Today, the GNOME team has released GNOME 2.28. It builds on the solid foundation laid out by all the previous releases, and adds in a number of new features and improvements, on top of all the bug fixes and performance improvements, of course.
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Member since:
2005-09-21
Congrats to Gnome on the release.
Something's up with the fonts on the first screenshot that makes it look pretty awful. Either it's been resized or the hinting is broken.. Not sure but it doesn't make a good first impression.
The tech behind empathy (telepathy) is coming along nicely. It's very quickly becoming the way to create connectivity applications, and we're looking at using it at work for some projects. Very cool stuff.
One bug users may experience in Epiphany, due to the change to WebKit, is not being able to save logins and passwords in forms. This bug will be fixed during the 2.30 development cycle.
Yikes. That's a pretty significant regression. Why was this not a showstopper for the release? I'm sure users could have dealt with gecko for another 6 months. Not being able to save passwords would make me ditch a browser for sure.
Otherwise some nice tweaks. Special kudos for the accessibility work, this is an area that is sorely lacking in most other open source projects.
Member since:2008-12-26
Something's up with the fonts on the first screenshot that makes it look pretty awful. Either it's been resized or the hinting is broken.. Not sure but it doesn't make a good first impression.
Clearly the image has been resized.
One bug users may experience in Epiphany, due to the change to WebKit, is not being able to save logins and passwords in forms. This bug will be fixed during the 2.30 development cycle.
Yikes. That's a pretty significant regression. Why was this not a showstopper for the release? I'm sure users could have dealt with gecko for another 6 months. Not being able to save passwords would make me ditch a browser for sure.
Some would argue that Epiphany bugs shouldn't prevent a full Gnome release when everyone on Linux is using Firefox anyway.
Member since:2007-03-13
Member since:2009-04-08
Not everyone uses Firefox on Linux. I don't use it exclusively, on any OS.
Where are the numbers that prove that 100% of desktop Linux users run Firefox exclusively?
Now if you had said Ubuntu users, that may be a different animal altogether (no offense meant towards Ubuntu).
Member since:2008-12-26
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2006-01-18
Member since:
2005-07-06
I think one of the biggest things that got me excited is this:
GNOME is now hooked into the fast developing rendering and javascript support - as much as some here love Ghecko, I for one am happy to see it go. In the future it'll mean that new technologies will make their way quicker into Webkit (especially when it comes to acid test results) and better support for Google services.
Hopefully they'll speed up the removing of deprecated parts so that the installation of GNOME becomes smaller and less parts reliant on rickety components.
Edited 2009-09-24 02:12 UTC
Member since:
2006-03-26
Member since:
2009-08-19
I like how the GNOME improvement process performs.
Focused, and nice, but noticeable. Without wasting energy on meaningless changes, and without willing to break up all on each release, but replacing/improving internal key components whenever it is convenient and possible.
However, despite of all the pleasant experience with 2.16 - 2.28 release history, I'm kind of stressed thinking that 3.0 will be sort of a hell of new-everything where I won't know how to use almost anything. Vista and KDE 4.0 are traumatic instances. Hopefully GNOME will not commit the same mistake.
Edited 2009-09-24 09:15 UTC
Member since:2005-11-10
I doubt it. Most of the applications' user interface will remain the same. The major change will lie in the window manager, and you could still use the old one, so no problem there.
Member since:2009-08-19
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2007-12-16
Member since:2005-06-29
Or, you read the release notes:
Member since:
2008-12-09
So they remove icons and ...
http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.28/figures/gnome-2.28...
Checkout the *size* of epiphany's icons.
must be like 8x bigger than firefox's.
yes ok, they're probably optional, but most people agreed that icons were a good thing, just needed to be smaller in some cases, or better placed.
I'd also add:
"One bug users may experience in Epiphany, due to the change to WebKit, is not being able to save logins and passwords in forms. "
Switching backend and lose such key functionality sounds rather stupid to me. Of course, everyone uses Firefox so they don't care. But that's one of the reasons I suppose.
"Due to improvements in VTE, GNOME Terminal users will notice much less memory is used."
That one is nice.
Member since:
2008-09-11
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Member since:2006-02-15
Member since:2007-02-17
Yes, Webkit was started with using KHTML as the base, but as far as I know they are very different beasts nowadays and don't really have anything in common anymore. As such they are two very different projects now.
They always were different projects ... but that is not the meaning of "derivative".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derived_work
A derivative work pertaining to copyright law, is an expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work.
As long as webkit still includes some KHTML code, which it does, then it will be a derivative work of KHTML.
Edited 2009-09-24 13:05 UTC
Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:
2008-10-23
I'm curious, are there people using it anyway?
