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GNOME GUI

BBC on Gnome & Interview Miguel 128

Posted by Hemos from the checkin-in-with-the-man dept.
Evil Greeb writes "The BBC have written a fairly pro-Linux article, citing Gnome as "the operating system which could loosen Microsoft's stranglehold on the market". I thought it was a desktop environment myself, but that's not the issue: Linux promotion is! The page includes an audio snippet of Miguel de Icaza on Gnome. " Excellent-now if my Gnome-session would just run properly.
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BBC on Gnome & Interview Miguel More

BBC on Gnome & Interview Miguel

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  • I found these new RPMs, they work great:

    ftp://ftp.inconnect.com/pub/unix/linux/redhat-6. 0/contrib-updates/

    Here is the README
    =======
    RedHat isn't always the speediest at releasing general RPM updates
    unless there is a security hole.

    Because of that, here are updated RedHat-6.0 rpms that use the spec
    files from RedHat modified to use the new version. Any RedHat patches
    included in the orignal rpm have been updated/checked/discarded if need be.
    The idea is to have these updated RPMs built how RedHat would've built them.

    I built these on a RedHat 6.0 box (glibc 2.1), so if you have RedHat 5.x (glibc2.0)
    you might want to get the SRPM file instead and do:
    rpm --rebuild SRPMFILE, and then rpm -Uvh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/NEWRPMFILE(s)

    Lastly, it seems some gnome apps get a little testy when the find configs from
    older versions. gnome-session and gmc are good examples. After you upgrade the RPMs
    if you have problems ("core" files, weirdness, etc), delete the old configs and let the
    new software recreate updated configs. For example, on one of my boxes I had to do:

    rm -rf ~/.gnome/sess*
    rm -rf ~/.gnome/gmc*

    Dax Kelson
    =========

  • Re:dammit dammit dammit! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    : At least on /., the GNOME/KDE flamewars finally : cool off and then Miguel has to go and say : stupid something like this! :(

    Bah. He stated his opinion. He's allowed to do that, isn't he? Just because his opinion touches a hot topic, should we put him under a gag order?

    If that's the case places like slashdot should be shut down entirely. Sorry, I'm just tired of people tiptoeing around afraid to speak because they might be branded "offensive".

    Can you tell I've been reading Neal Stephenson?
  • Yes, Qt has C bindings, it's called QtC. The only thing I know about it is that nobody uses it, because C++ is better for GUI programming than plain C. IMHO the only importance of QtC is the fact that it shows that Qt can have as many bindings as gtk.

    As a note to that loading of C++ libraries, I don't think that loading 0.25MB library in memory can have significant performance impact on the system ( yes, my stripped libstdc++ is 0.25MB ). Moreover, not all the dynamic C++ library will get pulled into memory, only those parts of it that are needed.

    I just don't understand how they dare to put words 'modest Miguel' just few lines above all the FUD.

  • Lies? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "It started off as a component model," says Miguel, "So you could write small modules to build bigger applications, but the GUI thing just took off."

    Is it me, or has GNOME never been based around "component model"? I have yet to see an application that uses CORBA for GNOME. GNOME was always based around GTK+/glib. Their purpose was "KDE was not free".. so GNOME was born. They always had the GUI in mind. It didn't "just take off". Miguel makes it sound as if GNOME was really a Network Object Model Environment long before they used GUI. This is pure BS.

    I'm not even going into the other statement that disrespects KDE authors. Many people have already picked up on that.

  • Wrong! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He was GNU/Yawning!

    *wheee!*

  • I thought they were friends now, but..... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 19, 1999 @06:33AM (#1886885)
    '"I don't think KDE has a future at this point, it's not completely free yet and it's bound to a single programming language in Unix. Gnome from the very beginning has been accessible through any language. We are providing the GUI for all the languages and programmers can choose the language they like the most," says Miguel'

    Has he been horribly misquoted, or did he _really_ mean this?? Since when has Gnome been accessible through Fortran? Each system is authored in one core language (C or C++) with bindings at various levels for other languages (Perl, Python, etc). Geez.. Maybe more of the Gnome API is available to more languages, but that hardly makes the above comment accurate.

  • What a desktop environment is (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 19, 1999 @08:29AM (#1886886)

    There are two big pieces to a desktop environment, that distinguish it from a window manager.

    1. It has a set of UI guidelines that conformant programs follow as closely as possible.

      For example, on Win95, hitting Alt-F4 will kill just about any Windows applictation, and every menu bar has to have a File option -- these are the sorts of things that Windows applications are (theoretically) required to follow.

    2. It has a set of guidlines for exposing component interfaces that conformant programs follow as closely as possible.

      The advantage of having a component architecture is that it makes it *much* easier to script programs (because the scripting language bindings become simple to implement), and because it makes it easier for programmers to allow different programs to interact. For example, a programmer writing a word-processor could let users put charts into a document whose appearance is dynamically calculated from the spreadsheet, without knowing how the spreadsheet is implemented -- all he needs are the component interfaces. Think of it as Unix pipes on steroids and growth hormones, and you'll have some idea of why component models are so cool.

    3. Also, a DE usually contains a set of libraries and applications to make adhering to the first two much easier.

      For example, KDE uses the QT widget library to expose a set of UI elements to make it easier for programs to look and behave like KDE apps. Gnome uses GTK. Likewise, KOM/OpenParts (for KDE) and Baboon (for GNOME) are the component APIs that programs have to honor to be well-behaved KDE or GNOME apps.

