GNOME 2.17.4 has been released. “This is our second development release on our road towards GNOME 2.18.0, which will be released in March 2007. New features are coming in at a nice rate, and that’s great. A lot of bug fixes too. And some crashers are appearing here and there: that’s the fun of unstable releases!”
This was a very apparent bug that made drag-and-drop appear broken when dealing with compressed archives larger than a few megabytes. I’m very glad to hear that it’s fixed now!
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102501
Just one disturbing detail… it took the guys four years to fix it.
Yay ! I’m so happy that he fixed that bug too
!
Thanks
The irony.
He was talking about Gnome 3 , from the Red hat and Novell angle only , and yes from that angle only it as slowed and lost funding and developer. The problem Thom as is he don’t see the forest because there is a tree blocking is view and all he know of GNU/Linux is that Red Hat and Novell are the only player that mater.
*Submitted by error*
Edited 2006-12-22 00:29
Glad to see that the result of usability testing on real non geek users gets entered into mainstream Gnome. The new proposed “slab” main menu have been thoroughly tested with respect to usability by Novell.
More focus on non unixadmins/developers/programmers is needed if we want Linux and other free desktops to gain market share.
Now if we only could get support for some standard way to install applications (e.g. dragging an .rpm or .deb to some kind of virtual Application folder). If desktop environments like Gnome and KDE offered this kind of things one would hope that Linux distros would use them instead of roll their own. That way, it would be much easier for application developers to document the install process. It would also mean that users could reuse the knowledge on how to install software from one distro to the next.
Another thing that would be nice would be a way to hide files and dirs that only are of real interest to unix aficionados such as /etc, /dev, /usr, /lib, /bin, /sbin, /proc,…
Currently this can be done in Nautilus by using .hidden files, unfortunately it doesn’t work where showing these rarely needed dirs to ordinary users is most cumbersome. I’m thinking of file dialogs, where too many irrelevant files forces the user to scroll to get to work related stuff.
Glad to see that the result of usability testing on real non geek users gets entered into mainstream Gnome. The new proposed “slab” main menu have been thoroughly tested with respect to usability by Novell.
I find the Gnome menu really easy to use and so do people who see it for the first time (at least in my experience). Everything is few clicks away and if you use something often you can add it to the panel.
I see SLAB as something that is created to make Gnome like Windows. I do not use Windows for a reason – I like Gnome as it is now.
Now if we only could get support for some standard way to install applications (e.g. dragging an .rpm or .deb to some kind of virtual Application folder). If desktop environments like Gnome and KDE offered this kind of things one would hope that Linux distros would use them instead of roll their own. That way, it would be much easier for application developers to document the install process. It would also mean that users could reuse the knowledge on how to install software from one distro to the next.
Right now in Ubuntu installation of a .deb package is just double-clicking it, typing a password and that’s it, GDebi takes care of dependencies and you can access app via Gnome menu. I don’t know what’s wrong with that other than that there are many distros that use different package systems and naming specifications. I don’t want Linux to be like OSX, if I wanted that, I would use OSX.
Another thing that would be nice would be a way to hide files and dirs that only are of real interest to unix aficionados such as /etc, /dev, /usr, /lib, /bin, /sbin, /proc,…
Regular user doesn’t see these files, everything he needs is in his home folder. Windows or OSX user can go to the system directories too and nobody is complaining about C:\Windows\System32 or /System/Library.
Edited 2006-12-22 00:53
Right now in Ubuntu installation of a .deb package is just double-clicking it, typing a password and that’s it, GDebi takes care of dependencies and you can access app via Gnome menu. I don’t know what’s wrong with that other than that there are many distros that use different package systems and naming specifications. I don’t want Linux to be like OSX, if I wanted that, I would use OSX.
There is nothing wrong with double clicking a .deb (or whatever package format your distro use) and let the installer resolve the dependecies, and download needed additional components from the net. This should certainly be standard for all Linux, FreeBSD,… distros. I think a lot of distros do this allready, e.g. it is certainly possible in Fedora.
However, double clicking will neither provide a way of seeing what is installed nor a way to uninstall a certain package. This is why we need something like a virtual Applications folder. Yes, you could open synaptic to get a view of that, the problem is that synaptic is a bit too technical to most non sysadmin types. It is also not available for all packaging formats, meaning that there would be no standard way of manage software across all distros, and having a standard, cross distro, way of doing things will reduce training costs.
Package managers are the next best thing to sliced bread, and I would certainly not want the mess of the OS-X Application folder where software, gets added without any possibilities to track dependencies or to get information of what software package a certain file belongs to. Though it wouldn’t hurt if it too the user looked just as simple as the OS-X application folder but had a package manager backing.
For a very long time, there was complaints about how hard Linux was to install, today you don’t see that anymore. Any author that claimed that would look like a fool, given how simple it is today. Now they instead complain that it is too hard to add software, why not shut their mouths. Making it look as simple as MacOS-X, but with a higher level of technical sofistication would do just that.
Regular user doesn’t see these files, everything he needs is in his home folder. Windows or OSX user can go to the system directories too and nobody is complaining about C:WindowsSystem32 or /System/Library.
So, you don’t expect them to go to /media or to some shared /net resource, or perhaps have shared /home/direcories within a workgroup. Saying that users should stay in their home folder may be true on your one home desktop, but not in a real world workspace.
