Slackware Likely To Drop GNOME Support 708
An anonymous reader writes "After Hewlett Packard, who jumped off of supporting GNOME, Red Hat has followed by splitting their Desktop Linux out to Fedora which is community driven, and now distributions like Slackware have started to drop GNOME entirely in favor of KDE. Read more about their decision here. It looks like companies as well as distributions start focusing towards one solution." Patrick Volderking's quoted message doesn't announce a final decision to drop GNOME from Slackware, however -- and as the followups in that thread note, it could be interpreted as an endorsement of the good job done by Dropline in packaging GNOME for Slack.
Endorsement? Probably not. (Score:2, Informative)
Key word there is "could". After the fiasco with swaret, it's unlikely for many 3rd party packages to get Pat's blessing. And as I noted on the DLG forum (I'm TransAMrit), I didn't see any real endorsement from the emails.
For those of you that don't know about swaret, it was given a trial by being placed in Slackware's extra/ dir a while back. It failed miserably, doing lots of things wrong, breaking systems left and right, so of course, it was taken out of the official tree. But still, lots of people swear by swaret. That is, until they get bit by it. Then the blame is associated not with a half-assed 3rd party utility, but Slackware itself.
I'm not saying anything about the quality of DLG here, but it's easy to see that you don't want the above situation repeated many times.
BS detector (Score:2, Informative)
Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse, RHEL, blah blah etc are all seriously GNOME-oriented.
Re:The sky is falling! The sky is falling! (Score:5, Informative)
Having said that:
1. Pat's said that he wasn't eager about adding GNOME in the beginning. He's still regretting it.
2. Rumors about KDE? Well, they're just rumors. These aren't rumors about KDE, they're straight from The Man himself. Both of those emails mentioned in the DLG thread linked above are real. I've even clarified what I could in my post (as TransAMrit).
3. Yes, the person that posted the first email appears to be unknown to the forum, as am I. So, you can say that I may be bullshitting as well, but... well, you've gotta believe someone, don't you?
And you're right, this is not a final decision. However, it is NOT a rumor. It is a decision that Pat has said he needs to make.
He just hasn't made it yet
Re:It's not April Fools Day, is it? (Score:3, Informative)
RTFA. Not an æsthetic decision. Patrick is sick and tired of struggling with GNOME compilation, which is by all accounts a bear, and Slack users that want GNOME haven't been using his builds for awhile anyway. They use Dropline, so there's not really much point in Patrick spending so much time wrestling with GNOME to get it to compile.
Patrick's name is Volkerding (Score:2, Informative)
Article (Score:1, Informative)
Complete crap. Red Hat has split it's hobbyist / home user Linux out as Fedora. Red Hat are more than willing to take money off businesses to support Linux on the desktop, just like always. Can we try to keep trolls out of the actual articles?
Re:Exactly! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I hate KDE (Score:2, Informative)
Nope. GNOME's theming is *way* more flexible in comparism with QT, because it lets you exchange the complete engine. That's the reason why many GNOME themes are superior to the KDE themes, it is also the reason why there is a GTK-QT engine and no QT-KDE engine. (You can use any KDE theme in GNOME, but not v.v.) Hell, there are even SVG-based GNOME themes.
Plus, you could never fix the KDE inconsistency and UI clutter by configuration.
Re:I hate KDE (Score:5, Informative)
KDE and Qt also fully support switching out the widget rendering engine - I should know, as I've been writing style plugins that do this for *years* now.
And this isn't a recent feature - this has been available since KDE 2.0.
-clee
Distros and Packaging (Score:2, Informative)
This is due to two factors. The first is that Debian (Gentoo, etc.) has good packaging tools. They will automatically resolve dependencies, fetching as needed from the 'net, CD-ROM or wherever you tell them from. Upgrades are a simple matter of one command, etc. etc. you can get the full story from any zealot.
The second factor is that pretty much anything is available as a Debian package (Gentoo/BSD port, etc.). This means that you don't have to resort to compiling from source, installing alien packages, etc. You just apt-get install gnome and *poof* it goes and fetches 127 MB of packages and eats nary 426 MB of your disk space.
