Gnome 2.0 Beta 2 Released 238
plastercast writes: "Following the release of GTK2, the second beta of gnome 2.0 is available. There are also release notes here. From Gnotices: 'The GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout GNOME's highly regarded user interface.'"
installing gnome2.0 beta (Score:1)
Re:installing gnome2.0 beta (Score:2, Interesting)
It is a pretty convenient way to test it out; all the Gnome1 programs will of course still work as usual. It _is_ a Beta, of course, so don't expect a pillar of stability
Re:installing gnome2.0 beta (Score:3, Insightful)
So they claim.
The last time it hosed some system libraries somewhere in the process, and half my applications wouldn't run. (Anything using Python or Perl, apparently... plus X was very... flaky.)
My advice would be to only use the Red-Carpet snapshots on a machine you're willing to lose.
GNOME 2.0 (Score:4, Informative)
It behaves a bit like the BSD ports tree as it'll download and install all the necessary packages. Even better, it'll install them in an out-of-the-way place so you can keep running gnome1.2!
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:1, Interesting)
Why dont they just release one big RPM ?
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:3, Informative)
If you want an easy way to install gnome, use Ximian's redcarpet or the garnome system.
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:1)
Extra packaging work not being taken into account, of course.
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:3, Informative)
Because that would be Compeltely Retarded(TM) and go against the whole damn idea of having things installed as components.
On the other hand, a nice little gtk-perl/pygtk frontend to a downloader script would be great.
Also, if you use Ximian Gnome, there is a "Gnome 2 Developer Snapshots" channel that you can use to get everything in just a few clicks...
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:2)
Because that would be Compeltely Retarded(TM)
>>>>>
Umm, what's completely retarted as that GNOME consists of a dozen RPMS with circular dependencies! Components mean crap if you have to install everything anyway! (Especially bad on Mandrake. I tried installing ssh-server, and it asked to install XFree86!)
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:2)
And there, my friend, is the crux of your issue. While Mandrake has some GREAT featues, and is, IMHO, the best distro for newbies, hands down, it also has *serious* packaging issues. The kinds of problems you're describing are part of the reason I switched to Red Hat. While they aren't as bleeding edge, I find Red Hat to be a much more maintainable, stable distro. (Debian is very nice too, but way too steep a learning curve for newbies)
BTW: you said you wanted ssh server, but it wanted XFree86? This implies you didn't have XFree installed, which in turn implies you're using Mandrake as a *dedicated server*... can't say that's something I recommend for *anyone*, newbies or otherwise.
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:1)
Re:GNOME 2.0 (Score:2)
Or have you never noticed the "Custom" option during installation
* * *
An OT annecdote - MS Office and how I converted to Linux.
Windows 98 was starting to p*ss me off again - ever time I tried to load it, it was getting slower and slower, so I guessed I had to free up some hard drive space - I was running pretty low. I started uninstalling some software that I didn't use very often. Each and every one required me to reboot the computer (WHY?!?). Still, it wasn't speeding up. So I uninstalled MS Office 97. Hey - I wasn't using it much anyway, and I have it on CD.
Tumpty tumpty tum, Uninstall complete, Windows must now restart.
Tumpty tumpty tum, rebooting... Cannot find win.com
"WTF???"
So I gave up, reformatted the harddrive and gave linux a try.
That was 6 months ago.
Not yet... (Score:2, Insightful)
HTH,
Michel Salim
Slightly repetitive... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks for that info, it's not like we didn't read exactly that same blurb [slashdot.org] when beta 1 was released...
Re:Slightly repetitive... (Score:1)
release codename (Score:5, Informative)
Re:release codename (Score:1)
Amen to that! I think that's something we should all remember once the KDE/GNOME trolls start to fly: we're in this together, so let's work together.
How soon before we get cross-toolkit theming support?
It's hot in here. Let me out. (Score:2)
Seriously, it's too hot and crowded with all those packages. My plain Sawfish is working just fine, and a lot cooler.
Re:It's hot in here. Let me out. (Score:1)
Re:It's hot in here. Let me out. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Swedish world domination (Score:3, Interesting)
I bastun bor vi allihopa (Score:4, Funny)
Damn. You mean it's not "I'm cuckoo for cocoa puffs"?
