Karl Fischer takes a walk through the latest version of Gnome, version 2.8 (screenshots), to illustrate a few of the best new features of this very popular desktop environment.
Gnome 2.8 – what’s new and cool
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’m a windows user, but I’ve spent the past 6 months or so experimenting with Knoppix, Gnoppix, Debian, and Fedora on an empty partition. Maybe I’ve just been using the wrong pre-configured systems, but KDE 3.3 seems like an absolute mess. The fonts, icons, themes are unattractive and overwhelming. Having recently tried Gnome 2.8, I am very impressed. The design is simple and there are quite a few neat little configuration tricks. Even on the live distro’s running from cd, the themed windows were snappier and the system felt quicker than my Windows XP in classic mode. I’m certainly considering a full switch to linux/gnome desktop.
The new MIME system is better, but not perfect. My favourite news: the system tools, the new way to work with applets, The calendar integrated with evolution, the ‘drives and media prefs’, and the HAL. I don’t use VCN, but Vino seems cool.
With the new ‘Network browsing’ feature – I click ‘Network’ and nautilus crashes.
Every time.
GNOME-Devs: Please don’t put this crap in if it doesn’t work.
I have used the Network browsing feature and mine works fine. Perhaps something is wrong with your installation.
I am enjoying Gnome, I want to say thanks for the hard work Gnome Developers!
Could be… but what? and how to fix it? There is certainly no indication given in the GNOME docs.
And why does nautilus just bail out and crash instead of, oh i don’t know, displaying an error dialog?
1. While my own preference is Gnome over KDE, I think the differences are primarily aesthetic these days. Some of us prefer the way Gnome looks, others prefer the way KDE looks. In terms of actual functionality — what they enable you to do — they are very, very similar. In point of fact, most popular desktop applications are not products of neither Gnome or KDE.
2. Gnome isn’t responsible for how each distribution compiles, tests and packages its code. Network browsing with Nautilus works fine here in FC3.
There are a couple very intresting points in the review, but the writer could have a lesson or two in english. Not that my english skills are perfect, I’m not native speaker either, but the text is absolutely terrible.
Thank goodness a decent email client has been included. With the latest version of Gnome.
As an email client Evolution 1.4 works very well. Is Evolution 2.0 really included in Gnome 2.8, it was not even released at the time Gnome 2.8 was. It was available from Novells website only at that time.
This is extremely cool, because it works.
Is this an exeption? Usually everything works in Gnome (as far as I know). It is cool, because users do not have to make mount points, and mount their devices manually.
…and viola they are mounted. If enabled, as soon as you hook up your digital camera , Gthumb will automatically import your photos.
I’d give Gnome points 8/10 (perhaps even more), but this review deserves 1/10, not worth reading.
When are we going to get over this ‘poor English’ business? I found the review helpful, as I’m running 2.6 and considering upgrading to 2.8 It gave a good synopsis of the new features offered by the latest and greatest. Tony, I find it ironic that you complain about someone else’s English when your grammer is lacking.
-Mark
I just clicked on ‘network’, then ‘windows network’ on Fedora Core 3 and there was no crash. Apparently this is only crashing for you.
I’m a real button freak,i would rather see Gnome having more buttons,the more the better.Is the HAL from the article the same as HAL in w2k? With kde3.2.1 on Mandrake i also have the dvd’s and cd’s automounted, so what’s the deal?Besides that, i personally dislike the looks of Gnome 2.8.
”
As an email client Evolution 1.4 works very well. Is Evolution 2.0 really included in Gnome 2.8, it was not even released at the time Gnome 2.8 was”
evolution 1.4 works but was not part of the gnome release cycles. evolution 2.0 and future releases are in sync. gnome 2.8 and evolution 2.0 was released on just about the same time. every distro including ubuntu which released that on the same day as gnome 2.8 had evolution 2.0. so your claim is bogus
It isn’t a review. It doesn’t claim to be one either.
And also, 2.8 is great, but 2.10 promises to be better still: it fixes lots of those niggling things like drives not having descriptive names. But don’t let that stop you getting 2.8 now!
“Tony, I find it ironic that you complain about someone else’s English when your grammer is lacking.
-Mark”
You guys are too funny for words.
I’m a real button freak,i would rather see Gnome having more buttons,the more the better.Is the HAL from the article the same as HAL in w2k? With kde3.2.1 on Mandrake i also have the dvd’s and cd’s automounted, so what’s the deal?Besides that, i personally dislike the looks of Gnome 2.8.
