After spending time with Torsten Rahn and Everaldo Coelho earlier this year, we continue our Creative Penguin series in a discussion with Tuomas “Tigert” Kuosmanen and Jakub “Jimmac” Steiner of Ximian. If you’ve ever admired the beautiful artwork of GNOME, these are the gentlemen responsible for it. How did they get involved? Why should you be interested in desktop artwork? They now discuss all of this and more with Open for Business’ Timothy R. Butler.
The Creative Penguin: The GNOME Art Duo Speak
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I think it’s fabulous that there are so many talented folks designing graphics for Linux. It’s been good for both KDE and GNOME to keep pushing the envelope of clear, clean, and compelling graphics.
I can’t wait to see what can be done with SVG and how the common look and feel between KDE and GNOME ends up working.
–ms
I have to say GNOME’s great, I love Nautilus!
I don’t like Nautilus, using it once per month – if so!
It was pretty interesting considering their work is pretty good.
Still it would be nice if everthing were just consistent. OS 9 wasn’t pretty but it was consistent and VERY complete.
Why are you worried about consistancy? all I want is for both desktops to use a common method for their menu’s, common configurations so that if a mime type is setup by a kde application, it also applies if I am running GNOME. Which is pretty much what is happening now.
In terms of consistancy between applications, who cares? it is up to the developer what THEY consider user friendly. Why should Corel Draw look exactly like Adobe Illustrator? wouldn’t defeat the idea of competition in the form of product differentiation?
As for look ‘n feel, again, who cares? should I chuck a hissie fit because Real One looks completely different to Windows Media? no, because they’re two different products competing.
> In terms of consistancy between applications, who cares?
I DO care and to say I care more for consitency than anything else. If you DO NOT care then it doesn’t mean that million of other USERS share your opinion. Pixel exact layout of stuff is essential esthetics, consistency, equal looking menus, dialogs, windows, intuitive usability across applications are the most important things in software. It’s obvious that you have absolutely NO and I mean NO clue of Softwaredesign and esthetics otherwise you wouldn’t have replied the way you did.
And you do?
Please oh kind sir, what do you use your computer for? to gork at all day or to use it as a tool to complete tasks?
For me, a computer is like a hammer, spanner or any other tool. It is there to get work done, simple as that. It is nothing more than a collection of metal and plastic designed in such a way so that they work together and follow instructions in the form of 1’s and 0’s.
A computer is a tool, simple as that. GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!
There is no need for you to become insulting only by the fact that people don’t share your opinion. You use your computer to work ? Fine, others use the computer as a sort of status symbol, like other people cleaning and polishing their cars.
I’m a technical person and programmer and I value the program and the programmers capabilities on different aspects. A good and careful programmer takes care of all these things, including esthetics. If the programm I’m using looks like ass then you can mirror the stuff you see on the way the programmer uses to code his software. By the way If you really use your computer as a working machine (what I seriously doubt because you use some sort of Linux System) then you would probably be more effective and faster in your WORK by using a commercial system like Microsoft Windows which offers all the software you seriously need for your business work. I say this in case you don’t use the computer for webbrowsing and listening to mp3’s only. The maintainance of Microsoft Windows would be far easier, you simply install the software and use it. No need to deal with printer setup, graphiccard detection, networkcard setup and so on. I think one of the reasons for your to use Linux (assuming this) is that you want to be different from other people. To want to be independant on Microsoft products and to be more technical skilled than other people. Simply to be different. On the otherhand stuff like GNOME or KDE like to be used by users, companies and other business related companies. They are heavily working towards this task and they do a lot of advertisement to reach these audience of people. So it is highly necessary to have their software be as pleasing as even possible for these people. Having software look like rats arse won’t help much. See it like a human. Look into the face of someone. If the person is laughing then you can assume that he feels good, if the person is whining then you see that he feels bad, if you see him looking grimmy then you see that he feels pissed. The same can be said about software. If the software looks bad then it’s a sign that the code sucks as well. OpenSource wants to be in competition to their POS counterparts. This is a good idea and for sure honourable but they need to show that they work and look professional.
a computer can also be a :
– hobby
– an interest
– an obsession
– a savior
– a window to the outside world
– an entertainer…
It can be many things to many different people, just because you think the computer is just a tool doesn’t mean other people aren’t allowed to feel differently about it. Just look at how crazy people get about their cars…
I agree with the “no need for insulting” part but this…
“By the way If you really use your computer as a working machine (what I seriously doubt because you use some sort of Linux System) then you would probably be more effective and faster in your WORK by using a commercial system like Microsoft Windows which offers all the software you seriously need for your business work.”
