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GNOME GUI

GNOME 1.4 Beta 1 Is Out 146

Posted by HeUnique from the it-is-a-beta dept.
The folks at GNOME have released GNOME 1.4 beta 1, code name "oops, we did it again". You can find the packages at your favorite mirror. If you're testing, then please fill the bug reports in the "right place" (either Eazel's bugzilla or Ximian Bugzilla). Good work, guys.
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GNOME 1.4 Beta 1 is out More

GNOME 1.4 Beta 1 is out

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  • You are my new favorite troll.
  • BeOS comes with Anti-Aliased Fonts and they cannot be disabled. This is fine with me. Unless you are working with extremely small font sizes, AA is a lot easier for me read. At extremely small font sizes on non-AA displayes, you just hurt your eyes instead of trying to decipher grey blobs.
  • Thank you for the package list - Gnome 1.4 looks very exciting, but I have one small question: What exactly is the purpose for Medusa? What makes it superior to the (already existing on 99.99% of all systems) slocate database? Please realize that this is not intended as a troll or a criticism, but simply a question.

    My only experience with Medusa has been through Nautilus preview releases, where I have seen medusa-indexd run at all sorts of strange times, and I also witnessed medusa cause my system (indirectly, admittedly) to crash by filling up /var until there was absolutely no space left. I accept that this is a prerelease, and it isn't intended to be perfect, but it appears from my perspective that Medusa is the new Linux equivalent of the old Microsoft "Find Fast" daemon that used to suck up CPU time and grind the drive all the time on the Windows front. If someone could tell me that this is not the normal behaviour of Medusa, I'll be very relieved.

    Once again, I'm not trolling, and I'm not trying to bitch too much, I'm just wondering.
  • I switched to Gnome from XFce after a brief flirtation with KDE and even briefer with WindowMaker. I switched to Gnome about a year ago.

    Gnome and XFce: I like the look and alterability a little better than XFce, but mostly I like the ease of working with it. Click and drool throughout. XFce is close to being as easy and seems to have made great strides since 3.3, but I haven't switched back back because I've gotten a comfy Gnome setup and don't feel like messing with it. XFce is vastly faster and more stable but takes a little more maintenance.

    Gnome and KDE: KDE is excellent too, but I was turned off by the inflexibility of design decisions in the panel. Mainly I hate the taskbar and file manager. 2 is really nice looking, but the things that annoy me remain.

    Gnome and WindowMaker: WM is nice looking, but the icons and menu-behavior annoy me. Blackbox is similar and better, but again Gnome hasn't given me a reason to switch.
  • Nice one comming from a ignorent Little puke, Leaving Linux out of this game and just evaluate Unix type systems in general to a Microsoft(more like microcrap) system like Win2k how can you possible say that without knowing FACTS. Let me just point at all of win2k's positives before ripping it apart. It is a nice Op system for it applications and games because devolpers saw it as a consumer type of system 2000 is a supposed networked version for businesses and hosting small servers. Now to rip it apart, Unix based systems are way way more secure faster .. OOOOOOO AND WAY DOES Microsoft use a unix and not there own product because it SICKS!!! and can't handle the number of people like any Unix can .. i don't want to type more ... look at the reasearch it has be done already why pay if there is better FREE unix systems out there better then win2k. check out www.unix-vs-nt.org
  • All your pre-installed user interface are belong to us!
    __
  • All your source code, are belong to us? GPL?
    __
  • All your <tt></tt> are belong to us!
    __
  • And gtk+ before imlib?

  • I am currently working of a fork of GNOME that will give a nice, consistent, mac-like interface to all applications (which sometimes means re-writing people's applications, but the codes free for that, isn't it?). I decided long ago that I we can't rely on Miguel et. al to create well designed interfaces. They keep making the same GUI design mistakes that countless generations of windows programmers have made. I wish them the best, and they are vary talented programmers in a technical sense, but I know that left unchecked, GNOME (UI wise) will be nothing more than a windows clone. The UI of the future shouldn't repeat the mistakes of the past. I have the code. I can make something better. Behold, the power of open source!

    And yes, there can be only one ;)

    Long live Clarux the Penguincow!
  • i believe its 1.2.9. for the raleigh gtk theme
    which needed some patching to gtk to work,
    because the latest official gtk release is 1.2.8

  • Re:BeOS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was just playing around with BeOS and you can disable the anti-aliased fonts.
  • No, if you know how to use CVS or CVSup, then tomorrow is the day.

    The HEAD branch of CVS is tagged KDE_2_1_RELEASE, and tarballs are released to the packagers.

  • All your irony are belong to us!
    __
  • an ugly hack:
    just delete all the icons when gmc starts and they won't reappear the next time around
  • All your polydactyl gnome feet are belong to us!
    __
  • See details here [kde.org]. It kinda kills your theory.
  • That didn't work for me. After a quick FTP to spidermonkey.ximian.org, the directory is actually:
    /pub/ximian/1.4beta1/distributions/debian

    (ximian was added)
    thus, the actual line is:
    deb ftp://spidermonkey.ximian.com/pub/ximian/1.4beta1/ distributions/debian unstable main

    --

  • What about *my* needs?! (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18, 2001 @04:52AM (#422438)
    When will they release a new version of my favorite desktop manager, xterm?
  • Seems like the post was misconstrued and some may think I meant Gnome is trash or something which is not the case. As stated I just wanted to know what was the big deal about it, I have nothing against anything thats prepped for the Unixes, but I particularly found that when I used Gnome it brought the load on my machines high at the time, cause mem leaks, crashed. I haven't used it since and didn't judge. AGAIN...

