GNOME 2.30, End of the (2.x) Line 276
stovicek writes "GNOME 2.30 was originally intended to coincide with GNOME 3.0 — a massive cleanup and rethinking of the popular desktop. However, GNOME 3.0 is delayed for at least another release, which leaves GNOME 2.30 as most likely the last version in a series stretching back almost a decade. [...] 2.30 will probably be the final version of the 2.0 series. For those who were around for GNOME 2.0 back in 2000, the 2.30 release stands as evidence of how far GNOME in general and the free desktop in particular have come in the last decade in usability and design. If you do a search for images of early GNOME releases and compare the results with 2.30, you can have no doubt that, although GNOME sometimes tends to over-simplify, its improvements over the last decade remain unmistakable."
early gnome (Score:2)
Re:early gnome (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I liked Gnome 1.x a good deal better than I like the 2.x series.
Except for gnome-terminal. The newer versions of gnome-terminal are better.
But everything else is worse. More dependencies that shouldn't be necessary, worse performance, more emphasis on completely pointless features like the ability to use the file manager as a web browser (WHY would I EVER want that?) but fewer *useful* features (like, the ability to have an always-on-top panel of a particular size in a particular position, which was great for stuff like having a clock just to the left of where the minimize button was on maximized windows), more gratuitous bug-the-user annoyances (like dialog boxes asking you stupid questions and/or unasked-for windows popping up voluntarily every time you connect a USB device or insert a disc), more undesirably arcane Windows-esque stuff (like gconf), more effort required to get the theme the way you like it, and some things you just plain *can't* do, or I have not figured out how (like, changing the icons on the built-in feature buttons on the panel for things like logging out; in 1.x this was as easy as changing the icon on an app launcher).
If Gnome 1.4 were compatible with modern software (both directions: modern versions of the software it requires, like libraries, and, going the other way, modern versions of applications), I'd still be using it. It was good. I have no idea why they decided to screw it up so much. Gnome 2.x comes across as a bad sequel or a poor remake. It is inferior in nearly every respect.
I can't say I'm very excited at the prospect of Gnome 3.0. What features are they going to take away now, the foot menu and the ability to have a clock on the panel? And what are they going to add? A useless 3D "walk through" filesystem animation like in Jurassic Park, which activates automatically every time a filesystem is mounted? Fixed-size desktop-bound "gadgets", like in Windows Seven, which are strictly inferior to panel applets in every way? Take your time, guys, take your time. I'm in no hurry to upgrade.
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> more emphasis on completely pointless features like the ability to use the file manager as a web browser (WHY would I EVER want that?)
Yes, for some reason that kind of "resource namespace abstraction" seems to be some kind of Holy Grail for a lot of developers who assume users will love it; the same thing happens with Kde's Konqueror, year after year, despite 99.99% of the web sites needing something heavy like Firefox et al. and 99.99% of the users desperate due to slow/unresponsive basic file browsin
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the ability to use the file manager as a web browser (WHY would I EVER want that?)
Wait, does GNOME even have that? I just tried it in Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1, and it doesn't work.
On the other hand, KDE has had that for years; Konqueror. (Google it; the top hit says "Konqueror - Konqueror - Web Browser, File Manager - and more!")
I agree with you that I am fine with the file manager and the web browser being two different tools. I guess I don't care if they are merged, but I don't view it as a feature.
As for
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Oh man, nostalgia. I loved Gnome 1.4. Particularly gmc (the old file manager). Simple, clean, and fast -- Nautilus was so terrible initially that I made several efforts atreplacing it with gmc. I don't remember if I was ever sucessful, as it was years ago.
Sure, it got better over several releases (I remember ~2.6-2.8 beginning to be usable again, I believe), but I never have liked new-Gnome as much as old-Gnome -- though XFCE is a somewhat reasonable 'replacement' for it these days.
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Actually, I'm leaning toward a custom session consisting of sawfish and gnome-panel. Most of the actually *useful* features of Gnome can be had just by running the panel (and individual apps launched as needed, though the terminal is the only Gnome-branded app I use very much) in conjunction with another window manager. I'm not sure I need the rest of Gnome. And unlike most of Gnome 1.x, sawfish has been maintained and still works just fine with modern stuff.
