Ars Technica Looks At GNOME 2.6 [updated]

The Original Yama writes "Ars Technica takes a look inside the GNOME 2.6 Desktop & Developer Platform, due for release any minute now. It builds upon an earlier review of the GNOME 2.5 development series and their own examination of GNOME 2.4." darthcamaro writes "internetnews.com is running a story about the release of GNOME 2.6 today. They actually got a hold of Miguel de Icaza who had some real interesting stuff to say about it and the Linux Desktop in general. 'de Icaza told internetnews.com that a simpler interface has been the goal of GNOME since at least version 2.0.'" Update: 03/31 21:59 GMT by T : sn0wman3030 was one of many submitters to link to the GNOME 2.6 start page, including links to screenshots, documentation, and source downloads.

Spatial Nautilus

[ultrabot]

Incidentally, I'm testing it out as we speak. The Spatial Nautilus is very very annoying - it's much like the default Windows behaviour of popping up zillions of windows that you always have to turn off every time you reinstall Windows.

Yes, I'm going to go back to kde 3.2.1 Not because of the spatial nautilus that I can disable, but because of the missing "column list" viewing mode in Nautilus. I'm the kind of guy that wants to see as much stuff as possible w/ one glance, without needing to focus my eyes too much.

I Like Gnome

[Goo.cc]

I am a Mac OS X user and I have to say that I think that the UI of Gnome is appealing. If I was still using NetBSD, I would probably run it. (Hell, maybe I'll install YellowDog Linux and give it a try.)

Will 2.6 make Sarge?

[bjarvis354]

I am excited about the prospect of GNOME 2.6 making its way into Debian Sarge. with gnome 2.6 could be a really powerful desktop for more than a few years...Which is probably how long it will take Debian to release again...And I am sure if 2.6 made it to testing, it would push back Sarge's release date.

As a KDE user....

[armando_wall]

I'll give Gnome 2.6 a try. I find it more appealing as its team releases more versions. Its GTK library is one of my favorites to develop with. But I always got a "something is missing" impression with it (the desktop).

Besides, I know KDE is free software, but I think Gnome is "more free" for all platforms to use (ducks).

Re:Spatial Nautilus

[ultrabot]

Oh, look, it's a detailed columnized view.

It's not the same thing. I don't want to see the details, I want to see lots of items in a small space.

Zooming out doesn't do the trick either, because then the file names are under the icons, not right of the icons like in KDE column list mode. If the icon is just left of the file name, you can cram more objects in the same space.

Re:USB

[functor]

Look for things like hotplug, HAL Project, the D-BUS Project, the kernel events layer and other components of Project Utopia to get you things like automagic USB device identification, driver loading and GUI events.

Hopefully we'll see something in GNOME 2.8/2.10/3.0 that'll use this stuff.

(See http://www.freedesktop.org; lots of cool stuff going on behind the scenes.)

See http://tech9.net/rml/talks/rml_fosdem_2004.sxi for more info.

Re:As a KDE user....

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom doesn't count if you can't use it ... neither GNOME or KDE work on non-Unix/Linux platforms, but KDE is a lot closer than GNOME to that possibility.

Oh god...

[bicho]

... I don like Gnome that much anymore.
Besides the panel and the fact it uses gtk, I disagree with a lot of things, like absurdly minimalist configuration options AND documentation AND a regedit-like nightmerish hell with also minimalist documentation.

Anybody has successfully compiled e17 ? (yes. I am aware its not supposed to be usable/compilable yet)
I have been waiting for it a looong time, and it seems there is always wan problem or another.

I remember I compiled once its file system when in e15 or e16 something, and It was really nice.... but haven been able to compile e17 ever.
Now, that is something I really want to see...

Gnome needs an install program

[cubicledrone]

I've been working with Linux for over five years. It is too difficult and too buggy to upgrade or install something like Gnome or Gimp or KDE.

Gnome (and GIMP and KDE) needs a "double-click to install" program. I spent large portions of three days last week trying to compile and install GIMP 2.0. The dependencies were impossible. It still doesn't work.

+1, informative

[ultrabot]

Oh...for that you go to the "File Management" preferences and set "Text Beside Icons".

You could also turn on "Compact Layout", but that's pretty ugly.

Thanks for the tip, I feel much more at home already :-). Another view mode would have been more intuitive, but what the heck.

Now, I might even be giving that spatial thing another shot...

Re:I'm sticking with KDE, thanks

[bonch]

KDevelop runs on either.

KDE is much more lagged than GNOME. Personally I don't like the fact that it takes seconds to open a Home folder. Remind me again why they integrated the Internet and file browsers into one program? Is it because Windows 98 did it?

