Submitted by GNOME 2.22 isn’t officially released yet, but here’s a first look already. “Every six months, the GNOME team prepares a new and revolutionary release of the ever popular GNOME desktop environment. Today, we are proud to introduce you to the latest and greatest features of an 100% FREE and open source desktop. Whether you are on a Solaris machine or the latest Ubuntu distribution, GNOME is there and with every new release it makes your life… Simply Beautiful! Let’s have a look at the new features of GNOME 2.22.”
I like Gnome and all (although I’m a wmii user nowadays), but I think “revolutionary” is a bit of overly-strong word choice. Yes, I know, you were just quoting the article. But, still, does the front page of OSAlert really need to read like an overhyped ad?
(yes, I do still exist as a commenter. woo.)
I second that; when reading it felt more like a marketing blurb than an introduction to GNOME 2.22 – then again, I guess the article was never designed for cynical people like myself
With that being said, I do believe that over hyping, although provides coverage, does have the risk of back firing. We only need to look at Leopard and the ‘300 features’ promised, or the ‘Windows Vista Ultimate’ and the ‘exclusive extras’ that too were promised.
I do hope that opensource projects and journalists learn from past mistakes before they (either one of them) make pronouncements like ‘revolution’ in the future.
Edited 2008-03-12 00:17 UTC
Are you blind, or can’t you see that the text that says the word “revolutionary” is in italics and quoted? That’s how OSAlert always worked: quoting the linked article.
At OSAlert we certainly do NOT believe that these features are revolutionary. They are evolutionary.
Are you blind?
“Yes, I know, you were just quoting the article.”
“Are you blind, or can’t you see that the text that says the word “revolutionary” is in italics and quoted?”
This is a very hostile response which is completely uncalled for. Sometimes people discuss the linked article here instead of your presentation of it.
But even if the commenter had blamed you, do you really think this is a good and professional way to respond to your readers?
I think the parent deserves an apology for this ridiculous, unprofessional outburst.
Welcome to osnews.
I have been a reader of OSAlert for a long time now, even “knew” you back from BeNews days. I think this is it however. You spout off shit all the time as if this is still some hobby site without even the slightest thought toward professionalism. I am sure you won’t really give a shit, but I won’t be coming back here again.
Yes. “evolutionary” would have been more appropriate, as this has been the GNOME path of development ever since GNOME 2.0.0, but if we would compare GNOME 2.0.0 to GNOME 2.22 now, we would see that it has come a long way, and that it feels like a completely different desktop nowadays, even though the technical foundations are still largely the same.
I agree with what other commenters have posted. The new Gnome 2.22, while providing a lot of new functionality, is hardly “revolutionary!” Policy-kit sounds like just another obtuse security mechanism that most people won’t use. The other “features” like pulseaudio and GVFS seem too immature to be taken seriously at the moment. I’m sure these innovations are important, i’m just not sure they’ll be well received at the moment.
PulseAudio is already shipping as part of Fedora 8. Not perfect, but the major bugs will get a good shakeout before Gnome 2.22 hits most distros.
http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.22/ give more information than the mentioned link.
The GNOME devs didn’t even bother hiding the fact that “Cheese” is a direct rip of OS X’s Photobooth.
Remember, kids … it’s “stealing” when a commercial company copies an open-source design, but it’s “revolutionary” when it happens the other way around!
an where do you think Webkit comes from? a Fork from Apple, it is not ” stealing ” as you put it,
I have to agree with this. The photo booth clone in this “new” Gnome is cool, but it is so obviously OS X. Same with the 3d looking dock in the screenshots. Not sure if that is a new feature but it sure looks similar to OS X’s dock. But hey they are good features in any OS so more power to em.
It’s AWN and it’s not even part of GNOME, its a 3rd party app.
3D dock? What 3D dock? I don’t see any docks. Am I looking at the wrong sections?