.. I hope you’re not being serious!
I’m using linux on my box at work for Java development using JBoss, XDoclet, Ant, Jalopy, Tomcat, Eclipse IDE (or IntelliJ IDE or Netbeans), evolution , gFTP, kate and so on and so on.
Please tell me that for the last 3 years I’ve been a lost soul without the tools to fullfil my job correctly!
Nah don’t bother…
Beyond the look & feel I’m expecting something that works predictably all the time.
… Yes, I’m serious. If you use the computer as a normal workmachine and don’t care what Operating System you use – Say a JOE USER, then Windows is perfectly for you. Not that you get Windows shipped with every PC you buy these days, you even have less problems using it.
Advantages using Windows:
– you don’t need to compile a kernel,
– you don’t need to search for drivers,
– you have no problems with the printer,
How often happened under Linux that you configured your printer and then when you need to print some stuff some months later something totally works wrong.
Or said generally, how often you come into some critical situation where you need to do something for university or work and you realize that you are missing some tools for converting/creating urgent documents and you say ‘shit how do i do it now’.
If you say that you don’t miss anything on Linux then your needs of tools are differently than the needs of others. You counted some tools such as evolution, gftp and kate for example. But how about professional tools ?
I came into many of these issues myself, even after using Linux for so many years now. These issues come over and over again even when you are sure you have everything. How often did it happened that you configured the printer under Linux correctly and then some months later some shit doesn’t work and you get pissed because you need to freaking investigate 1 hour into the problem while you only needed to print some shit out which usually takes less than 1 minute. Or how often do you sit at the university where the professors expect you to work with standard Windows applications in a serious way that you don’t have at home because you use Linux. I know there are a lot of ways such as VMWare or install Windows on a different partition but let’s forget all this for a moment and view clearly on Linux only. There is a lot of stuff missing or not as advanced as we people like it to be. Luckely I was able to solve all issue on Linux because of the long years of practice and experience. My brought up examples was in no time a blocker for me but only meant to be a comparison between Linux and Windows and meant as a reply to Matthew. You can’t compare Linux with Windows and you can’t ignore the simplicity of Windows as OS and Desktop. I personally don’t like Linux to mature into something as Windows but as a reply to Matthew it’s clear that if you simply want to get some simple work done and if you don’t care what OS you use then Windows is definately the right way to go. All there and 95% of the times foolproof to install and use. You simply connect something, the driver usually installs itself and you are reading in 5 mins. You can do the work and don’t think any further. Even professional games and other entertainment software is available for it. If Windows and Office would cost 100-200 Euros together then I would go out today and buy that stuff legally for normal usage.
Last addition, above was just an example and was meant to be a general reply for Matthew. Please don’t reply and tell me howto install or solve issues since I’m perfectly aware howto solve issues myself. It’s only meant to be a objective non-biassed comparison between the 2 solutions.
>Advantages using Windows:
>- you don’t need to compile a kernel,
And that is a advantage??
You do not NEED to recompile a linux kernel
it is an option modern distro have a lot of
stuff in the kernel and even more as modules.
>- you don’t need to search for drivers,
Are you sure?
I find myself downloading and searching drivers all
the time at our office even with Windwos XP.
ex. Domex scsi cards, logitech camera’s
Ensoniq soundcards, hp printers..etc.
>- you have no problems with the printer,
Mmm..i wonder have you ever used Windows?
The rest of the things you typed have a value of > 0
Read this then from Moritz (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net):
“It’s obvious that you have absolutely NO and I mean NO clue of Softwaredesign and esthetics otherwise you wouldn’t have replied the way you did.”
that is what HE said about me. Maybe it is time for him to first actually work in IT before spouting his opinion on things he knows little about.
As for the operating system I run, I run FreeBSD and work in the IT field. For 7 years I used Linux without so much of a fuss or issue relating to the fictional “consistancy” that is screamed about. I have run FreeBSD for 1 1/2 and again I have had no issues.
