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GNOME GUI

Nautilus 1.0 Released Unto The World 241

Revista do Linux writes "The final (1.0) version of Nautilus was released this morning. Binaries are available for RedHat 6.x and 7.x, everyone else should try the source code. This version includes a "preview" of the Eazel Services, which includes, among other things, a virtual disk. Grab your copy at the Eazel homepage." The download page has RPMs for RH 6.1/2, and 7. They've also got source that you can download as well If you want to check it out before downloading the demo page is pretty cool - but it looks like the server might be a wee bit overtaxed.
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Nautilus 1.0 Released Unto The World

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  • You don't get it. The point of online storage is not to be able to use it as a remote drive but as an automated backup system. If I could make a backup of all my configuration files, preferences, source code from the projects I'm working on, personal files, address book, etc. on a daily basis, I'd feel much more at ease if my hard drive dies or something orible happens to my setup.
  • Mozilla 1.0? I posted that too quick. I meant Eazel 1.0.
  • "Konqueror can do pretty much everything Nautilus does" -- Really? Because Nautilus does everything from ID3 tag reading to folder wallpaper to mind-numbingly watered down (IMHO) newbie settings..
  • I think a more general and useful thing would be to modify the copy/cut/paste to add an two new features: copy and append to clipboard/cut and append to clipboard (maybe ctrl-shift-c and x?).


    The clipboard should be a stack. Every time you cut or copy, it pushes your choice onto the stack. When you paste, it should pop it off, leaving your clipboard as it was before.

    This allows: move to A, select files, copy, move to B, select files, copy, move to C, paste, paste.

    If you think about it, you realize there is an operation missing: cut is to copy as paste is to ?? (ie you should be able to push something on and either pop it off or copy it off).
  • I have seen the screen shots and I must admit that it is pretty nice.The demo wouldn't work, but I digress.


    To bring linux onto the desktop requires making things simple for first time users, but also giving power users the ability to "get funky".


    I haven't used eazel, but as long as it will provide a useable (read visually appealing and easy) default, and still allow power users to use the power of linux, it will be a winner.


    Think of the most popular/successful games:


    Monopoly


    Chess


    Simcity


    Most card games.


    The rules are simple enough to get you started after a few minutes, but if you really want to get into it, the possibilities are endless.


    Think of the command line.... dir will work, but dir *.exe /w /p allows you to do so much more!


    This is where linux will win over windows. At the moment, the possibilities with linux are endless, but the learning curve to get you to where you can really do stuff is steep.


    If you can click on the NEXT button, you can do a pretty decent windows default install. Not much you can do with it afterwards, but .....

  • by Megane ( 129182 )
    This was supposed to be the user interface that would change the world (how many times has that been said in press releases?) And it turns out to be Yet Another Freaking Browser, only with some sort of "we give you a net account too, but only if you already have an ISP, of course" extra, perhaps like Apple's iTools [slashdot.org], except they're taking themselves way too seriously. Oh boy, I get truck-sized icons, and I can put little labels on them, too! Where do I sign up!

    And this group supposedly included a couple of genuises from the original Macintosh development team? Maybe they should have gotten Tog on that team, too.

  • I'll save you some time then, galeon is dependent on the gnome libs not just GTK. If you get a chance, check out gnome and galeon, not to mention Red Carpet and evolution.
  • As hard as you are finding it to believe, I am running (For the second time now) Mozilla 0.8 on an Athlon 750 w/ 128Mb. It is a Redhat 7 box with 2.4.1, XFree86 3.x and KDE 1.

    I moved to 0.8 from Netscape 6.0 after the 6.01 "upgrade" disgusted me so much that I felt like setting fire to Netscape project managers.

    The User Interface is slow (I frequently see 1 second delays between clicking the mouse and the menu appearing). Yes the HTML engine is fast, and it doesn't reload on window resizing, but the interface is slow and clunky.

    When I get the time, I intend to attempt building Galeon (again), however I have no idea how much luck i'll have given that I run KDE and not Gnome.
  • Whatever anyone else tells you, this is actually an interface to a Network User Environment, according to Nautilus' site.

    They plan to use the client as a service point for system administration, by the looks of it.
  • "Damn I can't believe I just said that."
    But you are right now that I think about it a bit more. Once you get over the I don't know and can't learn it stage you start to understand just how wrong the winders GUI is but unless you are exposed to something better you never will learn or understand just how bad it is. I think the reason most people fear and avoid the command line is that they have never been exposed to a real shell before. Here at work many people get their first taste of bash and within a week many of them hate the damn winders GUI and command line (or lack of) as much as I do. Once you take the time to learn and use the power I don't think anyone will ever go back.
  • Thanks man, right back at ya.
  • This worked for me thanks!
  • The reason that you are comfortable with the windows interface, is because that is what you have been using for 5+ years. Once you can disengage yourself from that 'feel', then you can start to appreciate the look and feel of unix/linux/bsd - even BeOS. It is just a matter of what we are used to. I know mac guys who are completely lost in windows. They find that interface uncomfortable to deal with. Me? I have used windows 9x/nt for 4 years, and I still prefer WindowMaker. Why? It is ideal for what I need. And I took the time to break myself from the comfort of windows.

    This is a bigger issue. How does the linux community get more windows users to switch? Do we give them a windows-type interface? Look at 1995. Everyone used a mac, OS/2 and win 3.1. Looked nothing like win95. Was it the hype that made people jump on it? Probably. I still found 3.1 more useful, and didn't switch for a year. Many users I know still are not comfortable with windows. So, I guess the only way to get people to switch, is to force them. Then they adjust. Linux needs the PC OEMs. Damn I can't believe I just said that.

  • "They can never find the file because it is not very intuitive to start finding in the Windows directory" Huh? Virtually all application programs and recent versions of windows default to the user's "My Documents" directory -- which is essentially a home directory.

    Although the general lack of security is kind of annoying (e.g. the whole drive being world writeable), this isn't really a factor in ease-of-use for users who don't know what files and directories are.
  • I agree 100%. It is my contention that the command line is more intuitive than any GUI. As a program launcher and a file manager it is tough to beat a little xterm window.

