"Every major release of the 4.x series of Xfce has been pretty major. 4.0 was the result of over a years work, a major rewrite of the entire desktop. 4.2 saw the introduction of major features and enhancements that were incomplete for 4.0, and new developers as Xfce4 gained popularity. 4.4 is going to be a major upgrade to Xfce, with new components, major upgrades to old ones, and more tools for developers. So, without further ado, let's take a look at what's coming."
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Member since:2005-07-21
The UNIX tradition is to have specialized, modular components that make up the desktop as a whole.
I think KDE is more unified than Windows especially with KParts etc. And I disagree about being unified being unUnix-like. Having all your applications linked together is like having pipes between bash commands inseatd of writiing everything to a file and processing every seperately. I think the concept of Unix is to unify and work together seemlessly (e.g. NFS mounts behave like a local harddrive).
Member since:2005-06-30
Member since:2005-08-15
"The UNIX tradition is to have specialized, modular components that make up the desktop as a whole."
This goes for the underlying programs itself, not for the gui-stuff. Where one program might do it for a lot of people, one user interface won't do it. So the good thing about the unix-stuff is that under the hood they are trying to have the same stuff. But how every thing is implemented in a gui, that's more for other people to decide, than the programmers. I think that's something that's been worked on in KDE as well, having the programmers create the underhood stuff, and artists and users create the gui. For example every burning application in linux is using the same program to burn it, but just has a different gui. That's the strength of it. Sorry my english is bad, but I hope I made my point clear.
Member since:2005-07-13
If you like your desktop to act like one big application, why aren't you using Windows? Everything is integrated and works more tightly than any desktop environment available today (Gnome, for example, doesn't even have a clipboard). The UNIX tradition is to have specialized, modular components that make up the desktop as a whole.
So integration and ease-of-use have no place on the *nx desktop, and the only alternative is Windows ?
A good DE should match the user's requirements, not the other way aorund. Xfce likely won't appeal to the kde crowd and vice versa, but there's certainly enough room at the table for both and more. Choice and freedom is good, isn't that the LINUX tradition?
Member since:2005-08-28
Actually, I can't stand Gnome (trying to change the default application for opening files or really anything at all was a royal pain, and I eventually switched to Kubuntu), but for a lightweight desktop I love XFCE4.
I resurrected a Pentium II 333 Mhz machine (that had Gentoo and Fluxbox on it, running extremely crippled for security/obscurity reasons) to run XFCE4, and it runs nearly as fast as the other Windows machines around it- which are also dog slow: Pentium III 500 Mhz machines...
That's
Member since:2005-07-06
True to a certain extent, but it isn't about integration, it is about expandability - everything has a plugin interface; there is no need to have the functionality loaded all the time; load it when required, and when the function is no longer required, unload the plugin.
The key to saving memory is re-using components; create a tool kit of components and re-use them again and again; don't have a different rendering engine for each application, re-use the same engine again and again.
That is where Mozilla came unstuck, they tried to do everything when what they should have done, was simply create a core; rendering engine, JS Support etc. then provide interfaces where by people can embed the core into applications - without the need to carry around the XUL bloat, which quite frankly, is a waste of time and has yet to be proven, outside of Mozilla, as a viable development platform for commercial applications, both locally hosted and remote.
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
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If you like your desktop to act like one big application, why aren't you using Windows? Everything is integrated and works more tightly than any desktop environment available today (Gnome, for example, doesn't even have a clipboard). The UNIX tradition is to have specialized, modular components that make up the desktop as a whole.