As for software, sure, complain if it looks ugly, but THAT ISN’T THE POINT, what the original author I replied to wanted as uniformity between applications, and I say no bloody way. All applications look the same because some fictional belief of “consistancy”?
Sure, make the applications look sexy, add alpha-blending and anti-aliasing, but don’t expect perfect uniformity between applications. Do that and you kill of any idividuality of creativity the developer may have.
AGAIN, MORE FICTION, who the f*cking hell said you needed to recompile you kernel? Who the f*ck is talking about Joe Moron? no one. An office has a locked down environment where by NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO INSTALL OR TWEAK ANY SOFTWARE. If you work in an environment and you administrator does allow you to do that, he or she should be fired instantly for putting at risk the integrity of the network.
As for the driver issue, bullcrap! I had a bloody onstream tape drive and ended up waiting 5 bloody months for a bloody stable driver and onstream instant access software, yet, LINUX the so-called “inferior” solution had a stable driver INSTANTLY. Need we talk about Nvidia and the crappy, buggy unstable drivers that cause more BSOD’s than one can count on their hands.
As for printers, again, what a load of bullcrap, I have a HP610c and works bloody perfect with FreeBSD.
What do I run? FreeBSD 4.7 + OpenOffice-1.0.2 + GNOME 2.2 + various GNU/GPL applications. On my Linux box I have CrossOver Office 1.3.1 running Office 2000 so that I can test and write macros for customers. So no, I don’t NEED to run Windows to be productive. I want applications that work as intended. I don’t want candy coated, slow and buggy applications pitched to me on the fixation that their “pleasing to the eye”. What is more important? getting the work done or having nice application is performs WORSE because they’ve spent more time on the front end than the guts that run the application.
The last three Linux distros I’ve tried (Mandrake 8.1, 8.2, RedHat 8.0) have been okay for business work. I’ve had OpenOffice for office work, tons of stuff for webdesign (Quanta, the Gimp, Apache etc.) tons of stuff for programming, and this has suited me down to the ground. I haven’t needed to compile anything in years (which I’m strangely beginning to miss) and printing works a charm.
Linux may be not ready for the Joe Bloggs desktop, but anyone familiar with computers shouldn’t have too many problems. So I don’t accept that Linux is not something you can work with.
Also GUIs are not designed to the exact pixel, layouts are used to make things a little flexible. Aesthetics is spelt with an A, and the idea that differing themes between apps will make a desktop unusable in terms of HCI is a bit of stretch. Microsoft hiding menu and desktop items behind teensy little arrows does far more damage. Just for the record, Microsoft makes a damn good desktop, and currently has the best Office suite and one of the best web-browsers out there.
Currently the RedHat desktop looks consistent and has consistent menus. It’s good. If it packaged MPlayer as a “Movie Player” and XMMS with MP3 support as an “Audio Player”, created a custom tools for cross-DE mime-type and menu setups and paid a little more attention to KDE, it would rock.
However mainly what’s been getting me is how fraught everything is getting here these days. Let’s all chill lads, come on now, group hug, lets feel the love… 🙂
Unfortunately for me, I have had negative experiences with Mandrake, so instead I have stuck with the status quo and went with Redhat. Now, Redhat 8.0 was a revolution in comparison, however, there were still some rough edges. Redhat 8.1 should smooth some of those out and eventually have a faily consistant, BUT NOT UNIFORM, desktop evironment.
Now, in a perfect world, all the developers would bug and kiss, and create a uniform, all dancing, all singing graphical toolkit taking the positives of QT and GTK and create something that all parties can live with. Unfortunately the developer community are very political and the chances of it happening are so low its not even worth talking about.
Why is everyone looking for Windows features if they run Gnu/Linux? Gnu/Linux is a different OS if you want it the
Windows way USE Windows and stop complanig about how
unfriendly and application poor (is not!) Linux is….
I do not need a Printer Wizard or New hardware Wizard
Anyway you might want to look at Xandros if you are a Windows minded person.
I use Gnu/Linux because i like the way is doing things..
It’s not really politics at this stage that’s keeping the two communities apart, it’s the vast body of software that would have to be converted, the ages necessary to create a whole new toolkit, and the sudden halt in development as everyone had to learn everything again.
