Stirring The GNOME Fires 261
uninet writes "Tim Butler and Ed Hurst have discussed GNOME quite a bit. Tim likes the current trend, and Ed doesn't. Read Ed's alternate perspective at OfB.biz."
Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains.
quote: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's about freedom."
Um, am I missing the point, or does the last author completely forget KDE and others ? You already have the freedom, silly.
Re:quote: (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, am I missing the point, or does the last author completely forget KDE and others ? You already have the freedom, silly.
Maybe people want -more- freedom?
They may have liked where gnome was, and want to bring it back to that point (but as a project, because you have to move forward.)
I liked the way gnome 1.x worked better, even if it was more ugly over all. Although, I don't use gnome anyway, instead I use fluxbox, so whee, I got my freedom. :)
Re:quote: (Score:3, Insightful)
The freedom to let GNOME stagnate as people migrate to other desktops instead of trying to improve it?
It would seem somewhat unfair to GNOME to take-up this freedom... When people offer bug reports, they are trying to help GNOME. Of course, while "use Windows instead" or "use KDE instead" is a valid response, it doesn't help GNOME get any better.
Re:quote: (Score:3, Insightful)
People can submit bug reports all they like, but this won't get changed unless Gnome undergoes another radical shift in design philosophy (like it did from 1.x to 2.x). So the only option is to fork Gnome or use something else.
Re:quote: (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you suggesting that your freedom is limited to picking between the projects of others?
Um, am I missing the point. .
It has that appearance, yes.
KFG
Re:quote: (Score:2)
No.
>>Um, am I missing the point. .
>It has that appearance, yes.
Then you misunderstood. You have the freedom to choose Gnome, the alternatives to Gnome, coding on gnome yourself, and of course, kaing your own project.
Is that clear enough for ya ?
Re:quote: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:quote: (Score:2)
SealBeater
Re:quote: (Score:2)
I'm looking forward to some useful stuff from the Goneme guys. Choice Is Good. Contrary to what a lot of folk say, you can even have it without drowning people in options.
Re:quote: (Score:2)
Re:quote: (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't like it when they introduced the ridiculous "spacial filesystem" browser, or whatever the hell that crap is called that opens a new window every time you change to a new directory. I think there's a reason nobody has done that, and in fact several projects are doing the exact opposite (tabbed browsing). It was getting to the point where I had 30 damned windows open just to copy between 2 NFS mounted filysystems!
I did fix the pro
Re:quote: (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's pretend you have a web browser that opens every link, regardless of what the target attribute is set to, in a new window. Now, you can get around this by right clicking the link and choosing 'follow link' from the menu everytime you want to do this.
Now, ask yourself this question: if another free web browser that didn't behave like this existed, would you stick with the one that required you to r
Re:quote: (Score:2)
Re:quote: (Score:3, Funny)
[slaps forehead]
Of course! I should have guessed... Now I can see why they didn't put an option switch on the browser itself to switch between "convenient browsing" and the current "blind arrogance browsing"... It was right there in front of me all the time!
Re:quote: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:quote: (Score:2)
Congratulations. That's the most ignorant comment I've read all week.
Just because you like KDE better, all other desktop environments must be inferior? Get a grip guy, it's not all about you.
Some of us don't like KDE for various reasons. Personally, I don't like the look of it. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, but I don't like it.
Changing Gnome's behaviour from "spatial" to "norma
Re:quote: (Score:3, Insightful)
But, Gnome has alienated a lot of people since the 1.x days in their drive for 'simplicity.' I don't really care since I don't use it, and I think that's about what the grandparent was saying.
I see a lot of people complain about the direction Gnome is going. Some are KDE zealots who have no business doing so, since they don't use it anyway and shouldn't really care. Some are Gnome users, and I'm sure that unless something changes such users will eventually get fed up a
Re:quote: (Score:2)
Basically a lot of LOUD people don't like GNOME. The quiet people do, and they're the ones who control GNOME. Okay?
Re:quote: (Score:2)
Yes, many people like Gnome. Many people liked Gnome 1 and don't like Gnome 2. Many people never liked Gnome.
