GNOME 3.0 Delayed Until March 2011 201
Julie188 writes "GNOME 3.0 was scheduled to be released in September but during the developers conference, GUADEC 2010 in Den Haag, the organization had to face facts: the much ballyhooed GNOME Shell really wasn't ready. The Shell is supposed to bring 'a whole new user experience to the desktop.' So now, in September, what users will see is GNOME 2.32, distributed as a new stable release. Next target date for 3.0: March 2011."
Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Better than releasing the Gnome equivalent of KDE4.
Re:Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Better than releasing the Gnome equivalent of KDE4.
...unless it ends up as the Gnome equivalent of Vista - late and not what anyone wants.
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Re:Smart (Score:5, Informative)
They wish they had something even remotely close to KDE 4.0. All they have is a new desktop shell.
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They wish they had something even remotely close to KDE 4.0. All they have is a new desktop shell.
You have to remember there is more to Gnome than what meets the eye.
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Probably the advanced mode where a lot more features are enabled that are not 'user friendly' enough.
Re:Smart (Score:4, Insightful)
Devil's advocate here - two things they have over KDE are:
Apart from these two, I'd prefer they took the HIG and the other design principles and built a new GNOME over KDElibs.
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Funny you should mention that - a lot of the newer apps are definitely influenced by it.
Apart from that, I think KDE should keep aiming for flexibility in the UI just as GNOME aims for extreme minimalism - both have their place for different types of users.
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They are consistent, unfortunately that consistency doesn't = usable to mere mortals. GNOME wisely adopted the HIG after recognizing that sometimes less is more. Regular users don't want to wade through a sea of buttons and menus to do stuff, they just want to do stuff.
Look at the number of buttons, menus, settings a typical KDE app exposes vs a GNOME app. KDE apps have so many s
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Re:Smart (Score:5, Informative)
Telepathy
Kopete is being ported to work on top of Telephaty
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Re:Smart (Score:5, Informative)
gvfs-fuse
For what I want to do (mount remote file systems) KIO works better.
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Yes. Gnome is about to get Gnome 3 but that will not be comming even remotely close to KDE SC 4.5.
However just the shell is not entirely true. Gnome also gets Gtk 3 and semantic desktop search.
Still a joke though...
Re:Smart (Score:4, Insightful)
What was wrong with releasing KDE 4.0? Yeah it sucked but it's not like once they sent out KDE 4.0 they also removed KDE 3.x from 'the internet'. You have to make a choice at some point esp in an open source product where you you should send it out so at least you can get user feedback on it. I like how OpenSuse handled it. You could install KDE3.x and KDE4.0.
If you try to make it perfect and keep putting it off and putting it off you run the risk of it becoming vaporware.
Re:Smart (Score:4, Insightful)
If you haven't yet, download Kubuntu 10.04 and patch up to the latest version of KDE. Once you see how the plasma desktop can be configured I'm confident that you'll begin to reconsider.
Not a huge loss... (Score:5, Interesting)
I like the looks of the new interface, but am rather concerned it might put people off by being too different from Windows.
I've been playing around with soft lighting in the GIMP, and I think one innovation I'd like to see come up (in X-windows or wherever) would be to allow users to "tint" the whole desktop with a particular color scheme and pattern... something that can hit the windows and wallpaper evenly not unlike the sun is currently hitting my monitor, only not so bright, blurry and distracting.
Think looking at a monitor with the faint reflection of light hitting rippling water... ahh, soothing!
Re:Not a huge loss... (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the looks of the new interface, but am rather concerned it might put people off by being too different from Windows.
The market for Linux is not mostly made up of newbs who want Windows that isn't Windows, but of power users and people who care about free software. These people are already trying to move AWAY from Windows. Making Linux more Windows-like is no good for usability or differentiating Linux. Gnome should move in it's own direction.
Re:Not a huge loss... (Score:5, Insightful)
Making Linux more Windows-like is no good for usability or differentiating Linux. Gnome should move in it's own direction.
While true, I also think that it shouldn't go in a different direction just to be "different" from Windows. Windows isn't like the anti-christ. Sure, it's got some things wrong with it from both a technically and political standpoint, but as an OS it also does many things right (as painful as that might be for many of us to admit).