However there is a of co-operative work going on behind the scenes. If people settled on a standard archs for themeing (icons would be a good start), mime-types, and menus, with a decent copy ‘n’ paste system (one that’d allow you to copy a pic from the Gimp into KWord), it’d be uniform to the user, and a matter of choosing between Qt and GTK (ie. C++ and C) for the developer
So don’t get me wrong when I say this. I much prefer GNOME 2.0 icons than Crystal. No offence, by Crystal to me is a wee bit too flashy. However, GNOME 1.x art were terrible – the shadow was too big and the colours too dull.
Making consistency between applications isn’t giving everything the same UI. It is meant to lower the differences by placing simila features at the same place. Just imagine if Application X place the “Save” button under the File menu, Application Y in the Edit menu, Application Z in the Help menu. You would get confused? Yes.
But that doesn’t mean that every application must have the same UI. Corel may arrange their own unique features in the way they want, while Illustrator does another way. However, for common similarities, consistency is much better off. That’s one thing Apple is ditching – many generic features are displayed inconsistenly with other applications.
There’s a reason why most artists don’t use Windows or Linux. Both UI’s interfere with the work. To artists, computers are just another tool. Artists don’t see computers as this “great invention” that most of you do. Most of you guys depend on the computer to make a living, artists don’t depend on that… they can still paint and draw and design the old fashioned way if they have to. If the power goes out an artist can still work… people who depend on a computer can’t ; )
Here is a real world example.
I use linux for my desktop at work and home everyday. My division develops software for Solaris and linux and Windows. The unix developers, the System administrators, the network admins and the dbas in our division use linux.
I find that linux is a very productive environment for me in my role as a Software Configuration Manager and as a System Administrator.
Nautilus alone helps my productivity a great deal with Nautilus scripts so I do not have to go to the command line to cvs add a number of file or SCP files to a Location or convert a large number of text files from DOS to Unix style text etc..etc..etc.
Apotheke provides me with a nice CVS browsing view and OpenOffice is good (slow launching sucks yes I know) for Word doc editing. I actually prefer Gnumeric to Excel for a number of reasons. I like Bluefish for my html editing and there are a number of other apps I simply prefer to the Windows alternatives. Not saying they are better and I am certainly not saying they come with as many features. I just prefer them. I am not saying that all the secreataries and managers should move to linux. I am just saying that…
The idea that you cannot get any work done on linux is garbage.
Also, Matthew is right. No one in our org has root on their desktop except the sysadmins. Any other option and you are setting yourself all Win 95 style for re-installing multiple desktops of users who install crap on their machine they should not be installing and messing up their machines.
“I DO care and to say I care more for consitency than anything else. If you DO NOT care then it doesn’t mean that million of other USERS share your opinion. Pixel exact layout of stuff is essential esthetics, consistency, equal looking menus, dialogs, windows, intuitive usability across applications are the most important things in software. It’s obvious that you have absolutely NO and I mean NO clue of Softwaredesign and esthetics otherwise you wouldn’t have replied the way you did.”
Personally, I like each program to look different, and the GUI to be designed to work suitably for the particular kind of work done in that program.
I also find the various approaches different programmers have to making a usable interface interesting. I don’t see how one programmer can lay down the law and tell all the others how their software has to operate.
Nor do I want the same controls, philosophy, layout, priorities, look or feel in a word processor as in a paint program or a MIDI sequencer. Nor the same in one paint program as in another – otherwise, what would be the point in owning several?
I don’t mind Quit being in the same place in the menus, but there’s no need for pointless uniformity.
I’ve begun to feel differently about consistency between applications. I once felt that KDE had it right by basically making everything look the same. Gnome2 is starting to become this way as well. But I’m beginning to think interfaces should be different for each application. I still believe apps should work together in a component architecture, but they don’t have to *look* and *feel* the same. They shouldn’t, in fact. Take, for example, Gnome’s “FileRoller”. It’s your basic archiving tool, like Winzip, except the interface is just an empty window with a menu. Huh? If I’ve never used Gnome before, and I’m exploring the menu and decide to run FileRoller, I will get no indicator whatsoever what this program *does*. Its interface is utterly useless. I don’t think the toolkit apis should impose the interface for applications. Yes, having consistent file opening dialogs is good, but each application needs to have a tailor made interface that suits its purpose. It doesn’t have to look and feel like every other app. For every app to have the same look and feel not only makes things monotonous, it also creates confusion about what is the purpose of the app.