Anyway, the only GNOME I like is the one from the latest OpenSuSe implementation. It has no menu bar and it has a taskbar with a Start button similar to XP. Now that’s what I call work nicely done. I can’t imagine using a system without a “Start” button. The menu bar is not bad but I don’t like GNOME’s implementation of the menu bar because the icons are next to the menu items and they seem like they are un-aligned (is this a word?)…
Oh my God.
Some people just need a reminder of what so press to switch the thing off
Oh wow, -1, I must be pathetic for liking it so much. If the “Start” button is so bad then why is everyone trying to copy it hah!? Just about every Linux distro has a “Start” like button and no I am not pro-MS, I am just being realistic. Vista is crap but XP is gold so is Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, PC-BSD they are all good distributions and I have a feeling I am gonna like the SuSE GNOME version.
Edited 2008-03-13 10:56 UTC
Thanks for the clarification. That’s why I said I wasn’t sure if it was a new feature or not.
At any rate, I like the compositing and features, even if a lot of them are copied from OS X or Vista. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing.
I could not agree more.
Obviously open source desktops is not about creativity. Its about coying/stealing whatever ideas MS and Apple puts out.
It saddens me that there are no interesting original ideas. And it bothers me that they have the guts to call that stuff revolutionary.
It was not “them”, it was a certain web site, which made this demonstration of awkward marketspeak.
It is hardly the developer of Cheese’s fault, or indeed the Gnome release team’s fault when some web site editor decides to call a Gnome release “revolutionary”.
Indeed the whole point of the steady 6 month release cycles is that the approach is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. I.e. Gnome gets built brick by brick rather than the entire wall at once.
The developer of Cheese has always acknowledged that the application is inspired by Photobooth in OS X (see http://live.gnome.org/Cheese).
Actually, either way it’s a great compliment and, as the courts have decided (Mac v. Microsoft), it is not stealing. Evolution looks like Outlook – good for them (I use neither). IE7 finally has tabs – Woohoo! I use Firefox. Good designs should be repeated.
Remember, kids … it’s “stealing” when someone copies an Apple design, but it’s “revolutionary” when it happens the other way around!
OS X’s Photobooth is a direct rip of other programs. Similar programs has been bundled with webcams for ages, nothing “revolutionary” about it.
So what if Cheese may look a lot like some other previous program? Cheese is just a nice basic app to take photos with your webcam. NIH syndrome (“not invented here”) is only useless burden (like are software patents too if you ask me…). Also in science people rely on the work of previous scientists all the time. That, learning from others, is the reason why we have computers nowadays too. Why shouldn’t people be allowed to use ideas already used by others too? People cannot and shouldn’t be allowed to own very general ideas.
I mean, innovation is just fine, but what would be the point of making an app that is nothing like anything used before it, but which might be very cumbersome to use etc? There is often only a very few very good ways to implement some basic functionality in certain kind of software. Usually someone else has already used those ideas before you. And – by the way – that is also a major reason why software patents are so awful an idea only preventing innovation and competition.
Edited 2008-03-12 18:39 UTC
No it is not, and nobody has said it would be. Don’t be a troll.
Open source and free software is supposed to be all about software and software ideas being free to use and modify by everyone including commercial companies also.
Why do you people make such a fuss about the simple fact that apps that are meant to fulfill a similar task also happen to look like each other? (simple text editors like Notepad, Gedit, Kedit etc. they all look and work the same way too…)
How the heck should the Gnome developers have designed a simple webcam photo app if not in the natural way that webcam photo apps are supposed to look and work like? There may only be very few good general design models for apps that are meant to fulfill a similar simple task. Very general ideas like that should not be anyone’s property.
Edited 2008-03-12 22:12 UTC
Humm Cheese, let me think, where did i see something similar before…………? Oh yes, Mac OS X Photo Booth!
Sad rip-off?
No, it is called Linux innovation. Or maybe we can call it how Linux folks are imitating Microsoft! Which means, just copy, make it sound new and be absolutely sure that you do not acknowledge the real source of the idea.
Wow, they’re just like Apple?
That wasn’t the only thing that had an Apple feel to it. The first screen-shot was pure OSX.