Setti
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GConf, GStreamer and the other interdependent crud are simply an annoyance.
Unless you want to write apps that store a configuration, or handle sound or video.
Re:early gnome (Score:4, Interesting)
GConf isn't a binary-only registry, it's XML files stored in a directory structure. More importantly, it's a library that provides a convenient way to update and monitor the information in these files.
Linux audio is a bit of a mess, but the mess is due to there being lots of different ways to access the sound hardware (OSS, ALSA, PulseAudio, Jack, whatver else there may be). GStreamer doesn't really contribute to that mess, as it's at a higher level; if you standardized on, say, pulseaudio, you'ld still want something like GStreamer to handle file formats and codecs.
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Sounds like a KDE-type cleanup (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is done properly, I think it'll be good for GNOME. From where I sit, they sound like they're shooting for a major architecture redesign. In other words, this 2.30 release is analogous to the 3.5 releases of KDE.
And I think starting largely from scratch will be a net benefit. I've never personally used GNOME (though I've recommended it to others) and I've found it to be technologically lacking compared to KDE (KParts and KIOSlaves are awesome, and while there are GNOME counterparts they aren't as used).
One thing I think GNOME does very well is their HIG - probably the best outside of Apple. The new release is very simple - dump a lot of legacy code and keep the HIG. Maybe drop the old-fashioned look too.
Though my fantasy is to see them use Qt.
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KIOSlaves are awesome, and while there are GNOME counterparts they aren't as used.
One neat thing about GVFS, the GNOME abstraction, is that part of it wraps FUSE filesystem modules. Any application, not just GNOME applications, can use filesystems mounted with GNOME's 'connect to server' feature, for instance. I think it's more desirable to write a FUSE module than a KDE-specific KIOSlave.
GNOME sometimes comes across as a hodgepodge of bindings and semi-coherent libraries, but there has been a great deal of work to consolidate [gnome.org] and even eliminate [gnome.org] core libraries, tighten up [gnome.org] coding standard
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I can mount my network drive using GVFS all I want, but I still can't watch anything on it, since VLC has no clue about it.
Yes, you can, that's what the parent means about the FUSE integration. GVFS mounts show up as directories accessible by all applications at ~/.gvfs . VLC doesn't need to know anything about GVFS to access these files.
Re:Sounds like a KDE-type cleanup (Score:5, Insightful)
The KDE type cleanup is what they did for 2.0, which was what made Linus Torvalds say "fuck this shit, I'm switching to KDE" (and, incidentally, what made him say "fuck this shit, I'm switching to Gnome" after trying KDE4). It pissed off a lot of other users as well. Of course, Gnome 2.0 was a bit more stable and less bug-ridden than KDE4, but on the other hand it had almost no features you'd expect from a computer (which was supposedly 'good for you', according to the HIG apologists, pretty much like the absence of multi-tasking on the iPad until yesterday), and took several years before it was as useful as 1.4 (the last version I used).
I forget. Did I have a point with all this? Oh, yes, the cleanup: it sucked the last time, and I hope they manage it better now, or they will probably hear it until the next time some huge project mismanages a major revision. On the other hand, maybe a botched Gnome3 release will help KDE get the recognition it deserves again.
Re:Sounds like a KDE-type cleanup (Score:4, Funny)
Looks like it over-stupidified your comment as well. Tough luck!
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Though my fantasyThough my fantasy is to see them use Qt.
Well, you already have KDE for that don't you? :-) What I really wish they sussed out once and for all, is freedesktop.org, so you can use whichever desktop you want with whatever tools you want, and it all works. They already co-operate a bit, but I'm not entirely sure how deep it goes in many ways.../p
Re:Sounds like a KDE-type cleanup (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a KDE-type cleanup (Score:5, Interesting)
I love signals and slots. They require a bit of a different way of thinking, and a semi-proprietary compiler (it's open source but still).
It's really the first time since Visual Basic where I think a language has really 'gotten' event-driven programming. Everything else has you writing your own event loops to switch on a message type. Signals/slots let you use a single statement as a patchboard. It's the reason they can have an example where a slider changes a text box in one line of code.
