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GNOME GUI

Stirring The GNOME Fires 261

Posted by Hemos from the battles-rage-on dept.
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."
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Stirring The GNOME Fires More

Stirring The GNOME Fires

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  • quote: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by haxor.dk ( 463614 )
    "Many would say, "Don't like it? Here's the code; fix it yourself." The Goneme Project is taking that challenge, and building GNOME differently. The project is aimed at a totally different user base: the long-time GNOME user who needs more options. Any claim by either GNOME or Goneme to be "better" really depends on what one likes.

    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)

      by endx7 ( 706884 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @10:55AM (#9852310) Homepage Journal

      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)

        by gnu-generation-one ( 717590 )
        "Um, am I missing the point, or does the last author completely forget KDE and others ? You already have the freedom, silly."

        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)

          by Mornelithe ( 83633 )
          The thing is, a lot of complaints people have about Gnome were brought about through conscious decisions by the people in charge. Some people don't like the fact that more and more settings are getting pushed into gconf-editor, or eliminated altogether.

          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)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      You already have the freedom, silly.

      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
      • >Are you suggesting that your freedom is limited to picking between the projects of others?

        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)

          by B'Trey ( 111263 )
          The freedom to code on Gnome yourself is exactly the point that you apparently missed. Some users don't like the way Gnome is going, so they choose to write code which modifies Gnome to a way that they like it. Gnome itself doesn't want their mods, so they're grouping together and making them available as an alternative to Gnome. Some Gnome developers/users don't like that. Too bad. The freedom to do exactly that is what FOSS is all about.
    • Perhaps the authors, like the Goneme guys, simply likes Gnome more? They prefer it to KDE, and with a few tweaks to let people customize it, it would be perfect.

      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.
    • you also have the freedom to just ignore everyone else and act pig-headed.

    • Re:quote: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) *
      "Many would say, "Don't like it? Here's the code; fix it yourself."
      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

  • "Average user" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by poohsuntzu ( 753886 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @10:54AM (#9852307) Homepage
    It would seem more and more OSes and DM are going to path of "please the unsavvy users FIRST!", and thus simplifying things down to a horrid level. This not only upsets those who have followed Gnome since damn near day one, but it complicated backwards compatability when us vets have resort to the command line yet again, because a crucial tool within Gnome was 'simplified' and the power of it removed.

    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)

      by bogie ( 31020 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:09AM (#9852383) Journal
      " and thus simplifying things down to a horrid level. This not only upsets those who have followed Gnome since damn near day one"

      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)

        by dggonz ( 801889 )

        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.

      • GNOME users have done a lot of weird bashing, as have KDE users. GNOME and KDE developers (particular of the WMs and other framework components) tend not to be so flakey, though.

        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)

      by Sunspire ( 784352 )

      It would seem more and more OSes and DM are going to path of "please the unsavvy users FIRST!", and thus simplifying things down to a horrid level. This not only upsets those who have followed Gnome since damn near day one, but it complicated backwards compatability when us vets have resort to the command line yet again, because a crucial tool within Gnome was 'simplified' and the power of it removed.

      No, the entire point of the first article was that it isn't just about pleasing the newbies. As a power u

    • > when us vets have resort to the command line yet again, because a crucial tool within Gnome was 'simplified' and the power of it removed.

      Just curious, but what are these crucial tools that have been simplified and forced you back to the command line?

  • why I prefer KDE (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hostyle ( 773991 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @10:57AM (#9852325)

    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.

    • "Having said that, KDE has way more bugs/quirks than GNOME but its still easier to use."

      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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I started my first experiences with a machine which didn't let me configure X11 ...

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Learning a bunch of different ways to do something is a waste of time. A unified desktop where all the applications work the same is wonderful.

    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)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:15AM (#9852405)
    "Average users don't want complexity, and without the average user -- your boss, your Aunt Nellie and people like them -- GNU/Linux will remain a niche desktop forever."
    Well, if GNOME wants to target the "average user," then of course there will be a lot of non-average users who don't like it. If we've learned anything about the desktop, it should be that no one desktop will be ideal for everyone. I don't know why this comes as a surprise to anyone.
    • I agree, we also have the factor that if all the advanced users hate it, then who's going to develop it? I think we should keep all the cool features in there, and have differnt profiles depending on who you are. so when you start it the first time a dialog comes up and says "do you want the stripped down "easy" interface, or the full version for "advanced" users".

      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

      • "when you start it the first time a dialog comes up and says "do you want the stripped down "easy" interface, or the full version for "advanced" users"

        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)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:20AM (#9852430)
    Much of the heavy lifting of course needs to be done outside of these projects - X.org, Freedesktop.org (DBUS, HAL) etc, in order to make a desktop that "just works". People often talk up KDE reflexively yet fail to address the rot that has existed in many key apps like KOffice, which has failed to remain competitive with the alternatives. Konqueror has clearly lost the mindshare war with Mozilla but hopefully it can get some benefit from the huge swell of plugins emerging if the KDE folks are going to use the new common plugin spec (can anyone confirm?). And yes I know KHTML is in Safari, and no I don't really think it really has that much meaning for KDE users.