Do I write articles complaining about Gnome? Or were you talking about other people. I think the reason they write such articles is because they had something they liked, and the people who made it decided to make it worse in their opinion. Wouldn't you be angry if the Gnome designers decided to turn it into a "poorly designed eye-candy infested piece of
Re:quote: (Score:2)
I said elsewhere in this story that I think having both Gnome and KDE is good, as they're targeting different things and have different principles. People who want KDE and Gnome and so on to all merge together into one project are misguided, in my opinion. There are many sides to this issue, and with one project, yo
"Average user" (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, command line is amazing. But I'm in Gnome for a reason. Here's my idea:
Gnome needs to focus on developing a more intuitive interface that allows for seamless use between gtk2 applications and the Gnome desktop enviroment, while remaining elegant. Follow the slackware principle, basically. Don't include and modify to the point in which it's no longer the origonal intended product, and let people (such as redhat, slackware, debian, etc) modify gnome to their own extent.
Maybe Redhat will want to customize gnome from it's origonal state to make it more user friendly, while slackware wants to keep it the stock power/elegant/simple gnome. The point is that we should give the people a choice, rather than preassume that all vets have suddenly dropped ten years in experience and now need to rely on the bloat that if we wanted, we could find in Redhat.
Maybe I'm ranting, in fact I know I am. But there is a difference between making a DM work well with the OS, versus making the DM ideals forced upon only a certain area of people (linux novices).
Feel free to expand, I'm done.
Re:"Average user" (Score:4, Insightful)
Just a quick note on history here. For YEARS Gnome users used to hold the fact that KDE came its own WM as a huge negative. Gnome users used to constantly bash KDE because they "forced" users to use basically only one WM if they wanted the best experience. Why are they taking away our choice of WM used to be the rallying cry. There also used to be tons of threads about how Gnome was more customizeable because of the themeing you could do. In short Gnome was the desktop which upheld the FOSS philosophy of choice while KDE was the one sticking it to its users by offering less ways to setup your desktop. Yes you read that right, GNOME started off by saying choice was most important. My how things change.
Re:"Average user" (Score:3, Informative)
Gnome never took out the option of running with a different Window Manager.
You just need a Window Manager that conforms to the WM spec publish at freedesktop.org.
Currently there are several window managers that implemente the spec: kwin (kde), metacity (gnome),
fvwm, openbox, enlightenment & icewm.
Re:"Average user" (Score:2)
IMHO, choice is stupid if you can't maintain it. One of the more convincing arguments that I've seen during the public formulation of GNOME 2.0's goals is the idea that umpteen million configuration combinations are a bad idea if only a small subset are frequently used. The ones that get used are the ones that get tested. Weird com
Re:"Average user" (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the entire point of the first article was that it isn't just about pleasing the newbies. As a power u
Re:"Average user" (Score:2)
*ahem*
Anyhow, GET A DIFFERENT FUCKING WINDOW MANANGER AND QUIT FUCKING COMPLAINING. There are lots of WMs that conform to the WM spec [freedesktop.org], try one out and shut your hole. Metacity is fast, and it Just Works. In fact, I've forgotten I even have a seperate window manager... just like it should be
Re:"Average user" (Score:2)
Just think of it this way - GNOME is going for the kind of Just Works simplicity you get on OSX, and even better if possible.
Now, imagine if OSX and all OSX apps were available on x86 hardware. Imagine the market share that could garner!
Re:"Average user" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Average user" (Score:5, Informative)
But we tab to the "Time and Dates" page and continue on, probably saving the programmer a few lines of code. No 24H setting here either, but there's a dropdown that allows you to choose between "HH:MM:SS" and "pH:MM:SS". "pH?, wtf" the user is thinking about now. A google search only turn up programming related matches. That's right, it's the fucking formatting string of the unix date function. According to the help the 'p' is "locale's upper case AM or PM indicator (blank in many locales)" modifier. But we can plug in 'N' for nanoseconds if we want, so it's ok!
The user doesn't know shit about any of this of course, so through trial and error we see that the first selection is indeed a 24hour format. But wait, there more! KDE needs to be shut down each time you change something related to the "Time and Date Format" functions, joy. It tells me this in a friendly pop-up dialog (incidentaly the title on the dialog doesn't fit the window).
Re:"Average user" (Score:3, Insightful)
From your description, that sounds like it is changing the default system time format for more than just the clock display. Even if it isn't, an inexperienced user is going to be afraid to change it, and an experienced user is going to waste time determining if it is or isn't. And if it is changing the default, then you still don't have a solution to how to make THIS clock display in 24 hour format and not change the default for other programs that use that setting.