Perhaps Mandrake uses supermount or some such? I don’t know. But HAL (Hardware Abastration Layer) is userspace and doesn’t require configuring /etc/fstab (it updates it for you) like with supermount. It also does removeable media too.
I agree with the other poster that “KDE is an absolute mess”. I enjoyed some of its features, but things just aren’t organized. I guess for self-proclaimed “button freaks” it’s good.
I’m a real button freak,i would rather see Gnome having more buttons,the more the better.
—
sure. the toolbars are configurable. go add them,
Is the HAL from the article the same as HAL in w2k?
—–
no. its not. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fhal
basically. hal is a abstraction library at the user level for running applications across multiple operating systems like linux, freebsd, solaris etc
With kde3.2.1 on Mandrake i also have the dvd’s and cd’s automounted, so what’s the deal?
—–
hal and volume manager are only integrated in kde cvs and has yet to be included in a kde release. it will start working as expected in the next release of kde 3.x
Besides that, i personally dislike the looks of Gnome 2.8.
—–
it has several themes include plastik and crystal icon set which can give you the same looks as kde for the basic parts.
Yuck, 142 screenshots without thumbnails. I’m not gonna browse every single of these screenshots. Besides, i’m only interested in new features. Guess the feature improvement list is more worth a read…
Gnome 2.8 crashes when network browsing if the “Show hidden and backup files” option is set under “Preferences”. If already set, clear it and restart Gnome.
Be it any operating system. Still has to work on better integration but that is happening and I love the simplicity of Gnome. Can be customised to look how you want without the clutter.
Still waiting on those music apps to get to a decent state (and yes I realise some are using Linux for audio right now but not in a VST workstation like I want).
I like Aero Glass better.
Alright, you got me
“While my own preference is Gnome over KDE, I think the differences are primarily aesthetic these days.”
Overall I find KDE to be much more powerful. However I am one of those who consider KDE to be far too gawky and annoying to use for daily work. Instead, the cleanliness of the gnome interface won me over, and I highly value what the gnome developers have done to improve my linux user experience.
Nautilus should have a “Burn this folder” option instead of having a special burner folder.
Thte would make it easier.
I recently upgraded to Fedora Core 3 and I had been using KDE for about two years. I found that KDE was running slowly and Firefox UI became sluggish with it. I switched to Gnome 2.8 and the speed went back up. All my GTK apps ran fast and smoothly. I at first missed a lot of the Konqueror features but once I got a handle on Nautilus I fell in love with it. I like the fact that you can make shell scripts and dropt them in the Nautilus scripts folder and they appear as a right-click option. Great for quickly building programs or launching small scripts you use all the time. Lately I have been messing around with XFce4.2 and I like it even more than Gnome 2.8. You can have the best of both worlds by running XFce4.2 with Gnome services enabled and then use Nautilus as your file manager. It works great. I would never go back to KDE now.
i’m really thinking about switching from kde to gnome.
xchat, gaim, synaptic, gimp, firefox
the great ones are gtk
Poor argument
K3b, quanta, kdevelop, scribus…
It says in the article that gnome 2.8 is highly dependant because of HAL. For certain reasons, I still run 2.4, so will 2.8 be an issue or are there workarounds?
With the new ‘Network browsing’ feature – I click ‘Network’ and nautilus crashes.
Every time.
GNOME-Devs: Please don’t put this crap in if it doesn’t work.
Don’t tell me that this still isn’t fixed. It was supposed to work in 2.4, but didn’t. It was supposed to work in 2.6 but still didn’t.
KDE developers seam to have no problems with this. It have worked for years in konquerer. Perhaps gnome-vfs developers could ask the KDE people how to fix this.
Being able to connect to windows networks is extremely important to get free desktops accepted in enterprice environments.
It seams that some people actually get this to work. It would be interesting to know what versions of windows they connect to. In Gnome 2.6 I managed to connect to samba servers, but not win-NT4 sp6a where the computer shows up but as soon as I try to enter the computer, no shared files shows up.
“t says in the article that gnome 2.8 is highly dependant because of HAL. For certain reasons, I still run 2.4, so will 2.8 be an issue or are there workarounds?”
you can disable hal and gnome volume manager and get the rest of the stuff working. the next revisions are going to more and more dependant on hal and its better to move to 2.6 kernel. basically udev in linux or devfs in freebsd or similar is required for dynamic hotplugging of devices
nuff said.
Actually, I’ll say more. The new add applet dialog is so wrong headed and inconsistent with the rest of the gnome desktop it is astounding that it was actually included.
