GNOME 2.20.2 has been released. “This is the second update to GNOME 2.20.0. The update fixes all known and unknown bugs and crashers.” Not a whole lot more to say on this one.
GNOME 2.20.2 has been released. “This is the second update to GNOME 2.20.0. The update fixes all known and unknown bugs and crashers.” Not a whole lot more to say on this one.
The update fixes all known and unknown bugs and crashers
perfect code?!?! I’ve been waiting for someone to finally write some!
yeah, well it took them THREE releases to get it right. yeesh, can’t even get it right the first time. tsk, tsk.
Attempting to confirm – hmm, does anyone know an unknown bug I can test to see if it’s really been fixed? I can’t seem to think of any right now…
LOL…Me neither.
Will there be a major revamp, sort of like KDE is having its major 4.0 release, what about Gnome?
Dream on…
They just told you it’s perfect, why do you want a revamp?
They just told you it’s perfect, why do you want a revamp?
because it’s not both consistent and complete. it can’t even account for its own existence on its own terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleten…
Edited 2007-11-29 19:56
If it would be as messy as the kde4 effort has been, then I sincerely hope not. I really don’t think that Gnome needs such a rewrite to get the features that a desktop needs.
> a rewrite
to be straight on the matter, it’s hardly been a rewrite.
Exactly.
KDE just don,t get it.
Why add bloat and complexity to a file manager just so a user can choose between copying and moving a file, especially when you can just open another app that can do just that?
Everyone is just so fortunate that the developers realise that anything other than brown,grey & beige look totally unprofessional and therefore decided to protect users from theirselves by outlawing all offending colours.
Printers are so smart these days there is no need to tell them how to do their job.
Then theres the icing on the cake. Gconf, a product of the gnome usability guidelines that makes it easy for anyone to rebel against the party line and customise ANYTHING they can think of.
This fantastic foresight of the developers combined with great gnome apps such as Firefox and Nautilus (?) have resulted in the best OS on the planet for casual emailing and web browsing. No other OS on the planet caters to their target audience as well as gnome.
Why would anyone want to use KDE? KDE4 is full of bugs and the beta has already been released. If they could get rid of ALL bugs like gnome has done and had apps like Nautilus that NEVER EVER crashed, perhaps I could understand why two thirds of Linux users used it. If only they knew what was best for them.
Your sarcasm would have been as perfect as the unknown-bug-squashing GNOME code if not for your reference to GNOME as an OS and not a DE.
Then again, perhaps that was part of the joke and I am not as sharp as I first thought.
“KDE4 is full of bugs and the beta has already been released.”
Don’t you mean KDE 4.0?
Edited 2007-11-30 15:10
Hmmm try to boot in init level 3, then start Gnome, see if it still complains about DBUS issues, screen saver works, etc. Oh and please check whether USB keys are mounted and fully readable/writeable as if you started with init 5 and GDM.
Please… will you?
Thanks!
Errm how is you not having hal and dbus enabled in runlevel 3 considered a bug?
I know I know
It’s an ‘Error 40’ – the error resides 40 centimetres from the monitor
Solution: Replace user
That should be independent of the runlevel really. In fact, there is a bug against GDM I believe describing just that.
It’s just that its considered to be a safe practice in some circles to start with runlevel 3 and start whatever graphical desktop manager / environment user wants.
I’d obviously like that to work.
You still don’t get it. hal and dbus are separate services that provide some of that functionality. They are not directly related to Gnome or GDM in any way whatsoever. And quite frankly, if I were to start Gnome and it took it upon itself to go enabling other services that I did not explicitly turn on, Gnome would be quickly getting the hell off my hard drive.
Well, I knew of an unknown bug once, but then it wasn’t.
I dunno about unknown bugs, but I can give you advance notice of all unplanned outages. 🙂
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3115
So, no GNOME 2.x.3 this time, I presume?
Yes, if someone files a bug report against 2.20.2 then you can safely denounce them as a lier. Everything was fixed.
gnome is awesome
I was expecting fast-user-switch-applet’s bugs to be fixed to it seems that no change has been made to it :-(. FUSA on ubuntu 7.10 has the bad habit of killing your session if you switch back and forth between two users.
There was an update to Internet Explorer 6 a few years ago that basically said the same thing.
“This update eliminates all previously addressed security
vulnerabilities, as well as any newly discovered vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. Download now to protect your computer from these vulnerabilities.”
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
————————–
This release is a highly stable. Crashers should not be reported as
these only occur during the planned crash time.
Does this mean that Gnome is time-bombing their installs?!
I really with they would fix nautilus. I’ve already filed multiple different crashers all related to file operations. I love gnome but nautilus makes it a bit less usable. Hopefully they will be fixed with the migration from gnome-vfs to gvfs/gio.
This is the second update to GNOME 2.20.0. The update fixes all known and unknown bugs and crashers.
Homage to Donald Rumsfeld [1]?