    ENGLISH, WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BENEFITS OF USING IT. Why has someone:

    1) Switched to it
    2) Switched back to it
    3) Is using it over other tools like QT

  • Why not FTP? When I clicked on the link, it gave me a dialog saying that the limit of FTP connections has been reached and listed the available mirrors. ;-)
  • Nop. It's not related to anything. I just found out about GNOME 1.4 few hours ago and I posted it here on /.

    As for KDE 2.1 - Tommorow it will be TAGGED KDE_2_1 final and will be send to packagers. The official launch of KDE 2.1 will be next monday. Mirrors will have the packages ready by then, as well as an easy gui installer (hopefully).
  • the http directory is different from the ftp directory. It is reccomended I think that you use the http since the ftp will already be loaded from all the people downloading RPMs already.

    _joshua_
  • what are the 'fifth toe packages' ?
  • What? Busy ~24h? You know, most Linux users won't download the sources or use GNOME beta. I'd agree with you if it was just a notice on a site.
  • buy a debian potato cd from somewhere and use apt-cdrom
    or apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade from the net. and then
    use the deb sources line that was posted earlier in this article and voila...
    new gnome.

    might only take an hour or so on a fast computer and connection.

  • If you think choosing "C" as Gnome's main programming language is some huge leap into the unknown, you must have been sheltered to the last 20 years of application development.

    Oh, sorry!

    All your C are belong to us!
    __

  • ln -s /usr/local /opt

    Problem solved :).

  • I'm not much of an expert on medusa, but as I understand it, medusa allows more powerful searching than slocate. Medusa allows you to search based on URI's. So you can search for files that are of type music, owned by a particular user, and modified between this date and some other. For more information on the URI's medusa supports or will support check out search_uri_rfc [gnome.org] from GNOME CVS. Also from the README [gnome.org]:

    Medusa FAQ:

    1. How is medusa different than slocate?

    Medusa is able to find files by their names quickly. However, medusa is also able to find files by their path, size, content, and owner, or in any combination.

    2. Indexing takes a long time! When will this get better?

    Indexing your whole drive does take a long time, and we hope to improve this as much as possible. To some degree, however, this is a byproduct of the slowness of hard drives. However, we hope to introduce "incremental" indexing soon, so that files will only get reindexed when they are altered after the last indexing.


    ----
  • All your phony anecdote are belong tous!
    __
  • imlib should be compiled before gtk+, IIRC.
    ----
  • No, you should install gtk+ to get gdk_imlib to build. Check http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/imlib/gdk_imlib/
  • Seriously, if you are an xterm junkie, give rxvt a shot. It has lots of cool features that xterm doesn't (transparency, a scroll bar that is usefull, etc.) and it suposedly has a smaller memory footprint than xterm.

    My favorite settings for an rxvt?

    rxvt -fg green -bg black -geometry 80x50 +sb

    Want a secure remote shell?

    rxvt -fg orange -bg black -geometry 80x50 +sb -e ssh -l [username] [remote.host.name]

    I like to set these up as menu items in my windowmaker menus and assign a short cut: [windows][alt][t] for a new rxvt!

    -Peter

  • Good stuff (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This release includes Nautilus for a file manager. Let's hope they've worked on the stability since the last beta release. Will gnome 1.4 include text anti-aliasing and RGB decimation support?

  • I hope they cleaned it up (Score:4)

    by AaronW ( 33736 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @09:56AM (#422454) Homepage
    At work we do all of our development on Solaris and since CDE sucks I tried to compile GNOME. It required too many different packages from all over the net and a good number of them wouldn't compile.
    I then tried KDE, which only requires 4 files to get started, QT, Support, Libs, and Base. I have been compiling and running KDE on Solaris ever since. KDE 2.1 will be a nice upgrade, especially now that I have fixed the damned bug where konsole would crash periodically. I'm hoping my patch makes it into 2.1.

    As for web browsers, the only reason I still run Netscape is because our corporate mail and calender are based on it and KDE mail doesn't support IMAP yet. Konqueror is an awesom browser, especially in 2.1 since it has most of the Netscape features I liked (like dragging URLs between windows).

    I havn't tried Gnome for a while, but looking at the list of required libraries and whatnot it looks like the same mess it was before.

    -Aaron
  • gpm... Check http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/imlib/configure.in

  • debian users, its so easy (Score:4)

    by joshua_doesnt_know ( 17636 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @03:53AM (#422456) Homepage
    I already ugpraded using the ximian apt source! Just add this to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
    deb http://spidermonkey.ximian.com/1.4beta1/distributi ons/debian unstable main

    then you just apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade and you let it do its thing... restart X and BAM!

