Gnome 2.6.1 was made available, a bugfix version which was pending release for about a week. Update: Michael Hall replies to Petreley’s review of Gnome 2.6.
Gnome 2.6.1 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Strange, my bar thingy tells my that I’m already running GNOME 2.6.1 on my FreeBSD 4.10BETA.
Actually I’ve been using it for some time now
without compiling, on my Debian Scud
(just gnome-applets-2.6.1 package is missing)
wheres my suse version.. Someone help me get it to work on SuSE 9.1
They blissfully forgot it in the release.
For suse you can subscribe to xd-unstable with Ximian’s Red Carpet to get their gnome 2.6 desktop. This is the easiest way to get it on suse.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that channel is available with the SUSE 9.1 compatible version of Red Carpet.
has had this for at least a week if not a few days longer.
i run Gnome 2.6.1 on FreeBSD 5.2.1 and it rulezzz!
Hey,, you were right..I found a review that states that you can use their version (Ximian unstable that is), the 9.0 packages supposedly work though i havent tried …. yet
. Anyone know if you can easily upgrade to non-ximian packages with ximian installed.. I know it kinda takes over your gnome desktop.. not that they dont do a good job though 
they’re slow to update stuff thats all. Thanks!
I would try out only if someone could tell me if they fixed that nasty redraw speed from earlier versions of gnome…
Drat! I guess that it means Gnome 2.6.1 won’t make it into Fedora Core 2, won’t it? Don’t mean to ruin the surprise but I’m so excited. FC2 should be out on Tuesday, 18 May 2004. ./btdownloadgui is already on my commandline just awaiting the –url or torrent parameter.
“Strange, my bar thingy tells my that I’m already running GNOME 2.6.1 on my FreeBSD 4.10BETA.”
Speaking of which, shouldn’t 4.10 be out by now?
If Gnome2.6 doesn’t allow users to easily DISABLE opaque drag/resize, then any benefit they claim in terms of simplicity is totally invalidated by the fact that THAT single “feature” is what makes Linux be perceieved as slow.
Opaque drag is the worst forced feature of Gnome. It simply ruins the interactive performance feel of Linux on anything but higher end machines.
“If Gnome2.6 doesn’t allow users to easily DISABLE opaque drag/resize, then any benefit they claim in terms of simplicity is totally invalidated by the fact that THAT single “feature” is what makes Linux be perceieved as slow. ”
Here we go again.
Maybe we should cut to the chase, and ask what shouldn’t have a toggle on the front UI?
gconf editor–>metacity–>general–>reduced resources.
With an explination of what it does at the bottom.
2.6 or 2.6.1, doesn’t matter … it’s extremly slow, it needs a lot of memory. Gnome-terminal is bad, after using xawtv in fullscreen the panels sometimes get problems to restore to the correct size.
And directories are called folders (look at FHS, there are no folders). But there are other inconsitencies too.
Selecting icons is annoying. Editing a launcher, for example the command, isn’t possible.
My windows like Sylpheed or CGoban2 don’t open at the correct full size. And I have maximize at Mod4+M, but this doesn’t work with aterm (sometimes it works, but it’s not aterms fault).
After three days Gnome needs 150MB of my memory.
Really bad software. But better than other big desktops. But it seems that is more stable now. Better than nothing.
This with the 150MB is only true for 2.6. I will see if GNOME 2.6.1 has the same problem.
Anyone else seeing this problem with 2.6/2.6.1:
I’ve done two new Slackware-current installs in the past few days, via ISO’s and Swaret. (The last completed a few minutes ago.) Both times, the “Start Here” icon on the Desktop is replaced with a thumbnail preview, labelled “starthere desktop”, of what appears to be its config file. (That’s what displays when I open it.)
Is this a bug or am I just lucky?
From http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/3354021
“In fact, in our completely unscientific usability study, it took our subjects less than 10 seconds to locate the Solitaire game. We’re not sure what else the corporate desktop needs.”
lol!
I HATE HIG! Give me my gnome 1.4 features back!
“gconf editor–>metacity–>general–>reduced resources.
With an explination of what it does at the bottom.”
Well, thanks for the tip, I looked for this thing for months (I even switched back to XFCE because of that….)
But the result is awfull: it looks like fwm resizing. While nostalgia is sometimes amusing, I had to turn this off after 10 minutes. Is there any way to have opaque movements exactly like xfwm4, windowmaker or any other ‘standart’ windows manager or even windows, ie just the borders of the window ?