As for C:WindowsSystem32 and /System/Library, just because windows and to some extent MacOS-X have made some bad design decisons there are no reason Gnome should make them as well. Besides, as far as I know, you normally can’t use the file browser to go to /private/etc, /private/usr,… in OS-X. Why do you think that is?
Note that .hidden is not about preventing users from going to certain directories, it is about preventing them from having these directories getting in their way when doing everyday work. Just like you can view any other dot file, the files listed in .hidden should be visible if you chose to show hidden files.
Actually gdebi does show you what files are being installed (if you click on the proper tab). Also Add / Remove programs in Ubuntu is very easy to use, and Synaptic is there who wants a bit more versatility.
Why is it that everyone wants to hide all the folders? Much like already stated, I can go anywhere in the Windows system. Actually most users won’t need to go into /media either, because the icons for any removable media or other mounted partitions should be under the Places menu, at least on Edgy and Dapper it is.
double clicking will neither provide a way of seeing what is installed nor a way to uninstall a certain package
That’s true, as it doesn’t in Windows either.
This is why we need something like a virtual Applications folder. Yes, you could open synaptic to get a view of that, the problem is that synaptic is a bit too technical to most non sysadmin types
This is why this type of talk is nonsense. So this is a bit too technical ? But seeing what files a package installed is even more technical !
So, you don’t expect them to go to /media or to some shared /net resource, or perhaps have shared /home/direcories within a workgroup. Saying that users should stay in their home folder may be true on your one home desktop, but not in a real world workspace
That’s nonsense again. The desktop will open a window in the right /media subdirectory if needed. That’s what happens right now on KDE and Gnome, and never was a problem.
Regular user doesn’t see these files, everything he needs is in his home folder. Windows or OSX user can go to the system directories too and nobody is complaining about C:WindowsSystem32 or /System/Library.
Well … Windows has 2 folders: Windows/ and Program Files/, while Linux has … a lot more (bin,boot,dev,etc,home,lib,media,misc,mnt,opt,proc,root,sbin,sys,tmp,u sr,var and so on).
I like the simplicity of PBI install in PC-BSD and the fact the applications are self contained in their dir and not scattered across the system.
And I don’t think that obscuring some of the dirs is a solution. It’s a hack. The solution is to make a structure that actually has a meaning for us, mere mortals.
Synaptic is nice as a concept, but it looks very intimidating for the casual user – too many applications, and too many that don’t make sense.
“Another thing that would be nice would be a way to hide files and dirs that only are of real interest to unix aficionados such as /etc, /dev, /usr, /lib, /bin, /sbin, /proc,… ”
I doubt that these dirs are not useful for regular users, but anyway, IMHO the cleanest way to hide some directories is GoboHide, a kernel patch developed for Gobolinux. It lets you pick which directories are invisible to “ls” (without the need for dots) while it lets you “cd” to to those dirs.
http://gobo.kundor.org/wiki/GoboHide
Edited 2006-12-22 17:39
Isn’t Sun Microsystems still devoting resources to the GNOME desktop for use in Solaris? Last time I checked people like Glynn Foster where still working in GNOME on the Solaris front.
http://www.gnome.org/~gman/blog
Also Red Hat seems to have redirected some of their desktop resources to the OLPC project.
Things could be better, but the steady, time-based releases of GNOME seem to be going on.
Another thing that Linux developers should consider to make it easier for ‘non geek users’ to adapt Linux is naming of programs. My experience is that new users has a real hard time to find know what to install. Most often the name don’t say anything what the porgram really do(for non geek users).
But is that any better on Windows? How to they deal with this situation on Windows? And if everything is using the same names describing what they do, how do you differentiate between them?
Most Linux distros already have a powerful search function for finding software in their repositories (supported software) so its not very hard already, most definitely easier then in Windows and Mac OS X.
I think that Gnome is the best overall Unix GUI, at least to my taste. I generally don’t have any major complaints, although I’d like a more uniform way of installing apps as discussed in this thread. Unlike some people, I don’t find it bad to follow other systems’ best practices, as long as it gives some sort of benefit to the end user.
Thus, if drag’n’drop installation of .rpms or .debs would be possible, I think it ought to be a good thing. I also like the proposal of hiding system folders from the end user, albeit with the option to browse the complete file system (as it is currently possible in Gnome).
Also I’d like some standardized way of adding application repositories to the system application installer. Right now you’d have to search the internet to find the appropriate repositories for a selected app, but if only these somehow got registered some place centrally and that e.g. sourceforge.net and others kept records of which apps were available as either .rpms or .debs and fed this information directly to the system so that you’d be able to not only search for the appropriate application, but the appropriate repository as well, then you’d easily be able to maintain software installations on your favorite distribution.
I’d like for the shortcut in the sidebar of Nautilus to be ‘single clickable’ as in Mac OS X as there is no point in simply highlighting a shortcut as you normally do by single clicking on a file…
A way of making e.g. Gnome Baker take over the disc burning functionality from Nautilus would also be greatly appreciated.
I’ve noticed that Brasero does this. I think Brasero (previously known as bonfire) is going to be Gnome’s default CD / DVD burning application for 2.18, but I could be wrong. I know it’s in the Gnome svn repositories.