All my hopes for this release are dashed.
Re:I bastun bor vi allihopa (Score:2)
Damn. You mean it's not "I'm cuckoo for cocoa puffs"?
All my hopes for this release are dashed.
Call me lazy, but... (Score:2)
Oh and even if I did configure 20, ok now that I look at it again, 30+ packages, what's uninstallation like to clean up if I decide to go back to plain old wmaker? I've always how hated linux spreads it's files all over the place
I know, there this page [gnome.org] which simplifies compiling a lot for stable sources, but I can't find a page like this for gnome 2 beta 2.
Re:Call me lazy, but... (Score:1)
http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/garnome/
Re:Call me lazy, but... (Score:1)
Re:Call me lazy, but... (Score:2)
Re:Call me lazy, but... (Score:1)
Re:Call me lazy, but... (Score:1)
There will be a beta 2 version ready when I get home from work tonight.
Re:Call me lazy, but... (Score:2)
As for uninstall try setting:
"alias gcfg=./configure prefix=/opt/gnome_beta"
then do:
gcfg && make && make install
for all the packages you need. If you want to uninstall, just delete the gnome_beta directory.
You can also do a make uninstall on most packages to remove them. Or even boot off a floppy and tar your system to another disk before trying gnome2. If you don't like it, just do an untar and you are back where you started.
If the site seems a little slow (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If the site seems a little slow (Score:1)
Re:If the site seems a little slow (Score:1)
I'm not tryinng to be flamebait but (Score:1, Troll)
Gnome needs full install RPMs. I'm on broadband and i refuse to download a file in 200 diffrent peices.
I want a 150meg RPM of Gnome2 and then i'll try it.
Guess what? (Score:1)
Perhaps if you dowloaded all the rpms yourself and formed them into 1, then setup a ftp server for other like-minded people, you'd be more help.
It wouldn't matter if it were in 10000 peices.. (Score:1)
wget -c --retr-symlinks ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/pre-gnome2/releases
Hee :D (Score:2)
*bounce*bounce*bounce*
Apparently the GNOME developers are bouncing with joy. I hope that is what it is, at least.
Re:Hee :D (Score:2)
Apparently the GNOME developers are bouncing with joy, at least until the whole system crashes.
Re:Hee :D (Score:1)
Whoa... (Score:1)
yay for accessibility features (Score:2)
Anti-aliased support. (Score:2, Interesting)
Or did they finally release an anti-alias process for fonts that doesn't make them look fugly? :)
-f-
Re:Anti-aliased support. (Score:1)
The Xft hack is for X [xfree86.org], not GNOME.
Re:Anti-aliased support. (Score:2)
Between that modification and MS fonts, my desktop looks much better now
Re:Anti-aliased support. (Score:2)
#undef TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
change that to #define and recompile and install freetype, now you have a much nicer, if not patent infringing font engine for X to work with...
Internationalisation (Score:1)
Re:Internationalisation (Score:1)
Re:Internationalisation (Score:1)
clearance (Score:1, Insightful)
true is that gnome 2 is basically a major rewrite of gnome 1 with a FEW visible replacements and a shitload of removed options. a speeded up nautilus that still doesnt operate correctly. THATS it and if you ask for screenshots now and you use gnome 1 then look on your desktop since its the same ugly shit you get with gnome 2.
only major annoying news is this implementation of a windows registry like system that pollutes your homedir with 1000000 directories and 1000000 *.xml files.
another news is that SUN investigates into that pile of shit to substitute their CDE with a more or less broken DE.
Why linux isn't on the desktop (Score:1, Insightful)
A. Set the GDK_USE_XFT environment variable. eg.: export GDK_USE_XFT=1"
and in windows I just click this button here...
Re:Why linux isn't on the desktop (Score:1)
desktop thoughts (Score:1)
Wow, agreeing with a near troll. I feel dirty now. (Score:1)
Either way, keep the competition going, choice is a great thing, hell, lets get a third project started here!
And to imagine M$ actually releases propaganda that says having a choice of desktops is a bad thing... heh.
-Archan
Re:Wow, agreeing with a near troll. I feel dirty n (Score:3, Insightful)
There already is one. It's called Enlightenment [enlightenment.org]. That's the new one I'm waitin' for.