    _joshua_
  • Name one OS that comes with AA and can't be disabled!

    All your misinformed comment are belong to us!
    __

  • Last time I tried Nautilus the spastic medusa file indexer thing keep sucking away all my cpu time. Kinda reminds me of that crazy fastfind.exe process in windows many years ago that did similar things.
  • Encapsulation is very good. However, even if something is encapsulated well, does not mean that you don't need to look under the hood. If a certain function is becoming a bottleneck, you need to be able to see what that function is doing, and how you can help it out. For example, you might thing that a sort() algorithm would be a fairly closed-box solution. However, some sorts perform dramatically better with differently-ordered sets. If you can tweak previous code to get it to a form that works better with that type of sort, then you have gained an advantage. Encapsulation helps the learning curve, but in order to masterfully use a tool, you also must know how it works underneath. Trust me, there is NO SUCH THING as a completely black box. The actual implementation always has an effect. A good encapsulation will make the interface easy to learn and predictable, but it is no substitue for masterful knowledge.
  • (From news.gnome.org [gnome.org])

    For the convenience of those who find building from source too daunting, Ximian will soon be making binary packages available for a variaty of platforms.

    If one doesn't have the technical experience to compile a beta, they probably shouldn't be using first-gen beta software.

  • Unfortunately it is mozilla 0.7 that followes the Ximian-packages. That is not very good, since mozilla 0.8 is much more stable and robust.
  • I haven't been able to locate a comprehensive list of what has been updated for 1.4. As far as I can tell, along with the aforementioned Nautilus graphical shell/file manager, there is the Evolution email/groupwise/scheduling program, plus some new technologies, Gnome VFS, Bonobo/OAF which is a reusable component development system, GConf, which helps to stabilize updating and configuring applications, and Gnome Print, a printing module. Is there anything else major? Also, where are the screenshots? Also why is Gnome so far behind schedule? Aren't they supposed to be delivering 2.0 by now?
  • First of all, using GNOME with Enlightenment, although at one time was a common practice, has showed to usually be a bad idea. Why? because of many duplicated features. Enlightenment is more than a Window Manager, and GNOME is more than a panel. I prefer using SawFish - it's pretty much _just_ a window manager. As for the rest of GNOME, it has most of the same benefits as KDE - consistency, common libraries, object embedding, etc. The panel is cool, too. I like GNOME over KDE for several reasons:

    1) I like the look better
    2) I think it is better thought-out
    3) It seems to focus on solving technical issues irst, rather than just making it look pretty
    4) I think using C has long-term technical advantages
    5) I like coding for the API (haven't done that much of it, but what I have done was really fun)

    If you like KDE better, more power to ya. However, GNOME _is_ bloated if used in combination with Enlightenment, because they duplicate each other's features. If you do use GNOME, grab Ximian GNOME, because its easy to update, and does a good job of it.
  • I'v found a list, but lost it already. Evolution is not part of 1.4, app launch feedback (IIRC Mandrakes Xalf) should have made it. Otherwise it's just updates, no major changes. The most important thing is stabilization of Bonobo, IMO.
  • So gmc will still be around (even if not in 'official' gnome anymore)? Good.

    I mean, I could end up running Nautilus on my Athlon 700, but I doubt it would be usable on my Laptop Pentium 150.
    And I'm afraid konqueror is going on the same route...

    I looked around in freshmeat: there are many 'light graphical file managers', most of them based of GTK. Maybe two or more of them could coelesce, even include some GMC code, and produce a gnome-integrated file manager for not-so-powerful machines ?

    Yes I know the mantra ... if you want it, do it yourself... or buy a better laptop .


  • If one doesn't have the technical experience to compile a beta, they probably shouldn't be using first-gen beta software.

    If one would rather spend time compiling betas when one could be getting feedback from ordinary users, they probably shouldn't be involved in developing software.

  • I run LinuxPPC as my primary desktop platform - have been for over a year. What exactly are you talking about?
  • For Great Justice!!!
  • I wasn't saying _anyone_ was breaking the spec. I'm just saying that Enlightenment is pretty-much a full-fledged desktop environment (like WindowMaker). Thus, if you have Enlightenment + GNOME, you have a lot of duplication of code which leads to slowness and memory hogging. I have nothing against Enlightenment, I just think if you use it with GNOME it takes more space and processing power than it needs to. Enlightenment by itself works great, as well as GNOME with SawFish or other lightweight WMs.
  • I wasn't saying that. I was just saying that it was a better choice. Engineering decisions aren't about leaping into the unknown, it's about making wise choices that last for the long-term. And their use of OO C was along those same lines, too.
  • Huh?

    KDE CVS from yesterday on Pentium 233 with 64MB on Toshiba notebook. Konqueror runs pretty fast thank you...

    You might want to use the packages for your distribution, since those packages are with "release-final" compiled option which removes lots of unnecesary stuff.
  • See I have used it before with Enlightenment once upon a kernel 2.0.14 ago, and it seemed bloated as all hell to me...

