfully?
Calling a boycott is the new fallback insult of today. "Well, I'll just call a boycott--take that!"
Apparently we're boycotting the RIAA, the MPAA, software patents, Microsoft, and more.
thouroughly discredited in slashdot news stories.
The fact that you think a freaking Slashdot news story ever discredited anything shows your anti-"M$" agenda to begin with. Nobody discredited it. You meant to say that a bunch of Linux fanboys expressed how much it was "flawed" just because they like Linux and they said so.
To think Slashdot ever had the integrity and journalistic know-how to ever discredit anything is ludicrous. This place is the Aint-It-Cool-News of the technology sector.
Once again you missed the point entirely. Slashdot is not a "Linux only" site.
But it is absolutely an extremely pro-Linux, pro-OSS site. I don't see what relevance defining the scope of the intended subject matter has. The fact is, Slashdot is anti-Microsoft yet takes Microsoft ads.
Seriously, though, from the article:
Recently, however, Linux Today has added a new client to its list: Microsoft. Not only are Microsoft-sponsored advertisements appearing on that site now, but the ads are downright anti-Linux.
How long has it been since Slashdot has been displaying Microsoft ads? I mean, what the fuck?
Today, there is a flash ad on the top-right hand screen that is a case study of the convenient store 7-11's TCO study between Linux and Microsoft. Ultimately, Microsoft won the study and the CIO of 7-11 is quoted (in the ad that is running on Linux Today!) as saying: "...the TCO for the Windows Server System approach was 20% less expensive than Linux." The fact that this ad is appearing on a cornerstone Linux community website is an absolute outrage.
Yes. It is, isn't it? I see the exact same ads on Slashdot all the time. OSDN takes money from "evil" Microsoft all damn day, and the frothing posters seem to be none the wiser, or look the other way to bash Microsoft some more. If a website is going to bash Microsoft yet take money and display their ads, I will declare that they have lost all integrity.
A bunch of people calling on a boycott against a website for accepting money from a rival company. They do this by posting on a website that accepts money from the same rival company and sticks their big ads everywhere. This from the "free speech" community.
Slashdot is corporate-owned; I don't think a lot of people realize that. The very day Slashdot stuck banner ads on their stories was the day it lost all credibility for me. Of course, VA Linux strikes back with their "tech news" site by conveniently posting a lot of misleading articles negative toward its competitor. Sleaze goes both ways.
There used to be Kuro5hin to go to, but that place is a complete mess. Slashdot remains the unfortunate bastion of geek news on the Internet at the moment. I pray for something more open to replace it!
It's a fact of life that Microsoft is going to have to own up to if they want to stay on top. They raised the beast, now they need to teach it the rules.
Which is why the Windows Update configuration prompt absolutely will not go away until you tell it what you want Windows to do about Critical Updates. I've seen Slashdotters complain about how XP "nags" you about things when you first run it, but it's the smartest thing to do. And if you tell it not to download any patches or not even tell you about them...you know where the fault lies. One can rightfully criticize Microsoft for missing the flaw in their original software testing, but at some point, personal responsibility comes into play. This was patched way back on April 13th!
Installing security patches is just a fact of life for absolutely any major operating system, Linux included. Distros release security advisories all the time. This isn't a criticism of any specific company. You know where the real blame lies--on the mouthbreather morons who think it's cool to dick with people's computers to begin with.
What a surprise it wasn't mentioned that this was patched months ago, right?
This vulnerability is the LSASS Buffer Overrun Vulnerability, already patched way back on April 13. Slashdot probably had at least two or three articles on it back then as well if you wanna do a search for "sasser."
If you haven't patched after two months, you're just the same as all those people who got hit with Blaster, which was also already patched beforehand. Linux distros issue security patches for their vulnerabilities weekly and nobody complains, but when Microsoft releases a patch, suddenly it's this huge issue to run a tiny executable that plugs security flaws, and then people bitch at Windows two months later when a virus comes out to exploit it...
Just saying. How can one criticize their security if they won't apply their security patches? Almost all major software is gonna require a patch eventually. I don't get this steadfast need to avoid patching Windows boxes while freely recompiling Linux kernels on a whim for production servers when a minor point release comes out.
*cough* Window Maker? XFCE? ROX? Enlightenment? There are tons of window managers and desktops that don't use a taskbar+start menu interface.
The discussion is about the two major, most popular choices--KDE and GNOME. The rest lack even more functionality than those two do, so I didn't realize they had relevance to this discussion.
Y-Windows
Their IRC channel is active, and they're already working on the widgets. They plan a 1.0 release within a year. Full hardware-acceleration, network transparency, and a complete replacement of X with a user-level X-compatibility layer. The PDF describes all the reasons why they're replacing X. Stuff even I didn't know.