Re:"Average user" (Score:2)
You click on the nice help button and it tells you:
Re:"Average user" (Score:2)
pH (lowercase ell) - The hour according to a 12-hour clock, using one or two digits (1 to 12).
OK that makes a lot of sense ?????WTF????? wouldn't that be uppercase pea and lowercase pea?
Re:"Average user" (Score:2)
Just curious, but what are these crucial tools that have been simplified and forced you back to the command line?
Re:"Average user" (Score:2)
Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that the Gnome keyboard configuration panel does in fact have shortcuts for things like "Audio next", "Audio play", etc. I use them constantly.
why I prefer KDE (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article: Everything about it seemed rudimentary and unpolished from the standpoint of a Windows user or a KDE user
This was 6 years ago and - to me - little has changed. I've used GNOME, and it is usable, but its far from polished, and this is its big failing. I'm a KDE user (for the most part, but also a fan of fluxbox) and I find the eye-candy a joy. I know eye-candy isn't a necessary requirement for any UI, but it helps. If its easy on the eye, its easier to understand whats going on and to get things done. Having said that, KDE has way more bugs/quirks than GNOME but its still easier to use.
Its not a troll. Its an opinion.
Re:why I prefer KDE (Score:3, Insightful)
If its easier to use or not largely depends on what you use it for and who you are. If you don't know who the intended users are and their needs you will not be able to build a good system.
If you read the KDE usability list and various KDE development lists, you get the impression that the usability experts and the people that writes the code are working on two different systems.
The usabilty experts tryes to build a s
As a gnome user who's shifted out to Fluxbox (Score:2, Interesting)
All the work I did for the first 3 months was learn vim , edit XF86Config , restart X ... reboot to windows, look up google, repeat .
Then finally one day it worked at 1024x768x24bit and I was like ecstatic. I went around digging stuff and ended up with a really cool desktop which looked and worked the way I wanted.
And then Nautilus came out ... and my box started thrashing like anything . I was kinda pissed at having
"It just works" (Score:2, Insightful)
Having said the above, I have always enjoyed having a choice of different applications to do the same thing. For instance, if a site crashes Mozilla, it is good to have Konqueror available. Perhaps a compromise would be to have a set of default applications which are tweaked to be consistent with the desktop. Other alternatives could be so indicated by changing
The average user (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The average user (Score:3, Insightful)
If we make the system so it has a easily modifiable interface, then the semi-technical users, instead of bitching about it their problems, ca
Re:The average user (Score:2)
Why separate the options into "newbie", "idiot", and "developer" though? Surely it would make more sense to reveal options depending on what you're likely to use?
[*] Organising mode. Suddenly, all the context menus have the gzip options, cut/copy/paste, erase/wipe, while the file-manager gets a tree-view and history display
[*] Multimedia mode. Now, the
Both GNOME and KDE has miles to go (Score:5, Insightful)
The GNOME folks do have some distance to go as well. Desktop integration is still not quite there - some apps play ball, some apps don't. What GNOME does have in its corner is the apps that have the mindshare of most users - Mozilla, Evolution, GAIM, OpenOffice etc. I am not claiming these are "better", just commenting on momentum.
Whats next for both is something new. Both environments pretty much do offer a decent enough environment that you can point Aunt Millie at it. Both need to start innovating with new ideas.
Re:Both GNOME and KDE has miles to go (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably because you aren't a KDE user and don't know any better. Apple's involvement and code contributions have made for a much better, faster browser. Before 3.2, I needed Mozilla installed as a fallback for troublesome sites but it's not on my system now - KHTML has gotten that good, and of course it's got much less of a memory footprint than the alternatives.
Re:Both GNOME and KDE has miles to go (Score:2)
WTF ar
Re:Both GNOME and KDE has miles to go (Score:2)
Re:Both GNOME and KDE has miles to go (Score:2)
KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider cars as an analogy:
First of all, there are many different models of car - this would be analogous to Gnome/Enlightenment/KDE/Windows/MacOS/*. Few sensible people would assert that we should all be driving Geo Metros or all be driving Grand Marquis or Peterbuilt trucks.
But even within a make of cars, there are degrees of complexity. Most people driving an automatic transmission vehicle use P, R, and D. Those other settings (N, 2, 1) are just needless complexity, right - shouldn't we just remove them? Nobody uses them, right? Now, go for a drive in the mountains. Sure, many people only use D - you can tell them by smelling for burned-up brake pads. Better drives use 2 and 1, and not their brakes - they NEED 2 and 1. And people towing a car need N.