Those things that it DOES to right I have no issue with doing the same way in Gnome/Linux. Afterall, the whole POINT of OSS is sharing ideas and avoiding reinvention of the wheel. We can't do that with Windows' code, but we most assuredly can do it with good UI elements (same with UI elements from MacOS). If what they're doing works, then our own direction should be the same way they're going.
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> While true, I also think that it shouldn't go in a different direction just to be "different" from Windows.
Well windows is a moving target as they think it's better to reinvent the wheel by making changes to UI to increase the psychological cost of switching to other platforms. Since windows is different from windows, I hope gnome doesn't share that kind of philosophy. If something needs to change let it change, otherwise keep things familiar- familiarity makes users gain time.
Re:"just to be different"... (Score:4, Insightful)
There seem to be a lot of people 'round here now for whom Windows is a universal and sole reference point.
That is entirely practical and will continue to be as long as Windows is the dominant legacy system.
But Windows Vista/7 have really broken some of the UI design which made Windows 95 and up great, so as long as GNOME isn't following Apple and Microsoft's trend toward making interfaces more obscure and less powerful, there's certainly room to improve.
(Seriously, Microsoft, wtf. You removed the 'go up one directory' button in the Windows Explorer, and why? I *use* that button! A lot.)
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(Seriously, Microsoft, wtf. You removed the 'go up one directory' button in the Windows Explorer, and why? I *use* that button! A lot.)
Because address-bar now allows selecting "directly-above" and "x-levels-up" using one click so removing unnecessary button reduces clutter.
It's small change in how to use explorer but IMHO is more powerful and usable now.
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(Seriously, Microsoft, wtf. You removed the 'go up one directory' button in the Windows Explorer, and why? I *use* that button! A lot.)
That was my biggest complaint with 7 until I found I could click on the directory names in the location bar; it's simplicity itself.
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That was my biggest complaint with 7 until I found I could click on the directory names in the location bar; it's simplicity itself.
I wonder if this idea has been borrowed from somewhere... like the GNOME file views.
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Actually OS X does it right. It deviates where it needs to, and does things the same where it needs to as well. My current Gnome desktop as it's setup actually looks a LOT more like OS X than Windows does (I'll even link a screenshot below). That metaphor still works well though. It's not different to be different - it's different only when different works well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46649722@N08/4838677771/sizes/l/ [flickr.com]
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That depends on perspective. Personally, I would love for Gnome to be completely unique (as long as its usability is good). However, among the people that I help with computer issues, there has been a lot of interest in free (no cost) software and I've fairly easily transitioned them to open source Windows apps. A 'close enough' interface for Linux would let a lot of them switch without a significant learning curve, which would reduce their computer problems, make my life easier, and possibly extend the
Re:Not a huge loss... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this.
I want an UI that isn't totally different from Windows, Gnome, and OS/X?
Frankly I am begining to feel that OSs are getting to much eye candy at the expense of usability.
What I want from an OS is really simple.
Fast
Reliable
Launches applications
Manages files
Handles IO.
Wall paper is nice and attractive icons are also nice.
Clean readable fonts is a must.
Oh and use the CTRL and ALT keys and not some stupid Windows or Apple key to do stuff. If you start using a stinking TUX key for commands like copy and paste I may have to hurt people!
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Oh and use the CTRL and ALT keys and not some stupid Windows or Apple key to do stuff.
Principally I agree with you but the problem is that on 99.9 percent of all keyboards the control key is in the wrong place for no apparent reasons except historical ones. Even worse, I've seen keyboards on which the left shift key is smaller than the capslock key, which just doesn't make sense unless you're a Modula-3 programmer who lacks a decent text editor. To make a long story short, I'd like UI designers to think about alternative keyboard layouts from time to time and not just accept the status quo.
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The market for Linux is not mostly made up of newbs who want Windows that isn't Windows, but of power users and people who care about free software.
If you want Linux to get more users (which I am sure the Gnome people do), then you need to make the transition reasonably easy.
Similar enough to Windows by default to make it feel familiar, preferably better, but easy to customise is the way to do.
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Who are 'regular' people? Because it really depends...
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I like the looks of the new interface, but am rather concerned it might put people off by being too different from Windows.
Yeah, that's always held Apple back.