Those are being done on the X level in the new x.org server. Not GNOME's problem.
Anything is better than KDE's completely hilarious, amateurish icon label dropshadows. They don't even fade out gracefully. How did anyone think that should be something to include in an official release?
Someday, just someday, I'd like to see hardware acceleration. The Y-Windows boys are already planning it.
One of the MSDN tech videos demonstrated a guy writing a 10-50 line XAML app that updated his website blog for him via .NET.
We're basically chasing someone's tail again--as we have done for the past 10 years. I agree with another poster here, I want a working desktop first. Where's the sane development API? Oh, I forgot, everything is about "choice" and we need 23 different libraries, APIs, and window managers that all conflict with each other (I have to install two entire fucking desktop environments to be able to run each other's apps! Amateurish and unprofessional). For crying out loud, my GNOME memory footprint is sucking up more RAM than XP does on my laptop. I don't even want to think about that krudgy slow thing we call KDE...
How is it geeks can get so many things right--Linux kernel, Apache, PHP--and so many things wrong--KDE, GNOME, XFree86, and basically anything attempting GUI usage? It's like when it comes to moving away from the technical stuff and actually getting creative and interacting with people, geeks fall short not only in social life but in their application projects. Not a troll but a real observation here--the problem is who is developing these projects and how they approach them, which is illustrative of the community as a whole (including Slashdot)...
Exactly. Package management is a distro issue, *not* a desktop problem.
.NET for people to develop for. Until then, GNOME and KDE are exactly what they were when they first came out--hacky desktop emulators stuck on top of X to make it look like Linux is in the same league as Apple and Microsoft in the desktop market. "Look, we have an integrated browser too! Look, a taskbar! 7 second app startup time? Ignore that, here are more screenshots!"
Absolutely, 100% wrong. Your abitrary mindset is the primary problem. "I've randomly decided that application installation should be handled by the distro!" No reason or proof or logic is given.
How will you ever have a seamless, professional, sane desktop environment that doesn't even have an installation/uninstallation API? The very idea is so backwards and laughable, I fully expect Linux to take another 10 years to reach the level XP and OS X are at now.
Since Linux crunchies are absolutely dead-set on never replacing the interface failures that are taskbars and start menus, I want to at least be able to have applications install their links on the menu and give me shortcuts to their uninstallers automatically.
I want to be able to just download an installer for an app onto my desktop and double-click it. A desktop environment should keep track of the desktop applications it has installed. Forgive me, but I want my desktop to be self-aware of what the hell it has installed and how to uninstall them. We're trying to compete with OS X and Windows here!
You have two options:
Do it in "bundles" like OS X, where applications install to folders in an Applications directory, and you can remove the program just by dragging the folder to the trash.
Do it like Windows does, where applications register their locations, tell Windows how to uninstall itself, and adds appropriate shortcuts and entries in the start menu and "Add/Remove Programs" dialog.
High school Linux zealot: "B-but we have a hundred possible external package managers to run all that!" Yeah, good luck remaining 15 years behind everyone in the GUI department just because nobody can be arsed to stop working on new sidebar buttons and integrated blogging functions in order to create a sane API in the vein of Cocoa and
You want a litmus test? The day someone can buy a printer that comes with a CD, stick the CD into the drive, a menu comes up to install the binary driver, and afterward the printer works. All done in a Linux desktop. Then it would truly be the "year of the Linux desktop (tm)". At the current pace, that is definitely not going to ever happen with either KDE or GNOME. They both are horrible desktops, and people overlook it because they don't want to admit that Microsoft still gets this part right. To Linux guys, it's a penis length test of shoving in as much pointless crap as possible to compensate for the lack of very basic functionality.
Linux is different because 1) there's now a huge pool of free (beer) GUI software so users can give it a real shot
So instead of buying applications, they have to download and/or compile them. It's still getting a whole bunch of new applications that are mere shells of the commercial implementations they're trying to emulate. You may as well not even consider them in the equation.
2) even before those apps came along, there were plenty of text-only apps that met the needs of Unix users of the day. Those were available for BeOS, too, but the users who wanted the ultimate GUI didn't care whether bison and nn were available.
Linux is different because it has the same GNU text apps that all the other UNIX-clones have?
The only, ONLY way Linux is different is that it is Open Source. The hacky desktop emulators Linux has are completely horrible, yet nobody will change them, except innovative people like those hacking on Y-Windows. Otherwise, Linux is just a haven for anti-"M$" zealots who think computer operating systems are something to actually expend energy being religious over. To the rest of the world that actually has a life, there are more important things to consider--like getting their work done (as opposed to spending four hours getting godawful XMMS not to skip with a standard soundcard).