My car has buttons for moving the pedals forward and back. The first thing I did when I took delivery was to run the pedals all the way down, being 193cm tall. Does that mean that NOBODY needs to adjust the pedals up, so we should remove that switch? Or what about the traction control off switch?
My point is that while Granny Fanny may never use those features, some of us will - SO LEAVE THEM IN YOU BASTARDS!
Put an "Expert mode" in. Default it to OFF. Let me turn it on. Let me configure whether I feel spatial navigation is right for me or not. Let ME determine what programs play MP3s if I choose to do so.
And don't treat novice users like read-only dummies - let them know there is more power available to them, should they be interested in learning about it.
There is a GREAT difference between "ignorant" (unlearned) and "stupid" (unable to learn) - and many newbies are the former, not the latter. Don't treat them (and us) as stupid.
Re:KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:2)
Re:KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:3, Insightful)
In Gnome settings for "expert mode" are configured via gconf-editor and you can turn spatial mode off - not easy for newbies but quite easily for experts. If you are justified in calling yourself an expert you should have no problem with it.
Let ME determine what programs play MP3s if I choose to do so.
Determining what applications open files is pretty simple. Right
Re:KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because some of us are "experts" does not mean that we can read the developers minds! While it may have been completely obvious for some people to go through Gconf, find the setting, and change it, many of us didn't (until we started googling).
Being an "expert" doesn't mean a hard-to-find setting is easy to find -- or even that it's in a good location because you can figure out where to find it. Gnome is all about simplicity and ease of use, right? Does throwing options that the devs think aren't easy enough to the "common user" really fit that description?
It seems to me that the simple thing to do is to include a toggle switch somewhere, or perhaps a drop-down to limit the difficulty of choices. Xine pulls this off quite well. While many users may be masters of the known universe, the rest of us are just experts.
Re:KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:2)
Re:KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:2)
disclaimer: I don't use Gnome. I prefer ROX. I'm currently trying to convince myself to use Konqueror because I don't like Mozilla (the organisation)'s policies regarding spoofing exploits, but having the expert interface exposed at every step of the way is like needing a
Re:KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:2)
Better drivers aren't driving a granny tranny in the first place :)
Current Trend is Good But... (Score:4, Insightful)
The current trend is good, but I would really like to see some oddities gone.
The common dislikes include comparison of 'spatial' Nautilus and 'gconf'/gconf Editor to things that bear a resemblance to it on Windows, which were hideous. However, it is not so, and the GNOME team deserves credit for providing better and good stuff.
I would like to see GNOME's current setup as default, but certain oddities would definitely drive me away. Except for a well organized and very simple home directory with relatively few files, 'spatial' can be quite limiting and makes doing thing very hard.
There should be an option to show a handy location bar (pattern matching and auto completion, for instance) that can be set in the options, at least in the 'Advanced' section.
There must be an feature similar to the 'Explore' context menu item in Windows, since, there are a lot of times a hierarchical view where new windows dont pop up for each opened directory be good.
The file dialog should have a location bar, again a handy one, not just a dumb text box. Again, since GNOME/GTK folks think people are too stupid and get confused, it could be an option, at least in the advanced section. The current file dialog is click intensive and brings up one more dialog to enter our own path.
These features are either not available, or available only through keyboard shortcuts. Having spatial mode which is limiting and a neglected 'browser' mode is not good. Why have two modes in which the system works. The 'browser' mode can be a temporary thing (as in the context menu action of 'Explore').
This, I believe is more inclusive in taking care of wide range of needs without resorting to 'modes' or excessive clutter in which the fork-plan seems to be heading.
Pardon my ignorance.
Re:Current Trend is Good But... (Score:2)
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-1.h
The true pity is that, apparently, nobody at Apple or Gnome has read the damned thing. Oh well, let's see what Microsoft does with Longhorn...
Re:Current Trend is Good But... (Score:2)
What's wrong with having it accessible only trough a keyboard shortcut? Do you type in the location bar with your mouse?
Doesn't the mid
Re:Current Trend is Good But... (Score:2)
Do you need to see it all the time, I like to go without visual noise.
I'm not sure I get exactly what you expect, but you can select via pattern matching with C-s.
Your point beeing Mr. Power User? :-D
yet an other gnome rules kde suxors article (Score:3, Insightful)
And an other article that completely misses the point.