    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.

    • And yes I know KHTML is in Safari, and no I don't really think it really has that much meaning for KDE users

      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.
    • People often talk up KDE reflexively yet fail to address the rot that has existed in many key apps like KOffice, which has failed to remain competitive with the alternatives. Konqueror has clearly lost the mindshare war with Mozilla but hopefully it can get some benefit from the huge swell of plugins emerging if the KDE folks are going to use the new common plugin spec (can anyone confirm?). And yes I know KHTML is in Safari, and no I don't really think it really has that much meaning for KDE users.

      WTF ar

    • Konqueror has clearly lost the mindshare war with Mozilla...

      ...to users who don't use KDE or its apps on a daily basis. I'm sure most KDE users still use Konqueror, myself included.
    • Mozilla is not a GNOME application and neither is OpenOffice. Neither of them use GTK; OpenOffice doesn't use the GNOME dialogue boxes for file opening etc. and IIRC Mozilla doesn't either. They're fine applications, but don't count them as part of some GNOME vs KDE mindshare contest.

  • KISS, but allow for complexity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:21AM (#9852431) Homepage Journal
    I am all in favor of making Gnome newbie friendly - so long as it does not exclude us non-newbies.

    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.
    • Interesting analogy, but there's no way you can design a Porsche so as to enable both Mario Andretti and Aunt Tillie to both have the best possible driving experience.
    • 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.

      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
    • There is an expert mode, and it's called Gconf. I think there's also a program called gTweakUI that some people are writing for a more intuitive interface to Gconf, and to make people think it's a little less scary that Windows' registry.

      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
    • Better drives use 2 and 1, and not their brakes - they NEED 2 and 1

      Better drivers aren't driving a granny tranny in the first place :)

  • Current Trend is Good But... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GrimReality ( 634168 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:24AM (#9852443) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • This article describes, basically, the perfect way to create an interface that makes use of spatial and browser metaphors without getting anything mixed up:

      http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-1.ht ml [arstechnica.com]

      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...

    • 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.

      What's wrong with having it accessible only trough a keyboard shortcut? Do you type in the location bar with your mouse?

      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.

      Doesn't the mid

  • yet an other gnome rules kde suxors article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:24AM (#9852444)
    Thank you Tim, just what we needed.

    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)

    by tabdelgawad ( 590061 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:26AM (#9852451)
    I installed Fedora Core 2 and used it for a few days, and I must say I don't understand those who think Spatial Nautilus is a boon to new users. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of 'new' users are previous windows users, so emulating the Windows UI, even if you think it's flawed, is the only sensible way to ease the transition into Linux. I mean, how many people who are currently using Linux or are potential future users have never used Windows before?

    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?]
    • Gnome is designed with the 'newuser' in mind, but not the "switch-away-from-Windows" kind of newuser, but the "hasn't ever seen a Computer" before kind newuser. Sure this is a bit far away from reality, since the number of users that start with Linux as their first OS will be quite small. However I for one like that direction, since it focuses on doing things right and not on doing it wrong just because this other OS does it too.

      Free Software doesn't really has much to sell, so I think this is a route that
      • At one point during the 1990's, something critical changed in the computer world forever, and it is this: for any new (version of a) computer program, the number of users who have previously used either an older version of it or a different computer program within its class (OS, Office suite, Graphics suite, Internet access, etc.) *will always exceed* the number of truly 'new' users.

        Although obvious once you think about it, the implications of this fact are fundamental. For example, it means that program
        • Good point, although there's the counter-example of MS Windows/Office being "dumbed down" and "task-oriented" over the years.

          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
    • As long as the GNOME guys never strip out the file browser mode, I don't care if the default is spatial or not. I'll just use the file browser, myself. (But if I'm using someone else's computer, I'll just use spatial for a moment; it's not like that is hard.)

      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
      • I loved the old Nautilus version I had that had viewer modes -- with a tree option on the left much like the old Finder views.

        I miss that Nautilus... I want it back
        • I miss that Nautilus... I want it back

          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
          • For what its worth, I'd already found that but thanks -- I was actually refering to that *version* of Nautilus -- it had several other features that are now missing.

            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)

      by fnj ( 64210 )
      I don't understand those who think Spatial Nautilus is a boon to new users. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of 'new' users are previous windows users, so emulating the Windows UI, even if you think it's flawed, is the only sensible way to ease the transition into Linux.