    Even though I have access to several GUI file managers I don't bother with them. They suck, they are barely functional in my opinion. File management under *nix is infinitely superior to Windows anyway. Users have much less to do as the files are managed right from the start. As opposed to the helter skelter Windows arrangement. Everytime I've had to help users find their lost 'document' reminds me of how poorly arranged Windows is. They can never find the file because it is not very intuitive to start finding in the Windows directory and the whole user paradigm presented by Windows means that many don't even know what a file is let alone having to change the path on the find program. People with this level of knowledge should not have access to a file manager at all. In *nix they will find their 'lost' document right there in their home directory.

    The keyboard is the primary input device why not use it?

    Imagine an OS without grep. Sad isn't it.
  • The point is that you don't have to seek a directory (A) of files you wish to move to another directory (C) and then go seek a directory (B) of files you also wish to move to (C), and then seek (C). In this case, you seek (A), put the files in your handful. Seek (B), add more file to your handful, and then seek (C), and drop your handfull.

    I think a more general and useful thing would be to modify the copy/cut/paste to add an two new features: copy and append to clipboard/cut and append to clipboard (maybe ctrl-shift-c and x?). This would extend the model beyond just file systems, and be very useful in text editing. There are too many times that I paste, just to append to what I copy (then delete what I pasted).

  • If I need to use something which is either not available for Linux or that it's not good enough on Linux - then either I reboot or I run VMWare with Windows as a guest (I preffer the latter)...

    When I use Windows, I never feel the need to switch to Linux to do something I find that I can't do properly in Window. The reverse isn't true. So the question is, why use Linux in the first place?
  • It's spinning round and round in my head.

    apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get... apt-get...
  • Another general comment. I would not call myself one who know much about UNIX shells. I know what BASH is, and know ls, ps -ef | grep whatever, cd, vi, and some other command. My mother on the other hand complains to me when the printer runs out of paper. Similar to the saying "script Kiddy" what is some guys is 53? is he still a script kiddy?
  • this is all fine and dandy. however, i couldn't find any info about debian availability. what's the story, red hat glory?
  • "Database"? You're being hopelessly generic. Any tree-based filesystem (for instance) is already a database. What do you mean?
  • But I'm running Mandrake 7.2 which is glibc-2.1. Sadly all the cooker RPMs are for glibc-2.2 and the upgrade comes out with about 50 dependencies. I'm a patient man, I can wait for 8.0.
  • There is a unified installer. I didn't actually run it, but my assumption is that it is like the Helix Gnome installer, where you download a small application that gives you a list of applications to download, and then figures the dependencies for you. Click on "DONE" and it downloads/installs all needed packages. Restart the X server and away you go!
    Actually it's more like
    • Download the installer
    • Run it
    • Click next
    • Read the messge that your distro isn't supported
    • Click "finish" after nothing has been installed
    • Go to the RPM download section
    • Click on each link
    • Save each file
    • Notice that some of the links are broken
    • Give up for now and wait until they provide a plain FTP directory for their stuff instead of a nifty inoperative set of links
    Guess it's back to kindergarten for me. I thought that after 7 or 8 years of Linux I'd be able to setup an application. Guess not...

  • Or you could use Red Hat... ;-)
  • I think the reason most people fear and avoid the command line is that they have never been exposed to a real shell before.

    Conversely, I think one reason some people are GUI-averse is that they have not used Macs.

    Windows never caught up and has only been getting worse since Windows 95, while the Linux GUIs before Eazel have been absurdly bad. If that's the basis for judgment, no wonder the judgment is negative. But if you really want to know GUI, go back to the source, the Macintosh.

    Tim

    PS. And just in case you're wondering, I used csh for years before the Mac even came out. I've never looked back.

  • OH OH OH!! Microsoft's file manager will browse the web and ftp! We can clone that! We already cloned all the other microsoft applications, why not explorer too? Sometimes I think the only thing that keeps linux afloat is a deep-seated hatred of Microsoft. It's just a software company out to make money... they're not "big brother" or "the software mafia" or anything out to get you.
  • Okay, great. But KDE [kde.org] has all that since 2.0:

    File browsing & full access on local/ftp/nfs/

    SMB browsing w/o write, separate client for that

    Previewing of files in window, or edit in repective app

    Web browsing (guess where I'm writing this)

    they call it konqueror. The look depends on the UI skin... can be as pretty as Eazel.

    Greets

    Anno

  • Heck, you should even throw in file revisioning on user-selected files. If something like CVS is already set up on the machine, people are more likely to use it every day.
  • ...I'm getting more and more suspicious about this tendency of Ximian and Eazel to be so Redhat centric, and especially careless of Mandrake.

    Oh, sure Ximian does some support for Debian. Maybe even for Suse. Maybe because Debian and Suse don't really bother Redhat in the long run. Suse is on a declining path (probably not in absolute numbers, but in relative share). Debian is Debian, most of its users will stick with it, but, for the moment, it's not likely to get a market share that can compare with Redhat or Mandrake.

    But, how strange, Mandrake is amazingly neglected. That is, the distro that IS a danger for Redhat, which also happens to be by far the easiest to support once you already support Redhat, is, well, "isolated". Since Mandrake is the only distro whose popularity is comparable to Redhat's, it makes no sense. Except that...
  • The version I have is from late last night (EST; east coast USA)...and says 'Nautilus 1.0' in the 'About Nautilus' dialog. It might be a pre-release, though I can't tell.

    It's faster, but still has some oddities (I didn't wake up early enough to join in with the Nautilus Bug Day...bummer).

    So far, I have problems with the helper applications; mouse over on sound/music files does nothing, double click yeilds an error message though the 'View as Music' option works like a charm.

    Since my system is a frankenstein grouping of parts, I've set up a seperate computer to do a 'clean' install of this on. Till then, the problems I've encountered might be caused by something I've done and not the Gnome/Nautilus folks.

    This message was posted using Nautilus (Mozilla web page view) while listening to Bruce Hornsby.