Contrary what Tim and countless others want us to believe 99% of the people criticizing gnome don't critisize the simplyfication of the interface but other things, like the gconf-editor, the imho stupid decission to change the button order, introducing spatial nautilus without giving users the chance to easily revert back to managing their files the way they are used to...
So yet an other article not addressing these points but instead attacking some phantom menace simply is a shame to gnome.
And of course it goes without saying that writing an article that goes out to praise gnome and ends up trashing kde with bogus, uninformed arguments and fud doesn't really speak for the maturity of the author.
All in all gnome is a great project though it has it's shortcomings like any project of this size. The problem is that right now you can't criticize anything about gnome without a load of gnomefanboys and sadly some devs to attacking you like this was a holy war.
Spatial Nautilus (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, I thought one of the selling points of Mozilla/Firefox was tabbed browsing, so I don't have 8 or 9 different windows open on my desktop. Now suddenly having 8 or 9 Nautilus windows open is newbie-friendly? Because the same obscure 5th level subdirectory (one of tens or hundreds of directories a user would browse) opens in the same spot consistently, that makes it friendly? I don't get it.
[Yes, I know this 'feature' can be switched off, same as the new XUL spoofing 'feature' in Firefox can be switched off, but it's about the defaults, right?]
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:2)
Free Software doesn't really has much to sell, so I think this is a route that
The Myth of the 'New User' (Score:2)
Although obvious once you think about it, the implications of this fact are fundamental. For example, it means that program
Re:The Myth of the 'New User' (Score:3, Interesting)
The other issue is that all of the "High Value" users -- business people, students, gamers, artists, engineers, etc have been using a computer for years and most of them have settled on a a platform and a set of software.
This leaves Gnome chasing the lowest of the "Low Value" users -- grandmas, factory workers, and anyone else who somehow avoided a PC for the last 20 years and have
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:2)
I work with deeply nested directories. I will usually have two or three Nautilus browsers open at once in a workspace, each looking at a different directory, to make it easy to move or copy files from place to place. It's way easier to work with mu
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:2)
I miss that Nautilus... I want it back
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:2)
Okay.
If you are currently in spatial, right-click on a folder and choose "Browse Folder". Or click on the button on the top panel that says "Browse Folder".
Now, pull down the View menu, and make sure "Side Panel" is checked (enabled). You can also hit the F9 key to toggle the Side Panel enabled/disabled.
Now, notice that at the top of the Side Panel there is a dropdown. Click on that and choose "Tree". Voila, you have it back.
It never left. It's just that the
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:2)
Also worth pointing out is that there's no good reason why I shouldn't get that nice info screen *and* my tree view.
But for other peoples' ideas on how to browse files, make sure you check out what Raster's working on these days (looks great [sourceforge.net]):
Enlightenened File Manager [sourceforge.net]
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo. Unfortunately, what is as clear as crystal to you and me seems to just bounce dully off The Powers That Be at Gnome. I don't have the self assuredness nor presumptivity (nor hopefully the ill manners) to suppose that i
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:2)
Does Gnome have such a simple checkbox, that would remove all objections? Noooooooo.
Does Gnome have such a simple checkbox, that would remove all objections? Noooooooo.
Does Gnome have such a simple checkbox, that would remove all objections? Noooooooo.
Does Gnome have such a simple checkbox, that would remove all objections? Noooooooo.
Does anything more really need to be said? The GNOME developers could have easily
Re:Spatial Nautilus (Score:2)
Is there a fucking guide somewhere that says, "Hey, here's why spacial rocks and here's how to use it effectively."
Here are two such guides.
About the Finder... [arstechnica.com]
This article, if you read all the way through
Disagreement is often ultimately productive (Score:3, Interesting)
In all likelihood, these disagreements and discussions about the future of GNOME will lead to one or more better desktop environments. Isn't that a good thing?
Eleanor Rigby (Score:2, Funny)
Sits at the keyboard and waits for a line on the screen.
Lives in a dream.
Waits for a signal.
Finding some code that will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Guru MacKenzie
Typing the lines of a program that no one will run,
Isn't it fun?
Look at him working,
Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile.
It takes a while...
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lon
I have to agree with Ed... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "desktop wars" occur in an isolated (but large) community of people who somehow have come to beleive that "there is only one way to do it" and have taken as their model of excelence the very designs that many Linux (and BSD) desktop users came to OSS operating systems in order to escape (Microsoft and Macintosh).
