“Back in November we started sharing some of the exciting features planned for the GNOME 2.22 and 2.24 releases, and now that the first GNOME 2.22.0 Beta release is planned for later this week, we have taken another look at the packages set for inclusion and the changes that have actually been made. While nothing groundbreaking will be introduced in GNOME 2.22, this desktop environment does have some moderate changes worth noting. In this article are eight interesting packages that either have noticeable changes since GNOME 2.20 or are new to GNOME. This list isn’t all-inclusive or ordered in any particular fashion, but just eight changes that had caught our attention.”
Wonder why they said Rhythmbox, it’s not officially part of default GNOME, so it’s just Rhythmbox improvements not a GNOME one. It says nothing about Rhythmbox being included in this release either, it’s not a “GNOME” app.
Gnome in its current state has no default browser … I mean that because Mozilla/Firfox does not use GTK widgets. Epiphany was a wrapper around Mozilla and now this. Gnome has no control over mozilla or web kit. Are they ever going to develop their own rendering engine?
The whole Gnome thing is lookign more like a bandaid solution.
-D
Why? If I prefered Gnome, but preferred the way Konqueror rendered webpages, now I have the choice. I don’t prefer Gnome, but I sure as hell prefer choice.
Firstly I assume that when Firefox 3/Gecko 1.9 is released with the look-and-feel updates, Epiphany with the gecko back-end will support native widgets. Secondly, so long as Epiphany works well, why do they need to make their own rendering engine?
Just as GNOME runs on several kernels, can use several audio APIs and can use several X servers, it can also now use several rendering engines. Apple didn’t even “develop their own” rendering engine, they’re using a modified version of KHTML.
Back to the article: there is a brief mentioning of GVFS. “VFS is the new GNOME virtual file-system.” That seems like quite an important change. Anyone know what that brings to the table?
GVFS/GIO are bottom-up rewrites of GnomeVFS by Alexander Larsson, I believe.
In a nutshell, GnomeVFS is one big, ugly hack. It’s not very abstract, yet its place in the stack implies it’s a high-level library (“gnome-*” librares are only useful in Gnome apps, not GTK or merely GLib apps). It’s got a pretty crappy API (inconsistent, very few utilty functions, too dependent on Unix-isms). Many backends are broken and will bring down your whole app unexpectedly. It relies very heavily on the Unix filesystem model (too much for a VFS). It lacks such basics as atomicity, state (!!!), or a GObject-based model.
It was desperately in need of a rewrite.
GVFS will exist in the right place in the stack (GLib, the basic, framework libraries upon which others are built). It will have a generalized, abstract API. It will use GObject (this makes it easier to wrap for other languages, or use in an OO way in your GTK/GLib app). It will maintain state (for authentication, caching, data sharing, connection maintenance, etc). And perhaps most importantly, backends will no longer be in-process (they can’t crash your app if they go down).
So yes, it is big, and it is cool. I, for one, can’t wait.
Because Gecko doesn’t work well. It’s that simple. Webkit is much faster and more stable and uses less memory and is more portable, and better suited for embedded projects – not to mention computers that are not quite modern (like mine).
And because Firefox and Thunderbird are not well integrated on Linux at all.
If you have bothered to take a look at the WebKit branch you’ll discover that the KHTML engine Apple forked has advanced in countless levels within that project to a point where it’s not only reinvented itself but expanded in scope far beyond what the KDE project has developed for it.
Gnome has no control over Linux and *BSD either. Does that mean they have to develop their own operating system now?
If proven technology that fulfills their requirements is already available, why should they divert resources into developing something that probably won’t be better than existing solutions?
If proven technology that fulfills their requirements is already available, why should they divert resources into developing something that probably won’t be better than existing solutions?
Another way to say this: don’t reinvent the wheel.
Yeah, and if they *did* develop their own rendering engine we’d be hearing more of “The reason FOSS will never get anywhere is because everyone reinvents the wheel over and over”. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature. Epiphany has fewer problematic web sites than Webkit based browsers because of Gecko’s relatively greater popularity.
Bullocks.
Gnome in its current state has no default browser.
Gnome has a default browse. It’s called Epiphany. The project page is even part of the gnome.org domain!
http://www.gnome.org/projects/epiphany/
From their website:
“Epiphany is the web browser for the GNOME desktop.”
Most distros use Firefox because, well, it’s Firefox, one of the most popular web browser in the world!! And since both projects use the Gecko engine to render pages, it would be just plain stupid not prefer Firefox, since it not only integrates well enough with most GTK themes, plus you get added bonus of familiarity which is often preferable to usability.
Gnome has no control over mozilla or web kit.