  • Take a look at http://www.us.rasterman.com/pages/e.html for some reason it seems that this is where you need to go now for news. I for one love Enlightenment and would never use anything else.
  • by vsksga ( 209308 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @05:38AM (#367075)
    If you need Mozilla 0.8 packages you can find them at: http://people.redhat.com/blizzard/software/ [redhat.com]
    I got the same conflict. After installing 0.8 the installer at least started to download...
  • After a cursory review of the website, I get the impression that they really don't want you running this on anything other than Intel, Redhat (preferably 6.2) or Debian (preferably 2.2) Linux systems.

    So what if we run FreeBSD (and let's for a moment assume there isn't Linux binary compatibility) or Solaris? For instance, in my lab at school, we've got a room chock full of Sparcs and Ultra Sparcs with Solaris 2.5.1 and 2.7. There are a ton of newbies who have a hell of a time figuring out Sun File Manager and there are also a few people like me who like the occasional eye candy.

    So, my question. Is there any chance the source could be built to run stable on Solaris? And I'm assuming here that at least the core Gnome 1.2 libraries are available.

    --

  • I'm sorry, but I'm still not convinced. What's so great about this piece of software again? I visited the web page and tried to gather enough information to decide for myself, but I really just need a few second, third, and umpteenth opinions.

    I hate to say so, but I still prefer Windows over Linux because Windows has 18 gazillion pieces of software to use that cover nearly all of my wants and needs. Linux, therefore, is only a hassle to run right now. (Of course it works much better than Windows as a server, but that's another story that we've all read, right?)

  • by grammar nazi ( 197303 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @03:53AM (#367083) Journal
    Yeah. Now I can browse my files with ease... nah. I'll stick to the command line, but Nautilus looks nice and maybe my parents would use it.

    Can anyone tell me why you can't actually manage files with a file manager? For example, at work I need to compare two large directory structures to see which files are different between the two. Or which directories have recently updated files. Short of a bash script or a diff on two different ls commands (all commandline things) I can't do it. In other words, I can't manage files with a file manager!

  • I realize that Sun will eventually ship a Gnome desktop... but my question is what can we do to get Nautilus in the meantime? =)

    --

  • The demo is down, but the screenshots are still up. Nice to take a gander before downloading everything and gives a sense of what things will look like.

    http://www.eazel.com/screenshots/ [eazel.com]

  • I say this over and over, but when we're playing Freshmeat, could we at least get a single line explaining what the software does?

    Really, folks, I'm not trolling. I just don't have the time to stay up on this stuff, and it would help immensely if I knew what it was. I know, some kharma whore is going to come on after me and reply with a ten line description, complete with the author's birthdate, but all we really need is a single quick line in the news headline.

    If it's not a distro, it needs an explanation. (And even some distros need a note!!)
  • I still don't get why people think the win 9X GUI is so great. yea it is what everybody knows but it just plain sucks. But this is of course a limit of all GUIs Basically for really working with files *nothing* beats xterm and bash. :) Having said that the wind 9x GUI is just plain wrong. Everything useful is buried and you either have way too many ways to do things or they can't be done at all. And have you ever tried to really customize the look and feel of a winders box? Yech. I have a couple of "John Doe" types begging me to install Linux for them now that they have seen my desktop (E + Gnome with all the Gnome stuff turned off :) and the Irix theme from e.themes.org) So please tell me just what is it that win 95's GUI does better? I have so far *never* gotten an answer to that question. :)
  • - Click and drag files without having to open two different directory views (if I drag and hold over a folder long enough it should open)

    Most all file managers will understand that you want to copy the files you are currently dragging into a given folder if you just drop them on that folder icon. You don't have to actually open the destination folder.

    Now, if you want to go to directories deep--then you do have to open stuff up. I actually like the way Windows does it. It lets you ctrl-C the files to the clipboard. Then you can navigate to the folder you want and ctrl-v to paste them (then it actually performs the copy--so I don't think anything actually get's saved on the clipboard). With that method you at least don't have to have everything set up before you start the copy.

  • by nd ( 20186 ) <nacase AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @01:04PM (#367097) Homepage
    As cold and "elitist" as this sounds, I don't think slashdot should have to explain this stuff.

    The issue that arises is "where do you draw the line?". Should slashdot post an explanation everytime the Gimp is mentioned? Or Gnome/KDE? I would hope that the average slashdot reader already knows what Nautilus is -- and if he/she doesn't, that they take the time to figure it out on their own.

    Personally, if Slashdot explained what Nautilus is I'd feel turned off. Seeing "Nautilus, the next-generation desktop shell for the Gnome environment" has a real ZDnet feel to it (ever notice how so many Linux articles from other sources give the 1 paragraph explanation about Linux and how Linus Torvalds started it in 1992 blah blah blah). It's not like this is the first article on Nautilus at slashdot. You have no excuse for not taking 5 seconds to research, sorry.

    Perhaps a better solution is for Slashdot to automatically append one of those Everything2 links to these words. This way it doesn't insult regulars with the ZDnet feel to it, and it makes explanations simple for others.
  • When I use Windows, I never feel the need to switch to Linux to do something I find that I can't do properly in Window. The reverse isn't true.

    Oh? I find the reverse true all the time. I'd gladly heave this damn Win2k box I have to use at work out the window and replace it with a good ol' Linux or BSD box. (Though Cygwin is helping somewhat.)

    So the question is, why use Linux in the first place?

    Because the difference between Linux and Windows is like the difference between a pocketknife and a fully equipped workshop. The pocketknife takes little training, can't hurt you too much if you screw up, and is ok if all you want to do is whittle; but if you want to Get Some Stuff Done, take the time to learn how to use the truly powerful tools.

    The problem is, once you've done that, if you go somewhere where all that's available is a pocketknife (even though the pocketknife costs a lot of money and you can get the full workshop for free!), it's incredibly frustrating!

