OSNews

I had a different experience trying out this beta. First of all, I thought it looked really nice. They've got good graphic artists at work to provide that professional, corporate look. They're doing good with that. Install was easy and looks better than it used to, much more slick, but still with a few rough edges like starting out in text mode with the kernel boot messages, then switching to that ugly gray X background before finally starting up the gui. That kind of roughness has always bothered me, although it has no bearing at all on functionality. So, that's not a big deal.

I chose a desktop install, but added the basic development tools. This gave me far fewer choices than going with custom mode. It meant that I could not choose each and every package I wanted, but had to accept certain required packages, with the option of adding some others. This is a good way to go, I think. Someone who has never installed a Redhat system would definitely appreciate not needing to know about package dependencies and such.

When it came time to configure X, the only thing I had to choose was my monitor, as my video card and memory were accurately probed. Very nice. No fuss at all about configuring X.

I originally chose to install both KDE and Gnome, but then I removed KDE after trying it out because it didn't have the same integration as Gnome and I really don't think they should include it at all except maybe as an extra on one of the other CDs. The new gdm login screen looks really beautiful, and a newbie never has to see the text mode login except for a split second before the X server starts up (one of those remaining rough edges).

You get a nice introductory screen on the first boot that helps you to set up your time zone and such. The time zone selector is nice, you just click on your location on a map, and it sets it for you.

Then, when Gnome finally starts up, you wait. And wait. The splash screen pops up. Then the background turns blue. Then it turns gray. You wait some more. It turns blue again as the Gnome panel appears. But it's not done, because Nautilus hasn't started yet. As Nautilus starts, the background gets funky blocks on it, then the desktop icons appear, and finally there is a bright picture of a dragonfly on the background. It looks utterly beautiful. Everything looks really good. Fonts are antialiased and I can see that maybe Gnome does have a future at last (after a couple years of being really skeptical).

But there is definitely a lot of work yet. Everything crawls. Nautilus windows take at least 5 seconds to open on my AMD K6 450--yes, my hardware's getting old, but KDE3 on FreeBSD flies by comparison. They've done some nice things with the control center though, it's well organized with much fewer options, finally. I never thought having one-zillion-and-one options made for good usability, that's one of my pet peeves about KDE still. But why are the system tools separate from the control panel? Most of them, like the display and network configurators, for example, would probably fall under the category of "control panel type things", wouldn't they? So, I wasn't too impressed with that. Also, the gnome menu is set up in a weird manner. Gnome applications go under all the usual entries, like Internet, Office, Accessories...but everything that isn't a Gnome app goes under All Applications->Internet...and so on. Confusing to someone who doesn't know the difference between a Gnome app and a "Redhat" app.

Gnome is severely lacking in some basic functionality as well. It comes with Mozilla as the default browser, but in what way does Mozilla integrate with Gnome? Not at all. A totally different look and feel with ugly fonts. Galeon is available, but it still uses Gtk-1.x. So it doesn't integrate either. And for viewing pdf files you get xpdf! Ugh. I'm used to viewing pdfs and ps files embedded into Konqueror with Kghostview. I want embedded components because I've gotten used to it with KDE. I don't want to take a step backwards with Gnome in this respect.

So, while Gnome has certainly improved, as has Redhat by integrating their tools nicely into it, it still is missing lots of functionality that I'm used to having and I don't want to live without anymore. I don't know how long it will take for them to get to the point where I feel it Just Works, but it's definitely not there yet in all areas. However, great strides have been taken and they are definitely on their way. It is not a Windows killer just yet, though.