Speed? (Score:2)
Re:Gnome Kaputnik! Hail KDE! (Score:1)
I just wish they'd work more on interoperability
Re:It's all so windowesque ... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:It's all so windowesque ... (Score:4, Informative)
I have a suspicion this is to do with the C++ linker problem. In a nutshell, GCC"s handling of relocating libraries when they address collide sucks. It's slow. Really slow. The KDE team have been attempting to get over this by creating one process that loads most of the libraries - kdeinit, then forking the process to be the individual applications. The long and the short of this is the libraries remain loaded at the same address, don't have to reload and relocate, and all the processes can share the same code pages since they're copy on write.
Don't worry, they know it's a hack too.
There's a lot of work going into making it such that the GCC linker can build libraries to different default virtual memory addresses, hence stopping the loader from having to relocate libraries. When this happens the individual distros can be built with non colliding libraries, the kdeinit hack can go away and all will be at peace in KDE land. Personally, I'd delay 3.0 until the situation is sorted, but it's not my project.
Dave
Re:Gnome 2.0 potentially unstable? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Gnome 2.0 potentially unstable? (Score:2)
A BETA is software that the developers think might actualy be ready for the general public so they put it out on the street to let the general public prove them wrong.
This quote is something you attach to ALPHA software.
Re:Gnome 2.0 potentially unstable? (Score:2)
I always took Beta to mean that functions, etc., were frozen, and that the bugs and performance issues were being ironed out. Hence the need for rigorous testing to insure that all possible use cases were accounted for.
What better a way to do that in an opensource environment than to release it to the public?
Re:The battle of the guis (Score:1, Funny)
I recently installed both W2K Server and Linux... (Score:3, Informative)
I installed Red Hat 7.2 today. Again, it took me an hour. But I now have tons of useful software and even some of my favorite timesink games. Yeah, I know there's patching to do here too. But most of the patches don't require rebooting.
Don't get me wrong...I like Windows 2000. It's way better than 9x and arguably better than XP. And unlike Win2K I still have a lot to learn about Linux. But as far as tweak factors, installing Linux and installing 2K are about even. And Linux just plain gives you more good stuff to play with.
Re:call me jaded . . . (Score:1, Redundant)
Dont forget none of your programs will work either. I dont think Gnome too will be standard until maybe 6 months to a year from now.
Re:call me jaded . . . (Score:3, Informative)
Gnome 1 programs will run FINE on a Gnome 2 desktop. Ever tried running a KDE app on Gnome, or vice-versa? It works fine. Gnome 1 apps on Gnome 2 desktop is just like that.
BTW, this is like your 3rd quasi-troll post on this thead. How exactly do you post with a +1 bonus?!
Re:COMMON SLASHDOT MYTHS (Score:2, Insightful)
Clue 1: Linux IS ready for the desktop.
Clue 2: You cannot predict the future.
Myth: Open-source is a viable business strategy.
Fact: No it isn't. [yahoo.com]
Clue 1: Open source is a development model, not a business anything.
Clue 2: Citing a company's stock performance is pretty much entirely irrelevant to open source.
Clue 3: Allow me to cite a stock: Microsoft. Huge stock value, huge bank accounts. You know whose money that used to be? Software USERS' money. Open source is first and foremost good for software USERS - including companies who are not in the business of selling software. You know it. I know it. Microsoft knows it. They're scared shitless.
Myth: Slashdot is a nice place to go for intelligent conversation about technology and political issues.
Fact: Slashdot is full of 14 year-old fanboys who toe the party line for the "approval" of people they will never meet and fascist Janitors who resort to low minded trickery and censorship to further their narrow world-view and agenda. If you want to read posts that are Insightful and Funny, read at -1.
Both the myth and fact have elements of truth. And please continue to piss off the 14-year-olds. After all, they're the decision-makers and software customers of the future, and a healthy ingrained dislike for Microsoft toadies inculcated at an early age can only be good.
Myth: Information wants to be free.
Fact: Musicians want to be paid.
Clue 1: Musicians want to be paid ...almost as much as I want non-crippled consumer electronics that don't assume I'm a thieving scumbag.
Clue 2:
Myth: Constantly putting down popular music and culture shows your uber-intelligence and good taste.
