GNOME 3.10 Released 218
kthreadd writes "Version 3.10 of the GNOME software collection has been released. New in this release is improved support for Wayland, the upcoming X replacement. The system status menus have been consolidated into one single menu. Many of the applications in GNOME now features header bars instead of title bars, which merges the titlebar and toolbar into a single element and allows applications to offer more dynamic user interfaces. GNOME now also includes an application for searching, browsing and installing applications called Software. Several other new applications have also been added to GNOME including Music, Photos, Notes and Maps."
Looks great! (Score:0, Informative)
I tried a Preview of Fedora 20 (Alpha out now, pretty stable!)
and Im liking where this is heading.
M.E.H. (Score:3, Informative)
Gnome and KDE went through similar histories. The maintainers (for some unkown reason) decided they had to radically change their product - just as Ubuntu decided to introduce a totally new gui a few years ago. The verdict with Gnome is almost universal - the new Gnome (Gnome 3, which you have with Centos 6, unfortunately) stinks and isn't getting any better. Nevertheless, those who offer Gnome - e.g., Redhat, SUSE, others - offer only the latest version. Redhat has made it the default. Their motto is "just get used to it". But there is one hugely positive development: Mint decided to fork the old Gnome, Gnome 2. Mint offers 2 versions of Gnome 2: the Cinamon gui and the Mate gui (pronounced matey, a type of tea). I have no experience with Cinamon but love Mate. I am using it on my main computer. I noticed recently that Fedora also offers a Mate variant. My guess is that eventually most of the distros will; they will offer their main gui, whatever it is, plus Mate, XFCE, LXDE, etc. I am guessing that Gnome 3 will eventually go away.
KDE4 is like Gnome 3 but actually improved as it developed. One of its peculiarities is that it offers 5 (I think) different ways of laying out and using the desktop. One of them - called Folder View - makes it quite similar to the discontinued KDE3. I have instances of folder view KDE4 in my PCLinuxOS and Mepis setups, and like it. Be aware, however, that KDE3, like Gnome 2, has been forked. If you go to the Trinity Linux website you will find that there are people who have rejiggered Debian, Ubuntu, and PCLOS with the KDE3 gui. In fact, one of my partitions is running Debian Wheezy with KDE3. One of the best things about KDE4 is the Dolphin file manager which I have imported into all of my non-KDE setups. It is far, far superior to every other file manager, including the old Konqueror, which Trinity KDE3 still has.
Re:M.E.H. (Score:5, Informative)
the new Gnome (Gnome 3, which you have with Centos 6, unfortunately)
Centos 6 is using gnome 2 still. Not sure wtf you are on about.
Their motto is "just get used to it".
That's GNOME's position. Red Hat will direct you to other DE's if GNOME 3 isnt your cup of tea.
But there is one hugely positive development: Mint decided to fork the old Gnome, Gnome 2.
Again, wtf are you on about? Mint didn't fork GNOME 2. They forked GNOME 3 and created a new DE based on GTK3. The GNOME 2 fork is called Mate and is independent of Linux Mint.
Seriously, no one is going to take you seriously if you can't even get the basics straight.
Sadface.jpg (Score:2, Informative)
WinAmp (except for an awkward period) still looks like it did fourteen years ago, and it's still whipping llama asses.
I'll pour a 40 out for my dead homie, XMMS - it was truly a worthy counterpart.
Re:MATE RULES! (Score:3, Informative)
Because RHEL7 is going to use it as the default desktop environment, and Red Hat is the biggest paying contributor to Gnome.
Re:MATE RULES! (Score:5, Informative)
I recently converted from gnome 3.4 fallback to gnome 3.8.
I found it the most annoying pos to try and work with, until I started adding extensions to get back little bits of what I consider core functionality. Kudos to the gnome peeps for making it very easy to download/enable/disable various addons now. The only problem? Twenty fuckin extensions are required to get back those options I want, or to remove shit thats being forced down my throat. Then guess what...extensions often collide and interoperate strangely. Then you have 'mega extensions' that come with one small thing you want and twenty other features you give not a shit about, and, one of those other twenty things collides with another plugin you use.
Then you have the lockscreen. Maybe gnome devs don't use it, but I do, and locking and unlocking / resuming from screen off take anywhere from 30-60 seconds!?!?!?!?! The whole time you're like what in the fuckin fuck is going on.