– Gilboa
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_unknown
… well, I thought it was funny
Nobody knows it but it’s there.
The gnome foot only has 4 toes.
No, it’s the next step in evolution!
Does anyone know why it was chosen to be the GNOME trademark?
GNOME is (about) a decade old now but is still missing simple desktop functionality that was present in Win95. Some of the biggest missing features are
PRINTER INK LEVEL MONITORING
The GNOME print tool needs to let interface with libinklevel, escpd etc. so that users can check printer ink levels without logging in as root and typing esoteric commands. Very common desktop task still not catered for!
GUI REMOVABLE DISC FORMATTING TOOL
There is still no easy, graphical way to format removable USB and firewire drives under both GNOME and KDE! You should just be able to right-click on the discs icon then choose ‘Format’. I think HAL needs some new functionality for this
PIXEL PRECISE DESKTOP ICON PLACEMENT
OK, so this is just a niggle this one but it does annoy me that icons get snapped to a low-res grid on the desktop instead of staying where you want place them.
Any think of any more basic stuff like this?
Printer ink level monitoring works fine for me – because its the printer drivers that provide the information/UI not the desktop environment. I can easily tell how much ink is in my network attached Brother 560CN, thanks to their most excellent linux support.
Agreed formatting needs love, I seem to remember a planet gnome post about bringing the floppy-format tool into the 21st century, not sure what happened with that. Gnome Parted (gParted) can do formatting, though it’s hardly the ideal tool to use for simple removable media.
As for pixel precise icon placement, doesn’t bother me, Nautilus handles all the crap I save to the desktop just fine
There is still no easy, graphical way to format removable USB and firewire drives under both GNOME and KDE! You should just be able to right-click on the discs icon then choose ‘Format’. I think HAL needs some new functionality for this
Atleast that one doesn’t seem very difficult. I might whip up a simple GUI for such later on today, just for the heck of it
It’s not a very common need and it could cause serious damage (ie. unknowledgeable user could potentially delete all of his/her files on the media) but that could be alleviated by giving clear warning to the user before applying any changes..
“GNOME is (about) a decade old now but is still missing simple desktop functionality that was present in Win95. Some of the biggest missing features are […]
PIXEL PRECISE DESKTOP ICON PLACEMENT”
The more I think of it now, the more upset I get. Why have they kept PIXEL PRECISE DESKTOP ICON PLACEMENT away from us for this long? Don’t they want Linux to succeed? Do they want people to run Windows 95 instead?
Their failure to deliver PIXEL PRECISE DESKTOP ICON PLACEMENT is not only an insult to the PIXELs making up the DESKTOP ICONs, it is also a serious usability issue, because you have absolutely no control where your ICONs are PLACEd.
This is PRECISEly why 2007 wasn’t the year of Linux Desktop — we had no PIXEL PRECISE DESKTOP ICON PLACEMENT.
It’s funny how they pick one feature on send the whole desktop environment back to WIN95 days. I’ll ignore the win95 icons in Wordpad and the font installer in Vista then.
Perhaps MS figured that because this functionality has been working well for so long, they didn’t need to fix it. Some of Gnome’s missing features have been missing since the beginning (like the aforementioned per pixel icon placement) The two are not even comparable. comparing the functionality of the font installer in Vista (which works just fine, but is ugly) and the entire lack of a proper pixel placement in Gnome and KDE (I am a KDE user, so in this case I am not biased), is comapring apples to oranges.
Well sending GNOME back to win95 days just on one feature is wrong. I mentioned Vista like that because if your going to do a revamp do it proper not half arsed.
Really though, who cares about per pixel icon placement, icon placement on the desktop is so last century and I’d rather setup a panel for my icons.
I thought this was an option in the right -click menu. Something like “don’t align” or “Keep aligned”. Half of the complaints about gnome are things that are already there but might be hidden or the user hasn’t taken the time to actually use the stupid thing. Before you talk about a missing feature that is so obviously there how about doing a google search. It may keep you from looking like a fool. Not that I’m calling you a fool but I’m just saying.
BTW, align to grid/keep aligned is the default in Vista and XP. So you totally lost on that one. I’m sure you figured out how to turn that feature off and its not even as obvious in XP as it is in gnome. Wow talk about taking an L.
Edited 2007-11-29 14:09
Yes, it works fine, GNOME > Windows 95.
Interesting you mention KDE suffers from this, as proper pixel placement works just fine for me in KDE.
Good, so use KDE if that feature matters to you. That’s why we have a choice on the Linux desktop. I hope that people who say “there should be only one” pay attention.
“Good, so use KDE if that feature matters to you. That’s why we have a choice on the Linux desktop. I hope that people who say “there should be only one” pay attention.”
I do use KDE, and that feature doesn’t matter to me. My post was simply to correct the previous poster, not to say “there should be only one”.
I really wish that “you” would pay attention!
Well, Gnome does not lack proper pixel placement. You just have to uncheck an option in the desktop’s right-click menu. I’m sure that’s also true for KDE.