Fact: Constantly putting down popular music and culture shows you are a stuck-up fuckwit with no friends.
Clue 1: Popular music and popular culture are a sickly green phlem whose only two purposes are 1) to stick to and remove money from the purses and wallets of naive prepubescent idiots and no-nothing wage-slaves who labor only to enrich their nakedly contempuous corporate masters, and 2) make the veins on my forehead throb as I ponder the worth of continuing to live.
Clue 2: I'm a stuck-up fuckwit with no friends.
Myth: The government is taking away our rights. WAAAAH!!
Fact: While you're busy complaining and stuffing your fat face with pork rinds and cheese puffs, the government is busy keeping you, and the American way of life, safe from harm.
Another misuse of the either-or proposition. They're both true - paradoxical.
Myth: Libertarianism is a good solution to our problems.
Fact: Libertarianism would result in a worse country than the USSR, with political and economic instability, horrific human rights violations, and exploitation of workers of a scale not seen since slavery was outlawed.
Libertarianism is good because it strives to control the concentration of power in goverment. It sucks because it does nothing to control the power of wealth.
Myth: Microsoft is an evil monopoly bent on world domination.
Yes they are, just like any corporation, whose only reason for existence is to enrich its shareholders. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but let's recognize and admit the obvious.
Fact: Microsoft is a software company based in Redmond, WA,
Well, you got that right.
that produces fine software
Depending on which definition of the word "fine" you're using, I could agree or disagree with you.
and believes that programmers should get paid for their work.
Well, I'm all for getting paid. I'd just rather get paid to write software that is open, standards-compliant, and is friendly with other open standards-compliant software. Microsoft, on the other hand, does absolutely everything in its power to make choosing Microsoft software a one-way proposition. Basically it's a big Labrea Tarpit-like Roach Motel for unsuspecting software developers and users - you can check in, but you can't check out.
Have I missed any?
Well, you were all over the map with sporadic accuracy and no real focus aside from your own personal frustrations and feelings of inadequacy, so it's kind of hard to say.
Re:COMMON SLASHDOT MYTHS (Score:1, Redundant)
Thanks!
Re:COMMON SLASHDOT MYTHS (Score:2)
Yes, but newbies can't tell truth from trollery, so sometimes you do a good deed by wasting a few precious minutes of your time responding to it.
Re:COMMON SLASHDOT MYTHS (Score:2)
That is factually incorrect.
Why don't you just raise your threshold
For what?
and stop doubling all of the noise around here, or better yet, go back to AOL.
Some people define noise as "that which I do not want to hear".
Re:COMMON SLASHDOT MYTHS (Score:1)
Re:COMMON SLASHDOT MYTHS (Score:2, Offtopic)
Libertarianism (Score:2)
Sadly, while most people would love to live in a libertarian society, almost everyone has some pet feature of government that they like, or else they don't want other people to be fully free, or both. (For example, some people who disapprove of drugs want drugs to be illegal.) Take the union of all the things people want government to do, and you have a large, complex government.
As this is off the main topic, I won't make this much longer, but will close with two final points:
0) libertarians don't, as a rule, want poor people to suffer and die; rather they think private charities would do a better job of helping the poor.
1) Not only do libertarians want to end things like welfare, but they also want tax burdens to be remarkably lower. Right now charities get lots of donations, even though the tax rate is over 50% for most people (add up state and federal income tax, sales and restaurant taxes, car and gas tax, etc. etc. and include things like Social Security "contributions" and you will go over 50% quickly). If the overall tax rate for people went down to 10% or less, charitable contributions would increase.
Re:COMMON SLASHDOT MYTHS (Score:1)
Gee, I know, almost as head-shakingly perturbing as a Microsoft toadie.
Here you are talking about brainwashing innocent children into thinking bad things about a software company
Did you learn to write watching Barney or something?
And yes, I think it's a good idea for young people to question the role Microsoft has assumed in their lives. Christ, the kids coming on-line today can't even conceive of a world without Microsoft. They don't stop to consider the implications of using closed software, or how their operating systems and software products treat them like milkable cow-teats. That sounds EXTREMELY unhealthy to me, and EXTREMELY profitable and positive for Microsoft.
but when Microsoft tries to give software to schools you rant and scream like it's the end of the world.