    As others have already pointed out, Enlightenment and Gnome were a bad combo from the get go. Sawfish has turned out to be far more complimentary to Gnome, and thus loses much of that bloated feeling. A truly fair comparison, if for only yourself, would be to run up Gnome 1.2 with Sawfish as the wm. Heck, you might also want to try Enlightenment all by itself as well.

    I also primarily run KDE or BlackBox as my desktop, but there are features of Gnome that I do miss when doing so. First one in my mind is the ability to drag an application to different desktop. Being able to run my mouse to the border of the screen and have it jump to the next. On a more minor note, being able to drag and drop applets or launchers to and from how ever many toolbars you want to set up. Just a few things that KDE still doesn't do well to this day.

    So why am I still primarily using KDE? I personally feel that the efforts gone into the presentation of the desktop have really shown through. The way windows respond to the user. The look and feel of the various widgets, especially stuff like drop down boxes. More importantly, I find that I really prefer many of the apps written for KDE over those for Gnome. Stuff like Konqueror, KMail, KVirc, as well as up and comers like KOffice are some of the best apps for what they do. Additionally, it seems that GTK apps run nicer in KDE than QT apps run in Gnome. This may point out a failure on KDE's part, but as an end user I'm mostly interested in whichever combination works best.

    I fully intend to upgrade Gnome to 1.4 when it hits final release and give it a fair run through. Of course I'll be doing the same with KDE 2.1 as well. As others have mentioned already, try the darn things out and see what fits you. I wish I had a magic wand to wave over both of these projects to extract all the good stuff for the single perfect desktop environment. Until that wand comes off of backorder, trying out what is available is the best you can do.
  • Same in KDE - check patriot-soft web site and download your KDE 2.1 (which will be out next week) for your Sun machines.

  • "One thing about it that really hacks me off is that it is trying to be a whole desktop in itself. It puts icons on my root window (noooo!!!!!)..."

    Understand that Nautilus *is* part of GNOME, so it IS going to be the desktop manager (IE the icons on the DT).


    He who knows not, and knows he knows not is a wise man
  • I still have to try kde 2.x on my laptop (150 MHz and 80 MB) ... but kde 1.x takes around 30 secs to start, same as Gnome. And both kfm and gmc takes a few seconds to fire up the first time, and are significantly slow when rendering an iconic view of 'very populated' directories (like /usr/share/doc on Debian ).[This is why I always use the 'tabular view'].

    All this is still in the range of usability for me ... but I figured (wrongly, maybe), that both Konqueror and Nautilus, having so much more features than their 1.x couterpart, also required better hardware to run properly. This is the reason why, having a relatively old box, I am glad that 'first generation' tools like gmc are still around for a while.

  • I've built gnome for Solaris 2.6 using Paul Barnfather's excellent instructions found here [demon.co.uk]

    Have fun!
  • anti-aliased?
  • Isn't that a violation of anti-trust laws?
    "You stay away from our customers we'll stay off yours."
    ?
  • Don't you think it's a little silly for a file manager to manage the desktop icons, background, and whatever else? That's what drag and drop and GNOME Control Center are for. Some people might not want the overhead of Nautilus on their GNOME desktop.

    This kind of silliness dates from KDE 1.x, and was long ago thrown away by the KDE camp themselves. I guess this kind of silliness will be thrown away in GNOME 3.0 since they will be aiming low for GNOME 2.0.

  • Re:school me (Score:3)

    by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @06:00AM (#422480)
    Assuming he wasn't trolling, I think it's a legitimate question. Sure most of us have probably made our KDE/GNOME choice already, but it'd be interesting to know if there are any compelling reasons why anyone should consider switching.
  • I was hoping that in this version that they would have anti-aliasing setup...

    Either I'm blind, I was mistaken, or I have the wrong libraries installed. On debian, it installed a bunch of packages like libgtk-1.2.9-ximian.4, so I think apt-get got the right stuff....

    Anyone else know?

  • It seems most of stigmatic's [slashdot.org] earlier trolls are of the "random Eminem song given Slashdotty lyrics" type. It's nice to see these people broaden their horizons with more karma whorific efforts.

    Isn't there a factual error there, however? "once upon a kernel 2.0.14"? I thought 2.0.14 predated Gnome 1.0 by almost a year, and considering that 1.0 should have been called "0.5" I shudder to think what the alpha versions were like.
  • GMC has been putting icons on the desktop. Konquerer also does it. Explorer does it too.

    If you think you want a root window that cannot be put files in, use a plain window manager and not a desktop environment. Desktop environments PUT FILES ON YOUR DESKTOP. And I like it. Thanks.

    Drag and drop? Hm. As far as I know it has nothing to do with putting files on desktop and having a .gnome-desktop folder for that.