A) the old way was fine.
b) the old way was easier because:
– the icons were not gigantic so the list could actually be easily read
– it was categorized
c) the old way was semi consistent with normal gnome ui (like preferences in the gnome menu). The new way is just like WTF??!!
d) the is a perfect example of gnome developers (who I love in general) needing to get a clue.
Why does the UI looks sooooo boring, what year is it again?
Well, its broken completely on this Debian sarge box e.g. nautilus just crashes upon clicking the ‘Windows Network’ icon.
On Ubuntu at home it seems to work but is slow as molasses and can take minutes to get a folder listing from an SMB share
On Slackware with dropline GNOME 2.6 it mostly worked but was prone to failure requiring login/logout to restore workage.
On Fedora Core 3 it seems to work OK, but i havent extensively tested it.
So, while it might work under Fedora Core 3, i’d say its not well suported elsewhere, and the only systems I have used it with have been other Linux machines running SAMBA.
“A) the old way was fine. ”
No. it wasnt. people were frequently getting confused by the hierarchy and wanted a flat list
“b) the old way was easier because: ”
no. because a flat list is scanned easier. has better explanations and the icons are more visible and easily associated with the action.
“c) the old way was semi consistent with normal gnome ui (like preferences in the gnome menu). The new way is just like WTF??!! ”
no. the old way was causing confusion and support questions were more or less frequently focussed on that
“d) the is a perfect example of gnome developers (who I love in general) needing to get a clue. ”
its a perfect example of people like you who dont have a clue and havent demonstrated any concievable knowledge or produced code but bash others without any respect or understanding of the issues involved.
try supporting remote desktop users and you will learn to value how UI is expected to work and how gnome achieves that goal.
No, it is better. Perhaps it could not dissapear when adding items, but overall it is better than before. And you can click & drag!
I’m a real button freak,i would rather see Gnome having more buttons,the more the better.
Perhaps you should try KDE, just imagine 16 buttons on the
konquerer toolbar.
“Perhaps it could not dissapear when adding items”
file a bug at bugzilla.gnome.org
Why does the UI looks sooooo boring, what year is it again?
Boring is good. That way it doesn’t distract the user from whatever tasks it is supposed to help him do.
>>Why does the UI looks sooooo boring, what year is it again?
Some of us don’t want to be entertained by dialog boxes. You think it looks boring; I think it looks tasteful. Go figure.
My guess is that the Gnome folks aren’t targetting the folks with glow-in-the-dark PC cases.
1.The ability to have windows center instead of popping up in the upper left corner.
2. Better mime support over protocols such as FTP/SFTP
3. The ability to group similar windows on the task bar together like XP and KDE can do.
I hate it when I have 6 Firefox or whatever windows open and they can’t be grouped into a single entry on the task bar.
Other than these 3 little issues I really like gnome 2.8 and would use it instead of KDE, but….
If any of these can be done now with 2.8 please let me know.
Thanks
Is their a way to have different backgrounds for different desktops? This is the one feature from KDE that I miss (or haven’t been able to figure out).
Another three are:
1. The ability to undertake block-selects in GEdit (how long has this been logged as a request in Bugzilla?);
2. An easy way to set themes, screensavers and so on as wallpaper (just eye-candy, I know);
3. The ability to display MOTDs on log in.
>>My guess is that the Gnome folks aren’t targetting the folks with glow-in-the-dark PC cases.
That is soo true, and funny! I guess it proves we’re boring!!
HA!
As someone that has used Linux/Gnome exclusively on the desktop for the last 2 years, I have been very pleased with every new release. Their focus on functionality and usability is an inspiration and is sorely lacking in other proprietary and opensource software. IMO Gnome will drive Linux on the desktop.
Mandrake uses magicdev currently; the GNOME side will switch to the stock GNOME solution with MDK 10.2. This also configures fstab for you, or at least the MDK implementation does. MDK 10.1’s automounting mojo is pretty darn good, except for one annoying bug which affects several types of USB keys. Sigh.
I use GNOME 2.8 on my MDK Cooker box. No changes that would affect network sharing that I’m aware of. I tested the network sharing stuff after reading another review that said it didn’t work, and was able to connect to the Windows XP box in the next room with no problems. This is a home network so no domain is involved, and I don’t think I have the ‘hidden files’ option in Nautilus enabled. Either of these could affect it, I suppose.
@hmm: because this is a bloody desktop. The point of a desktop ought to be to allow you to do work, not to look ‘exciting’. Think of your physical desktop – are you one of the people who has fifteen thousand pictures of your family, a bunch of toy cars, one of those swinging metal ball things and some comic book figures on yours? If so, go use KDE. If you have, say, your computer, your papers, your phone and maybe one or two little pictures, welcome to GNOME.