    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

  • This may work for what I would use it for or it may not. I do a lot of copy and pasting and the pasting is usually pasted multiple times. I know that you don't alway pop, that isn't my problem. Thinking about what I was talking about, I could copy two things, and then paste them over and over again. With the stackboard, I can't. Also, I would have to copy in reverse order that I wanted to paste in, because the cursor will inevitably be at the end of my paste. I think doing that would be a little cumbersome (not unusable, but I would prefer to copy in the order I'm reading my code, not in the reverse order). I still feel that appending would suit me better, but not having used a stackboard system, I don't know how much I would run up against it's limitations. I do know that XCV good enough, but can be better.
  • Enlightenment

    There is a piece of software that at one time had the potential to capture the lions share of the desktop - all those users who would use KDE or GNOME (with Sawmill) instead. The reason it didn't was because the principle authors were more concerned with writing kewl features to exploit their sound and image libraries than on producing a straightforward, light and consistent window manager.

    Consequently everyone now uses Sawmill with GNOME or KDE with its builtin WM. Enlightenment has been pushed out onto the fringe.

  • I like to use a drawing program for drawing, and paste the result in my wordprocessor; I don't have a need for drawing capabilities in my wordprocessor.
    Where most applications are headed is not to include drawing capabilities in the wordprocessor but instead to embed the drawing program in the wordprocessor. It's not bloat, it's just integration. In fact it could reduce bloat because the wordprocessor may no longer need to understand the drawing format. The comment that started this thread was complaining about web browsing features in a file manager. Nautilus doesn't duplicate the web browsers functionality, it integrates the browser (Mozilla). Ideally, if all the interfaces were standardized you should be able to embed any web browser (which supports the relevant standards). All it means is that you don't have to open a new window to browse. This sort of thing is more modular than traditional architectures.
  • It hasn't always been on the fringe. Back with RedHat 5.2 it was one of the default window managers to be installed and a lot of people used it like that.

    It wouldn't surprise me if Raster's big falling out with RH was because they just wanted a WM to run with GNOME and not a complete hackers desktop.

  • Windows has 18 gazillion pieces of software to use that cover nearly all of my wants and needs.

    Nope, Windows has about 100 pieces of software that you know how to use.

    Linux "probably" has more of the pieces of software you'd use if you learned how to use them. Your hassle is with having to learn new apps. Damn it is my signature.
  • WAIT!!!!!
    I must have read that wrong....
    Unix terminals replaced by a bunch of PCs running terminal emulators(!) on Windows
    ....No I guess I did read that right.
    Now that's what I call TCO savings.
  • I think it should paste the filenames (or "url"s) to the text window, with spaces between them and quotes if needed. Of course it doesn't, instead the clipboard seems to return the last cut of the requested type, ie you get the text you last cut.

    This also means that a paste much later can move a file you copied long ago, which is kind of strange. Most users learn to always copy & paste immediately.

    I don't think the semantics are bad, really. The big problem is that "cut" does not remove the item from the display. It probably should (without deleting the real file). Further cut commands should append to the list. And if you cut anything other than a file, or you paste to anything other than a file browser that can actually move the files to a safe location, the files reappear back where they were as though nothing happened.

  • Eazel Software Catalog. Hmm, looks like apt-get with a nice front end to me.... However a solution already existed in Linux space, Debian!

    More to the point, this is going directly against Helix Code / Ximian's plans with Red Carpet. It's going to be interesting to see how this one comes out: Eazel's piles of money and its supercharged hype machine (As Seen In Newsweek!) versus Ximian's smaller (IIRC) piles of money and Miguel's status as the object of adoration of the North American Linux world. I'd bet on Ximian (ask Raster and Mandrake about trying to challenge Miguel for leadership of the Gnome world) but I'm skeptical that anyone is ever going to get Linux desktop users to ever pay for anything except hardware, and maybe distros.

    Eazel Online Storage: been there, done that.

    To me, it's obvious why free diskspace has little appeal. Commonly available bandwidth is simply too slow to make use of a reasonable amount of available storage. Let's say I'm offered 50 free megs. It's a trivial addition to my 12 gig hard drive and yet copying that data, even over a T1, would still take forever. If technology had progressed at a different rate and 35 meg hard drives were common on new computers today, it would be a different story.

    Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

  • Although it would be difficult to get computer novices used to it, it may make sense to always append. The clipboard is cleared by copying data that cannot be appended, or by "pasting" to the trash, and maybe there is a keyboard shortcut.

    The pure stack suggested here is probably not good because it disallows multiple copies. But something like Emacs M-Y would be good: it indicates that you wanted an earlier cut and replaces the one you just did with another.

  • People only think they are too stupid to use powerful command line tools, but in fact with a little help almost everyone can use it and can be more productive with it. Most are too lazy though, and thus because they don't want to spend the initial 30 minutes, they loose 30 minutes each day.
    For some people, yes this is the case, but I've always found the CLI versus GUI argument to be pointless. In my experience, for some things the CLI is faster and in some things it isn't. I kind of like the old analogy that when you want to dig a ditch, the shovel is your tool. If you want to dig a canal, then you'd better get a steam shovel.
    I love the CLI, but sometimes it can't quite do the job that a particular GUI can quite as easily. And, Nautilus looks like it could be a pretty good shovel.
  • Not it isn't. QNX, BeOS, MacOS 9, Windows 2000 and KDE 2.1 on Linux are just as friendly. Windows is just better known than the above. Your average corporate IT user isn't going to have any trouble using any of these, especially since they'll have an IT helpdesk if they get stuck. Home users should stick to Windows for the time being, but the way to get Linux on the desktop is to get it into somewhere like Ford or Citibank first and then this will drive home adoption.
  • I don't hear anyone warring over Norton File Manager anymore and how it can't be purchased because Win 9x/NT/2k comes with one, so that horse is dead and beaten and has long since mouldered away.

    There's a few of us die-hards left that have taken up the use of Windows Commander [ghisler.com]. It's a really spiffy Norton Commander clone that has a lot of addons, like FTP and serial file transfer. Everybody that I've shown it to has hated it at first, but after watching me use it for five minutes, has been converted. It's the bomb.

    Of course, I know it'll never take over any serious market hold, but I don't care. I use it because it's simultaneously more powerful and yet more easy to use than Windows Explorer.
  • Doesn't anyone else feel it's time for a back to basics aproach with computers?

    I've really gotta agree with you. Everyone considers GUIs "easy to use", and dismisses the command line as antiquated, meaningless gibberish. Now, I'm not one of those "I refuse to run X" people, but I prefer to use the command line for a lot of tasks.