Of course, we can always go back to FVWM95 if you want...
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I understand the concern, but I wonder if being Windows-like is becoming much less important as people do more on netbooks and smartphones. Gnome Shell strikes me as having some inspiration in the interfaces of those devices so it may actually attract people away from Windows. One can always hope!
Re:Not a huge loss... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been doing this for years: PNG wallpaper with an alpha layer running through the entire image. Graduated background fill in the colour that suits your mood on any given day. For bonus points, script a slow colour transition that matches the time of day.
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I like the looks of the new interface, but am rather concerned it might put people off by being too different from Windows.
You seem to imply Linux is or should be a follower, I'd rather see Linux as a leader.
That's not to say Linux should ditch good ideas even from Microsoft.
To come back on topic, Gnome's problem has always been it's lack of integration and I doubt they can on that front catch up with KDE.
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Being different from Windows is a good thing. I use Gnome because I was looking for a clean, simple UI, like an old Mac, for other people to use. I actually prefer Enlightenment and all those beautiful game-like looks. I am all in favor of creativity.
http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=about/e16 [enlightenment.org]
http://e17-stuff.org/ [e17-stuff.org]
http://www.enlightenment.org/ [enlightenment.org]
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See http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/ [stereopsis.com] for software that does something like this already (although not with patterns), and can also change the colour temperature of your monitor based on time of day.
Gnome 3.0.... (Score:2, Funny)
Learn Lessons From KDE4 (Score:5, Insightful)
I truly hope the Gnome folks observed the KDE4 fiasco and learned some good lessons. They really need to make sure the product they release is stable and doesn't include significant feature regressions (although knowing Gnome, they'll probably call them usability enhancements...). There's certain types of software that can be unstable, and a desktop environment isn't one of them. I'm very much in favor of them holding off as long as it takes.
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I don't see KDE4 as a fiasco. It was clearly stated by the developers that they didn't recommend using it in any distro.
The failure wasn't by KDE but the people maintaining the distros!
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Well ... yes ... but KDE4 did carry on being a fiasco for rather a long time, which has freaked a lot of people out. It's only just reaching a decent state around about now (V4.4.5 / V4.5) - which has been unfortunate - and many of its users consider the many allegedly release-quality previous V4.x versions have been only beta-grade ... and should have been flagged as such.
Distros which included it did so largely in response to user demand, which itself occurred because users were given the impression the b
Re:Learn Lessons From KDE4 (Score:4, Insightful)
If you call a product version number "4.0" then people expect a certain level of quality. And people will demand that their distro carries it.
I'm a KDE developer, and IMHO we should have simply called it "KDE 4 BETA 1". And 'released' that. That would have given a platform for app developers to target, while not putting pressure on distros to provide it.
Re:Learn Lessons From KDE4 (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I stick by my statement, "as long as it takes," because:
a) It's an open source effort and if I want to use it, even though they haven't officially released it, I can do it any time I want. In fact I have already tried it using the Gentoo Gnome overlay, and I do agree it's not ready.
b) They're continuing to work on Gnome 2.XX which is actually my primary desktop. This is very different than the KDE4 situation which basically caused the excellent KDE 3.X DE to be unsupported.
Now I do agree that repeated product delays are not a good sign (although I wouldn't go so far as to necessarily call it a, "sign of ineptness or a demonstration of gross incompetence"). Fortunately with open source software, I can determine for myself when a product is ready for my use regardless of an official release. There may be consequences with that choice (e.g. a redesign causes a significant break or lack support), but it's still my choice.
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What's your opinion on the other hundreds of questions the GNOME project is working on?
Most people don't have any opinion on those. Anyone can give an opinion on release dates, and everyone loves commenting about what colour the bikeshed should be...
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Yes, those 70% of Gnome contributors who contribute in their spare time are highly incompetent. They should quit their jobs to have all day to contribute for free to the project.
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Yes, it is. GNOME is a product (software project) that is included with various other products into a meta-product (for-pay distributions, as well as distros that offer support contracts). Matter of fact, a product doesn't have to cost money or be proprietary in order to be considered a product, but the GNOME project has to push their product or they risk losing relevance, market share and mind share if they appear to be dragging their feet and lagging in progress.