Is it different? Sure. It's slightly different than straight C++, but not by much. It definitely demands a new way of thinking about how to program graphical applications. But if you can manage it, I think it's far superior.
Though I'd also agree that Mono's crapulence is Gnome's biggest problem. I don't want the whole damn framework for some note-app
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Did you read the "Credit where credit is due: QT" paragraphs?
I think you should.
Without Qt's moc, she would have never been inspired to make her own version of moc.
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BMO
Re:Sounds like a KDE-type cleanup (Score:4, Informative)
is MOC really needed
No, basically. But back in the early nineties, when Qt was first developed, the various C++ features that make these pure-C++ signal and slot libraries usable weren't widely available.
Re:Sounds like a KDE-type cleanup (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a matter of taste. Personally I hate Qt's slot mechanism. And Moc. IMO the problem with GNOME is not GTK+, it's Mono.
I'd say it's Mono, to a lesser extent GTK+, and to a greater extent the fetish of removing any and all features.
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Is that the fault of KDE/Qt or is it a result of a slow C++ compiler?
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Some valid C++ code indeed requires more work to compile (if it can be compiled at all), but Qt? It does not use features like exceptions or templates...
And GCC C++ is known to not be the fastest C++ compiler...
Gnome Desktop (Score:2)
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Article is bogus, needs proofreading (Score:2, Informative)
GUADEC (Score:5, Interesting)
Not the same stuff - much worse! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I DO remember the early days of Gnome and how much better it was than now:
- automatic save and restore of multi-workspace sessions
- handy window operations like maximize-vertically and maximize-horizontally
- easy to change settings like which app to handle movies, etc.
I remember when clicking on a menu button gave an instant response,
not a several second delay for the first time in a session.
Gnome has become bloated and slower while becoming less stable and less powerful.
It is neither easier nor harder for beginners. It has more eye candy.
Gnome clients have also gone downhill: Evolution used to support my mh mail folders.
Now it uses a database that crashes when I try to load my old mail and fails to work
with my rules. It still doesn't integrate the contact manager with the mail rules.
I'd switch to KDE but they've been destroying themselves even faster!
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This is my impression also.
All the stuff you mention plus keybindings and WM choice. Once upon a time I was totally in love with Gnome. Unix keybindings and WindowMaker integration made it very useable and useful for me. Gnome2 took away all that - took away everything I liked about it - and to ad insult to injury the developers made it a practice to abuse anyone that didnt like the change. It's true I havent tried it recently, and it's also true I probably never will. I am not a masochist.
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> I'd switch to KDE but they've been destroying themselves even faster!
This. First the disaster that was (still is, from my experience) KDE4, and now those brain-dead Gnome 3 UI mockups. What are they all smoking? Can we please have one sane full-featured DE left?
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GNUstep could've been a winner if they'd only put forth the small degree of effort to at least look and feel like other desktops.
Instead, they chose to stick with those fucking vertical menus that basically nobody else uses. They made it fucking impossible to have GNUstep apps look like GTK+ or Qt apps. And the end result is that nobody uses it.
It's clearly not a language or API problem, as there are may people who like Objective-C and Cocoa, and develop fantastic apps using both. The problem is clearly wit
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- automatic save and restore of multi-workspace sessions
- handy window operations like maximize-vertically and maximize-horizontally
Modern Gnome doesn't have those? That's pathetic. KDE4 has them.
I'd suggest giving KDE4 a second try. Make sure you're using a very new version, though, preferably 4.4. The early versions were very bad, and should never have been released for general consumption.
Why the hang-up with version numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
"2.30 will probably be the final version of the 2.0 series"
I've noticed that open source software generally seems to be more hung-up and obsessed with version numbers than proprietary software. For example Linus Torvalds has said that there will never be a version 3.0 of the Linux kernel. So I guess 2.9.99.99.999 will be the end of the line.
I don't get the big hang-up with version numbers. Who cares if it is 2.30 or 3.0? My current nVidia video driver for Windows is 196.21 -- as long as it works, who cares?
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So I guess 2.9.99.99.999 will be the end of the line.