    For example... Try creating a directory. To a complete newbie, "mkdir" is some cryptic command. But with the slightest knowledge of the command line, it becomes evident that it's better. "mkdir foo" is a *lot* easier than starting Windows Explorer, navigating to the folder you want, and then right clicking, and renaming "New Folder".

    I'm not advocating that people stop work on GUIs, but I think that if more people would take the time to learn the basics of the command line, people would be more proficient with computers. In some cases, a GUI is a lot better -- if you're searching for something, you might fire up a quick GUI to click a few boxes, and have it run grep for you. But if you spend tons of time every day doing that, why not just learn grep? There really is a reason I generally have multiple terminal windows open...
    ________________________________________________

  • I run Mozilla 0.8 on an Athlon 750 w/ 128Mb, it doesn't make the user interface any less slow.

    Just because it's currently the best, doesn't mean it's any good. In fact, Mozilla is a good example of the failings of current software. The current GUI toolkits wern't good enough for them or something? Oh look, skins YAWN, oh look, more layers to slow my computer down.

    If you like Mozilla, fine, great, whoopy. I still think it's slow and unresponsive. Hey, maybe they'll get it right for 1.0, who knows?
  • Forgot to mention my hardware; PII-465, 128mb RAM, Voodoo 3 2000 (never peppy on 2D).
  • by Spoing ( 152917 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:49AM (#367146) Homepage
    So many comments on how Nautilus isn't useful for the true 7eet or even the common user...by self-avowed non-Nautilus users.

    I never understood how people can comment on something before even trying it. The pre-releases from a couple days ago aren't as good as what is available now.

    The installer works like a charm for RH6/7 users, so that should cover many folks. Source is available for everyone else, with packages showing up over the next few days.

    Eazel services are damn nice.

    The browser integration works well, though it will make some folks cringe in parts (right clicking on links does nothing for me).

    Throughout the whole program are nice touches that are well thought out; side panel tabs, icon stretching, text-in-icon, multiple data-specific views, ...

    Is it 'too simple'? YES! Is that a bad thing? Gripe gripe gripe...but can you code? Do you have alternate tools? If so, what's so satisfying about complaining?

  • by HiQ ( 159108 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:34AM (#367147)
    Doesn't anyone else feel it's time for a back to basics aproach with computers?

    Yep, I do; it seems to be the fashion in the last few years to include all sorts of functionality in every application (modular design isn't an option anymore). I always thought that the one big advantage of a multitasking operating system was that you could run a few applications, and 'mix' the output of those applications. I like to use a drawing program for drawing, and paste the result in my wordprocessor; I don't have a need for drawing capabilities in my wordprocessor. And that's just *one* example!

  • Well, something like this should add some useful features. Something that Windows has long had (well, since 95, anyway) is an integrated feel; stuff can be hooked into explorer so that on a right click, you can get file properties, security information etc while your virus scanner can hook into this as well. As another example, it's trivial to add a web share under NT/IIS compared to Apache (the merits of Apache/IIS are another matter entirely which I'm ignoring here).

    The trouble with X-windows has been that there is no standard for this; an app vendor would have to create a hook for WindowMaker, fvwm, KDE and GNOME; if a user had a different file manager, the plugin would have to be created for that as well. I'm guessing the Nautilus authors hope to bypass this and make a standard so that the "average user" (whatever the hell that is) can work with linux as easily as Windows/MacOS.

    Those of us who want to use linux for servers simply don't install it, much like we'd probably like to remove the GUI from NT...
    --

  • by Adnans ( 2862 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:50AM (#367149) Homepage Journal
    There are two services Eazel currently provides:

    • Eazel Software Catalog. Hmm, looks like apt-get with a nice front end to me. Basically they want to create the Debian-style repository, but for RPM. By concentrating on RPM based distributions (RedHat) from the start Eazel might have discovered a problem: "automatic software upgrades". However a solution already existed in Linux space, Debian!

    • Eazel Online Storage: been there, done that. Unless Eazel can provide high speed access to my data 24 hours a day it's not interesting at all. Personal experience with other such (free) services have been disappointing so far. And storage space becomes cheaper and broadband more pervasive peer-to-peer communication will become that more interesting for (Linux) consumers. I.e. talk directly to your home computer from anywhere! Instead of through Eazel. That said, uploading/downloading is quite fast. Let's hope it stays that way once all gnomes store their MP3's^H^H^H^H^H family pictures on Eazel.
    Interesting to see how they're planning on making cash.

    Much of Nautilus will probably need to be rewritten once GNOME 2.0 comes out. As it is now, Nautilus is THE SLOWEST GNOME/Linux applications I've used ever. I do like my anti-alisased fonts hardware accellerated with RENDER, thank you very much! (yeah, already spoiled :)

    -adnans
  • Whatever the qualities are of windows 9x/NT/2000, one thing is for sure: The windows GUI has been pretty much the same since 95 and most applications written for it integrate nicely with it. Some projects under linux have gone to great length to duplicate and even improve on the features offered by the windows GUI. However, none have come to the point yet where most linux apps integrate nicely. Up until KDE 2.0, the linux desktop lacked a decent filebrowser (which is why everybody chooses to use the commandline). Now with Nautilus, there are two, reasonably fully featured file browsers (the other is konqueror).

    So what makes Windows better? Consistency and standardized behavior (industry standard of course, but then, are there any other?). Theming is a nice gimmick, and yes there are ways to do it on win32. However, more advanced users usually refrain from using such features. Better of course is entirely subjective. However to me it is clear that under windows people actually use the GUI whereas under linux you almost have to use the commandline to get anything non trivial done. As long as this is the case windows/apple will be the superior desktop for many users (including me).

    Don't get me wrong, I have the latest Gnome and KDE running on the Debian PC next to me and I love them both. But surfing, reading mail and doing serious stuff like writing a presentation or a paper is much more comfortable under windows 2000 at this point in time.
  • I agree. Why is this all built into a big application.