    That's all there is to it, really. A window manager doesn't do these two things; all it does is manage the decorations on the windows. (Well, there's ICCCM, but it is at once hideously overengineered and utterly inadequate for specifying UI behaviors....)

    However, note that the big interoperability problem between GNOME and KDE isn't the UI; Unix users have been dealing with wildly different-looking GUI programs for years.

    Instead, the problem is that the component specs are different, which means it will be a lot harder to write programs that mix components from the two environments. For example, it will be unneccesarily messy to (say) write a script that uses KIllustrator to draw a chart from data in a Gnumeric spreadsheet unless the KDE and GNOME teams figure out a clean way of bridging their two component models.

    Fortunately, both of these are free software, so if they don't want, someone else will be able to. (It would have *legendary* hack value, if that someone is reading and needs encouragement. :)

  • That's just not true.
  • Posted by kmad:

    You are exactly right Mr. LizardKing. It would certainly make since to work towards making your desktop of choice as good as you can, rather than wasting energy on pointing out the shortcomings of a desktop you don't like. Nothing like a good bit of competition to bring out the best. Of course there is usually only one winner, but you can always start another race!

  • dammit dammit dammit! (Score:5)

    by V. ( 1057 ) <nathan AT nathanvalentine DOT org> on Wednesday May 19, 1999 @06:28AM (#1886889) Homepage
    >"I don't think KDE has a future at this point,
    >it's not completely free yet and it's bound to a
    >single programming language in Unix. Gnome from
    >the very beginning has been accessible through >any language. We are providing the GUI for
    >all the languages and programmers can choose
    >the language they like the most," says Miguel.

    At least on /., the GNOME/KDE flamewars finally cool off and then Miguel has to go and say stupid something like this! :(

    KDE and GNOME are both very nice( I use pieces
    from both ) and there is no need for either team
    to make inflammatory statements like this. Let
    the kiddies fight this psuedo-debate out in the
    middle school lunch room. GNOME rocks! KDE rocks!
    But having a choice rocks even more!
  • Thanks, that should fix some of my Gnome issues. I've been running KDE+Windomaker because of some Gnome wonkiness.

  • On the contrary ORBit wasn't built with speed as an objective. That was a pleasant side effect.

    In one of his talks in Denmark Miguel said that Elliott Lee's benchmarking of the different Free ORBs showed ORBit to be the fastest. Allegedly by a wide margin.

    /mill
  • I wrote them (in a week, if I may brag a bit).

    They are for Qt 1.33, but they should work on Qt 1.44, only be incomplete.

    It's not the best binding possible (not even close), but I did it to win an argument.

    http://ultra7.unl.edu.ar look for qtc
  • There is a very small subset of the KDE functionality that requires a KDE aware window manager.

    There are several KDE aware window managers, including window maker.

    The situation is not very different from GNOME's. (Hell, I can't find *any* difference)
  • Current KDE development versions do require, and use, MICO.

    In any case, the only thing GNOME 1.0 used ORBit for was panel applets, which can be almost as easily built without it (as proven by WM and AS).

    GNOME 1.0's usage of CORBA is somewhere between the toy and overkill levels.

    Only *now* are rumours about a Real Soon Now release of the GNOME document model, which KDE has had for about a year, just to mention one of the uses of CORBA that do make sense.
  • Most KDE apps require only that you have kdelibs installed.

    Some will also require that you are running kfm at the moment of using them, because that enables them to be network transparent, and things like that.

    Some (very very few) will require that you are running a KDE aware window manager (for example, kpager dos this), but that still doesn't force you to use kwm, either.
  • ... why do you believe that sensessly bashing another free software project is "ok"?
  • If that's his opinion, my opinion is that he is about as immature as they come, which is his right, and that immature people of his age are sadly too common.

    Then again, that's something I have suspected for quite a while.

    And everyone, please remember this the next time someone says "KDE people" go around bashing GNOME.

  • OK, here's the deal: (Score:4)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Wednesday May 19, 1999 @06:51AM (#1886899)
    KDE and Gnome are not window managers (though KDE does come with one).

    Both of these are, at heart, suites of applications and libraries. The applications are there to make the user experience easier; examples are the file managers and the panels of each. The libraries are there for two purposes: to provide a consistent look and feel, and to help applications written for a given desktop environment to interact with one another, thereby providing a more seamless experience.

    My choice: Gnome, with KDE's libs also installed.

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by Wheely ( 2500 )
    Why does not running kwm defeat the object? Gnome doesn't have a window manager and KDE without kwm becomes the same thing.
    I never understood why people think KDE or GNOME looks better. In their default state they look pretty similar to me. I run both and find
    GNOME much more primitive than KDE though it is kinda cute for some reason I haven't quite fathomed yet.

    Regards
  • Or the Sahara Desert
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • One thing about Miguel is that he is not afraid to speak his mind. He'll always say what he believes for example at the Netproject conference in London he was quoted as saying 'TCL was a mistake which shouldn't have happened'. Some people will disagree strongly with this statement but others won't.

    Being able to speak you mind is a good thing so he shouldn't be criticised for it. He also makes an interesting speaker as I found out when he went to London.
    --
  • Yes, you can install and run applications from them both at the same time.
    --
  • I've been wondering this also. I've noticed there are a whole slew of k apps nowadays, are these apps only runnable in the kde environment? And wouldn't that be a bad thing considering the k programs would require someoe to have kde therefor lowering our ability to have choice?