With the current prohibition on a stable kernel/driver interface in the linux kernel, 2.9.99.99.998 drivers will be incompatible with 2.9.99.99.999
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Before I get a bunch of "we don't care about binary only" drivers type responses: I'm talking about open source drivers, including those in the main kernel. The constant code churn means constant and frequent changes to driver internals are required just to keep up. New bugs are a frequent result. You are always chasing the latest change with bug fixes to compensate.
Honestly, a well defined and stable interface is sometimes useful.
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For example Linus Torvalds has said that there will never be a version 3.0 of the Linux kernel.
Because there will be no more major revisions to the kernel? That would make sense.
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In many open source projects the version numbers have a technical basis, e.g. ABI or API compatibility. In proprietary software it's usually marketing fluff. Unfortunately much open source is heading in the same direction.
key-bindings (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm excited (Score:2)
The stuff that's happening with gnome desktop is fantastic. It's especially nice on small laptop/netbook/tablet machines. The latest Ubuntu (Lucid Lynx in beta) has built in social networking that actually jumps ahead of OSX or Windows. The fact that I have something like TweetDeck built into my OS is pretty cool. Sure there are some rough edges. OSX has rough edges too. But I rarely find myself explaining away huge deficiencies. It's just a different bug from your OSX or Windows bug.
I'm excited. But then a
How far have we come? About a quarter-inch. (Score:3, Insightful)
For those who were around for GNOME 1.2 back in 2000, the 2.30 release stands as evidence that Linux on the desktop and GNOME in particular have made awfully little progress in the last decade. GNOME 2.0 was released in 2002, not 2000, and it was horrid; maybe if your first experience with GNOME was 2.0 then you might think 2.30 was a vast improvement- heck, TWM is a vast improvement on GNOME 2.0. 2.0 was extremely bug-ridden, and if you wanted to change anything from its mind-numbingly bad defaults you had to putz around with finding where in gconf's xml you could go to change things.
If you were around for 1.0, the RH 6.1 "October GNOME" release, or 1.2, you know that GNOME made a lot of progress, was centered on the needs of those most likely to use Linux rather than on unsubstantiated usability claims, and was becoming quick, convenient, and powerful. The progress GNOME made between 1998 and 2000, the big improvements in the 2.2 kernel series, and a host of other developments made it seem like Linux really would overtake Windows for desktop use soon. But I really don't find much about modern versions of GNOME that really improves on 1.2 or maybe 1.4; the last 9 years have seen little improvement in the Linux desktop IMO.
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I remember using GNOME in the late 90s, and if bonobo is dead than it's a good thing. That was a nightmare to mess with.
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Like I said, good riddance to bad rubbish.
To be honest I really don't care anymore. I've been using Windowmaker for about 5 years now.
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dbus was actually initially developed for GNOME; other GNOME-originated libraries that are still in use include GVFS, gconf, and gstreamer. And GTK, though of course not originally developed from GNOME, is now developed in parallel with GNOME (much of the stuff in the depracted GNOME libs is no longer needed because GTK itself provides solutions for the same problems). So I think GNOME is still a pretty vibrant development platform.
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LGPL is less free than GPL, really?
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Qt has been LGPL for a few years now, and KDE has always been part LGPL (like WebKit, a derivative of the old khtml).
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Fine, so then LGPL is less free then LGPL?
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I think the idea is that X + Mono is less free than X.
It still hasn't been proven that Mono isn't a patent trap.
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It still hasn't been proven that Mono isn't a patent trap.
It hasn't been proven that Qt isn't a patent trap, either. Thing is, to prove that, you have to go through the entire patent database, one by one, and see if any of them are applicable. In fact, you can be almost certain that both Qt and KDE are covered by at least a few, though their validity may be questionable (but then the same is also true for any MS patents that supposedly apply to Mono).
Anyway, this turns out to be irrelevant, since, as someone else pointed out in this thread, Gnome does not depend o
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Yes, but with Qt, you don't have a rabid Microsoft fan bent on directly implementing Microsoft technology on Linux. Trolltech does not have Miguel. Novell does. Judging from Miguel's actions and his words, I think we have something to worry about. I don't think that Miguel is some sort of Manchurian Candidate, but he is driven by his admiration of everything Microsoft.
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BMO
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What's fud about it?
Novell signed a contract with Microsoft. It indemnified people who got mono from Novell from liability. It doesn't cover third parties.