    Sure the thing looks great, but I want to be able to write a program that does this:

    FILE* f = fopen("http://www.slashdot.org","r");

    And it should work! I should not have to create objects or link with some huge GUI/Corba/COM monster. And I should get FULL SPEED if I open a local file, without using if statements to decide what library I want to use to read it. In fact I think this functionality should be built into the system (as fs drivers, of course), this would match the Unix design where you write to serial ports using the same code as for files. In a lot of ways these new giant shared libraries are introducing the bad designs that K&R threw out 30 years ago!

  • I agree.

    Does anybody have documentation on that image format xv uses? Or is it considered standard to put any image format there now?

  • Well O.K, lets extend to the concept of "information managers", which is a phrase prime to become the next buzzword of 2001...

    Assume we have a user, named Bob. Bob wants to do three things today:
    • Download some images from his digital camera and save them
    • View his favourite web page
    • Make a copy of the document he was working on yesterday and put it on a floppy for his neo-ludite boss
    These are fairly common tasks, I would have thought. Now, Bob is in Gnome, so he launches his wizz bang integrated "information managment" application, where he spends half an hour and completes all three tasks. He closes the program, and then logs out of Gnome, and switches the computer off. That was easy wasn't it Bob?

    If you were paying attention though, there was a peice of software that Bob never used when doing these three tasks. Gnome. That is, his desktop software. All he did was launch his wizz bang integrated application.

    The point of this ramble? Well i'm all for ease of use, but i have always been led to believe that "information management" was the roll of the desktop interface. Why do you need to layer an integrated do-it-all application over your desktop?

    I know someone is going to say that Gnome will integrate their "information manager" into Gnome 2.0, but it will still be a seperate application as far as the user is concerned. Not only that, but it's a single, large application; that's a lot of memory to use just to copy a file, and the user interface is going to be confused with all the extra buttons and menus that are not needed to copy that file.

    I'm calling for developers to step back and slow down from their headlong rush into integrating everything, and ask themselves and their users a few things;
    • Is this easy to use?
    • Does this user interface make sense conceptually?
    • How much duplication is there?
    • Is there a better way to do this?
    At the end of it, they may find it makes more sense to encapsulate common components into libraries, and to make use of Bonobo or other COM style systems. They may reduce the number of layers of software on my computer, and hopefully gain some speed in the process. They may realise that users do not neccesarily want to use their web browser as a file manager.

    In the end, I just want developers to stop copying everyone else, and try some of their own ideas for once.
  • The closest linux alternative is Konqueror which requires at least kde 2.0. To be precise, Konqueror requires the KDE libraries. It runs fine under Gnome.

    __________________

  • I don't know of any mirrors, but here [eazel.com] are instructions for building and links to the tarballs.
    ----
  • Yes, there will definitely be a solaris build. Sun workstations will be coming with GNOME at GNOME 2.0, and SUN has deals and stuff with Eazel. The thing is that they have not finished packaging, they may not have a FreeBSD system so they have to wait. there will be Eazel builds for just about everyting, they'll just take a while.
  • Installing a new version of glibc is a great deal more than just rpm -Uvh glibc-2.2.rpm. Loads of stuff depends on it and you're usually better off waiting for a new distro and patching any smaller holes while you're waiting.
  • To me, that seems like one hell of a leap of logic to come to the conclusion that a set of web pages are conceptually the same as a bunch of files on my computer?

    If they are conceptually the same, why do these integrated file manager / web browsers not use the same user interface to display files to the user as it does to display a web page to the user?

    They don't; files still appear as files, directories as directories, and they all have icons. Web pages are not displayed in a hierachical view in the file manager with a little icon you double click to open it.

    They are not the same thing, and there doesn't seem to be any good reason to combine the two.

    One last note. As much as integrated file managers / web browsers annoy me, that is not my only problem with modern software. It's the whole loss of direction and re-inventing of the wheel that gets me too.
  • by mirko ( 198274 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:58AM (#367179) Journal
    The limit with this feature is that you can't just gather files from several directories views so each time you want to add a new file to your selection you have to paste all the previous somewhere and just copy paste the new with them.
    I remember a NeXTstep feature which was the handful : The first time you selected more than one file in a view, you then had an icon showing a hand which appeared. You could preserve this icon by putting it on the filer window shelf. Once there, you could use as a temporary directory and drag subsequently chosen files so that at the end you could copy/move/delete, etc. all the selected files at once.
    I'd like to see this feature in modern filers.
    --
  • You know... in the time you spent typing this post, you could have simply clicked on the link and learned for yourself what Nautilus is.

    Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to post the full software description, and he informs others and avoids /.'ing the site.

    The problem at hand isn't that I'm lazy, it's that I want to avoid slashdotting sites that don't need to be hit. A simple line telling us what Nautilus is would save that poor web site from thousands of unnecessary hits. I don't need a file manager today, so I don't need to click that link. If I ever had a site featured on a Slashdot story, I would certainly hope someone would extend me the same courtesy.
  • by smartin ( 942 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @05:02AM (#367183)
    When I try to install it, it just craps out with

    * Conflict between mozilla vM18 (required by nautilus-suggest v1.0) and mozilla v0.8

    * Conflict between mozilla-mail v0.8 (required by nautilus-suggest v1.0) and mozilla vM18

    I don't have mozilla M18 installed on my system
  • Give it some time. :) A piece of software rarely changes the world at version 1.0. Did Windows 1.0 change the world or Linux 1.0? How about Word 1.0 or Emacs 1.0?
    ----
  • Interesting features in Nautilus (and why it's better than Explorer)

    1. Preview on Mouse over - With Nautilus you can preview images, web pages, and even music files by simply hovering the mouse over the files.

    2. Resizeable icons and and markers - Ever opened a folder with hundreds of identical icons? With Eazel you can resize and add special markers to help you figure out where you are, and what files you need.

    3. Eazel Services make it easier to install software that any other system. You can simply click on the link to software applications you want, and presto software begins installing.

    In addition Nautilus is a good file manager with all the drag and drop goodness that windows and Mac have and more.
  • OK, it's great that Windows supports open-on-hover (or whatever you want to call it). Just out of curiosity, since when? I'm pretty sure not since '95... :)

    However, Ctrl-X/C/V sounds wrong. Let me repeat my question: can you paste a list of filenames to a text entry box? Can you accidentally stop the operation by copying something else to the clipboard (what happens if you cut the files to move them, and then copy something else to the clipboard? oops)? I haven't got a Windows system available on which to test this, but if it doesn't do both, it does it wrong. OS/2, incidentally, has had a superior form of this feature(1) for some time.