    I agree with you on the background picture though ;)
  • [jamin 7:53:58]~>rpm -q --whatrequires gtk+ | grep imlib

    imlib-1.9.8.1-2_helix_2
    ----

  • I use rxvt most of the time because it does take up less memory and the better scrollbar (useful if you are running X on an old M68K based Mac). However, I like the way that one can change the keyboard translations for xterm compared to rxvt (this is useful for emulating specialized terminals that are vt100 compatible w/ the exception of the function keys). With xterm, you can do put the following in your ~/.Xdefaults file:

    STerm.vt100.translations:#override\

    <Key>F5: string(0x1b) string("OT")\n\
    <Key>F6: string(0x1b) string("OU")\n
    and then run xterm with the parameter "-name STerm" to enable them. With rxvt, you have to use the keysyms like the following:
    STerm*keysym.0xFFC2: \EOT

    STerm*keysym.0xFFC3: \EOU
    and then run rxvt with the '-name STerm' parameter. However, this only works if rxvt has been compiled with KEYSYM_RESOURCE. On the systems that I have access to, this doesn't appear to be the case. I can certainly recompile and change that, but in some instances I can't.

  • Interesting. Now isn't it a good explanation of Sun and MS giving out Solaris and Windows CE source code but not allowing people to modify?

    Call me a conspiracist. They want developers look into the OS codes to make their programs use more kernel-specific functionalities and thus decreasing portabilities.
  • The Fifth Toe is a release of packages that are not part of Gnome proper but work with Gnome. They include things like office applications, utilities, applets, games, and chat programs. They can be found in pub/gnome/stable/betas/gnome-fifth-toe-1.4beta1 on ftp.gnome.org and should soon propagate to the mirrors.
    ----

  • Re:Good stuff (Score:4)

    by johnnyb ( 4816 ) <jonathan@bartlettpublishing.com> on Sunday February 18, 2001 @06:21AM (#422499) Homepage
    I'm actually hoping that AA will have an option to turn it off. AA is the most annoying and overhyped feature, ever. I actually like using Linux better because it doesn't have AA fonts.
  • You pretty much nailed it. IBM recognized the value of an OS that ran on all of its platforms back in the OS/2 days. At one point one of their guys did a speech at a COMDEX, saying that the eventual intent was to have OS/2 run on everything from the really low end hardware to the mainframes. This would save you lots in training and platform integration -- when you need more iron, you'd just buy more iron and you wouldn't have to retrain your users.

    Of course, OS/2 fell by the wayside, but they have what they promised now, in the form of Linux. And since the platform is completely open, it can never be co-opted by any one company.

    It's nice being able to choose to move a PowerPC or Alpha platform and still having the same operating environment and programmer's APIs. Single users and trolls may not recognize the value this provides, but big companies are increasingly doing so.

    As a side note, a lot of those companies are so Linux clueless it's enough to make you cry. Linux is no more a magic bullet than any thing else in this industry that has promised to be a magic bullet. If you try to throw Linux at a project and then manage it badly, your project's still going to fail. As I found out, you need to interview the company you're thinking of working for as thorougly as they interview you. If they seem to have no process, no version control, or a bunch of Windows programmers re-implementing Linux Standard libraries to look like Windows APIs (for example,) you should run (not walk) the other way.

  • KDE has some classes to help apps find their files via configureable search paths - basically, you just set $KDEDIRS to something like /usr:/usr/local:/usr/local/kthingy
    and it checks them in that order. Works like a charm.

    As far as interapplication communication, that's all done via the dcopserver, which uses a UNIX domain socket that lives somewhere in ~/.kde I think.

    I have the bulk of my KDE apps installed into /usr (as they were packaged) but have had no troulbe installing others elsewhere if they came from source. It's simple enough (except for the odd app with a crappy configure script that won't do --prefix right, but those are rare and the apps generally still runs once I do get the files where I want them)
  • KDE really doesn't force you to use their WM either. It was true to some extent in KDE1 that stupid things would happen (like kpanel launching for no obvious reason) if you didn't run the full DE, but I've been happily using KDE{2.0-pre,2.0,2.1-pre} apps in blackbox for quite some time now.

    Works great.

  • How about some consistency already? (Score:3)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @11:52AM (#422510)
    While the GNOME and KDE teams have produced excellent work, their focus on destroying each othjer concerns me. Ximian does dodgy things with Google adwords, KDE calls GNOME `legacy' in their theme importer.

    Face it. Neither QT/KDE or GTK/GNOME are going away. Can we start having some interoperation between the desktop environments? The complete lack on inconsistency in the Linux desktop (real users choose ap[ps based on quality, not toolkit religion) hurts Linux far more then competition helps it.

    Let people choose between GNOME and KDE. But let my apps have consistent user interfaces, common dialogues, theming engines, drag and drop (xdnd is a joke - used Konqueror FTP on GNOME recently)?, panel applets, and hopefully object model (KDE can do Bonobo components with Xparts - but I'd prefer a more uifies solution).

    It ain't Highlander. There's CAN be more than one,a nd there will be. So if you want to increase the usuability of the Linux desktop, deal with and start talking to the opposite camp.

    The competition is Windows.

  • Well, you can always install both and try them out. :-) For me the reason I always prefered gnome over KDE was the freedom to change window managers (as well as pretty much anything else, GNOME is very flexible). I'm finicky like that. Actually now since I found that all I was using gnome for was a program launcher, I dropped it completely in favor of Enlightenment (0.16.5 at the moment). Saves some ram (which is a good thing when I fire up vmware and xmms at the same time ;-) ).