Want to suspend? No you don't apparently. You only turn off your computer completely or reboot in gnome.
Want to try and use up more than a small portion of the top bar? Ok we'll start chopping the fuckin clock short so you can't read it AND clicking on the (now shortened) clock/calendary display to bring up the calendar pane? No clock on it, awesome. Not to mention it taking 2-5 seconds to pop up the stupid calendar pane.
So much in gnome 3 feels sluggish during operation, even if its just a ~100ms delay, that I feel like my i7 with 32gig of ram is from the early 00's.
Once middle click paste goes away gnome can go fuck themselves, but I'm sure by then they'll have removed more small things I didn't know I found vital---or forcefully prevent some current extensions from working anyways. /rant over
Re:New Applications (Score:3, Informative)
Not to sound like a smart ass, but you really shouldn't be using XMMS anymore. They split up into "fancy" folk who created XMMS2 and "traditional" people who created Audacious. I'm using Audacious right now with one of the XMMS skins, it just has newer codecs and more advanced features, and works way better with modern systems.
You can never make anyone happy. (Score:5, Informative)
You know, I remember, many years ago now, an article that got posted on /. about usability of the Linux desktop for casual/beginner/"regualr people" users. GNOME and KDE were examined. At the time Gnome 2.x was fairly new.
One of the prominent complaints (one that got MSFT and AAPL fanbois gloating) was how people struggled with the exotic names for everyday applications.
So...you have to click this GIMP thingy to edit pictures? To go ont he web you need to clock "Konqueror" or "Galeon" (the latter of which morphed into "Epiphany"--so much more clear what it does eh?). To burn a CD I need "Brasero", etc.
The user had to rely on icons--sometimes they were not so useful either.
So the GNOME people have finally done something about it and name the app that helps you install software "Software", and call the web browser "web" instead of "Epihpany"...makes sense considering the feedback right? Well, now they are being mocked by experienced users for the unimaginative names. It's not like a computer literate person can't figure out what "WEB" does (oh gee, that must be the GNOME web browser...well isn't that more boring than Epiphany, but I guess now Aunt Martha will know how to get on the web).
By the way--"WEB" is just Epiphany renamed--the GNOM browser. Firefox/Iceweasel or Chromium still appear with their respective names/icons, so you can relax unlessyou are among the 1% of GNOME users who just use the GNOME Web browser and nothing else.
(As I type this I use GNOME 3.8 from Debian unstable and experimental packages--'tis a great improvement over 3.4 and earlier that so many still use or base their first impressions on--hopefully 3.10 will be packaged for Debian in due time--pwehaps a couple weeks before 3.12 comes out ;-)
(not all) New Applications (Score:4, Informative)
There is some confusion about what is a GNOME-based application and what is part of the GNOME environment itself.
For example Shotwell is a third-party GNOME based application. It has never been part of the GNOME project--not a GNOME component. Rather, it has merely been the most commonly used app for photo management and viewing as packaged by distributions. Shotwell supplanted F-Spot becaus the latter was built with .NET/Mono and many had concerns about potential MSFT-interference.
GNOME did not have final say on either F-Spot OR Shotwell given they weren't GNOME desktop components--just apps designed to work on GNOME. Until now there WAS no official default app. Now there is:: GNOME Photos.
As such, I expect that GNOME Photos, Music, Notes, Maps, etc. will continue for the long term as the "defaults" as they are new official GNOME components. Furthermore I suspect Shotwell, Rythmbox, etc will continue on as alternatives, likely with some enhanced capabilites, different feature sets, etc. just as WEB (aka epiphany) is the "official" GNOME browser client it is still commonly (or even normally) supplanted by a 3rd party browser.
Re:You can never make anyone happy. (Score:4, Informative)
What's wrong with Epiphany Web Browser then? But to call the software simply "Web" is crazy. The idiots who went on, and still go on about, names being hard, are just idiots. When I look for GIMP, in my menu I get GIMP Image Editor. Whoa, so hard to work out what that does! What does Powerpoint do? What does FrameMaker do? What did ClarisWorks do?
And, you didn't address the point that by using generic names, it makes it much much harder to search for information about the software.