    No, as long as you have kdelibs installed, almost all K apps will work fine. My current setup of choice is kfm running inside WindowMaker and a mix of KDE and GNOME utilities.

    Incidentally, I found this article abysmal. The "GNOME operating system" bit is laughable and I thought Miguel came off like the Ed Muth of Linux.

  • There's some info here:
    http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome- announce-list/1999-April/0028.shtml

    Here's the mailing list archive:
    http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnom e-mailer-list/
  • I guess it's countermatched by Gtk's poor C++ bindings (good but not up to Qt's native support by any means, from what I've heard).

    Now be nice here. I work on those bindings and I can say they are not poor. They are now at 1.0 and generally work for what they were intended. Additionally, they do have features that make Qt pale in comparision (namely the signal/slot methanism that doesn't require a preprocessor.) Please be so kind as giving us a "fair" rating at this point unless you have first hand grips. ;-)

    --Karl
    Gtk-- Contributor

  • Have you checked out ORBit-C++ from the gnome cvs?
    --Karl
  • It is no surprise to me that BBC News manage to get their OSes and Desktop Environments mixed up. Their 'Internet correspondent' Chris Nuttall is not totally clued up. However they're trying which is good, but Mr NUttall reponds well to people telling him what to say (he'll gladly report what he sees on newsgroups blindly on the New web site) so if you want to get more good press at theBBC then talk to him about Linux more, get him to recognise the benfits of it and show him interesting stuff that mainstream news can cover.


  • You know, just when the gnome/kde flames seem to have subsided, and I actually FEEL like trying each without the urge to use rm -rf, things're right back where they were. (actually, I did use rm -rf to get gnome to stop aborting and leaving shit all over my disk)

    In my personal tests, both environments take about the same amount of RAM and are equally responsive. gnome looks much better than kde, imho, but kde seems more usable at this time. Now that I got gnome working, tho, I'll actually have to try using it.

    Licensing/language/political crap aside, 2 desktop environments that are making progress, are usable, and aren't going away anytime soon. I see myself (someday) running a combination of the 2, with still a butt-load of rxvt's up.

    Right now, I'm using AfterStep 1.0 (with the 1.6 Wharf), because it Works For Me(tm).

    --

  • dude, get off of your high horse.
    If i was working on soem project, and people saw me as the guy behind the project (for whatever reason). and they asked me a question on my opinion on a particular topic, what do you want me to do? call a fricking conference? shit, i will say what i believe. As long as what i say is correct, to hell with who gets burnt. Go ask linus to check his comments. Miguel did not appoint himself as "spokesman", the media did. If you don't like what he says, then don't listen to it.

  • Hmmm ... unsure about levity of the KDE comment (Score:4)

    by LizardKing ( 5245 ) on Wednesday May 19, 1999 @06:22AM (#1886911)
    I suppose he is going to promote Gnome over KDE, but his comments are a little inflammatory. I use Gnome nad Linux at home, and KDE and FreeBSD at work, and have to admit that KDE is far more stable at the moment than Gnome. I prefer GTK+ to Qt, but that's simply because I prefer C to C++. So before the flame war starts, lets remember that KDE and Gnome promote healthy competition on the Linux desktop - something the Windows world sadly lacks.
    Chris Wareham
  • Some of us arent't running stale RPMS.

    [To Malda]
    Don't feel bad dewd. It's not just you. Gnome-session is quite a bit broken. Calling gnome a one-point-oh release was simply a big mistake. It's still at about zero-point-nine-two IMHO. The best thing I can suggest is to rebuild gnome-libs-1.0.9 to the latest (and the rest of the stuff to latest versions actually) from source, and then add a line before it in your ~/.xinitrc to delete the stale ~/.gnome/.gnome-smproxy-* file that screws things up horribly. By doing that I have at least gotten it to reliably start the panel (but I still have to use mini-commander to start E).

    I will say this though, if you never logout of X and just use the screen locker, it seems to be less of a problem that gnome-session never seems to be able to start everything right without 'rm -rf ~/.gnome', and a *very* pleasing to the eye desktop.

    (Please folks, don't waste your time and mine making guesses as to "non-standard" installation locations. Everything was built with the default prefix of /usr/local, including the compiler and binutils.)
  • The statement that Miguel makes that 'KDE is basically finished' is completely false, for the same reason that the statement 'Linux is finished' would be. One of the best things about Open Source projects is that, once established, it's extraordinarily difficult (if not impossible) to make them go away.

    Firstly, even if the 'core developers' for a project were to give up, there is nearly always someone waiting in the wings to take over from them.

    Secondly, a better version of a rival program does not obsolete a project, it merely inspires the users to go out and bring their program up to the newly-established level (eg. If a 'must-have' feature were introduced in Enlightenment, would the Window Maker crew give up? No, they would simply incorporate that feature themselves...). I think that this has to do with the loyalty which Open Source projects inspire in their users and developers. A program which you use or develop is your 'toy' or 'baby', and you're obliged to make it good/better or lose some of your credibility as a programmer. At the same time, it's this unswerving loyalty which cause the 'holy wars' in the Unix world. Your example of C vs C++ is one of these, and whilst I think a large number of hackers prefer C, there are an equal number of (a different kind of) hackers who actually prefer to use C++. This loyalty to C++ as a programming language is likely to give KDE more credibility in some people's eyes.

