GNOME 3.0 May Not Come Until September 2010

[Alejandro Nova]

Yeah! Delay that GNOME 3.0! Make it depend wholly on Mono, so Ubuntu 10.10 Masturbating Monkey can have finally a reason for its name! And, while you are at it, please rewrite GTK+ so I can, after 25 years of computing evolution, FINALLY change the colours of my applications with a GUI!

Just kidding.

I tried GNOME Shell and it is promising, but it isn't still there. You still need the rewrite; you'd love to do the kind of effects Clutter does with plain GTK+. And I'd love to see it.

Personally, I prefer KDE. But GNOME has that kind of attention to detail that makes me forget about it. GNOME doesn't get in your way, and that's a definite plus.

[BlackStar]

Fair enough

Only one correction: Contrary to the belief of a lot of gnome users, Gstreamer is not a gnome app. In fact, isn't Gstreamer the default backend of Phonon? (BTW, the entire Phonon approach is nothing short of freakin genius)

Wikipedia to the rescue:

GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework written in the C programming language with the type system based on GObject.
[...]
The GNOME desktop environment, the primary user of GStreamer technology, has included GStreamer since GNOME version 2.2 and encourages GNOME and GTK+ applications to use it. Other projects also use or support it, such as the Chameleo media platform, the Phonon media framework and the Songbird media player.

So while it's not a Gnome app per se (it's not hosted on gnome.org), it's pretty intricately tied with Gnome.

Phonon is indeed a great abstraction over the multimedia pipeline/codec issue.

[BlackStar]

I think this translucent/glass fever needs to come to an end. Since when did those define "elegance"?

Since Mac OS X (first) and Vista (second). Apple and Microsoft have spent many millions of dollars designing and testing these interfaces - yes, some people prefer the looks of Win98, but the vast majority of users appreciate elegance and - why not? - beauty.

I absolutely agree with your "moderation" comment. To me, it seems that the theming/design community has matured significantly over the last few years and modern themes tend to be more professional and "mature" than older ones. Just look at the new Ubuntu icon theme (Humanity, I think?) or the "New Wave" theme: these are works of art! Simple, elegant and beatiful, with curves and chrome that actually improves usability (e.g. strong button highlights, differentiating colors) and the right balance of "glossiness".

Of course, amateur designers will produce amateur crap 9 times out of 10, but design skills seem to be going up on average now that the initial "yay Compiz!" effect has worn off.

@__txf__: what's wrong with Evolution? Yes, it used to be pretty bad in the past but it has steadily gotten better, to the point where I prefer it over every other client I've tried. Thunderbird 2 sucks, KMail sucks worse, Outlook is way too slow, Windows Mail is laughable, Opera mail is awesome but it's missing GPG and it hits the disk too hard for my linux-on-a-stick installation.

[Joe Sixpack]

@Joe Sixpack: with the exception of Epiphany (which just plain sucks), I prefer the Gnome alternatives to the applications you posted: Brasero, Metacity (which also supports composition), Transmission (for torrents) - and in the wider GTK camp, there's Gnome Do, XBMC, Banshee, Tomboy. It could be simple familiarity that keeps me to the Gnome side (although I make a point to test every major KDE release), but I guess I cannot see how "Gnome is lagging behind" in practice...

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.


Actually, it all started when bullext opened the discussion by likening Gnome to Windows 98.

Fair enough

Only one correction: Contrary to the belief of a lot of gnome users, Gstreamer is not a gnome app. In fact, isn't Gstreamer the default backend of Phonon? (BTW, the entire Phonon approach is nothing short of freakin genius)

[_txf_]

Evolution, Accessibility, GStreamer (with automatic codec installer), Seahorse, Orca, Tomboy, Cheese, GVFS, Brasero, fast user switching, tabbed Nautilus.

Cheese is practically a replica of Photobooth, Brasero wants to be K3B, tabbed nautilus is a wannabe konq, fast user switching wasn't anything new and GVFS is a "NIH"ism of kio.

On Gstreamer, tomboy and Orca I agree.

Evolution...urgh...won't even bother

[BlackStar]

@Joe Sixpack: with the exception of Epiphany (which just plain sucks), I prefer the Gnome alternatives to the applications you posted: Brasero, Metacity (which also supports composition), Transmission (for torrents) - and in the wider GTK camp, there's Gnome Do, XBMC, Banshee, Tomboy. It could be simple familiarity that keeps me to the Gnome side (although I make a point to test every major KDE release), but I guess I cannot see how "Gnome is lagging behind" in practice...

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

(Edit: I should also note that I didn't start this discussion. While you made the comment about KDE users always trolling about Gnome, you neglect to mention that the conversation started when someone took a cheap shot at KDE4. I then responded by saying their progress justifies their decision and pointed out the contrast between KDE's momentum and that of Gnome.)

Actually, it all started when bullext opened the discussion by likening Gnome to Windows 98.