    At the same time, what I've seen of KDE 2.x looks nifty. I think a lot of it boils down to personal preference, technologically they're pretty much the same. So use whatever makes you happy/productive/whatever. :-)


    --
    "Overrated" is "overfuckingused".
  • Errm yes, but that should be an implementation note in the documentation.

    I agree that there is NO SUCH THING as a completely black box - I have spent a fair amount of time wading around, for example, in the Swing source. Most of the time though, that is either to learn how to do things better, or because some of the documentation is crap.

    The trouble with your sort example, is that, as the API supplier I am not bound to keep the same implementation. Your example's not a bad one because it doesn't really break encapsulation too much. It's the kind of hacks that expose underlying data-types (in unsafe languages such as C) and do horrible things with an ADT's innards. That (which I know you weren't advocating) is not a good idea...

  • Re:Spastic Medusa indexer (Score:3)

    by adam ( 1231 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @12:04PM (#422516)
    More recent versions of Medusa (PR3 and forward, I believe) include "medusa-idled", which is designed to make medusa back off when you actually are using your machine.

  • New Features, Fifth Toe, etc. (Score:5)

    by Skeezix ( 14602 ) <jamin@pubcrawler.org> on Sunday February 18, 2001 @06:28AM (#422519) Homepage
    Some of the new features in Gnome 1.4 include:

    User level

    * Nautilus
    * enhanced display manager
    * better KDE interoperability
    * better support for legacy X applications
    * application launch feedback
    * improved Panel
    * integrated Sawfish window manager
    * Improved help browser and help system
    * Usability and quality improvements throughout

    * Fifth Toe release including a broad collection of apps that run on
    GNOME.

    Developer level

    * gnome-vfs - Virtual file system allowing transparent access to local
    and remote files.
    * Bonobo component model - technology preview
    * xml-i18n-tools - better internationalization and localization tools
    * GConf - Advanced configuration/settings system with notification and
    pluggable back ends
    * Medusa search/indexing system
    * Laguage bindings - C++, python, guile, rep

    The Fifth Toe is a set of applications that are not part of Gnome proper but work with Gnome. They include office applications, games, a few panel applets, utilities, and chat programs. Here's a list of the current set of Fifth Toe packages:

    gmc 4.5.51

    Gnumeric 0.61
    Dia 0.86
    Guppi 0.35.2
    AbiWord 0.7.12
    GnuCash 1.4.10
    Sodipodi 0.21
    gnome-db 0.2.3
    toutdoux 1.2.4

    Anjuta IDE 0.1.2
    MemProf 0.4.1
    gob 1.0.6
    gal 0.5
    gtkhtml 0.8.2

    The GIMP 1.2.1
    eog 0.6

    GnomeICU 0.95.5
    gabber 0.8.2pre1
    galeon 0.9.0
    gtm 0.4.5
    Pan 0.9.3
    Balsa 1.0.0
    Firestarter 0.6.0

    gnomoku 1.0
    bombermaze 0.6.4
    XPenguins
    Applet 0.9beta1
    Atomix 0.4.1

    gedit 0.9.4
    Glimmer 1.0.1

    gfax 0.4.2
    Figaro's
    Password
    Manager 0.53

    radioactive 1.1

    Merlin's
    CPU Fire
    Applet 0.1.0
    googlizer 0.1

    gnorpm 0.96
    gnome lokkit 0.43

    The Fifth Toe packages can be found (in tarball form) on ftp.gnome.org (and soon they'll propagate to the mirors) in the pub/gnome/stable/betas/gnome-fifth-toe-1.4beta1 directory.
    ----
  • This is the official order of compilation if you want to take the ./configure route, as posted on the gnome-1.4 mailing list:

    Development Platform
    -----------------
    xml-i18n-tools
    libxml
    audiofile
    esound
    imlib
    glib
    gtk+
    gdk-pixbuf
    ORBit
    oaf
    GConf
    control-center
    gnome-vfs
    gnome-libs
    gnome-print
    bonobo
    ammonite
    medusa
    libghttp
    libglade
    libgtop

    Language Bindings
    ---------------
    libsigc++
    gtkmm
    gnomemm
    panelmm
    rep-gtk
    gnome-python
    gnome-guile

    Core desktop
    ---------------
    bug-buddy
    gdm
    ggv
    ghex
    glade
    gnome-core
    gnome-applets
    gnome-games
    gnome-media
    gnome-pim
    gnome-utils
    gtop
    nautilus
    xalf
    sawfish
    gtk-engines

    Non-code
    ----------------
    gnome-audio
    gnome-user-docs

    --
    Kiro
  • Mozilla 0.8 was released while the beta process was still going on. Switching would have delayed the release. Beta 1 isn't perfect. :) But we're working on it. Look for M 0.8 to be used in future releases.
    ----
  • I thought 2.0.14 predated Gnome 1.0 by almost a year, and considering that 1.0 should have been called "0.5" I shudder to think what the alpha versions were like.