    Thirdly, because money is less of a motivating factor, programs are not dropped because they are 'not profitable' or because a company gos out of business.

    As I said at the beginning, if someone were to say 'Linux is finished', we'd all laugh. For many tasks there are better alternatives than Linux, but this inspires Linux users and developers to do better, and hence gain wider usage (drawing from those who would have chosen a different solution before) in general.

    No, KDE is far from finished, in fact if anything the existence of the Gnome indirectly ensures that KDE will live on and thrive a lot longer than it may have done otherwise. Because people are constantly talking about the development of the Linux desktop, the KDE is constantly evolving and improving as more and more people get involved and give it a try.

    As you say, it's better for both projects that the other exists, since competition drives the development further. Looking at the 'up and coming' features of either project, it's extremely hard to say that one is a clear winner over another, and that's the way I sincerely hope it stays.
  • Perhaps I should have made that 'once firmly established'. I'm well aware that certain OS projects have been and gone, but there is a certain critical mass which they achieve beyond which I think it's next to impossible to bring them down. The failed projects I'm aware of mostly didn't have wide enough appeal (ie. they were geared towards very specific tasks), or simply not enough people were using them...

    Since the KDE has about as wide an appeal as it is possible to have, and also an extremely large existing userbase (if the ftp traffic to their site is to be believed), I think it qualifies under those two criteria at least for an 'established project'... =)
  • Just a few twinges, that's all. Like "dark side of the Moon" or "NDP Party".

    Or ATM machine, or the LaBrea Tar Pits. :)

  • "A community is where people sharing a common interest (supposedly) and fighting for the same cause, all band together and fight as one."

    That sounds more like a corporation than a community to me.

    Corporations have a bottom line to take care of, and everything and everybody revolves around that.

    Communities are diverse, often to polar extremes. Take any given country as a community ... the chances that you can get large segments of the population to agree on much of anything is fairly low. Chances are that multiple politics, languages, and belief systems will be co-existing. This co-existence is usually peaceful. Sometimes it isn't. TLawful conflict generates what tomorrow looks like. The change fuels development.

    If they were all the same, what would the point be? Social stasis is a form of mass insanity, IMHO.
  • Hm. Well, I've discovered that the best thing to do with gnome-session is give it a "--purge-delay=2500" argument. That at least gets everything started...

    This is from gnome-core 1.0.5, though- I do remember previous gnome-sessions being *hideously* flaky.

    And the whole shebang about trying to start a default window manager sensibly... .
  • I am very upset by what I've just read. If Miguel genuinely made those derogatory comments about KDE then he needs to be replaced as the mouth piece for the GNOME project until he learns that the position of spokesperson carries responsibility.

    His comments about KDE are factually incorrect, immature and go great damage to the work people have put in to build peace between the two camps.

    When I get home tonight I will be writing to the BBC with a rebutal of Miguels comments.

    Macka
  • LOL. I *love* KDE, don't get me wrong. But man, I've never really thought of using MICO as an advantage. It's bloated beyond belief, and makes compiling things a bear. But then of course, it was designed to be a complete implementation of CORBA, not a fast one. Hmm.
  • Gnome had to do a lot more stuff "from scratch" and made its own implementation of Corba and rebuilt GTK. That, given that KDE also had a head start makes complete sense why things aren't as far in the Gnome camp.

    Uh no. Not hardly. Gnome was forced to make their own implementation of anything and everything only by their egos. They appear want to reinvent the wheel, and take the credit, shunning any other opensource project as being invalid for some petty reason.

    Why should a knee-jerk reaction be given time to catch up?

    The reason things aren't as far in the Gnome "camp" is because Miguel et. al. appear to be against cooperation with anyone else. It's either their way or none at all, which is really quite sad. I hold out hope that the respective DOMs will eventually be somewhat compatable, but I sure doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
  • Your statement reiterates my point. KDE is just now adding CORBA as part of the standard desktop environment.

    So what?

    It is a testament to the speed of ORBit that it can be used for such mundane tasks without a major increase in overhead.

    Have you actually used the Gnome panel? The only noticible impact I saw that CORBA had on the panel was that debugging applets became amazingly more complex, and gdb became a maze of ORBit calls. Yeah, that's something to be proud of.

    CORBA is trendy, for sure, but that doesn't make it suitable for everything. CORBA, yes even ORBit, is far from lightweight, and putting it in places where a lightweight IPC service is needed really does nobody any favors.
  • Steven,

    Miguel may have come across as a nice guy, but nice guys do not trash compedetors, they do not spread lies, and all around bullshit. Your loyalties are clear, and you'll backup Miguel no matter what. Blind faith is overrated.

    As for your choice of Gnome, IMO you're choosing it for the wrong reasons. Gnome is *not* portable, and in fact I've had a bitch of a time getting it to compile on FreeBSD. FWIW, I think that Gnome has used CORBA in the wrong places. CORBA is a heavy "standard", and putting it to use on the panel is like driving an SUV in the city. It's insane.

    But then, CORBA should promote compatibility, right? Wrong. Gnome has chosen to create its own standards, the whole project is a reinvent the wheel type of situation. For instance check out Bonbo or watever it's called and take a look at KOM/OpenParts. Which one has been around longer? Oh yeah, KOM/OpenParts. I don't know really how one can be CORBA compliant. Take a look at Konqueror, KWord, KSpread, etc, etc, they all make strong use of CORBA. Aw hell just sit on the kde-devel list for a while, or read the archives to perhaps get a more accurate opinion.