    There's also the problem of Windows having no idea whether it wants Ctrl-X,C,V or Shift-Insert,Ctrl-Insert, and Ctrl-Delete, and this feature only reenforces that.

    1. It doesn't purport to use the clipboard, it gives you visual feedback (the pointer changes) when something is 'picked up,' and it doesn't interfere with other operations (like regular cut and paste).

  • by octothorpe ( 34673 ) <etwilson AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @03:58AM (#367196) Homepage
    I'm posting this using Nautilus 1.0 right now and I have to say that I'm very impressed. I knew that it would have nice eye candy and such but I'm really supprised at how fast it is. I do have a fairly fast machine (600MHz Athlon, 256M RAM) but I still figured that Nautilus would be slugish but I'm happily corrected. It's only been a few minutes of use but I think that I will use this thing all the time. Now if eazel could figure out how to make $ from it...
  • I remember a NeXTstep feature which was the handful : The first time you selected more than one file in a view, you then had an icon showing a hand which appeared. You could preserve this icon by putting it on the filer window shelf. Once there, you could use as a temporary directory and drag subsequently chosen files so that at the end you could copy/move/delete, etc. all the selected files at once.

    That doesn't seem more convenient to me. It actually seems more complex. Navigating to different souce directories and copying files to the final destination directory as you find them doesn't involve any temporary destination folder. The NeXT solution has you find files in different souce directories, add those files to an interim destination list, and then copy that list to the final destination directory. You still have to find the source files, but you've added the layer of making a copy list and then dragging that copy list to your destination. At best you've actually *added* a whole click-drag operation to the procedure. It's not really adding any convenience.

  • by SmileyBen ( 56580 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @03:59AM (#367201) Homepage
    I tried a couple of the pre-releases and it was utterly gorgeous, but hellishly slow (as everyone seemed to agree). Can anyone confirm that the final release is faster than the previews, otherwise it makes nice screen-candy, but not really a usable environment?

    Also (the website appears to be slashdotted) can anyone tell me whether it still needs Mozilla 0.7 to install - there's no way I'm going to downgrade, especially with 0.81 due out in a few days?
  • Putting them in the clipboard is a horrible semantic idea. Can you paste the list of filenames into a text window?

    OS/2 and MacOS both do this better: in OS/2, you can put a drag 'on hold' and go do other things (without holding your mouse button down), and then later go ahead and drop. In MacOS, you can hover a drag over a folder and it will open after a second, letting you navigate without ever clicking on a folder

  • In an ideal world you are right; however in this universe things are looking rather different. An application will needs all sorts of 'handles' and code to embed GUI parts & functionality. I personally don't want IE to embed Word when I download a document, just smack it on the disk and I'll deal with it later; I also don't want in-document Excel editing, but the functionality is there and hogs the application. But I think it has all got to do with the average Joe being able to use his computer without too much of a hassle, so we will have to put up with it :(
  • by Brad Moore ( 11260 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @06:50AM (#367212) Homepage
    Yes, there are speed improvements since the preview releases. If Nautilus is running slowly on your system, there are several things you can try:
    • Put yourself in intermediate or advanced mode, and go to your preferences. In there, you can disable some items in the "speed tradeoffs" category.
    • Also in the preferences, under "Appearance", you can unclick the "Use smoother (but slower) graphics". That will speed up most graphical operations.
    • You can try going to the Edit menu, and choose icon captions. Try telling it that you don't want any info
    There may be more ways to improve speed, but these are the ones that I know of. I'm pretty sure that the final Nautilus uses Mozilla .8, since the nightlies have been using it since it came out.

    Good luck.

  • The download pages for Redhat 6.x [eazel.com] and Redhat 7 [eazel.com] currently link to PR3 RPMs. I'm sure this will change soon. But until then, use the Redhat 6.x Installer [eazel.com] or the Redhat 7 Installer [eazel.com]. Or you can grab hourly builds [eazel.com].
    ----
  • Well you know for some people this kind of file manager does make their life easer. People seem to forget a computer is a tool and should make the life of the user easer not the other way around.

    And there are some things that are just easer with a gui type setup. For example if you have a directory with a bunch of files in it and you want to perform an operation on *some* of the files but not a group that can be specified by a simple pattern. To do that with a command line you would have to type the name of each file. (OK you could do it in something like emacs dired mode)
  • by Vanders ( 110092 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:00AM (#367228) Homepage
    It's a file manager! Oh, wait....

    Someone care to explain to me what is so pant wetingly good about a file manager? Hasn't Gnome and KDE both had file managers since the day they started?

    As someone else has already pointed out, why can't you manage your files with a file manager any more? They run around adding all these fancy options (Oh look, skins. YAWN) and trying to turn file managers into web browsers. Why? I want to manage files, not browse the web. My web browser does that.

    Doesn't anyone else feel it's time for a back to basics aproach with computers? There are so many layers and stupid features in products today that computers are just slower and harder to use then they were only five years ago. Less eye-candy, more functionality, please.
  • But I do Know. I've been working with various UNIX versions over the past few years. I tried BeOs, heck I even had a commodore 64 once. Trust me I've seen quite a few GUIs and UIs. While things have improved over the years, Unix never really caught up. Both Gnome, KDE and even enlightenment can be visually very nice. However, it's just a facade over a commandline interface. In fact the latest Gnome and KDE incarnations can hardly be considered as moderately more than a facade. Windows dropped the commandline interface long time ago (well it is still there but you rarely need it), apple probably never had one (I wouldn't know really since I don't use apples). Unix however has one and even more, requires one. The whole UNIX paradigm is based on pipes & filters, small tools, powerfull scripting and so on. In the hands of a trained professional like a programmer or system administrator it is a powerfull tool, specifically designed to make their job easier. However, making such a system usable for non pros requires more than a facade. I have to admit I like both Gnome and KDE. I see a lot of potential, but it's not finished yet.