Now, wtf!?
Who keeps modding me down. Since my spat with Cyclops all my posts are being systematically modded down.
The parent post of this post is neither offensive, nor off-topic. Nor does it contain spam of any kind.
Geez kids, grow up!
@dylansmrjones
[ebuild N ] gnome-base/gnome-2.20.1 USE=”cdr cups dvdr ldap -accessibility -esd -mono”
As you brought up a thread thats only a couple of months old. I thought you might want to visit your former glory.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/18981/GNOME-2.20.2-Released/ …just so its easy to find.
Want to play again sometime. Thank you for providing me with a rare example to show that those precious mod points matter little, and why I am so smug and self-assured in my comments. I of course expect you to mod me up with a double helping of points, because you know it perfectly fits the criteria. A “your the *greatest*” wouldn’t hurt either.
-edit-
To talk about pants and victory dances
-edited for added smugness-
Perhaps you want to try and analyze your original statement, and in light of this topic, and have a look at my replies in the thread and think what was happening, and why this version seems to be hitting portage quicker…If you can’t think of an answer perhaps you should look at my informed replies.
Edited 2007-11-30 00:15
You just got a positive mod point.
Your use flags are screwed though
– you forgot to add accessibility, esd and mono to /etc/make.conf (no Gnome without those, plz).
However, read the quote you posted.
I’m not claiming Gnome 2.20 wouldn’t go stable until February. I specifically wrote that Gnome wouldn’t go stable until February 2008 IF the devs took equally long with Gnome 2.20 as they did with 2.18.
It’s a conditional statement and since Gnome 2.20 took shorter time to stabilize than Gnome 2.18 it is also ready sooner. A bit more than 2 months earlier than Worst Case Scenario. That’s not bad.
That said I’m not going to give you anything but that one mod point. Your aggressive behaviour and your arrogance is out of place as usual. I won’t comment your statement about your informed replies, for so far I haven’t seen any from you
AFAIK expat was one of the reasons for the delay of Gnome 2.18 in gentoo. I wonder if Metacity in Gnome 2.22 will come with composition available – and I’m looking forward to using Ephipany with WebKit-GTK instead of Gecko (Exit Firefox).
“That said I’m not going to give you anything but that one mod point. Your aggressive behaviour and your arrogance is out of place as usual. I won’t comment your statement about your informed replies, for so far I haven’t seen any from you
”
lol.
Aggressive:Thats hypocritical from someone, whom I foolishly got in a flame war with you, and tried several times to get out it, even apologized in the hope you would stop, but you just upped the nasty level.
Arrogance:Don’t mistake my smugness; Happyness; for *any* kind of arrogance. There are instances where I am weak, but I was quite informed then and . You went at me with such vitriol and turned out to be wrong! I will no doubt go to sleep a little easier tonight. If it the thread had been what it should have been, *a couple of respectful comments*. I wouldn’t be laughing my arse of now. Being right is not arrogance it just sometime looks like it, simply because you made me right with this level of magnitude.
Informed replies:I hope your too ashamed to comment; I would be; your comment was “mana from heaven”. It washed away that thread with one comment. It shows you how ignorant you are look at your last post.
“Your use flags are screwed though
– you forgot to add accessibility, esd and mono to /etc/make.conf (no Gnome without those, plz). ” When if you actually knew anything you would know that the little “N” in “[ebuild N ]” means I don’t have it installed. 
…are we seeing a theme here!? I expect another mod point, and two “you are the greatest”
I am not getting in another flame with you, you ain’t got it going on upstairs mate. I’m gone; I’ve nothing left to prove with you, you already went with everything you got, and I can only imagine how you feel
. Its not like your having to use character assassination to defend yourself. lol.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=18644&limit=no&threshold=… …for the memories. live em; love em.
There is nothing like winning like this, with someone who did that, in that thread. Its a beautiful day. xx
Edited 2007-11-30 01:20
Good God, man — get a life!! lol
Edited 2007-11-30 11:42 UTC
Just so the gnome people aren’t the only ones to correct you. Right Click -> Icons -> (Align To Grid) in kde and your good to go with pixel accurate icon placement.
So really, at least attempt to do something before complaining about it. Its like you haven’t even used KDE.
Just so the gnome people aren’t the only ones to correct you. Right Click -> Icons -> (Align To Grid) in kde and your good to go with pixel accurate icon placement.
I cannot believe people are talking about this.
Both Gnome and KDE have the ability to line up icons with each other in a more rigid grid, and for many people, they like their desktop icons to line up in a neat and even fashion. Microsoft obviously found this out, because they added the ability to snap icons to a grid to line them up evenly in Windows XP!
I know sometimes it’s hard to tell if people are being sarcastic or not, but for the love of God I hope you were.
By the way, there IS Pixel precise desktop Icon placement. Just turn off the “Keep Aligned” thing. Damn, I don’t know when I’d even ever use that feature, I always keep mine aligned, otherwise there would be utter chaos, CHAOS I TELL YOU!