Now, if distributions were to not package some software, package management would fail on those distros. Package management on Slackware is pretty weak because of this already. When I used Slackware, I compiled from source a lot. I like Debian so much because I don't have to do that.
Of course, packaging takes enormous time and effort. This is why Debian can pull it off and Slackware cannot.
Re:On the shelves? (Score:3, Informative)
I guess your Fry's doesn't, but my Fry's had both SuSE and Linspire (or Lindows) last time I was there. I was actually surprised they didn't have Mandrake. IIRC, they also had Red Hat, Slackware, and one of the smaller BSDs, but not FreeBSD, for some reason.
Re:Unmasked! (Score:2, Informative)
Um, not exactly. Patrick, who is the guy quoted in TFA, is the ONLY person working on Slackware. The whole thing is his baby (ignoring all the GNU tools of course) and that's one reason I love it.
But back on topic, Slackware is definetly a hobbyist distro. I'd say that it's more likely you'll see a split between the two desktop environments, with RedHat making GNOME/Linux systems and SUSE/HP/etc. making KDE/Linux, than problems for either desktop. Nor is it a Good Thing. If that was the case, I wouldn't have Enlightenment.
Your Point? (Score:3, Informative)
But err, what does it have to do with a discussion about GNOME? GNOME feels like Windows, too, and just because it gets dropped from Slackware doesn't mean you have to use KDE. You can do just fine without either one of them, and you can even get GNOME from outside Slackware if you want to run it.
As far as getting to the masses goes... A wise man once said "Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool would want to use it." Would you rather be using a system that is best for you, or best for the masses?
Re:Not to nitpick..... (Score:5, Informative)
As does Red Hat Entrprise Linux, which just released a beta of version 4 in four flavors:
Enterprise Server
Advanced Server
Workstation
Desktop
So whoever submitted this article is either an ignorant slut or more likely a RedHat hating KDE zealot looking to spread a bit of FUD.
> look at what Novell & Sun base their linux
Exactly. RedHat has far too much invested in GNOME to give it up and Novel liked Ximian so much they bought em. So all you Suse fans better get ready to love GNOME as the default/only desktop.
> Kudos to the submitter for successfully trolling the editors
Not all that hard, especially on an otherwise dull weekend, guess they figured there isn't anything quite like a good old-fashioned GNOME/KDE flamefest to make the ad server go "cha-ching!".
So in the spirit of fanning the flames......
I'll state again that while I dislike several GNOME misfeatures and greatly dread Miguel's obsession for all things Microsoft, possibly leading to a nightmare scenario of a total
1. Language independence. Being written in C has lead to GTK being easilly wrapped in a metric buttload of languages. KDE, being based on Qt is pretty much limited to C++ and closely related OO crap.
2. Platform independence. You can port Gtk/GNOME apps to Windows without worrying about license issues. Not so for KDE/Qt. You can port FROM Windows to the Free world but never the other way. Windows ports of the major GNOME/Gtk apps means a large userbase to tap and when they convert to Linux/GNU/X they will have never seen a KDE app but will already be up to speed on Gimp, Gaim, OpenOffice and such.
Re:kde licensing (Score:5, Informative)
all dual-licensing means is that you can do things that you wouldnt be able to do under the GPL (bsd, proprietary software) by paying a fee to the owners of the copyright.
the windows licensing is a separate issue. rather than being dual-licensed, this separate codebase is not released under the gpl. the kde-windows people are working on porting the gpl'd qt-nix framework to windows, if Trolltech were enforcing restrictions beyond the gpl they would not be able to do this.
Re:As a long time GNOME user... (Score:1, Informative)
But is it still true that there's about ten different configuration tools for the desktop, some of which do the same thing as the other?
No, I'm not sure where you got that from. The GNOME control center is far better organised than KDE. The functions are split into tools, but they don't overlap.
In addition to that, there's a preferences editor which suspiciously looks and feels like regedit.
