GNOME 3.2 Released 205
supersloshy writes "Today marks the release of the latest edition of the GNOME Desktop for Linux-based operating systems. There are numerous fixes and improvements in this release such as smaller title bars (for small screens), the integration of GNOME Contacts and GNOME Documents for easy data management, web application integration, many more configurable settings, and other updates such as a more unified appearance and better chat integration."
Go away, geezers (Score:2, Interesting)
Its a bait and switch approach. They did it during the 1.x era and then again during the 2.x era.
There is not going to be a 3rd time. Ditch gnome. The whole project has jumped the shark, all they they care about are non existant users.
GNOME is the only major Linux desktop for which all of the following points are true.
o it's developed entirely in the open without a single corporate overlord
o it's trying out bleeding-edge design concepts instead of rehashing old interfaces and patterns
o it's successfully targeting non-geek users AND proving quite usable for technical users.
KDE fails the non-geek user test - it's both obtuse and verbose. XFCE is like a crappy, featureless GNOME 2/Windows mashup with a hint of SharpE. GNOME 2 is like a weird Windows/OS X mashup - functional, but nothing new there. Unity is slick and crufty at the same time (quite the feat), and its direction is dictated by Canonical. Blackbox, Fvwm et al aren't desktop environments.
All you people criticizing GNOME 3 are doing exactly what your parents did when you tried to get them to use Linux years ago - holding on to what you know, fighting change, refusing to let old habits die or to see the good in a *different* way of working.
The GNOME team is actually trying something new, and that seems rare in the open source world. With the amount of vitriol being thrown at GNOME's developers, it's not really surprising that we seem doomed to keep cloning commercial software so that we can have it for free or tweak it for our piddling little edge-case requirements.
Turn in your geek cards, old dudes, from someone who was using Linux way back in the days of Slackware 4.
Much more productive (Score:5, Interesting)
The new shell is absolutely fantastic. The flow between the apps and tasks is incredibly smooth. It's really too bad that Ubuntu didn't see the potential and decided to go their own way. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for competition but it would be really nice to see Ubuntu join the GNOME shell effort. Unity is just getting in the way when it's trying to get out of the way ironically. If you haven't tried the new GNOME shell, you're missing out on a really cool experience. I haven't this happy with my desktop since I ran a very customized AfterStep about 10 years ago.