About the 150Mo thing: funny, I am using GNOME 2.6 right now, with xmms, two gnome terminal and firefox, and it only uses 135 Mo… Where are you taking your number from ? Are you sure you don’t have any ‘hidden’ app launched in the background ?
Honestly. Windows usually takes upo much more than that. I guess it depends on what you have running in the background as well. Anyway, I have 512MB of memory, so I guess it is not such an issue for me. Epiphany is my biggest memory hog though. That is probably more Mozilla than GNOME then.
People, use XFce. It is really worth it.
Selecting icons is annoying. Editing a launcher, for example the command, isn’t possible.
“annoying”? How so?
I just edited a launcher fine – whats the problem?
And directories are called folders (look at FHS, there are no folders). But there are other inconsitencies too.
I don’t see how this is a problem.
As for the “slow” problem, I’m running GNOME 2.6.0 on a celeron 900 w/ 128mb ram (with 16mb shared as video ram) and its quite snappy. I’m also running it over an xsession too.
I’m rather pleased with this release of GNOME and I’m really looking forward to 2.8 and beyond. Lots of exciting things are happening.
And directories are called folders (look at FHS, there are no folders). But there are other inconsitencies too.
I don’t see how this is a problem.
Hear hear! Who was the boob who decided UNIX and DOS filesystem branch nodes were going to be called ‘directories’?!? if you have a file, it’d stand to reason that you could put it into a ‘folder’. Not a ‘directory’. When was the last time you filed your expense reports in your phone directory?
okay, everytime someone recommends to use gconf editor to change settings he is an ass. I am sorry. Its the same thing someone says, well use regedit to change settings in windows.
IT SUCKS!!! (3x!)
Yeah, THIS is not the way how it should work. Gnome is going the wrong way and are further away from a desktop then they ever were.
Well after reading the responses I’ll stick with kde 3.2!
After all, it is the first software I remember that has been improved to a point where they actually “Lowered” system requirements! That’s something you don’t hear every day! 🙂
Not trolling here.. Just asked an honest response and got an honest answer.. 🙂
Well since I’m obviously the “ass” in question. As I quipped, were would you have them place the least-likely used features? Sounds like some of you basically want a Gnomasized KDE. Last week it was colors, and spatial browsing. This week it “were’s the low resources” button. Next week who knows, but I guarentee someone will think of something. Feature creep? More like “were’s my button?” creep. Were were you guys when all these decisions were being floated? And I find the Regedit comment off base. Have any of you actually used Regedit? At least with GConf it’s limited to user information, and has human understandable explainations for it’s settings. Regedit requires a rather thick book to understand (which I have).
“Yeah, THIS is not the way how it should work. Gnome is going the wrong way and are further away from a desktop then they ever were.”
Well I’m going to be an “ass” again, and recommend you use KDE then. There’s a reason why there’s more than one DE, and at least with OSS, I’m glad I have the choice.
“Hear hear! Who was the boob who decided UNIX and DOS filesystem branch nodes were going to be called ‘directories’?!? if you have a file, it’d stand to reason that you could put it into a ‘folder’. Not a ‘directory’. When was the last time you filed your expense reports in your phone directory?”
I think you’ll find “directories” came before the WIMP interface started calling them “folders”. So who’s on first? Anyway the thing to keep in mind about metaphors is when to stick with them, and when to deviate from them. That’s one of the things Apple did right, by not slavishly sticking with the desktop metaphor. So how many times do you stick a RL folder in another folder? When was the last time in RL you had seperate views to the same file (links)?
I think you’ll find “directories” came before the WIMP interface started calling them “folders”.
Actually, I’m aware of that, but I just don’t understand why they made that choice. I guess because they kinda were directories of where to find various inodes on a drive?
So how many times do you stick a RL folder in another folder?
(sheepish grin) I do it all the time. I’ll pull a folder out of my cabinet and it’ll have a bunch of folders inside. It’s just the way I like organising things. (Maybe I’ve been influenced by the hierarchical nature of computers?)
When was the last time in RL you had seperate views to the same file (links)?
very true. Stupid obsolete real-life. ^_^
With respect to the recently published 2.6.1-releases of some GNOME libraries the GNOME Installation Guide has been updated too.
http://www.linuxit.com.br/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=27…
(Versions 1.4, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4 e 2.6)
“okay, everytime someone recommends to use gconf editor to change settings he is an ass. I am sorry. Its the same thing someone says, well use regedit to change settings in windows.”
Not quite, the worst gconf can do is require you to delete all your settings. Bad registry entries can register a system useless.