One and a half months after its original beta launch, GnomeFiles, our GTK+ software repository, is now proclaimed v1.0. There are a few things still to do on the Developer’s section (e.g. let devs upload application icons directly to our server), but the user’s front-end is now feature complete.
GnomeFiles Achieves 1.0, Officially
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Wow, really nice site there. I wish there was something like this back in the day when I used linux/gnome… I’m still playing with the idea of installing gtk on my mac, but don’t wish to break anything just yet
Wow, bebits for linux … what more can i say.
just wondering because it would be a shame to have to run out and get all the deps from other sites.
A really great site. Even though I use portage to install all of my software, I still use the site to check out information on new GNOME applications I have not yet had the opportunity to try. Monkey Bubble rocks!
–Chris
That was the idea. To *be* like BeBits, and even extend further from the original BeBits design in certain aspects.
bebits? what’s that?
“but the user’s front-end is now feature complete.”
Sounds like a debate over the interface and it’s style is very much “on topic”.
I apologize, thanks for moding the other comments down.
The front-end is feature complete indeed. I have no plans adding more features to the front-end (I do have for the back end though), the code is really heavy as it is. I do have ideas of my own adding things, but I won’t add them, because that would require even more SQL queries and I don’t want to eat up the CPU again as GnomeFiles did with our previous server (we had to upgrade 2 weeks ago to a dual Xeon 2.8 GHz from a 1.3 GHz Celeron because the addition of Gnomefiles to the co-hosted OSNews site (which is not as heavy, but way more popular) added a lot of load, EVEN if we cache a lot of data). So yeah, you can fire up feature requests, but except if they are really trivial or non-sql-query bound, they won’t get implemented.
Any chance of maybe getting an RSS feed of the recently released or updated apps? That would rock…
Hmm, isn’t the RDF one working with your client?
Whats the address to the .rdf?
It’s on the bottom of every gnomefiles page, as it is on osnews. Something tells me that you didn’t try to look for it. 😉
ohhh so thats what those little icons at the bottom are for
i was looking at the text below them looking for a link heh. sorry
wow yeah that works great, it’s like having your feature implemented on demand, oh and i wasn’t aware i could get to osnews from my phone. So yeah take back my bickering earlier, you rock.
Since you are making money advertising open-source software, are you going to open-source the codebase for the site? I’d be interested in looking at it for sure.
http://www.bebits.com
It was (still is!) an unofficial repository of applications/drivers/etc for the Be Operatiing System.
First of all, nobody really makes money off Gnomefiles.org. The single ad that’s hosted there barely pays for its bandwidth and cpu/server time (especially with the 8,000 pageviews per day that gnomefiles.org does, that doesn’t create any significant revenue). If there’s any money left (which I doubt), that goes to the owner of Gnomefiles.org, which is NOT me. I did not and do not getting paid for my work at gnomefiles or even at osnews. What you see there, is my work out of love for the project, it is NOT a commercial experiement of any sorts.
The code of gnomefiles will not get open sourced at this time for security and other reasons (competition, sucky code that I am not proud of etc). I first wrote the core of that code in 2001 when I was still learning PHP (I was coming from an ASP background) and the code is not something that would help anyone to learn anything from it (except maybe some array tricks in one of the source files, I could certainly publish that particular code as it might be of help to some newbies, but the rest is really not worthwhile
.
It would be nice if GnomeFiles would provide statically-linked software.
Victor.
We don’t provide anything apart from web presense, the developers provide the rest.
We don’t provide anything apart from web presense, the developers provide the rest.
I know…
So i see 2 ways of accomplishing that:
1. Motivate (somehow) the developers to provide statically-linked software.
2. Create a group of interested people to take these softwares, statically-link them, and provide them at GnomeFiles.
Victor.
How about encouraging the use of Zero Install?
All these applications have the same basic dependencies. Now that Debian and Fedora packages are avaliable for the Zero Install system why not? It would even be easy to define a new MIME type for ZI URIs that can associated with a small handler program (like run ‘rox <URI>’) and have something like Click ‘n Run that is fully cross-distro!
How about encouraging the use of Zero Install?
All these applications have the same basic dependencies. Now that Debian and Fedora packages are avaliable for the Zero Install system why not? It would even be easy to define a new MIME type for ZI URIs that can associated with a small handler program (like run ‘rox <URI>’) and have something like Click ‘n Run that is fully cross-distro!
I think solving dependencies at install-time is tricky… but anyway i didn’t know there was Zero Install for Debian packages; do you have a link?
Victor.
http://zero-install.sourceforge.net/install.html
DEBs & RPMs of the ZI system . . .
GnomeFiles is actually the perfect jumping off point for supplying a distribution-neutral packing scheme for popular Gnome applications.
You’d need a group of volunteers, though, to go through the database and start autopackaging or zero installing everything.
cool
We know where right
What ever technology is used for this end what IS needed is a very simple user friendly user level interface to the installers (think Click n’ Run). It needs to be cross platform, have a security mechanism and be startable from a Web link.
Nice job, Eugenia. Great site.
Well, I am willing to try if there are such people who can start packaging stuff. I will be willing to create a new database field for contributed autopackages, but I don’t think that there will be as many people as needed building this stuff.
There should be an option for an autopackage install for the packages included on the GnomeFiles site.
Yes I know there aren’t any autopackage installs for 99.9% of the packages on the site, but even a line saying: “autopackage install… not yet avaliable for this package” would be a pleasant reminder to those developers submitting their package to GnomeFiles that they should consider writing autopackage installations scripts for their software.
This IS already available. It just needs the developer to link to the autopackage and give it a description as such. It is the same as adding new download locations, you just link to an autopackage and say that it is so.
As I said, the feature is there, it just needs the developers to actually create an autopackage (or others create the autopackage and give the developer a url in order to post it — remember, we can’t host any package files on gnomefiles.org, we are not sourceforge).
Well, I am willing to try if there are such people who can start packaging stuff. I will be willing to create a new database field for contributed autopackages, but I don’t think that there will be as many people as needed building this stuff.
I would like to try that… i could give some help. Anybody else?
Victor.
autopackage api ain’t stable!
autopackage api ain’t stable!
Well, so we could be testing it, giving new ideas, at the same time distributing the packages at GnomeFiles.
Victor.
I really prefer using gtk applications whenever possible, I’m sure other people are like-minded, is there an option to filter by GTK version? If not, I think it could be useful.
Rather, make that “I really prefer using gtk-2.x applications whenever possible”
Most of the apps posted there are for 2.x. Only about 2-5% are 1.2.x, so I don’t think it warrants a feature just for this small percentage.
That’s fine I suppose, thanks for listening though.
Wow, Real Player is a GTK application what a nice surprise.
http://images.freshmeat.net/screenshots/8882.png