That’s not an issue. ISV’s have no control of the Windows platform, KDE has no cotrol over QT, Opera Software has no control over QT wich they use on Opera, etc.
One of the qualities of properly designed software is that you don’t need to control the actual code to be able to interface with it. All you need is a well documented API.
Ironically I recall a few months ago when the KHTML guys (KHTML = Webkit – Apple Patches) where up in arms over the fact that the boys at Cupertino where committing massive changes to the project source without proper documentation, so they had to spend lots of time trying to figuring them out before they could merge them into the main source tree. Talk about not having control over you’re own software…
Every project relies on 3rd party software so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
The whole Gnome thing is lookign more like a bandaid solution.
After uneducated remarks about software development, a nice sprinkle of gnome bashing is just what the doctor ordered.
Are you insinuating that the bread and butter of software development, which is called Object Oriented Programing and it’s centered around concept of reusing bits and pieces of code that is usually developed by 3rd party a band aid solution?!
Do propose have a better approach?
Whatever….
Regarding TFA, i think it’s nice to see gnome plowing ahead. One step a a time, easy does it. I do think KDE 4 might yet become a serious contender for the crown of the OSS desktop. But only in about 1 or 2 years time. Until then, it’s nice to know that Gnome will keep getting better one point release at a time.
Gnome in its current state has no default browser … I mean that because Mozilla/Firfox does not use GTK widgets. Epiphany was a wrapper around Mozilla and now this. Gnome has no control over mozilla or web kit. Are they ever going to develop their own rendering engine?
What’s the point of pouring so much manpower into developing yet another rendering engine when there are already two excellent choices in Gecko and Webkit. They’re both open source too so I don’t see this as being an issue with GNOME at all. Besides they’re the best of both worlds. Gecko is an excellent engine in terms of compatibility and Webkit is ACID2 compliant. What else do you want?
I for one am glad they’re replaceing GnomeVFS with GVFS, it will hopefull fix several issues people have had
Cheese I have actually used but it was some older version.. it has probably gotten a lot better lately. Totem getting support for YouTube and MythTV are two of the most interesting new features for me though, I have been thinking about setting up a MythTV server so if it works well I’ll probably start using Totem a lot more than before 
Oh, and about Epiphany getting Webkit back-end..Well, I just have the impression that Gecko works better with most sites, atleast at the moment. I’m rather looking forward to when FF3 is released so Epiphany could use it as the back-end (FF3 supports native widgets, too)
Hooray for incremental improvements… but… fonts still suck… pass. I’m not sure if I can blame shitty fonts squarely on the feet of the Gnome team, since at one point I was able to follow a walk-through on the Ubuntu forums and get some nice looking fonts… but something more out-of-the-box would be nice (and if it’s patent encumbered, then perhaps a virtual package in a universe repo or something).
I used Gnome back in the day and off and on with various distros. And I have been on Windows for the past couple of years now because I just got tired of fighting with Gnome so much, and having to drop to the command line to fix things so often. Maybe they just need to make a theme for people like me that actually like how Windows looks… and by how Windows looks, take a default installation, for example. Interface elements are clean, consistent, good-spacing, and robust. I don’t use OS X but when I see them in the stores I am quite impressed by how nice everything looks and operates.
When the day comes that I can do a default install of a Linux distro with Gnome, and I get a desktop with a nice looking theme, clean fonts, better application of widgets in the interface (most TreeViews in Gnome are just listboxes it seems), and I don’t have a panel at the top and a panel at the bottom with useless interface elements, I’ll be happy. If something leverages Fitt’s corners, then all the better.
Gnome and Linux do a lot of things under the hood, but people gloss over most of these and focus on how things look and feel. Which is kind of sad, because some distros are putting some nice things in, but users just don’t see them. I would like to see a massive rewrite/refactoring of the Gnome panel. I find it particularly atrocious that there is a separate program to help me manage listings and entries in the menu — why can’t I do this myself by dragging things around? Because it would be difficult to program, that’s why. Maybe GTK just doesn’t support it or something. All of the usability “wins” that are being implemented in Gnome basically amount to eyecandy and window transitions. These aren’t going to do any good at the window manager level. They need to be integrating all the way down toolkit (I must admit though, on Ubuntu with extra bling turned on, I am pleasantly surprised to see drop shadows on menus, for example — subtle but nice for polish). I am sick of editing config files and having to right click on things when a gestural paradigm would be more apt. Let me move around my desktop environment in a more intuitive manner.
Some of the interfaces we do have are simply cheap wrappers on a flat config file. While this may help avoid the command line, I don’t find it to be a real win in usability if the interface can’t do some smart context and sanity checking to see that the inputs are sane. I’ve shot myself in the foot numerous times with the x.org config utility, for example.