Was that a custom theme? Or is that now available natively in Gnome?
Personally I hope it’s native. I’ve always liked the OSX look n feel, and I also like using Linux. Best of both worlds!
Yes, this is going to be a rant.
What bothers me about all the rants about ‘who invented what’ is that it’s open source. (i’m not saying that credit shouldn’t be where credit is due, but as already said, the developers of Cheez credit PhotoBooth already). I mean, isn’t the idea of open source sharing? Some other guy in this thread complained about an idea for a wallpaper being stolen from KDE. Hold the presses! Copyright infringement! Patents are ignored! The world on fire! It’s a f–king wallpaper! KDE and Gnome are both open source, which is about sharing…
Apple uses large portions of BSD code; is anyone complaining? I’d see it as a compliment. Let me ask you this: If the BSD code was crap, would Apple have used the code? Would they have credited BSD? Probably not. They mention the BSD code on their site because BSD has a name in server-OSs.
If people only would make so much fuss about the things that are really important in life. Then we would have a much better world.
Apple uses large portions of BSD code; is anyone complaining? I’d see it as a compliment. Let me ask you this: If the BSD code was crap, would Apple have used the code? Would they have credited BSD? Probably not. They mention the BSD code on their site because BSD has a name in server-OSs.
The difference is: it’s a company doing that. When F/OSS projects copy good ideas from others it’s of course SO much different thing giving people all the right to bash such projects. Which IMHO I find utterly stupid.. Microsoft copies good ideas all the time from other projects/OSes, Apple does the same, and heck, I am not complaining. All the better for everyone if they incorporate any good features, just as long as they do the job well. A poorly done copying of good features on the other hand will usually generate negative press even towards the good implementation.
“revolutionary”
Alright, so web-cam software, shadows and transparency, being able to access files via a network, international clock and remote desktop are all revolutionary?
I don’t think so.
No favours are done for Gnome with articles such as this.
Revolutionary would be a 300% faster Gnome experience – then I may be convinced to switch back from XFCE
If you want revolutionary, take a look at e17. I was playing with it (though it’s still quite buggy) it is SICK with eye-candy and the way everything is set up. It actually made me giggle to see the flash of it.
Gnome as always isn’t revolutionary, but evolutionary. It adds more to an already excellent desktop.
And Just because the person who wrote the article made his desktop look like the Mac OS X doesn’t mean Gnome looks anything like that by default.
Also as far as I’m concerned, there are quite a few things in Mac OS X that has all but directly copied Gnome’s utilities. Like the Network Tools…
Why do I still see the GNOME environment as ugly? Surely the icons can be made better looking, isn’t it?
Mostly a matter of taste I think. I think there is a certain beauty in simple, understated widgets and icons.
We’d better let that wording stay with MS. Despite my preferences, we know Gnome has enough to be proud of, there’s no need for such ads, it just takes the seriousness away and makes me smile
So this is all new fancy features…and it makes me wonder: are the ancient problems fixed? As I pointed out in an earlier discussion on this site, Gnome seems to overlook some old bug-reports that go back several years, but that only require a few lines of code (which often is even supplied) to fix.
An example? The window list button text and whether or not [] should be around minimized windows.
In this particular case it seems that its not fixed because no one can decide how it is suppose to work… Is this an issue with Gnome? That issues are not looked at because there are no one to take charge and make decisions about trivial problems?
If it’s so easy to fix why don’t you help them?
With what? There are plenty of patches proposed already, so no need to do that. The only thing I could help with is make the decision, but since I am not affiliated with Gnome (yet!) I assume they wouldn’t let me :p
Help them with writing code for bugfixes (there may be many patches sent but maybe some are just aweful and you have a better way to fix that specific bug, or you can just send a patch for another bug, since there will never be a patch for every bug known).
Otherwise there is perhaps translation, documentation, artwork, etc. There are a lot of stuff you can do to help. If not for Gnome than some other project. So far I haven’t seen a single open-source project that has too *many* contributors. Though I see a lot of people with good ideas and whom are very keen to point out what the developers do wrong.