You go find the clause that covers third parties and get back to me.
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BMO
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That may be true. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass because Microsoft will never, ever go after an insignificant, individual end user like me for patient infringement.
If you're thinking of GNOME in a business setting or are are distributing Mono, you may want to think twice. However, for as long as Mono exists under a free license, I'm happy to use it.
Re:Oh good! (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that they're trying to push Gnome/Mono into all the Linux distros, and Linux is increasingly being used by businesses and governments. If there is a patent trap in Mono (which exists regardless of its license), then that means that MS can then sue all those businesses and governments for patent infringement. Of course, the real idea probably isn't for MS to get money from people from patent suits, but basically to scare everyone away from Linux for once and for all, and only use "safe" MS software.
The reason that the Linux software you now enjoy is as usable and functional as it is is because many businesses and governments have been investing in it, working with it, and using it. If it were some project only used and developed by hobbyists at home, like ReactOS, it wouldn't be good for anything but playing around. Instead, we have an OS and thousands of apps that are all free, and we can use to do just about anything you can do in a Windows environment (and sometimes much more). The only thing we can't do is run some Windows-specific apps, but that's becoming less and less of a concern as more companies make Linux versions of their apps, and as more alternative apps become available or mature (e.g. OpenOffice).
So these issues which seem to affect only the larger players may not seem to affect you personally, but in reality they do.
Mono considered harmless (Score:5, Interesting)
If there is a patent trap in Mono (which exists regardless of its license), then that means that MS can then sue all those businesses and governments for patent infringement.
I'm getting sick of this meme.
Tell me, are you a patent attorney? What is your expertise for making claims like this one?
Now I'm not a patent attorney either, but here is my understanding: If Microsoft does assert some kind of submarine patent, the main effect will be to cause GNOME and everybody else to yank out Mono. At that point, we will just have to port the Mono apps to Java or something. That is the absolute worst case. Can you give me an example of any time where some company had a submarine patent, then suddenly asserted it, and successfully extracted a bunch of penalties from businesses and governments?
Furthermore, while I'm still not a patent attorney, I have read Groklaw for a while, and I read some essays there about the "unclean hands" doctrine. If a company has patent rights, and discovers that someone is infringing, that company has a duty to inform the infringers as soon as possible; it is not allowed to just let the patent sit there ticking like a bomb, and then demand extra damages because the infringer was infringing for so long.
So, let's review: Mono is a technology that is very similar to the JVM, which in turn is similar to other virtual systems, going all the way back to the UCSD P-system. The amount of prior art is staggering. Besides that, the only danger is a submarine patent, not a new patent: the .NET stuff has been around for years and years, and you have to file for a patent before you publicly disclose a technology, or you lose your chance.
So, the alleged threat is that there is a patent already granted, that nobody has noticed, on technology that has a ton of prior art; and Microsoft is deviously not asserting the patent, but is going to later. Microsoft won't care about the negative publicity for itself and for .NET, because it stands to gain so much and is certain its patent will survive all challenges. And anyone infringing will somehow be on the hook for penalties.
I for one don't believe any of it. C# is as safe as Java and Mono is as safe as the JVM.
steveha
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You go find the clause that covers third parties and get back to me.
Here you go [microsoft.com].
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The MCP only covers the ecma parts.
Anything mono that is not ecma is not covered.
The Novell situation is a whole different kettle of fish.
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The mono trap and GNOME (Score:4, Informative)
> And Gnome has been adopting mono like it doesn't matter.
You are out of date. Have Fedora 13 Alpha + all updates in a VM right now and behold:
[root@Fedora13 ~]# rpm -qa | grep mono
dejavu-sans-mono-fonts-2.30-2.fc12.noarch
liberation-mono-fonts-1.05.2.20091019-5.fc13.noarch
Everything works just fine. They ditched F-Spot for Shotwell and replaced Tomboy with the C++ port GNote. With those gone mono doesn't need to be installed. Somebody caught the cluetrain and stopped Novell from infecting GNOME with their patent poison.
Re:The mono trap and GNOME (Score:4, Interesting)
That's encouraging.
Let's hope it stays that way.