[ioannis]

everything in moderation...

It is.. gray. There is no glass. There are no gradients. There is no depth. There is no elegance. There is just gray. It says: "I am kicking Windows 95's ass! Barely!"

I think this translucent/glass fever needs to come to an end. Since when did those define "elegance"? It's the GUI equivalent of the fashion statement "wearing glasses makes you look sophisticated" (pun not intended). This Vista/Aero/glass/whatnot plague has also spread into our laptop designs and made them all glossy (screens, body, everything, pure finger magnets). The old saying, "not everything that shines is gold", applies. Of course, equally, the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" applies as well.

Since I ended up using all these idioms, I should also point out that 'everything in moderation' is the rule of thumb. Just as curved corners are considered attractive, but only in the right amount, so does transparency/reflection/gradients in some places. What we see lately is design decisions that took it too far and made the desktop look like a 'prostitute'.

[Joe Sixpack]

Gnome *has* come a long way in the last two years. Have you ever used Evolution? Nautilus? (tabbed browsing at last, dammit!) Totem can actually stream videos now (install a distro from two years ago - any distro - and try streaming rtsp or mms video). The bluetooth stack has been improved significantly (unlike, say, KDE's).

If you are not using Gnome you may have missed all this stuff due to the lack of a "big" release (here comes KDE 4.0 suckers!), but the improvements are visible and welcome. I, for one, would never go back to Gnome 2.16 or even 2.22 - these "little" changes make a world of difference in actual use.

Default Nautilus probably isn't better than default Dolphin (honestly, default Nautilus sucks, although I've never seen a default Dolphin to compare) - however Nautilus in mainstream distros definitely looks cleaner than the Dolphin 4.3 screenshot from the previous page.

I respect what you are saying. Now, let me say a few things:

You also inadvertently proved my other point: Gnome adds features that should have been there from the beginning. Didn't Mplayer support streaming video 3 or 4 years ago with Live555 and mplayer plug-in? How long has Konqueror had tabbed browsing? These things have been in Linux, but some people have had their head in the Gnome sand for so long, they didn't know they existed until they were offered in the form of a Gnome app.

I haven't used bluetooh or Evolution for a while, so I can't comment. However, I have used Gnome a lot more than you think, and the day to day stuff has been, for the most part, stagnant. Minor tweaks have occurred, but the only major addition you've really name was bluetooth improvement - which I can't even debate because I don't use it. However, on the KDE 4.4 thread, users did mention that it has been greatly improved in trunk. Konqueror/Dolphin was the first to ask "Move, Copy, Link" when you dragged a folder to the desktop. K3B is still better than Gnome Baker. When burning an audio cd, Brassero normalizes the audio automatically. Amarok is better than Rhythmbox or Banshee. These things can hardly be argued. Klipper is rather handy, and Kwin has composition support built in. Several neutral sources say that KTorrent is the best BT client available for Linux.

I'm just saying... It wasn't like KDE had a major head start. Gnome 2 has been a 7 year platform, so they have no excuse for always lagging behind. By the time KDE 4.4 comes out, KDE would have completely rebuild and redesigned in only 2 years, with most of the bugs ironed out. Meanwhile, Gnome will either still be getting things stable, or lagging behind yet again.

(Edit: I should also note that I didn't start this discussion. While you made the comment about KDE users always trolling about Gnome, you neglect to mention that the conversation started when someone took a cheap shot at KDE4. I then responded by saying their progress justifies their decision and pointed out the contrast between KDE's momentum and that of Gnome.)

[BlackStar]

I mean seriously, you're actually going argue with a straight face that Gnome's come a long way in the past 2 years, or Nautilus is better by default than Dolphin?

Gnome *has* come a long way in the last two years. Have you ever used Evolution? Nautilus? (tabbed browsing at last, dammit!) Totem can actually stream videos now (install a distro from two years ago - any distro - and try streaming rtsp or mms video). The bluetooth stack has been improved significantly (unlike, say, KDE's).

If you are not using Gnome you may have missed all this stuff due to the lack of a "big" release (here comes KDE 4.0 suckers!), but the improvements are visible and welcome. I, for one, would never go back to Gnome 2.16 or even 2.22 - these "little" changes make a world of difference in actual use.

Default Nautilus probably isn't better than default Dolphin (honestly, default Nautilus sucks, although I've never seen a default Dolphin to compare) - however Nautilus in mainstream distros definitely looks cleaner than the Dolphin 4.3 screenshot from the previous page.

[bulletxt]

Hey guys... come on I was just joking Each DE has its advantage and disadvantages. There are a lot of areas where kde just rocks, but there are other "dark" spots where Gnome is better. I'm not sure when Windows DE is good

Again, I was just fooling around to make up a discussion and see what people think. It looked as a troll post I know, but what I wanted was a discussion. Discussion is always a good thing (but of course, my post wasn't a discussion. It was a crazy arrow to open one) :P