To me personally that just seems like a big waste of energy and maybe talent as well. A shame.
Edited 2008-03-12 16:55 UTC
For the same reason that I can drive my car well but can’t change the timing belt?
But it’s true, GNOME tends to sit behind the pack following, I’ve tried to make it better myself but they just want to use others ideas.
The new GDM in the next release(2.24) will be like OS X(non themable) and they are using KDE4’s idea for wallpapers.
Really? I didn’t know that. I suppose it cuts down on lots of support and technical theming engine issues, and with Apple I can sort of understand it because they’re guiding you with the software and hardware you use, but Gnome?
To be fair, KDE’s wallpapers have tended to do a lot of what Vista has done with wallpapers – lots of close ups of green grass, flowers and water droplets. Even before Vista, people were using those kinds of ideas for wallpapers.
Edited 2008-03-12 14:34 UTC
Yes, the article starts with rather irritating marketing slang (I like the “simply beautiful” phrase though…
), but the rest of the article is still a good short review of some of the new features in Gnome. So let’s not get stuck with the language but see what the article says about the actual new features.
Window Compositing without Compiz? Sounds promising… Personally I still find Compiz rather buggy, and many of the visual special effects may actually look more irritating than useful too IMHO. Wobbly Windows do look funny and entertaining… – but I wouldn’t really need them…
Upcoming in the 2.24 Gnome release:
“the often requested column and list views in GNOME’s File Manager”.
Well, it sure is high time for such a very basic file manager feature if you ask me. I wonder why they haven’t got that done already months and years ago? (developers too busy removing “unnecessary” configuration options from existing Gnome apps…?)
I could not agree with you more. The file management features in GNOME are awful. Tree view AND dual panes, tabbed interface on each pane, multiple file views (thumbnail, icons both big and small, detail view columns… these should have been made available for years now. (It pains me to say this) Back in Windows land xplorer2 was my file management choices and it is far superior to anything I have found yet. Konquerer is a pretty decent filemanager that blows away and GNOME or gtk based filemanager I know of, but damn it is heavy.
God damnit, why is this so difficult for GNOME’s maintainers to get? I upload photos from directories where their filenames are not always mine to control and therefore are not always descriptive. In order to do this with GNOME I have to have a Nautilus window open with the same directory.
WHY.
Nothing new as such…. but still it is revolutionary … they forgot to add word “revolutionary for GNome people” …
Never the less I do not want to discourage GNome developer, any effort they are taking to match the features of Windows, MacOS and KDE are welcome cause indirecty they are creating more reasons for people to stick to Linux!
can someone give a nice summary of the removed features?
When was the last time that say, GTK+ got any significant update? When was the last time that important backend components were revised or modified enough to make it a better “GNOME”?
“Revolutionary”. Right.
It did get a significant update this time around, it added support for all the GIO / GVFS stuff. Check out http://www.gtk.org and http://live.gnome.org/GTK+
Does it even compare to the Qt 4.x branch? Anyway. It is just me disliking GTK+ altogether then.
Different things.
I agree it’s not “revolutionary”, but don’t the Pulseaudio and GVFS additions count as revised backend components? I don’t know if they’ll actually make a better GNOME but it seems likely that they will.
Edited 2008-03-12 13:20 UTC
We will have to just wait and see then, won’t we.
This is not new for Gnome 2.22. The compositing manager has been in metacity since 2.14. What’s new in 2.22 is that they’ve fixed it to be actually usable.
I love the updated clearlooks btw!
Edited 2008-03-12 14:34 UTC
…and to everyone’s surprise, Ekiga 3 has been postponed. Yet again.
Was there even a single person that expected Ekiga 3 to arrive on time?
Hmmmmmm. I’ve read through the article fully now, and I just don’t know how any of this is new:
1. As others have pointed out. Cheese is just Photobooth.
2. Compositing in the desktop WM is the way to go. Spot on. I can’t see Compiz surviving in the long-term.
3. DVD or DVB?
No too much information there. I’ve had support for DVD for years, as well as excellent DVB viewing and recording support in Kaffeine and MythTV.