“I know sometimes it’s hard to tell if people are being sarcastic or not, but for the love of God I hope you were.”
I couldn’t be more sarcastic.
I think I could
Actually along these same lines, where a Ink Level indicator should be is within a notification. Because quite frankly, who cares if your ink is full, it’s only if the ink is about empty that you want to know.
Anyone who honestly thinks that Windows 95 and Gnome are even in the same league don’t really remember Windows 95 very well.
Gnome 1.0 was better than Windows 95 in a lot of respects.
Though honestly, I can’t believe that anyone could even compare the two. Even KDE 1.0 was more between Windows 98 and 2000 as far as interface goes. Unfortunately that’s one of the reasons for a long time that I couldn’t use KDE, too much like Windows which I was trying to get away from! KDE 4 is looking nice though.
Pixel precise placement of icons?
Right-click on desktop, remove tag from ‘keep adjusted’ – there you are.
“The GNOME print tool needs to let interface with libinklevel, escpd etc. so that users can check printer ink levels without logging in as root and typing esoteric commands. Very common desktop task still not catered for!”
Can you explain “esoteric commands” please? 🙂
As far as I know, many inkjet printers provide ink level monitorin using their own panels (on the printer itself) or through the printer driver.
What about laser printers? Do they require a toner measurement plugin + page counter for the desktop?
What about thermo printers? Temperature monitor?
What about dotmatrix printers? Amount of tractor sheets available?
What about daisywheel printers? Meters of carbon ribbon left?
Never mind, I was just joking (for the last three ones).
“There is still no easy, graphical way to format removable USB and firewire drives under both GNOME and KDE! You should just be able to right-click on the discs icon then choose ‘Format’. I think HAL needs some new functionality for this”
I would agree if you would talk about KDE or “Windows”, but, as far as my own individual observations go, those users who use Gnome do not need such a tool, or maybe they wouldn’t use it if it’s available. On every Gnome desktop I’ve ssen in my life, a terminal was present. Most users don’t find it any complicated to “fdformat -y /dev/fd0” or “newfs da1”, because that’s much more faster that clicking around and being bothered with options that are default for the CLI tool anyway.
“OK, so this is just a niggle this one but it does annoy me that icons get snapped to a low-res grid on the desktop instead of staying where you want place them.”
I agree here. There should be no such force until you set it to be. For example, a desktop context function like “adjust icons to grid” or “switch grid off / on”, along with a dialog to set grid parameters, could be a solution here.
“Any think of any more basic stuff like this?”
Ink inside a USB device is no basic stuff. 🙂
I’d say that’s rather ‘esoteric’. Windows does that better, KDE has the same problem as Gnome does – no easy accessible gui for simply formatting a disk. Telling ppl to resort to the commandline is stupid. Just admit KDE and Gnome lack such tools, period.
If you’re comfortable with the console, why even use Gnome? Just use a window manager alone, and you’ll be really 1337.
Edited 2007-11-29 21:39
“I’d say that’s rather ‘esoteric’.”
So, in other words: Using a CLI interface is “esoteric”, okay, that’s your opinion. Can I asume that you find users typing on a keyboard being L33T h4X0R too? 🙂
“Just admit KDE and Gnome lack such tools, period.”
I could argument using the same structure that “Windows” lacks similar tools and functionalities: Tools that I find in both KDE and Gnome, and even functionalities I find in the simplest window managers. So comparing KDE or Gnome to any “Windows” does not make sense: Gnome is not “Windows”, and it will never be, I assume. Furthermore, it does not try to.
If you want to make Gnome more appealing for the newbie and the unexperienced average user, you’re completely right, of course. Such formatting tools should be part of the default GUI installation, but they would have to mention more functionalities than the “Windows” equivalent does, for example, just format, apply a file system, which file system, file system parameters etc. – just in order to get a nearly complete GUI frontent to the functionalities the underlying OS already provides with its CLI toolset. So it’s just a question how complex this mapping CLI – GUI will get.
But please take into mind that if you make things too easy, they’ll cause problems. “I just formatted my hard disk, how can I get my pictures back?” could be a typical statement.
In order to make Linux and UNIX OSes appealing to users with no Linux or UNIX experience, security barriers have been removed step by step. This should be no problem as long as a computer is used by one person only. Things like automatic login without password, automatic mounting of devices without any interaction or authorisation can (!) lead to problems. Removing usability functions from Linux and UNIX desktop systems in order to make a GUI be “just like ‘Windows'” isn’t a solution, too. But that’s just a side note.
I think you get my point, right? most average users get scared of a commandline. That’s illogical or even stupid – they apparently think a gui like the MS Registry editor is better than plain text files while in real life, both are really just the same. But that doesn’t change the point that not having an easilly accessible gui for formatting a usb stick is stupid.