    You obviously don't care to get your facts straight or present an objective opinion, please don't disguise it as such.
  • Are you kidding me? You are a fucking idiot.

    Gnome was knee-jerk, Baboon besides being a moronic name is also a clear statement of how the Gnome folks (Thanks Miguel, yo te amo tambien :)) refuse to consider cooperation.

    A desktop is a big project, and settling sucks, re-inventing the wheel sucks, you suck, but working together to come up with an even better standard would just rock. Oh yeah, I forgot, Gnome is purely the domain of pre-pubescent males trying to be all l33t. Get over yourself.

    Dude. Get your head out of your fucking shithole before you open your mouth. Otherwise you'll end up with a mouthful of crap like you seem to have done. You're calling KDE a rushed relase? Yeah, that's it. Have you even tried to use the Gnome 1.0.0 release? The only thing that sucks more is the whole poorly engineered libcs that Linux distributions appear to be stuck with. KDE 1.0 was *hardly* hurried.
  • Miguel,

    I don't know what part of cooperation is really so hard for you to grasp. I am for the most part at a loss for words to describe how disappointed I am in you. But who knows, perhaps your spewage has actual factual basis. So in the spirit of healthy competition, I'd like to see you and *only* you post a reply, and back up your statements. Put your money where your mouth is, and not your foot this time. Tell me, why does KDE have no future? Is the KDE userbase declining? Is egcs going to drop C++ support? Is someone paying RedHat? Do tell, this is the information age after all. Comming by such information shouldn't be hard.

    P.S. I'm not interested in hearing what half of the population infected with Linux thinks. Really I'm not; and just because I'm curious, doesn't mean that I think Miguel is any less of a complete fucking moron. Ohh hey, I spoke my mind! Do I have *your* admiration now too? I'm unifying me, myself and I against Gnome; that's gotta count for something. :-)

  • Uh oh. (Score:1)

    by Athos ( 11806 )
    Danger! KDE-Gnome flamewar predicted.

    On the whole, not an entirely unclueful article. The bit about Gnome being an OS caused a few twinges, but I can see how they might state it that way to get the point across in 25 words or less.

    Now... where did I put that flame-resistant keyboard?

    --

  • Oh yes, I understand all that.

    Just a few twinges, that's all. Like "dark side of the Moon" or "NDP Party". It was only a minor distraction from the positivity of the article.



    --

  • I must admit I get tired of all this GNOME vs KDE crap. Even the GNOME FAQ says [when talking of KDEs licencing problems]:
    The GNOME people like the KDE people, and we consider this an unfortunate situation that is in the process of being fixed. Hopefully, this will cease to be an issue soon, and GNOME and KDE can compete friendlily on technical merit and design.
    Get some focus, guys - KDE/GNOME isn't a either-or situation. Both can exist side by side each offering its strengths to the user community. You can even use both at once, as some have commented. At the moment I use KDE because it is (in my opinion) a little more mature, and I must confess it is the 'default' installed by the distribution I use. But I have tried GNOME from time to time, and each time I am more impressed with it. Who knows, next year I might even change to using GNOME all the time... Just revel in the joy that this choice is available to you, unlike the millions of Windows victims, and stop squabbling. Miguel might be a little outspoken, but then all 'movers' are, otherwise they wouldn't get off there butt and do stuff. If he wasn't in love with and biased in favour of his 'child' then he wouldn't be driven to push it on. So he has an excuse - do you?
  • Bah. He stated his opinion. He's allowed to do that, isn't he? Just because his opinion touches a hot topic, should we put him under a gag order?

    If that's the case places like slashdot should be shut down entirely. Sorry, I'm just tired of people tiptoeing around afraid to speak because they might be branded "offensive".


    You're right. And wrong too. Giving your opinion is one thing. Being the leader of a project is another. In that position, one should be mature enough not spread unfounded statements (a.k.a. FUD).

    Everytime I hear Miguel speaking, everytime I see him on the gnome lists, I wonder how the GNOME project has come so far...

  • Forget all the hype about GNOME being window manager neutral. It requires Enlightenment to operate fully.

    This is simply not true. GNOME does not require Enlightenment. (Caveat: the RPMs released by Red Hat do have a dependancy on Enlightenment as an RPM -- but per Dr. Mike himself, this was a packaging simplification, and you don't actually need to run E.)

    I suppose it's possible that Enlightenment implements more of the GNOME WM specification than WindowMaker or any other WM -- Raster states that as one of his goals with E. So? WindowMaker current versions claim GNOME compliance, and I haven't heard that this was broken, and lots of people seem to use the GNOME+WindowMaker commbination. I've tried it myself, went back to Enlightenment, may give WindowMaker another try someday.

    Enlightenment is officially part of GNOME now.

    Funny, there's been no notice to that effect on the GNOME web site, the Enlightenment web site, or the gnome-announce list.

    Despite the fact that WindowMaker is gnome-compliant, GNOME still pops up with messages suggesting you run Enlightenment instead.

    Never saw them while I was trying GNOME+WindowMaker. Are you sure you were using a recent enough version of WindowMaker? The GNOME-compliance didn't happen until at least 0.50.0+ -- the version of WindowMaker that came with Red Hat 5.2 (0.20) hadn't implemented GNOME-compliance, and you will get GNOME hinting that you should use a GNOME-compliant WM if you try that combo.