What's the point of GNOME Shell??? (Score:2)
as someone who wants to see GNOME Shell and 3.0 finished
How is it that much better than the current paradigm?
New GNOME Shell design (Score:5, Informative)
Another reason they're pushing GNOME 3 back is that Shell's design isn't quite usable yet. I would know because I frequently use daily builds [gnome.org] of GNOME Shell for testing purposes. I mean, look at it. It's so... blah and thrown-together. The design team is working on the design, and the final design will look much different. If you clone the gnome-shell-design git repository [gnome.org], you'll get the most current mockups. Here's a link [dropbox.com] to those of you unable to use git including the latest mockups as of today. These mockups look amazing and make the shell much easier on the eyes as well as usable. Ever since they announced this new design, I've been looking forward to it much more than I already have.
Re:New GNOME Shell design (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally agree. It's like they all got together and said "Alright guys. People think Gnome is boring. Lets do something REVOLUTIONARY!!!!!". And they then set off to make something that was as "different" as they could. Not useable, not actually "revolutionary" - just different. Personally, I have no qualms with using an old desktop metaphor if it works well, and the current one does. Refine what works - don't topple the whole thing just to try to build a better one.
Re:New GNOME Shell design (Score:4, Insightful)
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I am really surprised that Apple hasn't tried to sue Gnome.
Probably because they aren't infringing on any of Apple's property if I remember correctly. I prefer the term "inspired by" instead of "ripped-off". Does GNOME 3 use Mac's icons, sounds, artwork, themes, etc.? If not, they aren't doing anything worse than OpenOffice.org "ripping-off" MS Office or Firefox "ripping-off" IE/Opera/Chrome.
just how new can windows desktop be? (Score:2)
Lets face it, the windows on a desktop with icons experience pretty much hit it's peak with Windows 3.0. Everything since then has been, well, more windows on a desktop with icons.
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First of all: Windows 3.0? Seriously? Never used a Classic Mac?
Secondly: Saying "oh the WIMP interface is so old and tired" is really, really easy. Coming up with something better enough to displace it? Now that's fucking hard. It's been tried many times, and never gained any traction so far.
What about GNOME 3? (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't kept up on it. What will be special about GNOME 3, particularly from an end user's perspective?
Re:What about GNOME 3? (Score:4, Funny)
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It would make Linux Environments less scary.
You might chuckle at this notion, but the longer the thought sits there, the more it creeps in and you know it's right.
Re:What about GNOME 3? (Score:4, Insightful)
It would make Linux Environments less scary.
You might chuckle at this notion, but the longer the thought sits there, the more it creeps in and you know it's right.
Sometime around Christmas I showed my brother gnome-shell running on Ubuntu 9.10 ... my brother is a mech. engineer and really couldn't care less about operating systems but does care about computing in general since trying to be a physical engineer these days without a computer is like trying to live on the far side of the moon.
I have never seen him react to anything from Linux in that way: "Damn that's cool... "
I strongly believe that it will be a game changer for Linux desktop UI.
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I have never seen him react to anything from Linux in that way: "Damn that's cool... "
I strongly believe that it will be a game changer for Linux desktop UI.
I got that same reaction all the time when showing off the Desktop Cube a couple of years ago. So what...
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the gnome shell [wikipedia.org], basically.
Re:What about GNOME 3? (Score:4, Informative)
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Time travel, and it runs in Emacs now.
Re:What about GNOME 3? (Score:5, Insightful)
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What is it with Mac users and their eagerness to repeat ad slogans over and over again?
It's called brainwashing.
Re:What about GNOME 3? (Score:4, Insightful)
Repeat a lie often enough...
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What is it with Mac users and their eagerness to repeat ad slogans over and over again?
For the record, I use Linux almost exclusively. I am an Apple hater, not a user. I have tried a macbook before, though, and the hardware and software for it was very intuitive; I can see why people like it. To somebody like my mom that doesn't want to be bothered with updates and interruptions out the wazoo and just user her camera/photos/Facebook, Macs are perfect. Linux, IMO, is in-between Mac and Windows in terms of usability, and GNOME 3 looks very much like it could surpass Mac in terms of usability.