    Heh, I remember my Redhat 5.0 CD came with a Neanderthal version of Gnome. I spent an hour tinkering to get it to run and for the life of me I couldn't even figure out what is was supposed to do.

    That was quite a desktop-friendly distro there: the fvwm95 default, WindowMaker and AfterStep setups that must have been created by searching themes.org for "fewest downloads" and KDE barred for political reasons. And the Linux zealots were already raving about how 1997(?) was going to be the year that Linux conquered the desktop. "I set up my grandmother with Red Hat and she finds fvwm95 much more intuitive than Windows....!"

  • I know this is a troll, but I'm a sucker.

    1) actually, most people who write Linux apps get jobs writing linux apps.

    2) compiling from source is a blessing, not a curse. Why? because I can build it with whatever optimization I please, and even build it for my specific chipset. You can't do that with binaries, because everyone has different chipsets. There are a lot of other advantages to building from source, but I won't enumerate them here.

    3) If you don't want to compile from scratch, DONT! Use a popular distribution, and just get binaries.

    4) In an enterprise setting, having the source is absolutely necessary. You need it both to (a) make changes if necessary, and (b) see how it actually works underneath, to improve your understanding of the product so you can use it more effectively.

    5) Many people really like the GNOME interface, me being one of them.

    As for the advantages of Linux, try these out:

    a) not tied to a particular hardware platform, can use the one most suited to your needs
    b) easy implementation of load-balancers
    c) common operating platform for routers, load-balancers, server, and workstation machines. Makes maintenance easier
    d) very fast
    e) prunable - its easy to remove everything you don't need. Nothing is hidden from you
    f) plays well with others - almost every moderately-sized environment is a mixed environment. Contrary to what the commercials say, W2K does not play nicely in such an environment.
    g) lock-in - it doesn't matter how good W2K is now, because you've locked yourself in with a single company, and you are now dependent on that company. no such lockin exists for Linux
    h) Linux is easier-to-use and faster in real-world situations, especially in the server room. Not easier to learn, easier to use.

    Anyway, just some anti-trolls.
  • I don't see what the big hype is over Kde. I've been using a steady combination of GNOME and icewm, and have had little need for Kde. What are some of uses anyone else has put it too?
    See I have used it before with Kwm once upon a kernel 2.0.14 ago, and it seemed bloated as all hell to me so I stood away from it, as far
    away as I could. Is it still bloated in comparison to other versions, does it make anyone's load go sky high? I don't mind tinkering with things but I
    often think about back in the days when I was in school on a cruddy PC and how much installing rev's would just choke my machine up, and imagine
    everyone who is reading this story about to snarf, wget, ftp to get this latest beta. Anyone with a comparison of Kde to anything else? I don't
    wanna sound like a nitpicky pr#ck so early in the afternoon, but (mimmicking Captain Kirk) Damnit Jim I haven't .... Had ... one ......... sip of ..
    coffee ... ... ... ... yet

  • It's HTTP [gnome.org], not FTP.

  • Original Announcement and Test Plan (Score:5)

    by Carl ( 12719 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @04:02AM (#422529) Homepage
    Hi, The original announcement can be found on the Gnome-1.4 mailinglist:
    http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-1.4-list/2001 -February/msg00100.html [gnome.org]

    Note that there is a offical test plan at:
    http://www.gnome.org/~mjs/gnome-test-plans/ [gnome.org]

  • Compiling Software requires no "technical expirience" it just sucks away your free time. Compiling gnome on a standard desktop machine takes __DAYS__.

  • Re:Good stuff (Score:5)

    by MartinG ( 52587 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @04:14AM (#422532) Homepage Journal
    > Will gnome 1.4 include text anti-aliasing and RGB decimation support?

    Gnome 1.4 is based on gtk+ 1.2 just as Gnome 1.2 is. In other words, no. There will be no anti-aliased text support yet.

    There are patches available which give aa text to gtk+ 1.2, (ie, gnome 1.2 and 1.4 will have it) but the patches seem unlikely to make it into the main tree. It seems they are not very cleanly implemented. This is because the gdk api for fonts in 1.2 is poorly suited to anything other that old fashioned x-fonts.

    In the upcoming gtk+ 2.0 this is MUCH better. Pango is used for all the fonts and will of course give us the long awaited aa text. Unfortunately, source and binary compatibility is broken by gtk+ 2.0, so apps will have to be modified to use it. Gnome 2.0 will use gtk+ 2.0
  • i love keeping up with ximian gnome.
    havings to jump through a gazillion hoops to keep up with evolution and nautilus as well has proven suckly.
    looking forward to hoopless upgrade goodness.
    seriously.
  • A partial list of new features can be found in this post [slashdot.org]. Gnome 1.4 took longer to release than originally anticipated. The reason for this is simple: it wasn't ready until now.
    ----
  • 4) ... (b) see how it actually works underneath, to improve your understanding of the product so you can use it more effectively.

    Interesting comment - IMHO it doesn't square well with the idea of encapsulation. I agree that looking at someone else's source code is informative, educational and interesting, but is it really necessary to use their app properly? Are you describing a symptom of poor documentation, or something that is deeper and more philosphical?
  • Yes, the strength of GNOME lies in the choice of application languages - because they used C as their base language. That was my point.