But is that the "installed" or did they remove Tomboy and the rest in the repositories too?
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BMO
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> Let's hope it stays that way.
I'd think the die is now cast. Enough folks yelled "STOP!" loud enough they backed off from making mono a core dependency and replaced a pair of otherwise keeper apps out of the default install. It would be pretty hard to introduce a must have dep now, what would they say to the authors of F-Spot and Tomboy?
> But is that the "installed" or did they remove Tomboy and the rest in the repositories too?
Mono, F-Spot and Tomboy are all still in the repo. No problem with tha
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Remember a while back they were claiming to have some triple-digit number of patents that the Linux kernel infringes on?
Yes, how can one forget?
IBM and TurboHercules debacle
Yes. TurboHercules is suing IBM in a SCO-esque lawsuit. IBM is supposed to take it lying down?
I'm not convinced that mono infringes significantly more or stronger potentially-hostile patents than any other similarly complex piece of software.
It was enough to convince John Dragoon and Ron Hovesepian.
Given the choice between technology t
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Kill GTK+ off? Maybe when Qt has more than one decent theme that doesn't require installing half of KDE, or when Qt themes don't require a compiler to create. Until then, get lost.
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GTK+ themes require a compiler to create as well. Unless you count the color tweaking that you can do with the gtkrc files (something you can do easily through the GUI with KDE and isn't considered a theme). Of course, I don't see why a couple of megs of KDE libs is really a problem unless you are using a ten year old computer (but then it wouldn't be fast enough to use GNOME anyways).
The toolkit/DE zealots really amaze me sometimes.
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Oh, for Christ's sake. Mono is safe. Microsoft made a legally-binding promise not to sue. No judge would even hear the case if they attempted to bring a suit against <I honestly have no idea who they'd sue> unless the GNOME people managed to infringe upon something else in Microsoft's portfolio.
We have much bigger fish to fry. Squabbling about Theora and Mono isn't a productive use of your time, no matter how valid your arguments might be. The standards have been set.
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The contract that Novell signed is not the same as the "promise" that Microsoft published later. There is a difference. Novell is indemnified, and so are Novell's customers and people (e.g., developers) who get mono directly from Novell instead of a third party.
Come on, Microsoft does not like standards and interoperability. They are already undermining their own OOXML by using the proposed standard (the one that passed ecma, but not iso) that was rejected instead of the one that the ISO actually approve
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The contract that Novell signed is not the same as the "promise" that Microsoft published later. There is a difference.
Yes, there is a difference. In one case, Microsoft can't sue because of a contract. In the other, they can't sue because of promissory estoppel. Either way, they can't sue.
But enjoy the hat, I'm sure it's very shiny and stylish.
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In one case, only ecma mono is covered.
In the other case, all of mono is covered.
The former is the Microsoft promise.
The latter is the Novell contract.
http://www.osnews.com/story/21784/C_CLI_Under_Community_Promise_Mono_Split_in_Half [osnews.com]
There you go.
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BMO
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In one case, only ecma mono is covered.
So only use the ECMA bits (which will soon be factored out), and use the free software stack bindings for everything else, just like, well, basically all existing Gnome Mono applications (last I checked, F-Spot wasn't using winforms).
There, problem solved. Happy now?
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TM Repository is officially the saddest, most pathetic website I've ever seen: A tiny community of people who get together just to snark at Linux propaganda. It's like setting up a site to mock the CPUSA [cpusa.org].
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Tmrepository is entirely unfunny and a lame ripoff of Adequacy.org.
Get some better writers.
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BMO
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Re:Uhmmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a lot more things I don't like about KDE4. It tries to be all integrated, with a common notification daemon for example, so that status messages can appear with a consistent look in the corner of the screen. The problem is that virtually nothing supports it except for KDE apps that start with "K". If you want that sleek, consistent QT4 look, you're limited to a small subset of free software - there are a lot more GTK applications than QT applications. And I'd prefer to be able to use, for example, a different file manager. Without dolphin, you're unable to take advantage of KIO and whatever search index thing that KDE uses. KDE as a whole seems really tightly coupled - I regularly use gnome apps on my XFCE system without having the gnome libs installed. That's unheard of for KDE.