Sure, most distro’s have such tools somewhere, eg in Yast or MCC – but not, as another user pointed out, in the rightmouseclick menu on a thumbdrive. Saying you can do it on the CLI is, like another person already pointed out, just like saying you don’t need a gui at all – vi takes care of everything.
“I think you get my point, right? most average users get scared of a commandline. That’s illogical or even stupid […]. But that doesn’t change the point that not having an easilly accessible gui for formatting a usb stick is stupid.”
Formatting an USB stick is something that would be really useful, just as a functionality to compress subtrees into .tar.bz2 archives or to record subtrees onto CD or DVD. I didn’t say anything that could make somebody think such a function would be completely useless. Furthermore, I said, such a functionality is highly important if you want to make Gnome applealing to the kind of average users you’ve described above (and described them correcly, as I can confirm from my individual observations).
“Sure, most distro’s have such tools somewhere, eg in Yast or MCC – but not, as another user pointed out, in the rightmouseclick menu on a thumbdrive. Saying you can do it on the CLI is, like another person already pointed out, just like saying you don’t need a gui at all – vi takes care of everything.”
If you’re a professional user or a developer, you will know that “the only tool” does not exist, as well as “the best tool”, which is determined by requirements and individual habits. There are situations where vi is the best tool for a specific user, such as most other users would prefer a GUI editor or even a complete software development kit with a common GUI frontend. If everything failes, the CLI is still there to help you out. But as you’ve described, this cannot be done by everyone, so it’s useless to expect it. Remembering a lower level interface with (usually) more options – the CLI – does not negate the need for a higher level interface – the GUI – to be used by average users in any way. CLI is just what it is: For some users, the ideal tool, for others, just scarry esotheric L33T with no sense and right to exist at all.
Average users’ everyday functionalities should not require a separated application (YaST), but should be included in the default GUI setting, for example as an entry in the context menu, or at least in a kind of storage manager. But provide a means that the system drive cannot be formatted too easily. 🙂
Finally, I hope you see we do agree.
Yes, I think we do 😉
I would agree if you would talk about KDE or “Windows”, but, as far as my own individual observations go, those users who use Gnome do not need such a tool, or maybe they wouldn’t use it if it’s available. On every Gnome desktop I’ve ssen in my life, a terminal was present. Most users don’t find it any complicated to “fdformat -y /dev/fd0” or “newfs da1”, because that’s much more faster that clicking around and being bothered with options…
I’m sorry, but I’m completely lost for words at that paragraph. I really am. I just find this sort of thinking to be brain damaged. Seriously. Why on Earth do you think people are using a desktop and any sort of a GUI in the first place?!
The desktop is a window for a user, no matter how advanced or ‘ordinary’, to get into the operating system and perform various tasks they want to do. If they can’t do certain tasks then the view from that window is severely restricted. End of story. In this area, Gnome, KDE and Unix/Linux desktops in general are just behind OS X and Windows by a long way. Hopefully stuff like HAL, Solid and various other things will improve that, but quite frankly, it’s years overdue.
“Why on Earth do you think people are using a desktop and any sort of a GUI in the first place?!”
First, you would have to ask: Which people?
Due to marketing, you could ask furthermore: Who is a certain UI intended to?
“The desktop is a window for a user, no matter how advanced or ‘ordinary’, to get into the operating system and perform various tasks they want to do.”
You stated corretly, “The desktop is a window for a user”, not the only one. When GUIs were not an essential part of an OS, users introduced theirselves to OS operations through manuals, in paper form or via the online help system of the OS. In order to do advanced tasks, you had to have advanced knowledge, too.
Today, while marketing defines which OS is successful, no matter if its capabilities justify it, the first impression is a very important element. You may know this from psychology: The first look defines anything after it. Furthermore, computers are supposed to be used by anyone, no matter if any knowledge or capability is present. Here, GUIs are the means of choice, because they claim to be the bridge over this gap.
“If they can’t do certain tasks then the view from that window is severely restricted. End of story.”
As I mentioned in another reply, such an essential functionality like formatting a drive should be part of the GUI, at least if it’s intended to be good mapping CLI – GUI.
I don’t want to repeat it here, so please read http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18981&comment_id=287676
“In this area, Gnome, KDE and Unix/Linux desktops in general are just behind OS X and Windows by a long way.”
In other areas, “Windows” is a long way behind UNIX / Linux, it’s hard to make comparisons here. But regarding GUI tools, I agree thatt KDE and Gnome need to improve in some (!) areas, while in other concerns they’re already better than “Windows”. This improvement is especially needed in order to make KDE and Gnome, and so the unterlying Linux / UNIX OS, more applealing to the average or “entry level” user.
There’s still the question if it’s intended to. Have you ever seen an IBM AS/400 setting that a Joe Q. Sixpack can set up and maintain? Have you ever seen a Jane Sixpack using a tiling window manager? 🙂
Why would you need NetworkManager when there’s a terminal and ifconfig? Why would you need Rhythmbox when there’s a terminal and mpg123?