    And if you are using a recent version, that sounds like a bug [gnome.org]. Do the right thing. Report it. [gnome.org] It might even get fixed that way.

  • Forget all the hype about GNOME being window manager neutral. It requires Enlightenment to operate fully. Enlightenment is officially part of GNOME now. Despite the fact that WindowMaker is gnome-compliant, GNOME still pops up with messages suggesting you run Enlightenment instead.

    KDE makes no such statements about window manager neutrality, and is quite open about the required use of KWM. In spite of this, I found that KDE works with WindowMaker much better than GNOME does.
  • um, are these legit? I don't see any mention of gnome-core 1.0.5 on the Gnome web site.

    Just curious, I don't want to hose my system.

  • thanks a heap. ftp.gnome.org is hard to get into, but the mirror sites worked. Thanks.

  • > The bit about Gnome being an OS caused a few twinges...

    Most of the public will be familiar with W'95 and the Mac, and will have swallowed the M$ claim that W'95 doesn't run atop DOS, so they won't have much basis for distinguishing a UI from an OS. (How many times have I had someone using a VT240 run down the hall and say "My computer is broken"!)

    To the uninitiated, KDE and GNOME probably appear as two different OSes. Little enough harm done.
  • Slashdot may not have covered the T-Shirts but they did have a story about KDE Konqi the dragon as their Logo. I've never noticed any bias in the stories posted about GUIs on Slashdot
  • I've been wondering this also. I've noticed there are a whole slew of k apps nowadays, are these apps only runnable in the kde environment? And wouldn't that be a bad thing considering the k programs would require someoe to have kde therefor lowering our ability to have choice?

  • Why wouldn't Gnome be described as an OS???

    Microsoft have been able to make people believe that windows9x was an OS too.

  • Thanks, and:
    If they're just suites, is one able to install and run both (run at the same time), or is each a "fundamental" type thang that can only be on the system once?


  • I know that Gnome is not an OS. I know KDE is not an OS, I know the X Window System is not an OS, but am a little confused about what GNOME and KDE are.

    They are desktop environments. OK, does that mean they are Windows Managers (like FVWM)? Or are they something else?

    I haven't yet gotten into the GUI side yet, I'm still delighting at being back at the command-prompt after suffering Bindows 95 for so long (and yes,I know the prompt is accessible under 95)

  • Gnome had to do a lot more stuff "from scratch" and made its own implementation of Corba and rebuilt GTK. That, given that KDE also had a head start makes complete sense why things aren't as far in the Gnome camp.

    Give Gnome some time and I think it will catch up. Justt don't bash Gnome for not getting as much done. Remember what happened last time Gnome tried to catch up with KDE, (version 1.00?).

    --

  • They made ORBit because the other free ORBs were either too slow or language dependent. Its in the FAQ.

    I don't know the details of the different object models but neither does anyone else because Baboon isn't out yet so I wouldn't snap to some kind "knee-jerk" conclusion.

    A desktop is a big project and I don't think settling for second best would be a good idea being that so many things depend on that part. There are no deadlines so they don't need to hurry to completion like propietary platforms do (or KDE*).

    * Sorry for the cheapshot. Couldn't resist.

    --

  • I don't know why Slashdot hasn't caught this yet. The Gnome Workshop is official now. See The Gnome Workshop page [gnome.org] to see the announcement.

    (Man, I think the Gnome web pages are the best looking ones on the net.) Im looking forward to this. I see what KDE is doing and can't help but think Windows on Linux. Web Browser in the Filemanager and an integrated Office suit. Im just looking forward to a viable free office suit for gnome desktop.

    --

  • Okay. You've convinced me fellow slashdotter. The screenshots I've seen bear a strong resemblence IMHO. But I wasn't just speaking of looks, I speaking of functionality. I know they didn't get the Browser-and-Filemanager-in-one from the MacOS. But Microsoft isn't evil and I have to agree with those who think Web Integration with the Desktop is the natural evolution. I'll be keeping my eye on both Desktops and keeping an Open Mind.

    --

  • I've read quite a few of miguels articles.. i really thought this BS talking was over. They're friends now right? Working together for KDE / GNOME integration? hah. Every time miguel gets to talk to the public he has his own 'opinion' about KDE.. the article/press release is about GNOME.. why dont he just talk about GNOME? Why does he have to butt in his negative $0.02 about KDE?
    I've read all these posts concerning the article, applauding miguel on his ability to speak his mind.. that is such a great thing eh? To have an opinion such as his and be able to speak it. Forget about who it hurts and what damage it does to both KDE and GNOME projects. This is what you all call 'a good thing' right? heh. if we go off of that and believe it, then really i think you're cutting your own throats (the gnome folks) .. i've been out of highschool for 10 years now.. but i can think back and remember jocks, and preppies talking down cause of what clothes i wore, or how i talked, or who i hung out with.. was this also to be praised? 'THE JOCKS RULE, THEY HAVE AN OPINION IM A LOSER AND CAN SAY IT' yes that is so right huh? Wow look.. its 10 years later im making 100k a year and they're working at gas stations (yes ive seen them there pumping gas).. so how does this work with the topic? Keep bashing KDE everytime your asked to do a press release/article.. keep on slamming, one day you're going to turn around.. and wonder how come you failed. You'll think.. but i was popular! people cheered me on! then it'll hit you.. damn it was just an image.. an outward appearance. Keep on talking smack about KDE, but you should be wary of it.. at the least when 'users' try to switch and get frustrated with GNOME they'll go to KDE where they feel at home, so in that you only cut your own gnomey throat.. but think of worst case.. you belittle and FUD KDE so that no new person tries it first and they try gnome.. uh oh, it dont work like what they're used to.. they get upset, dump linux all together and go back to win9x with an awful taste in their mouth.. now you've not only cut your own throat, but you've cut linux's too.. All because miguel is such a great guy that can speak his mind right.. er OPINIONS not facts or anything else but biased opinions. *shrug* you can only kick a dog so much until it turns on you.