I don't get what is the point of Epiphany. We already have Midori as a fast webkit based browser and Firefox as a full featured browser.
Originally, when firefox didn't use gtk, Epiphany was smaller while still giving most of the features of Firefox. But now Firefox uses native widget and they've broken accessibility on Epiphany. It's no more than Midori, so what is the point?
Anyway, it looks like a great GNOME release.
Edited 2009-09-24 12:36 UTC
Member since:2005-06-30
I don't get what is the point of Epiphany. We already have Midori as a fast webkit based browser and Firefox as a full featured browser.
Originally, when firefox didn't use gtk, Epiphany was smaller while still giving most of the features of Firefox. But now Firefox uses native widget and they've broken accessibility on Epiphany. It's no more than Midori, so what is the point?
Anyway, it looks like a great GNOME release.
AFAIK, Mozilla has used gtk for the past ten years. Galeon and later Epiphany existed for the same reason that Camino and K-Meleon existed; the suite contained features that people didn't need, and it didn't look native on any platform. Firefox changed that (although one could make the argument that it is more bloated than Seamonkey these days). So Epiphany exists as something that the Gnome guys can maintain independently, and integrate as they see fit into their DE.
Midori is going to be part of Xfce.
Member since:2008-12-29
I don't get what is the point of Epiphany. We already have Midori as a fast webkit based browser and Firefox as a full featured browser.
Midori is a user interface nightmare. (or at least was last time I had the package installed)
Originally, when firefox didn't use gtk, Epiphany was smaller while still giving most of the features of Firefox. But now Firefox uses native widget and they've broken accessibility on Epiphany. It's no more than Midori, so what is the point?
Anyway, it looks like a great GNOME release.
No No No. Firefox is not native GTK, it looks similar, but it is not using GTK. Evidence? Try the menus, submenus to be specific, move the mouse on a diagonal to select a submenu item from the main menu, GTK works right, Firefox doesn't. It may be using GDK to do the drawing at some level, but it isn't GTK.
Epiphany is much more than Midori, it is a well designed clean browser, as it was when it was Galeon, or at least as Galeon was before Epiphany was started due to developer differences.
Member since:2006-11-07
Member since:
2005-07-06
Congratulations to GNome team. You are one step closer to good desktop experience. GNome 2 onwards you have shown a great improvement in desktop side. Also you are becoming day by day more popular. I'll also say that KDE is jump from 3.5 to 4 actually helped GNOME gain some user and now most the users are still sticking gnome and are not jumping back to KDE4.
The current work GNOME team is putting is assuring that KDE users are sticking to GNome.
Only thing that puzzles me is why one more brower (Epiphany) when we already have Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror and soon Chrome...! Also there will be extensions and pluings to manage the Epiphany.
Member since:
2009-09-16
Member since:
2005-11-27
But I am more worried about Gnome 3.0
I think 6 month is far too short period for a new major release... If they release 3.0 in 6 month
1. Not future safe api's or concept
2. Not well enough tested
3. Not enough time to get radical changes in upstream libraries and such
I think a gnome 3.0 "deserve" 2 year development cycle, otherwise it will deliver too litle and to bad quality.
Member since:2005-07-14
Member since:2005-11-27
I think 6 month is far too short period for a new major release... If they release 3.0 in 6 month ...
Next release is 2.30 not 3.0 "
You are wrong, to quote gnome
"The final decision whether GNOME 2.30 (to be released in March 2010) or GNOME 2.32 (scheduled for September 2010) will become GNOME 3.0 will be made in early November 2009. This decision will be based on the progress of new and current GNOME applications and libraries and their impact on accessibility, stability and usability."
Gnome has said that probably 2.30 or maybe 2.32 is to be Gnome 3.0.
But what I really said was that a 6 month is a far too short period to develop a major version, not that Gnome 3.0 would be released in 6 month, which I strongly doubt.
Member since:2005-11-11
If 3.0 is all about taking 2.30 (or 2.32) and calling it 3.0, what is the point? It's just the name? For marketing?
Just curious what there motivation is for a major version number jump when it could just as easily be 2.30. "They don't do major disruptive jumps like KDE" is fine, but again, if it isn't a major jump, why the major version number change?
Member since:2005-07-06
Just curious what there motivation is for a major version number jump when it could just as easily be 2.30. "They don't do major disruptive jumps like KDE" is fine, but again, if it isn't a major jump, why the major version number change?
3.0 will remove deprecated functionality from the 2.x series, thus breaking backward compatibility. One motivation of this is to enable future developments which are not possible within the old 2.x infrastructure.
Member since:
2009-06-09