This is assbackwards reasoning. Good luck having mom inserting a flash drive and figuring out, on her own, that she needs to a) use a terminal and b) use a command that she have no idea how to use.
Having an option in Nautilus to format removable drives would be a really good idea.
“Why would you need NetworkManager when there’s a terminal and ifconfig? Why would you need Rhythmbox when there’s a terminal and mpg123?”
What will you use when there’s no X11 working? Hey, Linux and UNIX is not MICROS~1 where there is only one “true” way of doing things. Here, it’s about choice.
“This is assbackwards reasoning. Good luck having mom inserting a flash drive and figuring out, on her own, that she needs to a) use a terminal and b) use a command that she have no idea how to use.”
As you may know, mom is not target audience for mpg123 or even NetworkManager.
One advantage of a still CLI capable GUI (Terminal) is that you can send someone a list of commands he can copy into the terminal (using the middle mouse button, you can explain it) instead of describing pictures and procedures.
But, on the other hand, why would mom use Gnome when KDE is better, regarding the functionality in question? And why would mom use Linux when “Windows” is better anyway? 🙂
Feel free to read my other replies for a better understanding of what I did say. English is not my native language, so excuse me if it wasn’t that clear.
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18981&comment_id=287679
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18981&comment_id=287676
“Having an option in Nautilus to format removable drives would be a really good idea.”
I didn’t claim anything else. The formatting function just had to take into mind that there are many possibilites how to format a removable media (just format, apply file system, which file system, which options). Then the complaining starts: Much to complicated, the user should not know. On the other hand, this would limit functionality so you needed to use the CLI if your way is not the standard way provided by the GUI. And remember the accidental element: “I’ve formatted my CF card, how can I get my ohotos back now?”
I just wanted to say that those who usually prefer Gnome (so KDE and “Windows” users are not mentioned here) are usually smart enough to get those things working on their own that are not mapped onto GUI frontends, such as formatting a disk. And, as I said, this is my very own individual observation. Maybe you know Gnome users of other kinds, I don’t claim they don’t exist.
Additionally, when there’s such a dialog for formatting drives, what about a functionality to handl shared volume archives (concatenation, continuation etc.) when accessing such a special media (for example a tar DVD)? I think this could be useful – from my very own special perspective -, but it would be more complicated to implement. Of course such operations could be mapped onto a GUI frontend, too, but sometimes the “old fashioned way” saves you from trouble.
Finally, I did agree with you and all those who supported the request of a formatting tool in Gnome. It would make things easier and help Gnome to be a competitor in Linux’s attempt to be usable by mom. 🙂
(By the way, I know a mom, she’s over 50, who uses the newfs command from the terminal. Typical sentence “I don’t have the time to look through all these menues. I’ve been a typist for 30 years, so these commands are easier to me.” She has a folder with notes next to her computer she sometimes consults if she can’t remember a certain command. But as you will agree, this is not a common case, it’s very very special.)
I can’t believe we having a discussion about CLI v GUI – have I stepped back in time or something?
“I can’t believe we having a discussion about CLI v GUI – have I stepped back in time or something?”
We don’t have such a discussion, simply because it would make no sense. We’re just discussing different points of view and individual obervations, nothing more, nothing less. Try to re-read and understand, sorry.
I think you need re-read and understand!
But in this case there is no choice since there’s no GUI way to format removable media. I cant chose between the CLI way and the GUI way.
Trust me, I have no problems with using CLI but that’s not the point. The point is that formatting removable media is an increasingly common task and there is no GUI way to do it.
“Trust me, I have no problems with using CLI but that’s not the point. The point is that formatting removable media is an increasingly common task and there is no GUI way to do it.”
I TRUSTNO1, but I agree with you, as it may be clear from my previous posts. 🙂
In terms of completeness, at least regarding tasks that can be seen as everyday operations, GNOME lacks this “feature”. I just wanted to say that this does not seem to have an impact on those who use GNOME, because they would have requested this functionality before. It’s an obvious thing that only those functionalities are included into a GUI system that someone requests, be it the developers themselves, or users who require a certain functionality.
It has been mentioned before that there is some GUI solution for this task, but it does not belong to the GNOME DE itself. So you could say, there may be a means of choice, but it needs to be added (apt-get / yum install), or it needs to be included by the distribution (YaST).
On the other hand, I would not expect KDE or “Windows” to handle multiple volume archives (split, cat, tar) or append functionality from data carriers, or to handle, for example, CDs or DVDs with (media) files, but without ISO-9660 file systems (reason: ro/rw access without mount operation). Strange, I admit it, but works good. 🙂
I really wish you could alt-tab between windows while dragging and dropping … this is great when you have little screen real estate and don’t want to fiddle with resizing your windows just for a quick DnD operation.
You can just drag the object to the taskbar, and drop it over the taskbar-item corresponding to the target window. The same trick works in Windows btw.
If you drag onto an entry in the task list, that window will come to the top, so you can then drag onto it. Saves having to use the keyboard and mouse at once.