    Now I have seen a lot of Unix people like you. So stuck in the Unix paradigm that they are no longer even capable of using a windows UI. A colleague of mine has programmed C on solaris for years. You should see the poor bastard struggling with windows to accomplish even the most simplest tasks. However it is not windows that is the problem, it is is strong Unix bias. The problem Linux currently has is that the people designing the GUI are this type of persons. They try to understand but they just don't get it.
  • by kruczkowski ( 160872 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:02AM (#367234) Homepage
    Here is some basic info

    http://www.eazel.com/press/release_00_12_18

    Intresting to note that Sun will include it with Solaris.
  • The clipboard should be a stack.

    You've hit the nail on the head! It definately needs this. I hope the nautilus developers are listening.

    Emacs does this. C-w is cut, M-w is copy, C-y is paste, and M-y pops the stack (more or less).
  • Brilliant. Just as RH Fisher and Mandrake 8 are in Beta this is released. Why do I get the feeling that we will have to wait another 6 months before this is integrated in the distro'? Oh sure you can just compile it yourself. But to be honest compiling software is not my hobby, and we all know it takes ages to do (wrong libs dependencies etc). And then still: even if Nautilus is twice as good as the old Gnome, it still won't have the functionality of the Old Win95 GUI. Sure it is more stable, and you get the source code. And it can't be con/con-ed. But John Doe doesn't care anbout that. He just wants something really simple to use. Something which hedoes not have to compile himself. Untill we reach that point, Linux will not be the first choice on the consumer desktop. Which of course is the thing it should be.
  • This "What about Sun? What about BSD?" comment has appeared quite often in this thread.

    I have to ask one thing, "Where is it written that all Open Source software must be instantly available for all platforms?" Eazel is in this for money (with their services). Maybe they've decided that there won't be a sufficient return on investment for the time it would take to make Solaris or BSD versions of Nautilus.

  • by mirko ( 198274 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:05AM (#367243) Journal
    Hi,
    Nautilus is a all-in-one explorer (files, web, etc.).
    It requires Gnome [gnome.org] 1.2.
    The closest linux alternative is Konqueror [kde.org] which requires at least kde 2.0.
    Go to Eazel's web site [eazel.com] for some screenshots.

    --
  • Unfortunately, Nautilus, as well as Evolution - still seem to think that Linux, and Red Hat in particular are the center of the universe.

    What about Sun Solaris? The *BSDs? I'm kind of surprised by the former (Solaris) as Sun will be using GNOME in the next release. Shouldn't there be more visibility of these projects in that case, and certainly a binary?

    Compiling these programs from source is still a nightmare, as differing library versions and such make things difficult at best.

    If you want publicity, make sure that people can run this stuff. Not just the Red Hat people.

  • If there's one thing I would like from the gnome suite of programs, it would be one single thumbnail directory. Nautilus uses the .thumbnail directory, while Gimp uses .xvpics. Can we just agree on one directory and image type (png vs jpg) so we don't clutter up my hard drive with redundant information?
  • I'm just bitter because I recently witnessed a perfectly good and reliable system of Unix terminals replaced by a bunch of PCs running terminal emulators(!) on Windows. The amount of support we have to do now is at least 8 times what it was before, yet they have hired no extra people and our tech support calls are piling up. This is no Windows is by no means "easy to use" or "enterprise ready", yet we have every schmuck and his sister here on Slashdot crowing about the superiority of Microsoft systems.

    I'm no kid, you think I'm being childish? Maybe. But I'm sick of the bullshit and I'm venting here. You don't like it, too bad.

    I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

  • I use Linux at work and I use Linux at home. It fits my needs (surfing, emailing, some games, some projects)...

    If I need to use something which is either not available for Linux or that it's not good enough on Linux - then either I reboot or I run VMWare with Windows as a guest (I preffer the latter)...

    Use the right tool for the job you wanted to do. It's that simple.
  • as long as you avoid software conflicts and understand the registry

    Oh I see, so that is what is touted as "so easy my gramma can use it"?

    Or do you mean "easy for people to use enough to really screw themselves over and lose lots of work because they don't know how to use regedit and sacrifice the appropriate goats."

    Windows gives users the illusion of ease. And the pathetic "power users" who've invested so much time in learning all the little tricks of tweaking Windows are very resistant to something like Linux which puts them back in the role of "clueless newbie" because all of the Windows tricks they learned are useless outside of their little Wintel world. They don't want to face up to the fact that they don't really know much about computers at all... just Windows.

    I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

  • So, are you under impression that only a "kernel hacker" can figure out a Unix shell? Where did you get that idea?

    I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

  • by joshv ( 13017 ) on Tuesday March 13, 2001 @04:08AM (#367262)
    I agree completely. Some features I would love to see in graphical file management tools (I know some have these, but ALL should):
    - Directory compare
    - "Copy to" (and TYPE the destination with autocomplete, screw click and drag.)
    - Bulk rename *.rtf -> *.txt etc...
    - Filter a directory view by rex exp
    - Click and drag files without having to open two different directory views (if I drag and hold over a folder long enough it should open)
    - An easy way to bookmark locations in the file system.
    - Search and replace in files (text files only of course)
    - A simple "move directory up tree" function
    - Select files by rex exp filter.
    - built in pseudo-command line where I could control the graphical view with typed text, for example "cd .." "filter a*.rtf" "select b*" "copy dude.rtf .."
  • The filemanager for KDE 2.x embeds a terminal window, and it stays in lockstep with main konqueror view. So, when you type "cd..", the file manager backs up a directory, and vice versa. VERY handy, especially if you put the "embed terminal" button right on your toolbar for instant access and bind it to a handy keystroke. You can also always use "kfmclient" to control konqueror from the prompt, like "kfmclient copy COPYURLLIST". Sounds like a long-winded replacement for "cp"? Well, try something like "kfmclient copy http://www.slashdot.org ./slash.html" and behold the power of the kioslave. . . --JRZ
  • EFM (enlightenment file manager). I have been waiting for that for a while. I'd like to see how E's stuff stack up against the two big FMs. Just my two cents

"What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight

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