4.
These are called KDE IOSlaves, and we’ve had them for about five or six years. I honestly don’t know how the article is raving about that as some incredible new feature no one has seen before.
5. International clock looks good.
6. Remote desktop application looks good as well. Being able to bookmark is an improvement over Windows’ inferior remote desktop client.
Edited 2008-03-12 16:48 UTC
Actually not. I suppose that GNOME’s composition will be, like in XFCE, software accelerated ie. slow as hell. Compiz-like effects can’t be achieved without hardware acceleration. Even Avant Window Navigator is very slow and laggy with my Athlon XP 2800+ when using XFCE’s own compositioning and not Compiz Fusion. Translucent windows and live thumbnail previews may work just fine but that’s about it.
Gnome composite manager is hardware accelerated. The main purpose is not to bring bling but to enable other applications to work in composited environment – AWN, real transparency in Gnome Terminal etc. It works well, I haven’t noticed any slowdowns in comparison with Compiz. Minimizing apps looks rather weird but that’s not much of a problem.
There’s one single killer feature of this approach. Metacity window managing actually works, unlike Compiz which still has many focus issues and many basic features are just broken.
Did they fix the problem with the clipboard?
Well, this is 2008.
What do you mean? Copy and paste has been working just perfectly all the years I’ve used Linux :O
Yes, unless you close the application you copied in and try to paste. It sucks, and always has – except of course for KDE users, as they have Klipper which even keeps a history of things you copied… So indeed, most linux users haven’t had trouble with that at all
Yes, unless you close the application you copied in and try to paste. It sucks, and always has – except of course for KDE users, as they have Klipper which even keeps a history of things you copied… So indeed, most linux users haven’t had trouble with that at all
That is actually an issue only if you are used to the KDE/Windows style. It is not a bug nor is it a problem per se. It’s just a design decision, and you should study a little more why it has been made originally. Oh, and I like the way it behaves under GNOME. I have no need for it to keep stuff lingering in memory when I don’t need that anymore ie. when I close an app I don’t need the information it held either. So, if you are used to different kind of behaviour it still doesn’t mean that that behaviour is some way superior.
This is the attitude that kills me, because it seems to be repeated so often when criticisms against Gnome are raised. “We meant to do it that way, so there”. And when Gnome 2.xwhatever finally addresses this, then suddenly it will be revolutionary. And they’ll probably make it some sort of fdo standard and expect KDE to drop their current structure and support it instead, in the name of desktop interoperability.
Seriously, do you really think that keeping a clipboard chunk of memory in RAM after an app closes is somehow impeding your efficient use of the system? Does that micro-minimalist approach really offer tangible benefits for the 95% of the computer-using population that expects a clipboard to work a certain way? Is it really a crime to do something the same way Windows or KDE do it, just because Windows or KDE do it?
No. So how about we just admit it’s a shortcoming, and say that it’s something that will eventually be addressed, instead of pretending it’s part of some overall master scheme. It’s a flaw, it’s not a feature. It’s ok to admit it. Really.
No. So how about we just admit it’s a shortcoming, and say that it’s something that will eventually be addressed, instead of pretending it’s part of some overall master scheme. It’s a flaw, it’s not a feature. It’s ok to admit it. Really.
I just don’t share your view on this matter, I don’t see it as a shortcoming or a flaw in any way. I am used to the GNOME way of handling it, not the KDE or Windows way. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
This is the attitude that kills me, because it seems to be repeated so often when criticisms against Gnome are raised. “We meant to do it that way, so there”.
If you have ever read any of my other comments you would know that I do critisize Linux, Gnome, KDE, Windows and everything else if I have something to critisize about. And I do defend all of them too when I see someone making unjustified remarks. Yes, I do defend even Windows if someone starts to bash it without anything to back any claims up with. In this case I defend GNOME just because I just don’t agree with you here, and I know I am not the only one. Oh, and it’s even easy to fix if you really want to do it the other way, just install gnome-clipboard-manager. I’d imagine some distros even ship with it by default.