There is no "preferences editor". Configuration data is stored in gconf. The application provides a way to configure its preferences, but sometimes obscure options are not provided by the app itself. To get to them you need a application which allows you see the Gconf keys -- the one supplied by default with GNOME is Gconf-editor. As for whether it looks "suspiciously" like regedit -- it edits a tree of keys associated with data. How would you organise the interface?
Or how about the "Ok" and "Cancel" button order?
What OK and Cancel buttons? GNOME applications explicity discourage the use of such obtuse and confusing button labels. The OK/Cancel issue is a huge red herring-- if you ever seen a GNOME dialog that says OK/CANCEL... file a bug.
HP + GNOME (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BS detector (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I hate KDE (Score:3, Informative)
When writing the GTK-Qt engine, I actually found Qt's theming system far more flexible than that of GTK. Your "reasoning" for why there is not a Qt-GTK engine is rubbish. I have yet to see a GTK theme that can beat a Qt theme in terms of rendering speed or appearance.
Gnome is the future (Score:2, Informative)
Re:bah red hat! (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever personally built Gnome 2.x from source tarballs without problems? Have you ever successfully changed the target install directory, so that making a package (tarball, rpm, whatever) is easy? And that's not even counting the new libraries popping up all the time, often with undocumented dependencies. And then there's miserable pages like this [gnome.org], which have the basic list of dependencies, but only provide links for 3 of them.
By comparison, KDE is simple to build. It's just a dozen or so source tarballs, all of which do the "./configure ; make ; make prefix=/temp/package_to_be_tarballed install" thing quite easily, without major dependency issues. X.org or XFree86, QT, and a recent XML2 library are all that's needed, last I checked.
Slackware dropping Gnome has very little to do with how the two desktops compare when being used, and everything to do with how they compare when building from source. If this alleged email from Patrick is true, then it just means that he's sick and tired of Gnome's chaotic, maintenance-intensive mess of libraries. I don't blame the guy.
Re:actually (Score:3, Informative)
BenjyD refers Slack as a one-man distro just because Pat created it and is mostly its only maintainer and official packager. When Slackware was supported by a CD distributor (it was Walnut Creek?) he had a few lieutenants, but I guess he currently does the job alone.
On the other hand, I guess Slackware ALWAYS has multiuser, as Linux by design always was, and only in the very early days the Linux init sequence was just to start bash (and that doesn't means that multiuser capability wasn't quite there).
I didn't see that, but I'm booting Slack since 1995 and I never heard anything such a non-multiuser Linux distro, besides those end-user oriented new distros as Lindows.
Re:I like GNOME... (Score:2, Informative)
Getting back to the point... (Score:5, Informative)
The issue here is that getting Gnome built is a headache that Pat finds onerous given that he is known to prefer KDE, and while Todd is happy to distribute Dropline Gnome, Pat might be excused for not wanting to duplicate the effort.
Re:Distros and Packaging (Score:2, Informative)
... the end? ... (Score:2, Informative)
I switched to KDE3 after Gnome 2.6 (I was kind of heading for the door at 2.4 but I thought I'd give their new direction a try at least). Initially KDE3 was heaven; everything was configurable. But then it was hell; everything was configurable. I went in search of an old flame, Enlightenment, but that flame had died out, I just hadn't noticed.
Then I discovered XFCE4, just the right balance of configurability and simplicity (for me at least). Now I use 10% Gnome, 60% KDE, and 30% other (rox mostly). I have the best of everything and it all fits together beautifully. XFCE4 is so unopposing that everything can live together in harmony.
Maybe people are right and there should be one common desktop, but for all the people like me out there who like neither Gnome or KDE entirely, I'd like to recommend XFCE4, it's kind of rad.
Fight the enemy, not ourselves (Score:2, Informative)
Re:About freakin' time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unmasked! (Score:3, Informative)
Freaky looking, eh? There's a scientific observation for you. As for following conventions no one else uses, well, you are just plain wrong. I love OS X and Gnome. I hate KDE and Windows. So in one sense you are right. KDE follows the same conventions as Windows and drives me crazy. I mean the button order that KDE users love and that MS created is weird. Gnome and OS X both follow a much more rigid set of guidelines that ultimately present a much cleaner and more professional look.