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To somebody like my mom that doesn't want to be bothered with updates and interruptions out the wazoo and just user her camera/photos/Facebook, Macs are perfect.
I was using Linux back when Slackware was the best distribution around, I know how to manually recompile a kernel, I've been doing software development professionally since 1998, and I know how to code in multiple languages, from bash scripting to C++. I was frankenstein'ing machines back when graphics cards had jumpers.
I'm what you'd call a "powe
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You're right... Apple does a tremendous job reducing the expectations of functionality and convenience that their users perceive.
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what devices are you having trouble with? Some of them require either plugins (for sync) or drivers. It not up to Apple or even MS to make sure every device works with their OS. I had a sony ericsson cell that I had to find a 3rd party plug in for isync to make it work.. I don't see how this is Apple's problem
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But until you learn all the keyboard commands it can take a lot of mouse moving.
That and I find I really miss MDI All those windows everywhere are just pain. I know that spaces is supposed be the solution but it just isn't as easy for me. Macs have quirks. They are note all fairy farts and unicorn poop.
But I will say that I find the quality of the applications available to be very high. It may be that the best part of the OS is the API
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Put USB pen drive in Linux. Where is it? Ah, there. Filddle with something. Loose it. Where is it? Climb, climb, climb the folder hierarchy until you find /whatever/media. The down, down, down to you home. Divide Dolphin. (Note: there's at least one Linux distro who reconsidered exposing the whole file tree to ordinary users - Gobo Linux)
Try Windows. All folders are what MS decided. Whatever you want is in My Documents. But, is it? Search for a item. Retarded interface (in XP, a retarded dog, even).
Use a Ma
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Thanks I will try that
Probably a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a pretty dedicated Gnome user, but I'll admit that the new shell isn't something I'm looking forward to. It's too non-traditional IMHO. Some basic designs have evolved in the computer UI world because they work very well, and this seems to be trying to shake things up for the sake of being different.
IMHO, the current Gnome UI with the taskbar replaced with a dock (I use Docky for this) is nearly perfect from a useability standpoint. Rather than major UI shakeups, what I want is polishing work. Smooth out the eye candy. Font rendering. Better artwork on default themes and icons. Performance tweaks. More work on specific apps.
All in all, the BASIC system is is perfect. Now's not the time to be changing it. Focus on the little things.
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All in all, the BASIC system is is perfect.
Crap, we were going for FORTRAN. Thanks for the feedback. Back to the drawing board, boys! :)
- Gnome Development Team
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Re:Probably a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it this way - does it really matter where things go specifically, so long as you can get there easily? Do I really care that I can find and open a picture at ~/Documents/Pictures/2010/07/28 in seven double-clicks and nearly as many context changes, or do I care that I can go to "Pictures"->"Sort by date"->double-click on today's photo in four mouse-clicks and get a more holistic view of what's on my machine at a given moment? Do I care that I can find some music at ~/Documents/Music/Artist/Album/trackname.ogg, or would I rather just be able to "Play all songs in album Foo by artist Bar"?
What you seem to be describing is a meta-data based filesystem. Believe me, I have NO issue with that. The filesystem itself I see as outdated. HOWEVER, that's not what Gnome will be acheiving with this. They're shaking up the desktop metaphor, and needlessly IMHO.
I mean, seriously, look at this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/GNOME_Shell.png [wikimedia.org]
Do you realize how much of that screen is wasted by unneeded UI clutter? And none of it is really doing some great revolution in the way we store or perceive our data. It's just goofing around and shaking things up.
As to your statement about the different between the way we perceive information on the net vs locally, I've always viewed that more as a side effect of the limitation of HTML pages. I know that personally, I can typically find something much faster, and have it presented in a cleaner fashion, if it's on my local system vs a web page. Granted, I like the centralized storage options (hence, I do use Gmail), but that goes but so far.
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True, but a metadata-based filesystem isn't going to make much sense if it's presented in a file/folder context because it's not file/folder-dependent. GNOME Shell, at least from what I'm seeing (including your screenshot) is an attempt at prese
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That entire left panel isn't there most of the time. Most of the time, you have your top bar and your active window (of which there are four showing on the right).
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Do you realize what the screenshot shows?