Just my .02
Hooray for incremental improvements… but… fonts still suck… pass. I’m not sure if I can blame shitty fonts squarely on the feet of the Gnome team, since at one point I was able to follow a walk-through on the Ubuntu forums and get some nice looking fonts… but something more out-of-the-box would be nice (and if it’s patent encumbered, then perhaps a virtual package in a universe repo or something).
What year are you living in? Fonts have been fine in Linux for years and it is incredibly easy to set up nice looking fonts in GNOME.
I used Gnome back in the day and off and on with various distros. And I have been on Windows for the past couple of years now because I just got tired of fighting with Gnome so much, and having to drop to the command line to fix things so often. Maybe they just need to make a theme for people like me that actually like how Windows looks… and by how Windows looks, take a default installation, for example. Interface elements are clean, consistent, good-spacing, and robust. I don’t use OS X but when I see them in the stores I am quite impressed by how nice everything looks and operates.
I have to say I pretty much hate all the default GNOME themes provided by every distribution out there but there are some good, clean themes available for GNOME. It’s a shame you have to track them down. As far as Windows goes I wonder how you can consider it more consistent than GNOME. Take a look at how different WMP, IE, Office, CMD, and others look and operate.
I definitely have to agree with you in general sentiment. Fonts made me cry for the longest time. One aspect of that is getting used to the fact that fonts are different between Windows, OS X, and X11/Gnome, but now I don’t see font rendering as a specific weakness in x11, just a difference to get used to. They really have improved that much in the last 18 months.
Re: the lack of spit and polish- that sums up my experience quite well. I *do* like many aspects of the OSS desktops I’ve used, but I’ve never been able to use them as a complete replacement for any other environment due to the fact that software is in a state of perpetual (my perception) incompleteness. I have found certain OSS projects to be excellent. The desktop environments just don’t cut it however. GNOME, especially, I find is excellent within certain usage scenarios, but it’s just not fleshed out enough, and given enough love to make it really robust.
KDE has attempted to tackle most usage scenarios, but tolerating its rough edges is the price you have to pay for the relative
So to put it succinctly, I see GNOME as being developed with a narrow usage model in mind. Within those bounds, it’s wonderful to use, but outside of those bounds, it’s all wilderness.
KDE, on the other hand, attempts to cover everything, and has become a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
With regard to TFA, I hope to see GNOME pick up steam. I think it’s making progress at a slower rate than the other major environments.
Am I the only person who has never had a problem with the fonts in linux?* The GNOME fonts look just the same to me as they did when I started using it 3 years ago – they’re prefectly readable, and can be easily configured for speed, readability, monitor type or hideously overdone anti-aliasing.
Those screenshots are hideous, but that’s because of resizing and/or compression – I don’t even think it’s even possible to configure it to blur like that, and the compression artifacts are highly visible; jpeg sucks at text.
* Well, except when the Ubuntu monkies changed the X11 font paths, and that time OOo somehow exploded.
It definitely seems to be one of those things that is different for each person. Speaking a person that is very sensitive to fonts looking (and not looking) good, I find basically every distro that I have tried has fonts that are blurry, have poor spacing, and weird shapes. Given the number of posts on various support forums by people crying out as to how they can improve their font situation, it seems that I am not alone.
That might be due to configuration. Try to change the configuration (it can be done through GUI).
Otherwise take a look at Windows and see something that’s really ugly with completely wrong and random spacing.
Do you think fonts in OS X looks ugly? If you do, that’ll explain why you think fonts are ugly in Linux.
I would whole heartedly agree that Gnome is great within certain usage scenarios, especially given the number of friends whose Windows computers I have fixed by paving the hard drive and putting on Ubuntu. It’s simple — they can click on the web browser icon and a web browser pulls up. That’s about all they need… as for email and other functionality, they are generally set by using web-based things. I am finding that people in this scenario rarely seem to use much else.
Although I prefer having more robust and flexible usability in a desktop, the ‘padded walls’ approach of Gnome is generally a win for this particular case.
That was a very long yawn…
Is the continued rise of Webkit; it fits and places gecko where gecko failed to accomplish. Webkit, simple, clean and elegant design vs. the ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach of Gecko/Firefox.
What I’d like to see is GNOME put the final nail in the coffin and declare Webkit an official component/library of GNOME – finally once and for all kill Gecko off the desktop. It never lived up to the promise of a compact engine, it just grew out of control with crap being added which added nothing to the manageability, quality, stability or compactness.
One only needs to look at the memory leaks in Gecko, and the rabid programmers and their refusal to actually do anything about the behemoth that will eventually kill itself in the process.