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GNOME GUI

GNOME in the Year of the Monkey 227

Posted by michael from the timmah! dept.
An anonymous reader writes "GNOME Foundation's Tim Ney describes some of the project's efforts marking the Lunar New Year of the Monkey with a tip, "Never sit with your back to a lobbyist for proprietary software." GNOME is rapidly becoming popular in developing countries and you can donate to help."
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GNOME in the Year of the Monkey More

GNOME in the Year of the Monkey

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  • Year of the Monkey cant be that good... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrRTFM ( 740877 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @08:47AM (#8143314) Journal
    Developers, Developers, Developers!!!!!

    We all know where this is going to lead :(

    • Re:Year of the Monkey cant be that good... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @10:45AM (#8143586) Homepage Journal
      It should instead be:

      Components, Components, Components!! ("Universal coupling" [geocities.com]).

      Seriously, GNOME needs more work going into bonobo. IMHO its the only area where it lags behind KDE. That's the reason why you hear Abiword and gnumeric a lot more than kword and kspread, but you hear of koffice but not of gnome-office.

      Loose coupling is not necessarily a bad idea though. For example gnome apps start quickly when you're in KDE but not vice versa.

      • I beg to differ. In my experience, GNOME apps and KDE apps start at fairly similar rates, and I use BlackBox. That is, however, assuming they are comparable apps. Konqueror outpaces Galeon or Epiphany. KWord and Abiword have almost identical start times. GNumeric outdoes KSpread very marginally.

        In general, KDE apps start very marginally slower if I have NO KDE apps started. If even one is started, it's pretty much on par.

  • Gnome the way to go? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by armando_wall ( 714879 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @08:49AM (#8143319) Homepage

    I'm a big fan of KDE, and a few years ago I found Gnome a little bit cumbersome to use on a daily basis (this is not troll... those days I didn't find KDE too special either).

    However... recently, I've tried it once or twice, and man, how it has improved!

    I always liked Gnome because of its GTK+ (C coding is great!).

    I'm even considering switching to it, thanks to Dropline Gnome [dropline.net], a version especially crafted for Slackware. I'd like some opinions from its users (Dropline Gnome).... anyone around?

    • c coding is great, but not for this (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Programming in c is error prone is too low level for building guis. An object-oriented language is more adapted for this (ocaml, c++, java..). Fortunately bindings for those languages are provided (lablgtk, gtkshap, gtkmm ..).

    • Re:Gnome the way to go? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pcbob ( 67069 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @09:06AM (#8143354) Homepage
      Dropline is great! If you have fast connection, then installation is painless - just start the instaler, select few options, go outside (gasp!) and when you are back you new gnome is waiting for you.

      I've been using it for some time now, and I haven't found anything missing (besides win32 video codec drivers :) I use Serbian Cyrillic trnaslations, and I'm glad that they included everyting, and it works out of box.

      Also they update packages fairly often (stuff like mozilla); they even provide an applet for panel that checks for updates.

      Overall, strongly recomended for any slacker outhere!
    • While I have nothing against your being a C fan (its certainly way simpler to learn than C++), IMHO one of the advantages of Gtk+/Gnome is the availability of bindings in a large number of languages (python, perl, C#, ruby, C++ etc). Efficiency is not crucial in desktop apps, and so using a higher level language can lead to big gains in programmer productivity. (I have personal experience with this. I wrote gretools [ernet.in] in a week, and that included learning python along the way.)
    • You should definetly go for it. I have so much fun with it and the best thing is you get all the latest software in neat i586-packages installed on your box without the hassle of searching for a slack-tgz.

    • Re:Gnome the way to go? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dolson ( 634094 )
      I haven't used Dropline, but I do use Gnome, and I was in your position. I had very bad luck with Gnome until version 2.0. I used to swear by KDE and swear at Gnome, but as you mentioned, it has vastly improved. I can't go back to KDE now. I just love how GTK looks compared to Qt. All of my favorite apps are GTK-based anyhow. So all is well.

      I hope it continues, and I like that people have the choice to use KDE as well. It's all good.

  • year of the monkey (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @08:53AM (#8143328) Journal
    GNOME Foundation's Tim Ney describes some of the project's efforts marking the Lunar New Year of the Monkey with a tip.