By why should dragging and dropping cause alt+tab not to work in the first place? I would prefer to do it this way, so I don’t have to move down to the taskbar, then back towards my destination. I have no trouble using the mouse and keyboard at the same time, having two hands, lol.
I havent read on futher into this thread, I just feel that I have to respond with what I find is pretty basic, nad that is(I assume GNOME had multiple desktops from the start?) that you cant set “one wallpaper for each desktop”. I have found some “3rd party” apps to do this, but a good well-intergrated solution would be alot better.(comparing to spaces in OSX, they where there in the previous version, but it was 3rd party “hack”, and in the new version, it all seems very slick and intergrated)(dont know if it is possible to have different wallpapaers for different desktops in osx though…)
Well, it works in KDE, and should work in GNOME to, to me its basic functionality, if you have had the multiple desktops for 10 years…
“[…] set “one wallpaper for each desktop”. I have found some “3rd party” apps to do this, but a good well-intergrated solution would be alot better. […] Well, it works in KDE, and should work in GNOME to, to me its basic functionality, if you have had the multiple desktops for 10 years…”
Even CDE had this functionality, and CDE is much older. 🙂
I’ve seen the desktop wallpaper to be a useful means of distinction, but it only works as long as you don’t run one maximized application per desktop.
and you might ask, how did they accomplish this amazing feat of fixing all bugs? well.. easy, they did it gnome style!!! (removing ALL features..)
I happen to love that about the Gnome UI. It’s a well known and recommended guideline in UI design they’re following, you know. It says that functionality should be so obvious that no tweaking is necessary, and therefore tweaking capability would naturally be kept to an absolute minimum. It’s for users who want software (and stuff) that just works, not to play with 1 billion options.
this reminds me of one of my favourite Eintstein quotes: “make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” your comment hits the first part of the quote, but it’s missing the second part. either half on its own is not useful.
Indeed. And as far as I can tell, the lack of features in Gnome is not because they don’t want the features, but because they lack the manpower to implement them properly and in an usable manner – and they prefer not to have them over having them unusable. Imho the lazy approach to usability. KDE does things the other way around, and is also trying harder (imho) to implement them properly.
Just look at older release announcements. Gnome is just 2 to 4 years behind on features, but they DO come eventually. Lack of manpower, simple.
I’m not using KDE much so I wouldn’t know what features are so sorely missing. But I don’t seem to miss so much using Gnome. Give me some examples, if you want.
Well, one example can be how you can’t add a ‘always on top’ button to the windowdecoration – and I want those. Or that editing toolbars often isn’t possible.
Other things can be seen in the release announcements. I read those of gnome always, and then I see things like ‘evolution recognizes comon used words to describe an attachement and warns you if none is attached’. And I think – bloody hell, didn’t it do that, KMail had that 5 years ago… And I think the same for over 75% of all new features in Gnome, which is what I meant with “they’re just behind”.
“Well, one example can be how you can’t add a ‘always on top’ button to the windowdecoration – and I want those.”
I could add: “Then go and implement them.” 🙂
Personally, I always found this “stay on top” functionality to be very useful, especially when other applications gone mad stealing focus. If you have set “click to focus”, it causes in much more work to re-set focus and foreground, because in the default setting, if I remember correctly, foreground and focus are tied to each other. If you are familiar with “focus follows mouse” and the concept that focus does not force foreground, the “stay on top” functionality offers you some advantages, because it allows you to see something under all circumstances without forcing you to reset input focus repeatedly to the application you want.
It would be great to have this option in GNOME.
Sure, but it has been in KDE for ages – one of the reasons I use KDE 😉
I wouldn’t want to put resources on G to make it catch up on KDE, I’d rather see KDE improve even further… That way, we (as in ‘The Free Desktop’) have a chance of really outdoing the (proprietary) competition.
I don’t see what’s stopping you from using a window manager other than metacity. Like kwin or xfwm4.
If you’re going to say “but I want it to be in Gnome”, well, it’s not. But if you don’t combine pieces from various desktop environments than you’re really missing out on making the best possible desktop for yourself.
Let me give you an example of what makes up my DE.
* I use Blackbox as the window manager.
* gnome-panel for the taskbar, system tray, pager, clock and a couple of launchers and applets
* some dockapps loaded in the Blackbox slit, because they’re more light than the Gnome applets, are 54×54 and the slit reacts more promptly to auto-hide; they’re mostly monitors (CPU, mem, temp, net speeds) but I also like the sound controller (wmix).
* I use kdocker to minimize to tray a couple of apps that don’t have that ability built-in.
* I use ROX-Filer as the file manager.
* I use bbkeys for keyboard shorcuts, devilspie and wmctrl for various tricks with the windows, Bash scripts and Zenity for all kinds of custom controls and reporting tools.
* As for applications, I use whatever application best fits what I need for a specific purpose, and I don’t care what widgets it uses.