    Please excuse my malformed sentenses, mispelling and any other grammar errors. thank you =)
  • That's their 'freedom'. They are 'free' to do whatever the heck they feel like that includes, bashing, spreading fud, maiming, beating, cursing, drinking beer, drugs, bed wetting.. whatever someone tells them is cool.

    You said you're ashamed you ever /ran/ linux.. does that mean you dont run it anymore? thats a real shame! what made you stop? Im not gonna bad mouth you for leaving linux that is your 'choice' and 'freedom', anyone telling you differnt are once again contradicting the same thing they continue to preach.


    You have a point, they dont even know the name of their 'OS'. Heck they cant see beyond their little imaginative worlds that they've created to even know what it is they're fighting for. Me? i dont run linux, i think its a gay little toy. - hey look ma, i spoke my opinion. Anyways, you are so right!!!!!!!!!!
  • if you read that entire post with the 'salary brag' as you call it IN CONTEXT to what the post was saying and all you got out of it was me 'bragging' and being an 'arogant jerk' your not a very bright fellow are you? do you really need the point of the post drawn out to you with a coloring book and crayons? Would i like to see the same happen to GNOME as did the old football jerk offs? yah i would if they dont stop their damn bashing. Yes i say 'their' and 'them' because miguel speaks for the whole development effort. Competition is GREAT im all for it, but not at the cost of bashing someone's efforts.. im sorry you are to ignorant to read more into my posts, but i do not, and will never appove of people overlooking the fact that there are REAL people that are developing KDE, not robots trained but people with hearts that have just as much passion and caring about what they do as the GNOME zealots.. its bs.

    lemme guess all you got out of this is 'i wanna see gnome die' right? Re-read it now.

  • "If you don't like what he says, then don't listen to it."

    I beg to differ with your argument to the previous poster, if miguel had writtin him an email with his opinion, and makkah didnt like it, then yes .. delete it, ignore it .. whatever. This isnt the case miguel's words are echoing for a community of developers, and to folks that dont know linux, gnome or KDE in their eyes KDE isnt an option.. such as what one of the other posters said about time mag in that they werent trying linux until gnome 1.0 was released as if there were no other options. Why? maybe they didnt know about KDE, or maybe they did and what they knew was the FUD miguel had been preaching and came to the conclusion that linux wasnt worth trying until it had a viable desktop (GNOME). That is the idea makka dislikes. You dont 'ignore' these types of issues. If the people that first landed in america years age chose to 'ignore' the things they didnt like then there would have never been a civil war! since you may not be american!. Better yet.. if linus/rms just 'ignored' the things they didnt like (no free unix for him, or the free software issues) then there would be no GNU or LINUX.. so friend, telling folks to just ignore what they dislike isnt at all a way of makeing things better..

    - my grammar sucks, and so does my speling -
  • you are wasting your breath here. the idea of sticking together and helping 'linux' as a whole to succeed is an unknown concept to these people. they would rather have bickering fits over who's GUI is better rather than improving the system as a whole.

    pretty sad if you ask me.
  • wow. this gets more amazing everyday. Here you have what the linux users call themselves a 'community'. well, hate to break the news people, but if this is a community, then it's a pretty distorted one. A community is where people sharing a common interest (supposedly) and fighting for the same cause, all band together and fight as one. But this is not the case in the so called 'linux community' you all so cherish. you have all the little groupies split into different sections bad-mouthing the others, and yet you hope to succeed. sorry, but if you to acheive a goal, you have to all band together and help one another and be one loud voice.

    yah, you have the freedom to choose between GNOME or KDE, or windowmaker, or fvwm, or whatever you wish to use. But how does 'linux' wish to acheive 'world domination' when they can't even get along within their own little group. Hell, you can't even decide between a name to call the 'OS' you are fighting for!

    I'm almost ashamed to say I ever ran linux, or is it GNU/Linux?
  • It is great that there is actually a choice, but even though I prefer GNOME for personal reasons KDE is the choice for anyone attempting to build complex and large applications. The strongest and most understated strength of KDE is that is built on top of the MICO [uni-frankfurt.de] implementation of CORBA [omg.org]. Which is by very far the most advanced free implementation [patriot.net] out there, as compared to ORBit [redhat.com] which is what GNOME uses. This makes the real difference, at least to me. CORBA is a very powerful tool and having a robust implementation really makes a big difference. Eventually GNOME will catch up but for now for serious development it has to be KDE.
  • You must not be looking much then.


    $ ldd /usr/local/bin/* | grep ORBit.so| wc -l
    60
    $


    panel applets, configuration applets, etc.