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Uh, I should probably link to Nepomuk [semanticdesktop.org], as Mandriva's Smart Desktop riles on it. Nepomuk is " Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge
NEPOMUK brings together researchers, industrial software developers, and representative industrial users, to develop a comprehensive solution for extending the personal desktop into a collaboration environment which supports both the personal information management and the sharing and exchange across social and organizational relat
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Think about it this way - does it really matter where things go specifically, so long as you can get there easily?
Yes. It does.
OK, for some people, maybe it doesn't. But that doesn't mean that a nice organised file/folder structure shouldn't be maintained. If I'm looking for a photo of my house for example, I'm not going to know what date it was taken, I probably haven't tagged or named it at all. How is a search based system best for that? I just want to know where it is and use the file manager to have a bit of a look. Some people may not want to deal with file systems, but I (and a lot of other people) ALWAYS wi
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Easy - run a search on all images and look through their thumbnails. That's pretty much what you're doing when
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Do I care that I can find some music at ~/Documents/Music/Artist/Album/trackname.ogg
I definitely do. It means when I put it on my mp3 player, I just throw it into the Music folder and everything's already in order and I don't have to hunt around for anything. I have a hell of a lot of music on my machine. If it's not in sensible order it's lost forever.
would I rather just be able to "Play all songs in album Foo by artist Bar"?
That works great as long as all your metadata is in order. Which, especially once
preview. (Score:2)
I've been using gnome-shell off and on again since f12. It's real easy just yum install gnome-shell
LDAP based auto-configuration of gconfd. (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone know if more of Gnome will support LDAP auto configuration?
Re:Miguel is ... (Score:4, Funny)
...and his boyfriend is pissed about where he got it from!
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Re:Havoc Pennington? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you didn't like the UI simplification that occurred in GNOME 2.0, you will positively hate the new Gnome Shell that is being introduced in GNOME 3.0. Just stick with XFCE.
Re:Havoc Pennington? (Score:4, Informative)
He is one of the main programmers of gnome-shell.
By the way, do you know what language did they use to program gnome-shell? Javascript.
Re:Havoc Pennington? (Score:4, Informative)
By the way, do you know what language did they use to program gnome-shell? Javascript.
The JavaScript is the high-level "business logic" that manipulates nodes in a scene graph to move things around on the screen. The actual scene-graph library, Clutter [wikipedia.org], is written in C and renders via OpenGL.
I think it's a pretty reasonable design decision, actually. High-level behavior in a high-level language that's easy to maintain, lower-level implementation details in efficient compiled native code. It's similar to what browser-based apps like Google Maps do, with Clutter taking the place of the HTML DOM.
Re:Havoc Pennington? (Score:4, Informative)
He is one of the main programmers of gnome-shell.
Where did you get this from and who the hell modded you Informative?
The top 10 contributors to gnome-shell since last years GUADEC was presented in the talk this year. It certainly didn't include Havoc.
If anyone would even bother to look at http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/log/ they would realize not a single commit has been made with Havocs name on it.
What's a "main programmer" anyway?
Oh well, why bother.... I'm just feeling sorry for people who thinks anything written on slashdot is even remotely true... this article certainly drew alot of crappy comments.
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I hope there are different operating "modes" for Gnome3 because that screenshot displays a huge waste of screen real estate.
Indeed. While that may be OK on a 1920x1080 or larger LCD, it looks like a horrific interface for a laptop or netbook with limited width and even more limited height.
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Why would it be ironic? regular users aren't interested in configuring a system so it's irrelevant how "easy" or "hard" it is as long as it's done automagically for their limited usage scenarios, but they are interested in *using* a system so they'll need an interface that's simple and "friendly" enough for them.
Gnome stopped being aimed at power users with version 2.0 *eight* years ago, so you really have no excuse. I'd suggest using Xfce or Openbox instead, perhaps even a tiling WM like wmii or awesome if
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Or use LXDE, in its default form it looks and feels pretty close to Win2K or XP's Classic interface, plus a few traditional Linux goodies like multiple desktops, a terminal that doesn't suck and the ability to put any and all applications in full-screen.
Best of all? it's modular enough that, if you've ever thought "gee, Windows would be great if only its $X did $Y" you can have that in less than five minutes simply by reconfiguring the appropiate program, or replacing it altogether if necessary.