Ok, you're clearly trolling for fun and profit now, but I'll bite. Just re-read the previous paragraph and append the usual canned (but valid) paragraph regarding "monopoly".
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:1)
It's been my experience that mentioning the slowness of KDE or GNOME has no effect, as it is always pointed to as the fault of something else, such as hardware, or something you did to misconfigure it, or drivers, and so forth. Nobody wants to admit anything!
Having said all that, I greatly appreciate the work put into both of these projects. In fact, I'd like to check out the source myself and see if I can help out with any optimizations.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:1)
What I _do_ run instead is XFce. It's quite fast even on that humble machine - and I can still use gnome apps on it as usual. Others speak warmly about Blackbox or WindowMaker. Remember, just because you're not using the desktop itself, it doesn't mean you can't use all the apps and other stuff.
/Janne
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
ps afx
and look for your X window process. Then do a
renice -20 PIDOFYOURXPROCESS
Doing the same on the panel and window manager also helps. I'm not sure why the GUI-based dists don't do this by default.
You will be able to see a difference immediately.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
Win98 was released in 1998, and so was designed for the hardware that was around then. This is 2002, 4 years later, so you should expect an OS/desktop shell (like Gnome and KDE) to be designed for the hardware that is commonplace now.
Taking into account Moore's Law, PCs are roughly 5 times the speed they were in '98, so to run an OS released this year "just fine", you'd want a machine around 1.33GHz (5 times the speed of your laptop). That's probably about the average that consumers are being told is the right speed for surfing the web at the moment...
Yes, it does suck that old hardware sometimes struggles with the latest software, but that's just the way it is. Owning a computer is like owning a car - you never stop spending money on it.
That said, I do feel your pain - my work machine is desperately slow, and it can be extremely frustrating.
Cheers,
Tim
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
It would be a good project to do real profiling on gtk/gnome apps to find out where the time is really being wasted.
--Jeff
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2, Insightful)
By the way, I'm running Windows XP as I type this--with full effects, visual styles, etc.--and it is smoother and faster than KDE. Windows XP actually runs faster than Windows 98 did on this same hardware configuration, so I don't agree with the argument that KDE/GNOME should generally be run on the hardware of the current time, because if that's true, does that mean Windows XP is more optimized since it runs better on older hardware?
It's not as though I'm doing anything particularly processor-intensive. If it takes 10 seconds for KDE to load up a listing of my home directory--even on my PII266--there's a problem, IMO.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue is not that IE takes less time to load than say, Konqueror or Netscape, it's that it loads at startup, whether you want it to or not.
Here's a question I don't know the answer to - what happens when Internet Explorer crashes? Does it get completely unloaded from memory, like any crashes program should, or does partially remain?
An unrelated point (as in that I never thought about the relation between the two until now) but I realise that at any point that Internet Explorer has ever crashed on me before, I've had to reboot Windows before my computer "feels" stable again, and I'm the kind of person who picks up on the warning signs when a computer/program are about to crash...
Anyway, that's (some of) the reasons I use KDE on linux...
Explorer.exe (Score:2, Informative)
Explorer.exe and IExplore.exe are just regular processes. Why would they "partially remain" after they crash? Here's a Windows experiment. CTRL+SHIFT+ESC to open your Windows Task Manager and kill Explorer.exe. Your computer does not crash, but your shell just disappeared. From the Windows Task Manager, File \ New Task Run explorer.exe and your shell just came back.
Re:Explorer.exe (Score:1)
This isn't the same kind of thing that ever crashed IE - the error messages always came from explorer.exe or iexplorer.exe (I can't remember which) - but the system would feel like it was in the same unstable state.
Re:Explorer.exe (Score:2)
I would very much expect a crashed IE to leave the system unusable if it really is "part of the os" like MicroSoft claims. Because of the way the DLL's work it would be like a program on X being able to write over the structures in the X server with random garbage before crashing (this is possible with some of the dubuous hardware acceleration hacks being done). You can be sure that that X server is going down soon!