  • anyone know what they were talking about?

    url?
  • The bit about Gnome being an OS caused a few twinges, but I can see how they might state it that way to get the point across in 25 words or less.

    I read an article about the history of MS. It said that the MS engineers originally wanted to call their product "Interface Manager", and sell it as a user-friendly front-end to DOS. Gates hired a marketeer who knew the difference between a $1 and a $100 jar of moisturiser (i.e. the label), and he said that it had to be called "Windows" and sold as a complete product. He won, and so did Windows.

    This article is aimed at the average Joe. All Joe sees is the front end interface. The front end here is GNOME. As far as Joe is concerned the interface is the operating system.

    Its not just the BBC that has to think like this. Whenever you talk to someone about Linux, remember that what they will see is either GNOME or KDE.

    Paul.

  • I Think That You Need To STOP Bad Mouthing Miguel...There Is Absolutly NOTHING Wrong With Him. He's A Really Nice Guy, So Why Don't You Just Leave Him Alone?!

    And to top it off you will not give us your name...you need help!

    You use windows dont you?
    --
  • Alex,

    Sorry you feel so strongly against Miguel. I met him at the Linux World Expo back in March. He was smart, active, and an all around "nice guy". I've had some correspondence with him via email and he actually returned my messages that same day! He does a lot for the open source community so please, don't insult him.

    As for KDE-GNOME, I have picked GNOME for one reason. CORBA. GNOME is based on CORBA standards, so that it will be portable to other platforms and can interface with other applications that are CORBA compliant. This is a disadvantage to KDE, since it is not CORBA compliant, and I don't see any change for the future. Although if this does change, I will review it too.
  • In any community (and yes, there is a Linux community and it's a healthy one) where you have multiple choises in any matter there is bound to become different "groups" that favor one or the other.

    In addition to this, due to the uman nature of competition, there will be namecalling between the groups.

    Since this is still a fairly young isssue there will perobably take years before all the namcalling stops, and even then there will probably be some animosity between the GNOME and KDE developers.

    It's a sad thing to see, but it happens all the time and everywhere.
  • Currently, my setup looks absolutely nothing like Windows whatsoever, and it is also not running on Linux. Also, the work on KDE 2.0 is seriously awesome, and I believe it looks much better than GNOME, and is already much more portable than GNOME is.
  • Every issue, time magazine runs an interesting little tech snippet at the very end. In the latest issue, there is an article about linux that seems pretty OK. The author talks about waiting for gnome to be released before deciding to try linux (KDE duh!). There is also an email address at the end. Could someone post it so that we can help the guy out with his linux install/search for linux apps? It is a multi part article and who knows.. he might say something about slashdot in time!
  • >What we need is a GUI, API, libraries environment
    >that at least suck less than Windows 1.0.

    Windows 1.0 was primitive. Have you ever written
    anything for Windows 1.0? Actually, does anyone
    know of someone outside of Microsoft who has? If
    Gnome was still worse than Windows 1.0 there'd be
    no hope. Windows didn't take off till 3.0, six
    years into development. After that long, either
    Gnome or KDE will be really quite good.
  • Blood is thicker than water...
  • Blood is thicker than water... Or at least it ought to be. It's one thing to take on Microsoft as the enemy. But when the fighting is internal, it's Linux that loses, not M$. Let KDE and GNOME take on M$ together, and give us a choice. How can we fault M$ for not giving us a choice, and then tear down one of our DEs because we have one too many? Once Linux has beaten M$, or at least achieved parity, then perhaps let the best DE win!
  • Are you talking about the "I was watching the grass grow the other day" mail that in fact translated to "I was reading the postings on kde-devel the other day" ?
    I think that was what he was refering to since he obviously got inspired by the ideas discussed there one week earlier.

    Harri

  • Linux on C vs. C++ (Score:4)

    by h.p. ( 51624 ) on Wednesday May 19, 1999 @09:37AM (#1886965)
    I would like to add what Mr. Torvalds once said. This might let some people cool down.

    > Author: Linus Torvalds
    > Email: torvalds@transmeta.com
    > Date: 1998/11/22
    > Forums: comp.os.linux.advocacy, comp.os.linux.x
    >
    > Peter A. Koren wrote:
    >>
    >> If I read the GNOME folks correctly, KDE essentially locks
    >> you in to C++, while GNOME is architected to easily allow
    >> other languages to be used for development under GNOME/GTK.
    >> Is this really true? If so, the case favoring GNOME over KDE
    >> would be compelling.
    >
    > I don't see why language is an issue at all.
    >
    > The kernel is coded in C, and I don't export any scheme or perl bindings
    > for it. You have to code in C (or in assembly if you really really feel
    > like it and want to punish yourself for some bad deed you have done) in
    > order to write kernel code.
    >
    > Having one primary language has advantages: less confusion, and less
    > overhead to maintain language-level abstractions.
    >
    > Haviung one primary langauge has it's disadvantages too: you have to use
    > that language.
    >
    > I'm not saying that C++ is the only language to use, I'm just saying
    > that you have to balance the advantages against the disadvantages. It
    > all depends on what you want to do - saying that the language issue is
    > "compelling" just doesn't make sense at all. It could be compelling in
    > either way, and as such the compulsion isn't very real, is it?
    [demands lean programing in both projects]
    > Being too generic (in languages or features or design) often has its own
    > set of serious downsides. Never _ever_ forget that.
    >
    > Linus

  • Or, (my fave) NIC card.

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