Hi, well I’ll take your reply as is but please note that in a real world scenario you are mistaken. No doubt you can do quite a lot of work by using Linux these days but there are still cases where you need another System with commercial Software. By saying that you don’t need to compile a Linux kernel these days you may be right partially but there are a lot of cases where you need to compile one. Simply to get rid of the default kernel configuration which often contains a lot of useless cruft that may not play well with your hardware and so on. It’s illusionary and wrong to say that you don’t need to compile a Kernel. If this is not the case for you then it doesn’t mean that it is not the case for million other Linux users. The reply of yours where you pointed out that you need to search for MS drivers all the time is simply cut out of nowhere since you usually get a CD with drivers even when you buy OEM or GULP hardware. Even on most online webpages of the manufacturer of your hardware you get hit with your nose to the drivers you need. You simply click on install and reboot and you have your hardware running painlessly. Ignoring this fact is simply pridefull and ignorant. I mean how often did you replied to previously writings and comments to other people where you said something simple as ‘GNOME has to become as easy as Windows’ if it wasn’t you then other people said this. Well personally I don’t like that Linux become something similar to Windows and I highly fight against this idea but to be objective we need to agree that Windows has a lot of advantages. Many of the repliers after my last comment wrote by itemizing tools they use daily such as Evolution, FileRoller and other nice applications. That only shows me that many of you people are hobbiests who are satisfied with the few tools offered. But look not everyone reduces professional applications to these few named by other people. If you deal with well paying customers that like to see solutions on systems which are used by a wide range of people then you are hopelessly lost on Linux. All the professional applications are available on Windows only. There is still nothing competitive as Photoshop, there is nothing as competetive as Microsoft Office there are good alternatives such as Kword, Kspread, AbiWord, Gnumeric and OpenOffice but we all know that the filters still suck. And If you sit at home writing resumes to get a work then I doubt that anyone ever heard of the Gimp or Abiword when you put these tools inside it. What people like to know in real world business is Microsoft Office, Photoshop, AutoCad and stuff that is used in industry. No doubt there are also programs available under Unix and Linux which are respective competitiors to their opponents on Microsoft Windows but you for sure don’t get these programs for free. The comment made by someone else that each app has to look individually is the most horribly nightmare I’ve ever heard and it probably would make every usability and UI expert starts puking. The reasons for a Desktop Environment is to provide a unified, simple, equal look and feel over the applications and everyone halfway technical skilled will agree with me here. There are various situations where I say and belive that Microsoft Windows is far supperior over it’s OS alternatives. The only halfway competetive System on OS that I see to compete with Microsoft Windows on the longer run is definately KDE. People that switch from Windows to KDE feel confortable on it without loss of time in learning different things. They simply move to KDE and start using it as they are used to on Windows because of the equal looking GUI and interface. I always liked to see GNOME to become so consistent, easy to use, perfectly thought and implemented and integated as KDE but this is definatley a dream which probably never comes true. Even if this sounds hard but that’s fact and I stand behind my oppinion. Look even most of the GNOME developers are happy MAC users, they use this POS paid system to get serious work done. So why do they need a POS system if they code GNOME ? same reasons as I brought up. They need a serious working System to get work done and GNOME to do the hackfestival with.
Think about this for a moment and don’t ignore the facts. Linux, GNOME and KDE will become better no doubt, since Windows wasn’t stomped out of the ass from one day to another either but it will take time, money and a team of developers that work together to reach one goal and no freaking individuals who need to look up the word ‘teamplay’ in a dictionary.
So far for becoming OT but that’s a special Matthew reply.
This is odd since we run an environment with over 20+ linux workstations and have never had to recompile the kernel. We run at least as many linux servers and have had to rpm -Uvh for a few odd pieces of hardware to add the right kernel mods but have never recompiled a kernel in house. In fact, I have not recompiled a kernel in over two years and when I did back then I realized that I did not have to do that to add the support for the hardware I needed.
The sheer number of supported hardware devices is not as good as windows. That I will totally give you. However, I use ltmodem drivers on my RH laptop and Nvidia drivers on my workstation here at work. Never have I re-compiled the whole kernel.