    Huh? Year of The Monkey can only be good for Ximian Desktop [ximian.com].

    GNOME's logo desn't look like a monkey's print anyway.

  • Developing countries? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 31, 2004 @09:05AM (#8143350)
    How is GNOME becoming popular in developing countries when it's geared towards newer machines? I mean, you need at least 128M of RAM to run GNOME smoothly, and many systems in developing countries have 16, 32 and (just possibly) 64M of RAM. I would've thought they'd use IceWM or perhaps XFce.

    This is the only problem I see for GNOME and KDE. Powerful and flexible as they are, they're so bulky and huge that they don't feel much faster than Windows XP. If we want to give people an incentive to switch, we want them to FEEL that their machines are faster under Linux. Instead, you can see on message boards around the Net first-timers stating that Linux is "slow" and "bloated" because of this.

    I hope at some point KDE and GNOME developers really make headway into the bloat and performance, because otherwise it's not only unusable for any machine built earlier than 2001, but also doesn't give a good impression. Linux was always known as the speedy, svelte and lighweight OS - this image is being eroded.

    • Re:Developing countries? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by digitect ( 217483 ) <digitect&dancingpaper,com> on Saturday January 31, 2004 @09:38AM (#8143438)
      [GNOME and KDE] don't feel much faster than Windows XP

      Have to disagree with you there. I use GNOME on a P3-450Mhz at home, and it feels almost as fast as the WinXP I use on a P4-2600Mhz at work; nearly five times the machine!

      As you say, RAM does matter (I have 262Mb on the home machine) but memory is cheap. What's the big deal?

      • Re:Developing countries? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        but memory is cheap. What's the big deal?

        The big deal is that some people use GNU/linux because they can get it for $0.

        We don't want Little Johnny to have to ask his parents to upgrade before he can give GNU/linux a whirl.

        • Are you saying the machine he's going to run it on was free? RAM is 5% the cost of a machine. You pay more for a video card.

          I'll re-iterate my point: I use Linux as my sole OS on a 5 year old consumer quality machine. It does great, and with the improvements in the 2.6 kernal I hear about, I probably won't need to upgrade my hardware for several more years.

      • Re:Developing countries? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Homology ( 639438 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @10:09AM (#8143505)
        As you say, RAM does matter (I have 262Mb on the home machine) but memory is cheap. What's the big deal?

        Read the parent post again, and note what he writes about developing countries and older PCs.

        Memory is not cheap when you are poor, so, it's indeed a big deal.

        For those of us that are priviliged, and still want to use older machines, we may have trouble getting more memory. For instance, I've got a Dell Dimension L466cx that can only use PC100 memory. Now, the online stores in my country only sells PC133 memory, so more memory may be hard to get.

        • I'm fairly sure PC133 memory will run fine at the 100 speed.

      • As you say, RAM does matter (I have 262Mb on the home machine) but memory is cheap. What's the big deal?

        Memory is not cheap! Take an old pentium-era computer (without 168pin SDR DIMMS) and try to buy enough memory to bump it up to 256M.

        Ne'ermind that in some areas, there is shipping costs, and tariffs on that memory.

        Finally, if you are doing things the *right* way, the $20 pricewatch special isn't the way to go - you want quality memory chips from a quality manufacturer.

        • Pentium-era computer? I once tried to load Windows 95 on a Pentium 90 and it took five minutes just to boot up. Once it did, it was too slow to be usable. (This was back when the machine was less than a year old, it was the latest in consumer technology.)

          If we're going to contemplate the memory and processing required by GNOME and the computer resources available to the poverty stricken, we at least need to consider the possibility that *no* usable desktop may be available. GNOME may not be as light as a

          • You must have had some really Piece of Shit hardware. I had no issues with my P100 and it ran Windows NT 4, Windows 95, 98, Linux and FreeBSD.

            It ran very decent, all things considered, especially with my Voodoo!
    • I was reading Maximum PC the other, and there was an article about installing linux, mandrake was the dist.
      It said you should have 1GHz proc and 1GB of RAM if you were going to use KDE or GNOME!
      I usually run icewm and fvwm2, but what is up with those specs!
      Typos?
      • Well, personally, any machine I use for anything beyond email and surfing is going to have to have a much faster proc than 1GHz, but I mostly play games and do Java & a bit of .NET development....