      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
      • 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 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

  • Disagreement is often ultimately productive (Score:3, Interesting)

    by resiak ( 583703 ) <willNO@SPAMwillthompson.co.uk> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:27AM (#9852453)
    So, basically, some people think that GNOME is going about things the wrong way, and are in the process of forking the project. Every time this happens, people have to be reminded that forking a project is usually productive in the long term. Take XFree86, for example. Months ago, the X.org fork was created in response to a collection of issues (the closed development model, and the licence changes, to name a couple). The object was to create a more dynamic (excuse my buzzword) project, quickly incorporating improvements to the codebase supplied by anyone. Fast-forward to today, and their fork is becoming the de facto standard, with XFree86 proper on the verge of disappearance; Darwin in action. I'm not an EMACS user, but I understand that the Lucid fork concentrates on new features, while the GNU version adopts a more considered approach. In that case, both versions have found their own niche.

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Eleanor Rigby
    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)

    by qtp ( 461286 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:14PM (#9852687) Journal
    The enormous amount of buzz about Gnome (and alternatively, about KDE) most often ignores the idea that perhaps there is no one way to serve all users with a single desktop (window manager, application suite, etc) and there is an inherent (although subtle) hostility directed towards other means of acheivin g the same end.

    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.

    • 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

      Yeah, way too many resources. When my average CPU load creeps up to 2%, I panic!

  • loyalty to Gnome (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rebel ( 27002 )
    I have used Gnome from its beginning. It was a good answer to Qt's license. As a plus, it is written in C vs. C++ and the object model appeared more future focused.

    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

    • "Times have changed. The license is not an issue anymore..."

      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.

  • Gnome, apple, Gentoo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dash2 ( 155223 ) <davidhughjones&gmail,com> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:11PM (#9852987) Homepage Journal
    I think the push Gnome made for user friendliness is fabulous, and like the first article author I switched to Gnome a few months ago.

    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 ... but even I think spatial nautilus is stoopid.

    • I don't understand where you're getting this from.

      Installing software on Gentoo isn't:
      tar jxf foo.tbz2
      cd foo-2.0 ./configure
      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 .dll files in all the appropriate directories herself. There are installers for Windows, a
      • I don't think gentoo is bad in itself. It's (relative, not absolute) popularity is a bad *sign* because it suggests that non-techie people are not coming to Linux. (Because they wouldn't use gentoo). Yes, I agree that advanced distros have a place. (Debian is my choice.)

        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

  • Slashdot app critic MadLibs (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr_Icon ( 124425 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:48PM (#9853203) Homepage
    I never used ${APPLICATION}, but I thought I would ${ACTION} it after reading about it on ${NEWS_SITE}. The very first impression was that ${COMPONENT} was taking way too ${SPEED} to ${ACTION}, and I don't know why the ${THEOLOGICAL_CONCEPT} they made the ${COMPONENT} use the ${UI_CONCEPT}, unless they were all ${ALTITUDE} on ${ILLICIT_SUBSTANCE}.

    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)

    by timotten ( 5411 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @03:00PM (#9853578) Homepage
    It's been said [jwz.org] that "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."

    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?

  • Truth may be in the middle (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Florian ( 2471 ) <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @04:57PM (#9854225) Homepage
    Disclaimer: I use neither Gnome, nor KDE, but a radical console-centric non-desktop setup with the ratpoison window manager, but nevertheless eagerly follow desktop/GUI development because I want to see more mainstream adoption of GNU/Linux.

    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:

    1. Gnome creates the "advanced settings" switch and wraps all gconf options into extended configuration dialogue boxes.
    2. KDE does the same from the reverse angle by thoroughly cleaning up and streamlining its user interface, putting all expert settings into separate "advanced settings" dialogues.

    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.

    • Years ago I was on the Gnome GUI mailing list and posted numerous statements along the lines of "advanced users should be allowed to do what they want to do in the GUI" and "beginning users shouldn't be confronted with things they don't need or care about".

      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
  • Maybe they should modify the GConf editor to be more graphical like a control panel to suit those "expert" users. That way you have the best of both worlds without modfying GNOME hugely.
    • Turning gconf-editor "more graphical" without reducing the amount of options it can handle would just turn it even harder to use.

      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)

    by dh003i ( 203189 ) <dh003i@gmail. c o m> on Sunday August 01, 2004 @02:45AM (#9856572) Homepage Journal
    So, GNOME has decided to take a more simple approach. How is this a bad thing? Does every desktop/WM out there have to cater to hard-core Linux geeks? If your an advanced user, there are plenty of advanced windows managers and desktops for you. KDE has options and configurability up the wazoo. KDE too bloated? You can use Ion, or Pwm, along with Xfce. You can also use WindowMaker, OpenBox, BlackBox, and a plethora of others WMs and desktops.

    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.

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