I am not a hobbyist by the way. We use linux as the office workstation for unix programmers here. It eliminated the cost of Exceed licenses and it cut down on the number of Office and Windows licenses needed in house as well as cut into the number of Unix workstations needed.
The filters for OpenOffice in particular are much improved since the early days and I rarely run into trouble with standard documents sent to me from the outside world.
The Photoshop and AutoCAD points are well taken. However, it is terribly short-sighted of you to make a blanket statement that Windows is far superior to it OS alternatives. It all depends on what you need. I said it before and I will say it again. The business side of the organization should stay on Windows because there is no simply no overwhelming reason to make the move to an alternative at this time. I remember the move from DOS to Windows and how much pain for the corporate world that was.
Still, there are plenty of technical people who work in a unix world from a Windows desktop when they could work more productively from a linux workstation. There are too many companies still paying for Exceed and unix workstations on top of their costs for Windows and Office and other tools. Do not tell me its just a niche because it is big enough niche to keep multiple companies in the black over years of time.
There is a place for Linux on the desktop in an office environment. This is the second unix-focused organization I have been at that made the move. Guess what? The programmers are happier using linux because it is like the unix environment they already know and it runs on their current x86 hardware.
There is no way you could meet some of these professionals and call them hobbyists. The 60+ year old C hacker down the hall does not even own a computer at his house. When they need to get serious work down they login into their linux box.
To be precise there is work on a common *icon* theme spec, not a common spec for widget themes.
Rich.
Of course I agree to many of your points, no problem with that and your reply has value no doubt.
Look Iv’e choosen Linux many years ago because I was an Amiga user before and Windows never suited my needs. But over the years I realized that there is more than just a fancy OS with eyecandy.
I don’t agree with the point of the Kernel. If you and a few others never compiled a kernel because you use a distro and don’t feel to need so because you only need a operating system and don’t bother with it’s underlaying things then you may be right. But there are a lot of people, not necessarily you who DOES compile a kernel or do manual configuration of the System. Don’t forget that all the software is in first case released as source code only. The source is what is there first and not the distribution. No one forces you, me or anyone else to purchase and use a distribution and no one should assume that everyone uses a distro.
Anyways I don’t want to argue if there is a necessarity of compiling a Kernel or not. The fact simply is that Windows is in many cases easier to use and many of the offered commercial Software is imo more supperior than the OS alternatives. As an ex-Student of computer and economics science I was basically forced to work with Windows applications because there was no suitable opensource alternatives for Linux.
Programs for Petri Networks, Rational Rose Enterprise where I need to do projects and give the professor the code, Documents with heavy layout stuff that I got in MS-Word format that usually looks like ass when opened in OpenOffice. Writings that I have to give to my professor in Word format because he doesn’t accept anything else. To guarantee to have an optimal format I can’t risk to create the stuff on OpenOffice and expect it to show up correctly on his System. I must make 100% sure it works on his System and and and. Working with Visual Basic at the UNI the first few semesters and doing some minor project that I need to hand the other prof over. All stuff I can’t do on Linux but I can do on Windows because the software is there. Another example: Let’s assume the prof want’s to see how skilled you use the standard software. Then you look like an arse after some minutes because you don’t use this software at home. You are not able on a technical presentation to work and handle basic things with PowerPoint, MS-Word, Excell, Rational Rose because you are used to KPresenter, KWord, KSpread and DIA (for UML). They look at you, interrupt you during the conversation and say ‘Mr. Galaxy, It looks to me that you don’t know howto use Standard software. Have you ever spent the time using these programms, unfortunately I can’t let you pass this semester because your presentation looks like arse’. This happened to me one time. I told him that I’m favorisiting OS and that I used alternative programs to create this presentation and that I spent as many weeks on it as anyone else and his reply was ‘Dude, you want to become serious one day and make 100.000 each year so learn to use the software used in the industry and no kidplaytoys’.
To say he was wright. Linux, OS, KDE, GNOME are all good things and I want to seem them become standards better today than tomorrow but we need to stay real and accept the fact that there are NO professional alternative software for Linux specially you can’t expect these software to be written by volunteers who spend 3 hours each evening to ‘HACK’ their software instead well paid developers for a large company who spent 10-12 hours per day and who get their code revisited by a quality check.
Hope you understand my point here.