        The gig of RAM figure is pure bullshit though; you don't need anything like that much just for KDE or GNOME. They should be perfectly happy with 256meg of RAM. That may sound like a lot, but it's entry level for a modern machine, and very cheap to buy to upgrade an older machine with if necessary. I'd be rathe

    • Re:Developing countries? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      KDE 3.2 have made some real improvements in their RAM usage and speed. You should try it when it comes out. OpenOffice.org are trying very hard to reduce their speed too. OpenOffice 1.1 was impressive, but the latest developer snapshots are even faster! KDE is designed to be modular, and with the minimal packages it is really fast!

    • Performance. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > I hope at some point KDE and GNOME developers really make
      > headway into the bloat and performance

      This point would be right now. As of version 3.2, KDE apps are routinely faster and lighter than equivalent third-party apps (mostly because of their strong policy of code reuse, I think, up to 80% of any given app's logic is exported to libs that are shared with all the other KDE apps, and only need to be loaded once). I've successfully run it on a Pentium-class computer. It works completely fine.

      And

    • Re:Developing countries? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @10:20AM (#8143528) Homepage Journal
      Linux was always known as the speedy, svelte and lighweight OS

      You mean on the server. Which it still is. The *nix DEs never had much of a reputation for speed (except maybe wmaker and other niche WMs). Please don't confuse the two. I remember KDE 1.x being very slow on the hardware of the day. Today's KDE and GNOME are certainly way faster on today's hardware.

      • Actually Linux still is a speedy, svelte, lightweight OS. I don't think your right when you just say server. That's just not a realistic outlook on how everyone uses Linux. There are a ton of Linux Window Managers out there at this point that are pretty darn light on the resources. Just because 2 of the more popular DE's take a hefty system to run doesn't mean that you can just categorically say Linux isn't lightweight anymore

        Also KDE 1.x performed pretty well on the hardware of the day IMO. At least when
      • KDE 1.x was very fast. It was KDE 2.x that was really slow. Today's KDE 3.2 is very fast in all respects except startup speed.
    • Do you think that developing nations all use ancient equipment? That's not exactly true.

      Often older equipment is more expensive and harder to get, and harder to get support on.

      Developing countries have computers... it's the software licenses that dwarf the cost of those computers that hurts.

    • How is GNOME becoming popular in developing countries when it's geared towards newer machines?

      Most developing countries use quite different locales. So I think it might have to do with the fact that GNOME's Pango engine is very great for truly internationalized apps, including very good bidirectional support.

      Then again, I don't really know about KDE's i18n/l10n capabilities since I've hardly used it for quite a while.

    • I agree. Someone else who replied posted the comment "RAM is cheap" but is that necessarily true in developing countries? I used to use GMC with Window Maker on a machine that only had 64MB of RAM. This was in my college days and the year after I got married. True, memory was "cheap" but every time I had $100 bucks or so extra, I'd get a flat tire, or my car would need some sort of repairs, or would need a new pair of pants (because an older pair had worn out) or what have you.

      In the heady days of 199

    • Re:Developing countries? (Score:3, Informative)

      by nerdin ( 1330 )
      I'm from a developing country: We don't mind about performance, but price.

      You can't complain about performance if you *never* touch a PC, right? You can't have a reference frame when you can't simply use a computer.

      I need pretty much the same hardware to run Win 2000/Office/MS Development tools, and still pay a few thousand bucks to MS if I want to perform any other action than play solitaire (is solitaire still in XP?). And it's that or use pirated versions...

      For being productive as a developer in Windo
    • PCs with 32MB have equal performnce problems with all modern systemss, both commercial and open-sourced. Although in case of open-source, they have more chance of support and *latest* updates from FVWM or like that (which development is not stopped) than from Win-95 (which support is dropped from Microdropt).

      However my point is not about 32MB PCs, because as I can see there is lots of much better PC around in developing countries I was visiting. In profitable commercial companies and in goverment agencies

  • Innovation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @09:41AM (#8143450) Homepage Journal
    The GNOME people have always been bold in trying out new strategies. After the gnome2 drive to simplify the UI and move away from featuritis [pair.com] it has come a long way. There are some exciting developments like dashboard [nat.org], gstreamer [gstreamer.net] and desktop integration bounty hunt [gnome.org]. Watch out for 2.6!