I use no Gnome (or KDE) software on my computer, have no Gnome (or KDE) libraries installed, and am capable of the same level of productivity as those who do. I've been unimpressed with these highly integrated desktop environments, not because I beleuive them to be somehow "bad", but because I have found that they are quite limiting.
Gnome is a noble effort (as is KDE) to enforce consistancy onto a bunch of unruly OSS users, a beacon of conformity rising from what appears to be (but is not) chaos. But the truth is that all of the Gnome (and KDE) apps are needlessly complicated under the hood, use far too many resources when running, and have rediculous dependancies (why does a spreadsheet depend on a sound library) that clutter an install and are decidely lacking in Unix-like design philosophy.
That is to say that these desktop environments are lacking those qualities that make using Linux such a dream: elegance, interoperability with other programs and environments, clean non-interactive interfaces, human-readable config files, modularity, granularity, and choice.
I'm all for people continuing their work on Gnome, its fork and it's competitor, KDE. But when Gnome begins to demand conformity from reklated projects, or seeks to embrace other apps, in such a way that it makes those apps suck (Galeon was once one of, if not the best, browser available), it is indicative of a problem that can only be solved by a rewrite (ala Firefox from Mozilla), and I don't see that as possible within the enormously interdependant and complicated collection og Gnome libraries.
Re:I have to agree with Ed... (Score:2)
Yeah, way too many resources. When my average CPU load creeps up to 2%, I panic!
Yup... (Score:3, Informative)
Blackbox windowmanager
Lyx for creating formatted documents
OpenOffice for Microsoft Office compatible stuff
TkDesk as a filebrowser (I know it's old, but it works and it's what I like)
vi for text editing (programming, html, etc)
Xine for media (it runs OK on my 450MHz pIII)
Firefox
mutt (I've tried Thunderbird, nice app, but I still like mutt)
I've found that it's easy to avoid Gnome and KDE if your dist has a shitload of available apps, and Debian fills all the requirements quite nicely, I
loyalty to Gnome (Score:2, Interesting)
Times have changed. The license is not an issue anymore, Gnome and KDE have plenty of alternative language bindings, KDE's object model is actually used and is an asset (among other things, scripting GUI actions via the dcop utility is really powerful).
The big change is the dumbing down of Gnome. Its leadership apparently feels there is p
Re:loyalty to Gnome (Score:2)
That depends on who you are. If you write commercial software (and want it to remain BSD-like licensed) or software that isn't (gasp!) open source but still "free" in cost, Gtk is the only zero-dollar-licensing-cost option. So Qt's license is still a problem for some people due to circumstances.
Re:Yes you are a troll (Score:2)
Complete network transparency
Scriptability through DCOP
Ability to embed complete components such as HTML engine or a document viewer
A gazillion ready-to-use widgets and dialogs
Themability and instant fit with all other KDE apps
You can use your minimalist window manager, but then eac
Gnome, apple, Gentoo (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, it seems like a lot of geeks have deserted Linux for the Mac. This leaves only hard-core config crazies on Linux... hence not only the attacks on Gnome, but also the popularity of distros like Gentoo. Gentoo, to me, is a sign of failure. It has a source-based distribution - ie the whole software installation process is predicated on something that Granny cannot do. Gentoo's growth could be a sign that Linux is going to remain in the ghetto of tinkerers and enthusiasts.
Dave
PS
Re:Gnome, apple, Gentoo (Score:2)
Installing software on Gentoo isn't:
tar jxf foo.tbz2
cd foo-2.0
make
sudo make install
It's:
emerge foo
How is that any harder than apt or yum or whatever? All dependencies are taken care of. There are graphical front-ends, too.
What you're saying is kind of like saying Windows is too hard because "Granny" can't extract a zip file and stick
Re:Gnome, apple, Gentoo (Score:2)
Re emerge. Yes, the command is "easy" (still way too hard for e.g. my mum). But the concept behind it is not. Source-based installation is not for the masses; by definition, you want prepackaged binaries which install faster. (who wants to
Re:Gnome, apple, Gentoo (Score:2)
Funny. I dumped Gentoo and went back to Debian-Sid because "emerge -u world" kept breaking things.
Maybe I'm not supposed to do that - I dunno.
Also Gentoo insists I use devfs (which I hate and is obsolete anyway) and bitches when I compile alsa into my kernel.
If not for those things, I'd probably still run it - I did very much like it otherwise.