A particular barrier for me to use KDE is a decent web browser. I've used Konqueror for a few months and it's OK, but KHTML became intolerable. Arora (webkit powered) is good but incomplete. I have similar complaints about the usual KDE chat programs, music players, and Konsole.
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The problem is that virtually nothing supports it except for KDE apps that start with "K".
Actually, that's not true. With the latest Fedora, for example, Firefox uses KDE notifications under KDE, and GNOME notifications under GNOME. The integration's spreading really, really quickly, now that the DBUS API has been fixed down for a release cycle.
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It looks like it's theoretically possible [mozilla.org] to build firefox with Qt widgets thanks to Nokia, but it's difficult and unstable.
And yes obviously you can just load both Qt and GTK libraries but it's ugly and memory-inefficient.
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and interestingly in kde 4.4 with firefox 3.6 it's even using the kde notification thing in the corner whenever it finds an update for things. I believe this is because its using a "standard" (don't know if it is or not) dbus thing to do the notifications so that both gnome and kde can use the same code.
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KDE lost me as a user when they took away the ability to have a different background on each desktop (yeah, petty point, but it was still a really neat feature in my opinion.) That did cause me to take a closer look at KDE4 before I dropped it, and I found myself not liking the feel of that environment overall. Then I took a look at Gnome and tried it out briefly, but didn't care much for that either (plus, still no multiple backgrounds).
That was when I finally started taking a more in depth look at alter
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The following article mentions how to do that. In the article, read the paragraphs just after the heading which says "Combine Virtual Desktops With Plasma Activities." Notice that the last sentence says "This will allow you to have a different
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It may have been up through 4.2. I am pretty sure I had given up on KDE before 4.3. And I remember at the time, a web search on KDE +"multiple wallpapers" brought up tons of similar complaints with no one being able to offer any solution.
No matter now. I am becoming more and more enamored with Enlightenment these days, and feel no need to switch back to either of the "Big Two" desktop environments. :)
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Correct. I need to get work done, not play around with the GUI all day.
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"simplicity"? SIMPLICITY???!
"xfce" is simple.
GNOME, on the other hand, is now a more bloated pig than CDE ever was.. which is amusing, because one of the gnome1 boasts was that it was much lighter than CDE.
Re:Uhmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
"Simplicity" can mean different things.
Ask a regular user: a "simple" system hides any complexity; in this sense, Ubuntu is simple - everything is automated or set by GUI-based tools.
Ask a developer: a "simple" system is transparent; in this sense, Slackware is simple - there are few GUI-based tools to set the system.
Re:Uhmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really tired of the trade-off between simplicity and functionality. This trade-off should not be inherent to either windowing system. Rather, the variety of options presented to the user should be configurable. Each distribution should be able to decide how simple or how configurable they want to make their windowing environment when it is first installed.
Uhuh.
And then people would bitch about bloat because supporting all those features, options, and workflows would required a fuckton more code.
So here's an idea: pick the environment that fits your needs. Gnome, KDE, XFCE, or heck, throw components together that fit your needs. But quit expecting these projects to be infinitely flexible, it's completely unreasonable.
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So here's an idea: pick the environment that fits your needs. Gnome, KDE, XFCE, or heck, throw components together that fit your needs. But quit expecting these projects to be infinitely flexible, it's completely unreasonable.
That was my solution when I saw I didn't like the direction KDE4 was going. Openbox with netwmpager, fbpanel, and feh allowed me to keep my environment free of garbage all over my desktop.
Re:Uhmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I'm about to say something that almost everyone here will think is completely crazy, but I'm going to say it anyway: some of these DEs and Linux distros should focus less on being infinitely flexible and configurable, and more on coming up with one single configuration that works.
Not that I don't appreciate the flexibility and configurability, but having all these different options ought to mean that at least one option is consistant, standard, and controlled. give me a distro that only supports one DE, but make sure that DE's experience is really smooth. Take away all the different themes, and give me one single theme that's extremely polished. Maybe even don't try to support every possible kind of hardware, but certify some set of hardware and support that hardware really well. Go ahead and make some choices for me, just so long as those choices are really good choices.
A lot of people would say that sort of mindset is antithetical to the open source movement, but I don't think it is. Leave it open source, and let other people make any changes they'd like.