Well, mix & match has disadvantages as well. It’s not just the widgets which differ between apps. To name a thing – I hate the GTK filedialog and avoid it like a plague. But there’s also integration between apps – changes in the sidebar with quicklocations in the filedialog show up in other apps. In KDE 4, it’s even realtime shared and also used in the filemanager.
Anyway, sure I can add other apps and tools, and use scripts with the G desktop to allow it to do what I need. You can do that with Vista, too. But I can have it in KDE, properly integrated, consistent and easy to use. Beats a heap of different apps anytime. So why bother?
So, if someone asks why I don’t like Vista: much functionality I would consider basic is hard to access or even has to be separately installed. And I answer the same if someone asks me why I don’t like Gnome. And Mac OS X.
OK, so we’re getting somewhere: to the fact that different people have different requirements, likes and dislikes. I personally don’t like the kitchen sink approach and I actually enjoy putting together different parts. But if you like a DE that has everything in one place, that’s fine too.
It’s good that we each have a choice and variety, that’s what matters and what makes the Linux desktop powerful.
So KDE devs engage in small bashing of GNOME eh, haven’t you got better things to do like make plasma better and usable?
Seriously though, why the assault on what they say like it’s a complete lie?
If you think the there is serious bugs and crashes then do something about it, the releases have always been like this.
I think its funny the way that a completely borring release can make such a stir in the little pond. Its just the gnome release team having a bit of fun.
They start out with an eye catcher:
This is the second update to GNOME 2.20.0. The update fixes all known and unknown bugs and crashers.
then they finish with:
This release is a highly stable. Crashers should not be reported as these only occur during the planned crash time.
They know that theres nothing new to tell, so they think its a good time to be funny, and i think so to.
No humor please, we’re osnews posters.
I don’t know about the GNOME 2.20.2 but I doubt that many bugs are fixed… Here’s one more problem that has been the curse of Gnome for ages, and really pisses me off >:-( (Yep, just had the problem a day ago in Ubuntu 7.10…)
When trying to add shortcuts and applets to the panels, sometimes (maybe rarely but still often enough to irritate a lot) the panel may suddenly decide that it doesn’t want to cooperate this time, the panel dies and what is worse, most of the shortcuts and applets that I had already added there may be gone. So – you start adding the applets and shortcuts again – but beware, when you least expect it, the Gnome panel may get another heart attack again, die and leave you without your precious applets and shortcuts again…
I don’t see that the problem would be related just to certain bad-behaving applets. And even if it was, the panel should be capable of handling/killing bad applets better without dying itself. Maybe the problem has something to do with the amount of the applets and shortcuts though, I don’t know? But isn’t the empty space in Gnome panels meant to be filled with shortcuts and applets, right? I do have quite a lot of shortcuts and applets there, but why doesn’t Gnome seem to like it? Is adding too many shortcuts and applets to the GNOME panels against the GNOME HIG simplicity principles or what..?
I’ve been a rather loyal GNOME user, only occasionally preferring XFCE4 and other lighter alternatives, but I may soon dump GNOME and try KDE4 instead if such unstability problems won’t get fixed (not saying that KDE4 would be very stable yet either, however).
Edited 2007-11-30 21:52
“I don’t know about the GNOME 2.20.2 but I doubt that many bugs are fixed”
There is a link in the title that links to a single page…on that page is these
platform – http://download.gnome.org/platform/2.20/2.20.2/NEWS
desktop – http://download.gnome.org/desktop/2.20/2.20.2/NEWS
admin – http://download.gnome.org/bindings/2.20/2.20.2/NEWS
It is basically the fixes+updated translations. Please read the article. If you do have a bug that has not been fixed it is normally sensible to pop on irc/mailing list/lug/phone a friend or however you establish the problem isn’t *you* related…because chances are it probably is. If it is a genuinge bug, and it is not fixed in this version, it should be hitting your Distribution soonish. do what it says *again* in the article linked above.
“If you do have a bug that has not been fixed it is normally sensible to pop on irc/mailing list/lug/phone a friend or however you establish the problem isn’t *you* related…because chances are it probably is.”
Yeah, thanks for the hint of filing bugs. The problem is, however, that it is not a clear bug in the sense that it could be easily reproduced. That’s why I didn’t even use the word “bug” but talked about a problem. The panel dies only rarely, but often enough for it to be irritating.
What do you mean that phoning a friend or popping on IRC channel would help? First of, I’m usually the person that my friends come to ask help in GNOME and Linux related problems. Secondly, I don’t see how asking help could help in this particular problem in anyway?
Filing a bug could be more useful. But how do you report and file a problem that you cannot really test as a clear bug, but that happens only occasionally and seems to be related to some very general unstability problems of the whole desktop environment?
I’ve seen the problem happening on other people’s GNOME desktops too, so it is certainly not related to me and my desktop only. And how could it be: if one just adds a common applet to a panel, that should not kill the whole panel? Yet it happens in GNOME, occasionally, I’m afraid.