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:1)
Unfortunately, it doesn't work - the mozilla found on my system is a tiny script which calls the _real_ mozilla. This script is only about 5K in size and therefore minimal
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:3)
Good theory. But false. I DO use ECC and still have that problem in windows, not in Linux, on the same box.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
For example here is a preload application [sourceforge.net] for openoffice with the preload app openoffice starts in 1 second. The same thing can easily be done for mozilla etc. Galeon starts for me in 1.5 seconds. If gnome is so slow why can I record a CD at my cd-recorders max speed listen to wolf fm, edit a report, browse the web, and do so many diffrent things at once without fear.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:3, Insightful)
Considered Mac OS X?
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
This is exagerration for sure. Yes, GNOME and KDE can be quite bloated. But I've run both satisfactorily on hardware that XP won't even try to run on.
You probably are trying to use some really fancy themes if you're having a problem at that level. Solution is easy, get rid of the big pixmap-heavy themes and put something simple up. If you're using GNOME use a lightweight WM - one of the best things about GNOME is it is WM agnostic.
If I can run GNOME/WindowMaker and GNOME/IceWM on a k6-233 with 32 MB RAM at a reasonable speed I know you can run it on anything that XP would run on, easily. And yes, Windows*95* definitely feels a little faster on the same hardware. It runs all the graphics routines at privilege, of course it's going to be faster. It's also unstable as all hell - that's the price you pay.
However if you want to compare XP, well, good luck getting XP to even boot up on that box.
IE is loading itself during the boot sequence. You can have Konq or Netscape do the same thing if you fiddle with your x init routines.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:3, Insightful)
From power on to IExplorer showing my homepage, Win2K takes 90 seconds. From power on to Konqueror showing my homepage, FreeBSD/KDE takes 65 seconds.
I don't want the simplest windows manager available so I can get similar performace to XP running on the same hardware.
I've never used XP, but the window manager for 95/98/2K sucks! It is the simplest window manager available! Maybe I've just gotten used to X window manager, but I find the Windows GUI to be horribly awkward. If you have a window obscuring another one, you have to minimize it because there's no way to send it to the back (that I've found). There's no snap to edges or other windows. No rollups. No vertical or horizontal maximizes. And the automatic placement of windows is downright primitive. Frankly, it feels like it designed for users that only have one window open at a time.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:1)
I am very sensitive to delays and skips in visuals, this kind of stuff annoys me, as a screen with lower refresh than 85 hz annoys me. Some people won't notice the difference.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
1.) Your mouse sampling rate is set too low. This would cause even a very fast system to seem sluggish at dragging windows whilst displaying their contents because the system simply doesn't even try to update any faster. You could edit your XF86Config under the section "InputDevice" and add a line something like:
Option "SampleRate" "100"
## I think the maximum is 200 and default 50.
2.) Your video card is not fully accelerated by the XFree86 driver you're using. You'll have to read the docs to find out what is and isn't. Make sure you're using the latest X release. New versions often have improved drivers. If you're using an NVidia board, you might need to get their proprietary drivers for full performance. (lame!)
3.) Bitmapped titlebars, widgets, etc. always slow things down a little. That goes for KDE's various 'gradient' themes too. Disable these on a slow machine. Win95-2k didn't use them either so no fair comparing apples and oranges.
4.) Depending on what else you're running, you might want to give X itself a higher priority. Set it's nice value to -10 or something.
5.) Windows builds the GDI right into the OS kernel, thereby sacrificing stability and wasting resources if a GUI is unneeded. This, on the other hand, improves responsiveness somewhat. XFree86 sits on top of the kernel like any other app. If X dies, your system doesn't. Modular design allows more flexibility too. And X is far more feature rich than the Windows GDI to begin with.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:4, Interesting)
Everybody here had better learn to admit this is a problem.
The solution should also be looked at, and it is a killer: get rid of the "window manager". Most people seem to think this means that the window manager must be built into X, like Windows. But that only eliminates 1/2 the slow communication, and has the unfortunate effect of completely freezing window management design, which is a problem Windows is having relative to Linux right now (read the above comments!)
What I mean is "window managment" (meaning the positioning, decoration, moving, resizing, etc) of windows, should be part of the toolkit. The window border is no different than a button or anything elss. All sane people (there are some exceptions here) know that the drawing of the button should be up to the appliation or the shared libraries it decides to load, so why not the window borders?