Most recently written graphical apps will stay wherever you put them – you put the window centred the next time you open it it’ll stay centred, or wherever. Ones that don’t respect session management standards may not, which is a bummer. I think maybe the old Sawfish WM (which has tons more features than the current Metacity WM but was a little slow and buggy, plus doesn’t fit the ‘less is more’ GNOME philosophy) may have the option, you could try that. MIME over SFTP, I have no clue. Window grouping you can enable right now, in GNOME 2.8 for sure and I think also previous versions. Go the Window List properties (right click on the separator at the left-hand end of the window list and hit ‘Preferences’) and select ‘Group windows when space is limited’ or ‘Always group windows’.
BTW, why do you have six Firefox windows? That’s what tabs are for, mate.
Well, one of the three is already done. Go to the preferences of the task list. Choose to always group windows.
Yes, I completely agree with you, the new way is a complete crap. It takes me nearly a minnute to find an applet I want to add, and after clicking add button the whole dialog just closes. So if I have to add another aplet I have to go through the same annoying process again. Sure, there’s drag and drop, but i does not really provide any feedback on where you’re dragging an applet
Anyways, XFCE rules
I could have not sayed this better!
Maybe we should raise this topic on Gnome usability list?
I developed this program:
http://wallpapoz.sourceforge.net/
To pity because I am still newbie in GTK+ programming and C++ programming, the program it self eat too much resources….. However I will try to improve the program in February 2005 ( when I have spare time ). Right now, I am too busy….
Is there a way to “bookmark” the server I connect to? It would be great to save my share and mount them on request with a click (or double-click…)
For the windows network browsing: was not working in Ubuntu, now I’m trying Fedora but not tested this yet.
wow, nice, a connect to server dialogue…
hahahaha
just enter the adress in the konqueror adress bar and you are there
KIO slaves rule 
try it in a file open dialogue… you are there 
try in the save as dialogue 
you are there 
the only edges gnome has over kde are the fact it doesnt have all the icons and buttons (but thats configurable, isnt it?) and gnome supports hall/dbus. but thats about it. Tried 2.8, its slower as KDE 3.3.1 and damn, I miss so many features I use…
BTW, why do you have six Firefox windows? That’s what tabs are for, mate.
I don’t know about Snorkel, but I like to organise my browsing with windows aswell as tabs. E.g. If I were doing some web development, I might have one window for each of the following:
* PHP documentation
* MySQL documentation
* Source viewer
* Preview/debug window
Well, its broken completely on this Debian sarge box e.g. nautilus just crashes upon clicking the ‘Windows Network’ icon.
On Ubuntu at home it seems to work but is slow as molasses and can take minutes to get a folder listing from an SMB share
On Slackware with dropline GNOME 2.6 it mostly worked but was prone to failure requiring login/logout to restore workage.
On Fedora Core 3 it seems to work OK, but i havent extensively tested it.
[offtopic]
I never understood the word Core in Fedora Core, cause it’s not core at all..
[/offtopic]
[ontopic]
Well on FreeBSD 6.0-CURRENT and FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE Gnome 2.6 and 2.8 work like a charm
[/ontopic]
I can’t claim to be a big fan of Gnome. In the past I’ve always tried the latest Gnome and ended up back on KDE. I tried Ubuntu a few days ago.
For the first time ever, when I plugged in my digicam (Fuji Finepix s602Z) a mount point appeared on the desktop and a browser was opened showing all of my pics.
That was enough to make me consider using gnome 2.8 on a more permanent basis. Same for my Pendrive. Supermount in Mandrake 10.1 seems only to recognise the pendrive if it’s plugged in when the machine boots, in which case it adds an entry into /etc/fstab.
Things like HAL, VFS, DBUS and GStreamer are addressing the needs of the ordinary user and it seems that Gnome is now setting the agenda – all of these are being integrated into KDE.
Having said that, I still prefer the KDE apps – Kaffeine, Amarok, Konsole, Konq (sometimes Opera the rest of the time).
Ez
“When are we going to get over this ‘poor English’ business? I found the review helpful, as I’m running 2.6 and considering upgrading to 2.8 It gave a good synopsis of the new features offered by the latest and greatest. Tony, I find it ironic that you complain about someone else’s English when your grammer is lacking. ”
Just not sure ? IS it GRAMMAR/ GRAMMER
[Sorry to drift off the topic]
Using Linux since 1996 and saw every step in Desktop development (my 1st computer steps was 1985 with C64)
Ok, mainly I used Windows2000 2 years ago, now I use Linux only.