    As far as dealing with technical issues first, they are actually using CORBA, as opposed to KParts. With CORBA, they didn't come up with something that just works for that purpose, they chose something with more long-term applicability.

  • Re:Ximian and Google (Score:3)

    by arafel ( 15551 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @06:53AM (#422546)
    You forgot the update/resolution; see http://www.ximian.com/google.php3 [ximian.com]

    Extracts:

    "Ximian CEO Nat Friedman was discussing the advertisements with Mr. Pour. They both agreed that the discord was counterproductive, and quickly reached an amicable resolution."

    "Ximian will revise its advertisements on Google to eliminate the possibility of confusion, and will not create new advertising campaigns based on KDE-related keyword searches."

  • Re:school me (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You'll get trolled... but for completely different reasons. Why? FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

    In A.D. 2101

    War was beginning.
    Captain: What happen ?
    Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
    Operator: We get signal.
    Captain: What !
    Operator: Main screen turn on.
    Captain: It's You !!
    Cats: How are you gentlemen !!
    Cats: All your base are belong to us.
    Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
    Captain: What you say !!
    Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time.
    Cats: HA HA HA HA ....
    Captain: Take off every 'zig' !!
    Captain: You know what you doing.
    Captain: Move 'zig'.
    Captain: For great justice.

    ALL YOUR BASE [planetstarseige.com] ARE BELONG TO US!

  • Ximian Packages (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18, 2001 @04:20AM (#422551)
    Ximian packages are available for at least Red Hat 6 and 7. Get them while they're fresh [ximian.com]. Unfortunately they don't include the Fifth Toe packages, which will probably be one of the biggest changes your average user will note over 1.2.
  • I believe control-center must be built after gnome-libs.
    ----

  • Wow, that was just what I found annoying about the KDE 2 install, since I didn't already have /opt and it didn't pop up any dialogs to let me know that it was installing all of this stuff on the / partition, so it filled up that partition (which I only allocated to be large enough for the boot process, etc). What's wrong with using /usr/local/kde2, or even /usr/kde2?

    Maybe I would have noticed the /opt thing if building KDE2 from source, but just installing the RPMs didn't work too well to start with. I don't think any install procedures should silently create and populate /opt if you don't already have it.

  • The ultimate goal, if I understand it correctly, was to have the Microkernel running everywhere. We've come a long way technologically since 1995, and a lot of OS/2 was experimental anyway. But that was the dream of at least some people in OS/2 land back then.

  • Re:school me (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sigh... I would like it if people would actually look at something before they judge... Allrighty then, here we go again: Gnome is not only the panel that you see. Gnome is an application framework that provides a lot of utility functions to programs, not only to make development faster/easier, but also to make applications look like 'a whole', eg common menu layout, common ok/cancel buttons, ... It also provides a consistent configuration method, and a lot more. What most people call 'gnome' (the panel) is just a small part of Gnome. Anyway, even the panel is very useful. WindowMaker also has the clip, so I don't see why everybody is always bitching 'gnome is bloated, windowmaker is better'. 'Bloat' is a heavily overused word lately, imnsho. If you don't like 'bloat' (which are 9 times out of 10 perfectly useful features, but everybody who doesn't use them calls them bloat), then press ctrl-alt-backspace now, and start using lynx.
    Uhm this started as a reply to somebody asking about gnome, right %-) ?
  • Maybe I'm wrong, but IMHO this relase, what I would better call a repackage, as most of the packages were already available in the unstable tree, is directly related to tomorrow's KDE2.1 release. Releasing a beta of the so anticipated gnome-1.4 would make people spend a lot of time testing it, maybe that if KDE2.1 appears before gnome-1.4 people would forget to test it, they don't know that our only illusion in this life is to test beta software we really like SysRq ;-)

    I think that people behind the GNOME project are starting to use somekind of marketing strategies, that maybe good or maybe bad, you decide, but surely they are not usual between the free software community.

    I'm using GNOME mainly because I prefer C over C++, but as always competition is the mother of evolution... so keep on it!

    - german

  • What is past is prologue. (Score:3)

    by SparkyMartin ( 206236 ) on Sunday February 18, 2001 @04:31AM (#422564)
    I also used earlier incarnations of Gnome and I was not impressed by them-slow, buggy, many things simply stopped working for no obvious reason. KDE had much more stability and speed so I kept using that.

    But my opinion changed when I tried the Gnome that ships with mandrake 7.2-it is much faster than before, stability is similar to KDE-I have yet to have it lock up on me or blow X out of the waters. I still prefer KDE, but the choice no so easy to make now.

    But really, you should know that if you like KDE, stick with it, and don't worry what anyone else uses.

  • I completely agree. The only reason I keep nautilus on my machine is because , this "Spastic Medusa Indexer" wakes me up early in the morning , when it is setup to start munching my disk; I drive 55 miles to my workplace and need to wake up early - so, it is kind'a useful ;-)The only response I ever got from an Eazel guy was to hack the cron job. At least they don't disagree that it is a CPU/Mem hog.

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