Wow. Lots of unchallenged misinformation in this thread. The clipboard is retained after the close of a Gnome app. Copy-close-paste works fine with, say Epiphany. Not so with Firefox. But Gnome users have Glipper, which even keeps a history of things you copied and operates with all apps. So indeed, most Linux users haven’t had trouble with that at all
Edited 2008-03-14 10:59 UTC
hmm, didn’t know the clipboard content is kept after you close the gnome app. I do know X doesn’t keep it, so it must be kept somewhere else (this is what Klipper and Glipper do). Glipper does it too, yes, but it’s a ‘you must know about it’ app
I didn’t know about it either until I checked. Which says something about the level of importance I, personally, assign to that feature. As long as the app that you are cutting from is a Gnome app, any app, including FF, which can paste from the gnome clipboard will still see it after the original app is closed.
But it doesn’t work the other way around unless you have Klipper or Glipper running. It runs by default in KDE, so KDE users really never encounter troubles (and have a clipboard history), but in other DE’s you do run into it now and then, which makes copy-paste feel unsure. At least I can get very annoyed by such a thing – I want my PC to actually work – and always so. That’s why I use linux (and KDE) in the first place – consistency.
Does it always have to be KDE vs Gnome wars with you? I can see that you are not ready to stop until you feel you’ve proven that KDE is better. There is such a thing as over-advocacy. And while I personally prefer Gnome, I would probably not have any negative feelings about KDE at all, except for the rather annoying vocal minority of over-advocates which has sprung up in the last year or so, who seem to feel that they have to prove that KDE is the best and most popular desktop.
Just some feedback from someone who happens to prefer another DE.
That said, I’d be OK with glipper being part of a default install.
Well, they imho should make it default for sure, asap. If it works properly, of course. Non-linux users should have a good experience, and weird clipboard behavior doesn’t help… Of course Linux does a lot better in the area of consistency than XP, be it KDE or Gnome, but we can always do better.
And sorry for being annoying…
Don’t worry. Both “sides” are guilty. I know I’ve been guilty of it myself in KDE4 threads.
Not all flame wars are explosions. Some of them are like smoldering coal fires. One “side” gets slightly annoyed at the tall claims made by the other, and it makes it that much more attractive to nitpick when the other “side” stumbles. Then, next chance they get… they nitpick back.
Note that I enclose the word “side” in quotes, since there aren’t really sides. Just personal preferences.
So true…
I’m often disappointed if what I consider good (or even the best) technology isn’t used, just because it is tied with certain projects. But as you say, both sides are guilty of that. We probably don’t want to depend on GIO, even if it was better – it uses the glib event loop, etc etc. And strigi, it seems, isn’t easily considered for use by Gnome ppl, because it is used by KDE (despite, like arts was, being based on pure C++). Those things suck. Luckily, there is also a lot of good stuff going on, just look at DBUS or Poppler. The latter is a great example of cooperation between Gnome and KDE, and I love that.
I might go to Valencia, Guademy – another great thing in terms of crossdesktop collaboration. Let’s hope something great comes out of those meetings. Together, we have a much better chance at standing up to the proprietary world.
There’s a small clipboard manager built into Gnome-settings-daemon. It’s been there for a few years:
http://people.imendio.com/andersca/archives/2005/06/clipboard_manag…
It’s written to this specification:
http://freedesktop.org/wiki/ClipboardManager
It requires application cooperation, so the clipboard manager doesn’t needlessly retain a copy of everything that’s copy/pasted. That was one of the problems with Klipper that the aforementioned spec tries to solve. Here’s the api doc for GTK+:
http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/stable/gtk-Clipboards.html#gtk-c…
This needs to be fixed in X11, not gnome. You can use a separate app that manages your clippboard as a workaround. Glipper in gnome or klipper in KDE for example.
For many versions now. I assume you never bothered to check?