Example, I switched from long years usage of lprNG to CUPS some weeks ago (now after they separated ghostscript from the rastertps package) compiled installed and configured the printer under KDE 3.1 (by using the CUPS webinterface) and all the printings where perfeclty, colored and as I expected it to be, now some weeks ago I switched back to GNOME 2.2 for development reasons AGAIN and tried to print one fucking urgent resume that needs to go out the same hour and libgnomeprint graycolored rasterized the picture instead printing it out in color as it should be, as the printer was set up correctly. I was heavily pissed off and said, no time to check the printer, I went up to my sister’s room, printed the stuff out by using windows and the result was as I expected it. Then later the same evening I spent some time looking into the printer setup and realized that the setup was OK, only libgnomeprint fucked up. Look that’s what is my initial point. To work seriously you need to trust your software to work as it supposed to do and not getting bad nightmares when you really need it.
In some ways you are making my point for me.
First I thought you were saying that people should not have to recompile the kernel. I was simply saying that even in a production environment you don’t have to. You can but the common man does not.
Second, if you live in a unix development and/or server world then linux makes a great desktop. If you live in a windows world at work (management, office staff) or school (VB classes and judged on how well you use Office apps) then linux is not for you. I understand that.
However, to say that the quality of the applications are not up to professional standards is just wrong. I use OpenOffice every day and even the heavy docs given to me by my documentation folks look really good coming off the version of OpenOffice that came stock with Redhat 8 and SuSE 8.1 with the AA stuff and TTF fonts installed on the box. YMMV really comes into play and I am not trying to convince you otherwise. I use gnumeric a lot because I like the look and the feel of the app better than even Excel. That is just me.
All I am saying is that I think some of the blanket statements and judgements you are making are not warranted. Just because it does not work for you does not mean that it doesn’t work for other people.
I just set up my work machine with yast2 for color printing to HP CLJ 8500 and it worked perfectly in OpenOffice for a presentation no less on CVS and in Gnumeric 1.1.15. Maybe all the compilations of packages here and there have some settings screwed up and you should have used rpms or debian packages. Maybe you did everything right and lignomeprint screwed your world up.
I have had more nightmares trying to get Windows to work than I ever did with linux but then again that is just MY personal experience. I can tell you stories of how I got hardware from the manufacturer only to find out the drivers on their own CDs did not work right and required me to download a new driver off their website then add an update to that driver before it worked. Just because you pay someone money for an app in a big box does not mean it is worth a crap.
Project is like the bane of most of the managers here at my organization. Everytime they try to level a project after adjusting schedules and targets I hear them cursing like mad.
Still, it all depends on what you want out of the programs you need on your machine.
Though I suppose they could come up with a more meaningful icon, I don’t think there is any sort of ambiguity as to the function of File Roller. I recall the first time I saw it under the Gnome menu — I didn’t know what it was from the name or icon. I suppose I might have guessed by thinking about the name a little while longer, but I just went ahead and fired it up. The first thing I noticed was the “Archive” menu, which was an obvious clue that it handled archives. The next things I noticed were the “Add” and “Extract” buttons, which indicated to me that it both created and opened archives.
The only thing not obvious was the file formats the program supported. However, this information was attainable by looking at the filetype menu in the “New” dialog or by just opening “Help->Contents”, the latter giving you plenty of information to get you started.
So in conclusion: While I think there are programs that could use some GUI work to make their functions more obvious, I don’t think that File Roller is one of them. The only way I think they could make its function more explicit is to have the default window read, “This program is a file archiver. It supports the following formats: etc.” But that would be irritating and would cause me to go through the source code and remove it.
Advantages using Windows:
– you don’t need to compile a kernel,
You don’t need to do that to use Red Hat or Mandrake either. But you CAN if you WANT to.
– you don’t need to search for drivers,
Bull. I ALWAYS have to search for drivers when I’m done installing Windows for everything it didn’t detect. Linux, on the other hand, always, without fail, detects all of my hardware and installs all of the appropriate drivers on its own. Either you have never used Linux or you tried it once two years ago.
– you have no problems with the printer,
Linux has always detected and installed the correct driver for my Canon BJC-2000 during installation. Neither, Windows 98, 2000 nor XP have EVER detected my printer automatically during installation. I ALWAYS have to download the driver from Canon’s site when I’m done installing.