For the 1st “conversion” from Windows to Linux I used KDE cause I live in Europe (where KDE is very popular).
After compiling 1000MBs I switch from Slackware to Fedora and see, how nice a Gnome Desktop is, but never forgot every Window Manager I saw since 1996
Now, I use my “dream team”: IceWM and Rox-Filer
I doesn’t need more. I’m very happy. I login in 1-2 seconds on my 2.4Ghz machine and Rox-Filer doesn’t open Windows after some tenth seconds, the windows _are_ open!
Great!
KDE and/or Gnome are really helpful for the 1st step, but if U have some steps in your live, did you stop and die?
No, and that’s are some reasons to learn ‘vi’ and the real power of Unix!
> Your Linux box is crap. Learn to configure s–t before
> complaining.
I think you mean to say: All non-Redhat distros are crap, which are broken out-of-the-box with regard to GNOME and smb networking.
Also, I think you’ll find there is no way to ‘configure’ the smb vfs module in GNOME – libsmbcllient is basically unsuitable for the purposes GNOME wants to use it for anyway.
Read this thread, and the many others like it on the GNOME lists, and tell me again how it is my ‘crap Linux box’ and my inability to configure it that is the problem here.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-vfs-list/2004-November/msg0001…
The title of the thread is ‘Patch to fix SMB browsing bugs’ – those problems you suggest are due to my lack of configuration knowledge are known bugs and design constraints with libsmbclient and it’s implementation in gnome-vfs.
Look, this feature, as shipped by GNOME, is broken. It doesn’t work reliably for all users (and probably not even a majority of users). It has no place in any desktop environment intended for use by non-expert end users.
Clearly, Redhat has done the work necessary (most likely heavy patching of libsmbcliet, gnome-vfs, nautilus and samba) to make it work reasonably, but none of this is documented clearly anywhere.
If anybody has some good pointers to improving nautilus’s stability when accessing smb shares, performance improvements to GNOME’s smb vfs subsystem or general information on which configuration options affect the behaviour of these components, please share them.
er, Mark…I think that’s grammAr LOL
(mote in eye>log in eye)
supermount isn’t used for such devices any more, it’s magicdev…could you open a Mandrake bug for that, with appropriate output from dmesg and maybe lsusb? If it can detect it on boot it should be able to hotplug it properly.
KDE and/or Gnome are really helpful for the 1st step, but if U have some steps in your live, did you stop and die?
No, and that’s are some reasons to learn ‘vi’ and the real power of Unix!
I don’t undestand that kind of elitism. There are people that are far more experienced in Unix than you (and me) that still enjoy one of these DEs. I am getting more and more into Linux, yet I don’t feel the need to use minimalistic environments just to feel that I am getting “better”.
Clearly, Redhat has done the work necessary (most likely heavy patching of libsmbcliet, gnome-vfs, nautilus and samba) to make it work reasonably, but none of this is documented clearly anywhere.
That does not mean it does only work on Redhat. I use FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE and 6.0-CURRENT and on both boxes it works fine.
KDE and/or Gnome are really helpful for the 1st step, but if U have some steps in your live, did you stop and die?
No, and that’s are some reasons to learn ‘vi’ and the real power of Unix!
I don’t undestand that kind of elitism. There are people that are far more experienced in Unix than you (and me) that still enjoy one of these DEs. I am getting more and more into Linux, yet I don’t feel the need to use minimalistic environments just to feel that I am getting “better”.
I agree. Try installing Gnome on FreeBSD. I know a lot of Geeks that don’t even want to use ports to do the job. Look at http://rootxs.nl/temp/gnome-freebsd.howto.html for what I did to make it run.
“I agree. Try installing Gnome on FreeBSD.”
no. I shouldnt be required to switch operating systems just for this. dont use this for personal propaganda
“. The fonts, icons, themes are unattractive and overwhelming.”
What a troll, fonts are the same accross DE (oh od oyu not use X??) and Plastik is attractive, as well Crystal.
Thanks a bunch for this tip I have not tried it yet, but I will.
Window grouping you can enable right now, in GNOME 2.8 for sure and I think also previous versions. Go the Window List properties (right click on the separator at the left-hand end of the window list and hit ‘Preferences’) and select ‘Group windows when space is limited’ or ‘Always group windows’.
It’s bad enough to always arguing which distro is best, but must this Gnome vs. KDE thing go on into eternity?
no. I shouldnt be required to switch operating systems just for this. dont use this for personal propaganda
What a bullshit. I just share experience. Don’t know how Gnome 2.8 works with Linux. In contradiction to lots of other people I don’t wanna talk about something I don’t know. So don’t see it too negative.