Slashdot app critic MadLibs (Score:5, Funny)
I gave up after ${INT} ${UNIT_OF_TIME} of trying to make ${COMPONENT} work -- the ${UI_CONCEPT} is cludgy, the ${LAYOUT_CONCEPT} seems to have been written by a ${INT}-year-old, ${COMPONENT} is downright ${DEROGATORY_ADJECTIVE}, and such an essential feature as ${FEATURE} is not even present.
The reason why ${APPLICATION} functions so ${DEROGATORY_ADJECTIVE} is ${LACK_OF_DOUBT} related to the fact that it was written in ${LANGUAGE}. ${SOFTWARE_CATEGORY} should not be written in ${LANGUAGE}, as every programmer with even ${INT} years of experience knows -- ${LANGUAGE} should only be used for ${ANOTHER_AREA_OF_PROGRAMMING}, and not in ${THIS_AREA_OF_PROGRAMMING}. ${COMPETING_APPLICATION} is the ${PRAISING_ADJECTIVE} example of that -- it was written in ${ANOTHER_LANGUAGE}, which is precisely suited for this ${SOFTWARE_CATEGORY}.
After suffering for ${INT} ${UNIT_OF_TIME}, I switched back to using the ${COMPETING_APPLICATION}, which I would suggest to anyone who needs to ${ACTION} and actually have it done.
Corollary to Zawinski's Law? (Score:3, Interesting)
So GNOME's development vector has been the inverse of Zawinski's: it started as an environment trying to provide everything, and it's slowly reducing its visible functionality. Every new iteration produces a new fight with users about simplified user interfaces, but the platform still exists. In fact, if GNOME's growth is anything like Linux's, then there are probably more users today than two years ago.
Where have my comments been unfair? Is there another lesson buried in here?
Re:Corollary to Zawinski's Law? (Score:2)
Truth may be in the middle (Score:4, Insightful)
The "new" Gnome IMHO is the first GNU/Linux desktop with a sensible default configuration and a simple, elegant and pleasant user interface. IMHO, it's the most pleasant, straightforward and stress-free desktop user interface available today; better than Windows, better than MacOS X, almost as good as the classic MacOS 7.x-9.x from which it has learned a lot. (Most longtime Mac users hate OS X for its flashy, unintuitive and inconsistent Aqua user interface, and rightly so in my opinion.) I also like that Nautilus was freed from the sidebar and toolbar bloat of today's file managers and defaults to spatial view.
On the other hand, I agree with the complaints about dumbed-down configurability and the horrors of gconf. I prefer KDE 3.x in that it allows to customize almost any aspect of the GUI directly through GUI dialogues and not arcane registry-like settings. The solution would be a desktop that is simple by default, but would have an "advanced settings" button in every configuration dialogue which then in turn would pop up a more complex configuration panel. There could be just one central control panel switch to globally turn the "advanced settings" buttons on or off in all dialogue boxes. (And it could be set to "off" for the default vanilla desktop setting.)
There could be two ways to approach this:
My real annoyance with Gnome is the discrepancy between its lean surface and its crufty and bloated code under the hood. I find it quite shocking to run memstat and see how many megabytes of RAM are eaten up by Gnome's components, with trivial panel applets that shouldn't consume more than a few kilobytes eating several megabytes, or the x86 executable of such a simplistic window manager as metacity taking up half a megabyte whereas desktop environments like XFCE show that the same can be done with a fraction of the resource usage. While KDE has a lot of code, too, its abstraction layers - like kioslaves, vfs, kparts - are actually used by K applications. In Gnome, comparable subsystems exist only in a half-broken state of competing, incompatible APIs (imlib2 vs. gdk-pixbuf, Corba vs. Bonobo vs. Mono, gnome-canvas vs. GtkGLArea etc.) that are not even consistently used at all in so-called Gnome applications.
The truth probably is that all these either KDE/Qt or Gnome/GTK specific layers/APIs/subsystems will be eventually replaced by common freedesktop.org standards and partly also improvements of the X.org X11 implementation through the work of Keith Packard and others. It would be a worthy goal for a Gnome 3.0 to eliminate all cruft in its code, standardize on one API for each subsystem, kick out broken layers and APIs to replace them with freedesktop.org's solutions (d-bus, mimedb), or, where technically feasible, KDE's proven solutions (kioslaves).