I am exceedingly glad that KDE dumped the Keramik widget set as its default. That was one of the most childish and unprofessional widget sets ever devised. I used to cringe when professional aqauntances would try out linux and load up KDE with that widget set (SuSE).
I see KDE as a very cool tool. It's customizability is second to none. That's what the gentoo users want (although all gentoo users I know use fluxbox -- maybe that's why they think their distro is so blazingly fast).
In short, there is no evidence that Gnome sucks more or less than KDE sucks. The old patent argument is tiring. I mean Gnome is not about
Re:Dropline sucks (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Pat's arguments (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As a long time GNOME user... (Score:4, Informative)
This has been demonstrated in usability study after usability study. Reading direction hasn't a thing to do with it (or at least, not in the sense you're thinking: I would be unsurprised to find that the most common item should come last because it will be the freshest in one's mind when read, and because it's most likely to mean that one will read the entire list of options).
The Macintosh usability team--until recently, an excellent one--tested this beyond a shadow of a doubt two decades ago.
Re:Childish nonsense (Score:3, Informative)
It was just a matter of preference that I stuck to KDE. GNOME was every bit as good functionality wise.
Re:I hate KDE (Score:3, Informative)
In 3.3, the clock-applet has two tabs ("appearance" and "timezones"). So what the hell are you talking about?
Re:I like GNOME... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.slackware.com/about/
Yes, that used to be true... but that page is fairly badly outdated. If you follow the link to David Cantrell's site, you will find this: "Please note: I do not work for Slackware anymore (technically BSDi or Walnut Creek CDROM)."
Looking at Chris Lumens' site, he hardly mentions anything about slackware at all, other than to say his server runs slackware -current. So while Slackware used to have a few employees, I believe when it was split off and once again became its own entity it went back to being just Patrick. It still (to the best of my knowledge) remains the only commercial Linux distro which has always been profitable.
Re:Guh... (Score:2, Informative)
Gnu Network Object Model Environment.
Perhaps this will help: About the Gnome project
Re:Unmasked! (Score:2, Informative)
- Window's Reg uses one file, gconf uses loads of files, essentially it manages the old style
.rc files for you (although they're xml and stored in one place and cached, so you can't edit by hand which is a pain in the ass, but rare).
- Because gconf is a central server based system, a change to it from one app can be reflected in other applications immediately, i.e. change proxy settings, they change everywhere then. (This obviously requires the app to play nice with this).
- GConf allows top-level locking of certain settings.. This may not be that useful to you or I, but for corporate desktops being able to make alterations and lock them for your users (i.e lock their proxy, keep remote desktop open/closed) very helpful in a IT infrastructure.
I'm sure there are many other reasons for it, it's maturing nicely. Gnome did get stripped pretty big, and put a lot of noses out of joint, but it really has been a good move.. It reminds me a little of Mozilla, loads of issues with that bloated app, but the work is paying off with Firefox etc.. now wooping IE's ass..Admittedly gnome has had some pretty large changes for it's revisions, but they are becoming smaller and smaller over time.
Re:GNOME is a difficult for sys admins (Score:2, Informative)
There is some very good documentation on gconf written from a sys admin point of veiw. And while the main web site does not scream about it existance is is there. http://www.gnome.org/learn/
The most usfull part of these docs it how it explains the way gconf merges the users own gconf files with the manditory settings and the defaults.
Gconf from a sysadmins point of view is quite a usfull tool and allows a good degrede of control. Does KDE have a equivalent.
Yes. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Guh... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, the "System Monitor" app matches up application icons to processes in the process list, so the user should be able to work out the name if they need to. However, they shouldn't need to for a few reasons:
Now as for GConf, it is an abstraction for storing and retrieving preferences, and getting notification of changes to preferences. The gconf-editor program is simply a program that uses the GConf API.
I'm not sure why you thought it necessary to use gconf-editor to change your font though. The fonts control panel is pretty easy to find (it is "Font" under the desktop preferences menu). Was there some other basic preference that you were thinking of?