But all the window borders will look different! Yes, they will. That is because it is impossible to have "consistency" and at the same time have "innovation". Think about it. And all those people who worry about "consistent user interface" should go and talk to some real users and they will find out that "consistency" is way overrated. Why aren't games "consistent"? Because they want to advance the state of the art. And I'm sure somebody will say "hey I was confused by the inconsistent Linux GUI", but think about it: what you really were confused by was two different interfaces, one a "stupid" design and one a (possibly) "smart" design. You were not confused by the inconsistency, you were confused because one of the interfaces was stupid. Also, look at the toolkits, with no requirements that they share code, they are pretty damn consistent, because they copy the working ideas from each other! If X had envorced "consistency" we would all be using the Athena widget set right now and trying to brag to Windows users that we can swap white and black in our preferences.
When we get rid of the window manager you will probably see some real innovation, like windows without borders (you move/raise them by grabbing any inactive area), and intellegent window stacking and ordering by programs that know exactly what window is important right now.
There will have to be a "task manager" (go ahead and take the Windows term, it won't bite). It would be like the "panel" in Gnome and programs would indicate they are running and respond to messages saying "appear" and "disappear" (or they can ignore the messages just to cause trouble, but it should be allowed).
Ok enough ranting on Slashdot.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:1)
First off, the window manager has nothing to do with where the mouse is. Secondly, on a local display, the communication involved between these various programs is so damn close to instantaneous that no human is going to be able to tell (note: this is on a fairly recent machine, I have no recent experience with a 486). The most likely culprit in any percieved slowness is going to be some sort of pixmap-using theme, so that for every refresh a whole bunch of pictures need to be drawn.
Anyhow, to address what you said, moving the window borders and such into the application is pure insanity. Do you really want to not be able to move, minimize, or kill an application which has frozen or is taking a long time to respond? Windows does this and it frustrates the hell out of anyone used to unix who has to use windows.
Moreover, who on earth wants to reimplement all of this every time you write an X program? It would be a bloody waste of time with no practical benefits and only problems such as someone forget to implement window shading in some particular application that you like. No, this is one of the times when we should all learn from the billions of dollars in R&D that microsoft apparently hasn't done and run away from this sort of thing like the plague.
I feel that I should note, btw, that what you want already exists. All you have to do as an X app is provide a window manager hint that you want to be an unmanaged window, and the window manager will have nothing to do with you and you're on your own to prove all the appropriate functionality. The only program that I know of that does this is xmms, though I'm sure that there are others.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
This may be a way to evolve X into what I propose. It needs more appliations to do this so that standards are agreed on, and there needs to be an interface so a "task" can announce itself without having to create a (mapped) window.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
The current X design is to have all the widgets on the client side except for this one special widget, the "window". That seems wrong to me, everything should be together.
Personally though I think everything should be on the client side. The reason is that any interface to widgets will freeze us into present-day design. You can think the Berlin interface is really cool and customizable, but it probably locks in ideas like "scrollbar" and "text editing field" and "menu" that may be considered archaic in 10 years. I think that if X had done this approach we would all be using Athena widgets in lovely black&white and trying to defend why you need to use the middle mouse button to move the scrollbar, and Linux on the desktop would be a total joke. I don't want to see this happen, which is why I don't think Berlin is the right solution.
Re:Linux GUIs slow? (Score:2)
Umm...I use W2K Pro all the time with 128MB of RAM at work and it's just fine, thank you very much. No disk churn, no swap-o-rama...it's fine.
Now if you were talking XP with 128MB RAM...that's a whole different kettle of fish. XP likes 256MB at minimum to keep it happy, and only truly takes off with 512MB.
KDE 2.2 is very nimble compared to previous versions. I think the work that The Kompany has been doing on embedded KDE/Qt has perhaps encouraged tighter, leaner, faster code. There is no such impetus on Gnome's side. I like it.
And if you are tight on RAM there's always IceWM or BlackBox as an alternative. IceWM is immediately recognizable and usable for Windows refugees, and BlackBox is actually kinda fun once you get the hang of it.
Re:who wants to belive ? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:who wants to belive ? (Score:1)
Re:The TRUTH (Score:1)
KDE not only compiles, it runs! Too bad that it depends on a mass of sound software, even if you don't own a sound card.
what is with these people and dependencies?