While choice and competing designs and implementations are generally good, some fundamental standardization of the GNU/Linux desktop is is necessary to allow the whole operating system to be configured and administrated over the desktop. Developers of system components such as bootloaders, MTAs, packet managers etc. need desktop standardization so that they can write GUI control panels which work on all desktops. Without that, GNU/Linux desktops remain relatively abstract, high-level shells, and free operating systems can only be run by people who either are commandline professionals themselves, or have knowledgable system administrators to help them out.
Re:Truth may be in the middle (Score:2)
I even diagrammed (invented?) a launch program that, when you double-clicked a file, would give you a list of choices of what to do with it. Who's using that feature now? Microsoft.
The Gnome development team has a problem -- they don't care about non
Modifying The GConf Editor (Score:2)
Re:Modifying The GConf Editor (Score:2)
Separate, "advanced preferences" application is what's needed here, not dumbing down the editor, and there already are few of those, gtweakui and gnome-extra-settings for example.
what's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I think GNOME is going in a good direction, though I still like Ion and WindowMaker. A few things that GNOME could use would be a way to allow for easy arrangement of windows (tile, cascade, tile horizontally, tile vertically), and/or for an option to automatically arranged windows like Ion.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Stir me up a candle (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stir me up a candle - moving OT (Score:2)
In the context of the orginal story, the sense that already existing issues were being discussed, not new ones introduced, stirring makes sense to me.
But that's just my opinion.
Re:Stir me up a candle - moving OT (Score:2)
Re:Uhoh.. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm just an aspiring writer. Most of my stuff will never see the light of day, outside a small circle of friends. When I write for that tiny, narrow audience, I often take a good bit of license and engage in hyperbole, dramatic overstatement, and loads of sarcasm. I keep aski
part one. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:part one. (Score:4, Insightful)
Personaly, I've come to appreciate simple. Maybe it's just a function of old age and crankiness, but I really don't take much of an interest in tweaking my desktop to death any more. Pretty much my only interest in a desktop is an orderly way to click an icon and start an application, a decent implementation of cut and paste and drag and drop, and reasonable window management. Gnome has my needs pretty well covered.
Also, I have to agree with the author's point that while Gnome has become a more coherent desktop, KDE seems to have lost it's coherency. I can't exactly put my finger on it, perhaps it's partly a function of being overwhelmed with options, but I don't think that entirely explains it. Somehow, it lacks the feel of "togetherness" it originally had. It's basic infrastructure is still great, though, and I expect this is just a temporary slump. Both the KDE and Gnome projects seem to go through phases where they lose their focus, but usually correct themselves after getting complaints from their user communities. I'm still looking forward to checking out the next iteration of KDE. Perhaps it will be interesting enough to make me switch back. I suppose I'll continue switching between the two of them as they leapfrog each other. One nice thing about having 2 competing desktops - they keep each other honest.
Re:Gnome (Score:3, Informative)
"It's icons hardly achieve the brilliance that KDE's SVG icons have had for the past year."
My GNOME 2 desktop has had SVG icons for over a year. You're talking out of your preverbial arse with this one.
"And then there was the fiasco with the new Nautilus. Which they still haven't fixed, and probably won't for 2.8."
I wouldn't call it a fiasco. A controversial design choice, but not a fiasco. And it's not a bug, it's not something to be "fixed".
In fact, the single most issue that h
Re:Gnome (Score:2)
All three are relevant. E showed us what could be done with themes and XFCE showed us what could be done with simplicity. All three are in use. There is nothing else out there that is as configurable as E was five years ago, but almost every window manager since is more configurable than what there was before enlightenment. I think the brief association between enlightenment and gnome showed the gnome people that it was a good
Re:Gnome (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Thank god (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that not enough of a problem for you?
As to technical problems with GNOME, I think the writer mentions that he filed several bug reports in GNOME's bugzilla. These bugs were never fixed. There would seem to be little point in re-hashing what he wrote in bugzilla, when the problem is of users' opinions being belittled (to quote your comment, for example: "Ugh, this dude comes off as being an Iiiiddeeeeottt.") and that the problem of a hostile environment for those trying to help needs to be fixed before discussions about technical issues become relevant again.
In short, I think he's probably standing on the right side of the fork. Isn't that what open-source people are supposed to do when discussions stop being technical and start being shouting matches? You try out your way of working, and see if it attracts more users than the other way of working. "other" in this sense, consisting of insulting anyone who disagrees with you.