    • Re:Innovation (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Elektroschock ( 659467 )
      What's really important is a common strqategy with KDE.
  • "Never sit with your back to a lobbyist for proprietary software."
    I don't get it.
    Is it some kind of ximian-mono/redmond-# joke?

    • Re:Fortune? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by peragrin ( 659227 )
      proprietary software vendors will stab you in the back. Think of all the small vendors that microsoft, got close to, stole their ideas, and then destroyed them.

      • Re:Fortune? (Score:3, Funny)

        by Epeeist ( 2682 )
        Absolutely - think of Stac and Spyglass.

        Hopefully we won't have to add "and Mono" to the list.
        • In the defense of Microsoft, Spyglass handled everything very stupidly. Instead of licensing their browser technology to Microsoft for a price, they got greedy and wanted a cut of each sale of IE.

          Unfortunately for Spyglass, Microsoft gave away IE for free. Any percentage of 0 is still 0. Spyglass however should have come back and sued the pants off of Microsoft for a percent of each copy of Windows when Microsoft told the DOJ that separating IE from Windows was impossible because Windows is IE and IE is Wi
    • Yeah, Gnome just has to ditch mono.
      Saying the obvious: Gnome started as a reaction
      to KDE based on closed Qt. So what does Gnome do...
      they begin to based on Mono. Nuts.

      • Re:Fortune? (Score:3, Informative)

        by trouser ( 149900 )
        Nothing in Gnome is based on Mono.

        Besides, Mono is a GPL implementation of the .NET development framework and I don't see anything wrong with that.

        I don't like Microsoft's business practices and I can't stand Windows, MS Office, etc. but Mono, C#, the CLR and, by inference, .NET are all pretty cool if you can get past the basic aversion to anything that comes out of Redmond.
  • Gnome is "rapidly becoming popular."

    In a recent topic we had an "increasing trend in bad documentation" as if people completely forgot the acres of bad documentation of years past.

    Sure, i'm sure there is somebody out there in a developing nation who is adopting gnome, so for him, it is indeed rapidly becoming popular. but without real evidence, this is just so much foofaa. (not to mention bad journalism, but remember where we are!)

  • From my observations... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @10:05AM (#8143498) Homepage
    ...I've always found slashdot to be rather GNOME-hostile, with many vocal critics always bashing it rather nastily (especially in comparison to the more "integrated" KDE). I use GNOME, and I don't get the hang-ups over "integration" and "consistency". I care more about applications (My favourites are Evolution, Gaim, Galeon, XChat...all of them GTK apps), so even though I don't require GNOME to use them, it seems all of my favourite stuff uses GTK, so using the GTK-based GNOME is only natural.

    • Well for my tastes gnome is a little too bloated, sure this is fine if you want all the menus and (ugh) nautilus. But I prefer a desktop based on the nice light gtk based XFCE4 [xfce.org] and replace it's desktop module with the sweet gtk based rox desktop/filer [sourceforge.net]. But I guess it's all about personal taste.

    • You're new here. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You're new here. Well, you're not, but you're not old enough...

      Back in 1999, Slashdot was pro-GNOME/anti-KDE.

      Once KDE started to pull ahead feature-wise, the people here started loving it. Oh, and Qt going GPL didn't hurt either.
      • Hmmm, I don't find that to be the case at all.

        The KDE `fans' on slashdot can be pretty um, vocal about their preference, but in general there seems to be a preference for Gnome/GTK.

        Indeed, Gnome's influence seems to be increasing rapidly; to the extent that it matters, KDE's license change appears to have happened a little too late.

        [This mirrors what I see in the non-slashdot world, BTW.]
  • Just to give a plug for OSAIA, and because it is mentioned in the article. We just added a "write your rep [osaia.org]" section to our website [osaia.org]. Check it out, it has some bullet points to include in a letter to Congress on OS in general and the SCO suit (responding to SCO's letter to Congress [osaia.org]).

    You can get your Congressperson's contact info on that site also. We recommend faxing your letter as well as sending it via post mail. The mail facilities at the capitol still are not 100% after the anthrax incidents of a few

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