Anyway, I it's part of the reason for the success of OSX. While the geeks are all complaining about the lack of configurability, everyone else is happy with how well crafted the defaults are. I think Gnome operates along the same line (but not to the same degree), and while that earns it the wrath of a lot of geeks, it's the reason why so many Linux distros use Gnome as the default environment.
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I think like 99% of linux users use kde
Don't think so.
The latest figure is 98.9%
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Because no one who uses Linux uses the default install of Ubuntu... got it.
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GNOME is just jealous that they could be more popular if they just made it look and work more like KDE [slushdot.com].
Seriously ... look at the difference between the fugliness that is Ubuntu (even with the new "blight" look), and the KDE variant. If they want to fix Ubuntu's visual problems once and for all, they should just do this [slushdot.com]. Because going from Halloween Orange-and-Black to "Rotting Eggplant" might be a change, but it's not much of an improvement
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Or you can switch to a distro that wasn't put together by someone who is color-blind, aided by someone who is spatially challenged ... because like you said, it's STILL ugly.
My opensuse desktop and laptop both look gorgeous with the black Oxygen taskbar. Every once in a while, I change the wallpapers ... just 'cuz ...
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I think a lot of KDE users disappeared with KDE4. (Score:5, Interesting)
I used KDE from KDE 1.0, when I switched away from TWM. I was fully integrated into the KDE "way of life," and reliant on lots of KDE apps.
I tried to use KDE4.0 but after about two weeks it got the boot. Though it has theoretically improved and I keep a KDE 4 installation on my Fedora 12 personal machine, logging into KDE thus far provides no incentive to switch back, despite updates.
Dolphin is still intolerably slow. Important apps still don't share a consistent appearance; Firefox, Chrome, and OpenOffice in particular look good in GNOME but are full of distracting artifacting and other appearance problems in KDE. GNOME apps in general don't mix well with KDE themes right now. The graphics still don't work right. A notification balloon is likely to take out half the taskbar, etc. They blame this on the radeon driver and I believe them, but that's the hardware I have, and GNOME shows none of the same problems. Desktop management for multiple monitors doesn't behave as I expect it to, and it's difficult to create a configuration that jostles well amongst varying configurations of external, internal, or both, monitors without taskbars disappearing or desktops shifting from display to display unexpectedly. The default icon theme is far too colorful and luminous for focused desktop work of the kind that I do (lots of writing, editing, and calculating) but there are few replacement icon sets to be found. The wireless connectivity manager seems incapable of working with my simple home WiFi installation without needing constant reconfiguration and tinkering, while in GNOME it "just works."
Yes, some of these things could be fixed, but to trudge through each one of them would require rather a lot of time and effort that I just don't have to spare. So despite the fact that I'm still not wild about GNOME either, KDE4 is simply not on the cards in the near future for me. What's missing everywhere is polish. Not the kind that makes widget corners have a "glass" appearance, but the kind that keeps widgets from disappearing or artifacting unexpectedly, or the kind that doesn't leave you wondering why the hell the widget doesn't work, or there isn't a widget for that at all, in the first place. Details work. Not big thoughts. KDE needs to cut out the innovation for a while and patch roof leaks.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that many other KDE users right up through KDE 3.x switched to GNOME with the KDE4 release.
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I use KDE. 3.5.10 is still unbeatable when you want fast, clean and powerful. However, it's officially dead now, and the 4.x series sucks.
KDE4 is full of tiny little features that look like what you're used to, but do something completely different. Or they removed the most important button on the Konsole window, injected Amarok with featuritis, and k3b simply does not exist. (Wanna guess my three favorite applications?)
I'm starting to think Joel was right [joelonsoftware.com]. The KDE project wasted two years trying to produce
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Re:First for the first time! (Score:5, Funny)
I got first post once, but I didn't even say "first post" or any other misspelled incarnation of it, as I assumed (incorrectly) that someone else would have gotten it by the time my comment went up.
But there it was, at the top of the pile.
Now, when I hear someone say they have no regrets in life, I can only sigh and sadly look down at my feet.
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By the way, first person to say that my having successfully made a First Post guarantees that I won't have any grandchildren gets hit.