Performance?

[Moderation abuser]

No mention?

Not important?

Preliminary (and subjective) testing indicates that it isn't good when compared to the competition; CDE, GnuStep and having just loaded the current KDE, it looks like that is faster as well. Testing commonly used stuff; Menu operations and such over a LAN.

Bugger... Anyone know of a platform I can build an objective test suite on, for the various competing GUIs rather than relying on a stopwatch? I've found lots of Java specific and Web specific stuff...

One of the benefits of Unix I suppose. On Windows you get Windows and so have nothing to compare with.

Re:Spatial Nautilus

[ultrabot]

Double-middle-click (or double-right-click, I'm not sure) on a directory closes the current window and pops the new one. This de-annoyifies Nautilus quite a bit. :)

Sounds reasonable if you are using a mouse. I like to navigate w/ keyboard - what's the tactic there?

Re:Spatial Nautilus

[hattig]

It is more like the classic AmigaOS (From Workbench 1.0 in 1985 to present) behaviour, which has always been a spatial filesystem view.

Spatial does not mean "open folders in new window" - it has that per-window location, size, view mode, etc aspect to it as well. AmigaOS also let you locate Icons within each window where you wanted and then snapshot their locations along with the window, so still more advanced, but maybe Gnome will get there 20 years afterwards ...

Now it only needs an option for the default action when double clicking (Either: "Open new window" or "Open new window and close parent") so my weaker middle button doesn't die too soon. Because of the latter you need an "Open Parent Window" button on the UI, although the popup on the bottom left seems to suffice it isn't exactly obvious.

Still, it is looking like a nice clean desktop now. I wonder what would happen if KDE put some effort into making their system clean and simple?

Re:"simpler interface" but at what cost ?

[lazy_arabica]

[DISCLAIMER] I do not intend to troll [/DISCLAIMER]

If you want a whole bunch of perfectly useless features, filling the user's screen of coloured icons disturbing him in his job or activity, simply use KDE. In my opinion, a "simpler interface" is a good thing.

XChat can be optionally compiled to use Gnome, but is by no mean a part of the Gnome project.

Re:Oh god...

[sploxx]

ACK. I'm still using gnome, but that "features are bad" attitude of the developers lets me consider switching back to KDE more and more. I hope they won't make the same mistake...

Re:Oh yea.

[Speare]

Choice is fine for larger and more personal things, such as a few styles for laying out your information, or whether you want cargo space or sport performance out of your vehicle.

Choice becomes a barrier to entry when you can't stick to a consistent set of basic interface standards, such as what the right mouse button should do to most visual elements, and where the turn signals and brake petals are positioned.

Re:spatial metaphor?

[i_really_dont_care]

Yeah, exactly. I use Gnome myself, but that's the thing happening when you let coders do interface decisions. You usually end up with things like this "spatial view" in Nautilus or, say, the cluttered interface of Gimp. Everyone will complain what an utter bullshit this is, yet the people actually coding it will insist that it actually improves usability, despite the fact that no one wants it like this (other than a handful people, but those are probably the some that also find editing sendmail.cf by hand more intuitive than using some configuration UI). Also, they say, it does work: just double click the middle mouse button. Middle mouse button, my ass! The end argument will always be, that it's free software, it doesn't cost something, and one could fork it if one really needed the feature so badly, besides, be nice to us, we're doing this in our spare time, case closed.

There's a reason why companies do usability studies rather than asking their coders what could be "cool" or "intuitive". Sometimes things like Clippy will result, but most of the time, it prevents stuff like "spatial views" to happen.

Re:Spatial Nautilus

[peter_gzowski]

It sounds pretty annoying from the article. The dude basically says, "it's this new way of file browsing, where you have just have to get used to double clicking the middle mouse, and then figure out how to go back up the hierarchy, and then hit Ctrl-L if you want to navigate anywhere quickly". Um, yeah, and how is this better than a hierarchical view along the left hand side, with the contents of the selected directory in the right, and a toolbar that auto-completes along the top (i.e. what konqueror defaults to)? It has window memory? Great, that totally makes up for the hours of frustration I would spend learning this great new way of file-browsing.

Do you know what file-browsing needs that it doesn't have? A connected command prompt. That's it. I know I can bring up a command prompt in Konqueror. What I want is for that command prompt to follow the actions I take when I click on gui directories, and for the gui to follow the actions I take at the command prompt. This, for me, would achieve file-browsing nirvana.

The greatest feature in KDE

[Lord Ender]

The feature that keeps me using KDE instead of GNOME is ALT-Click. In KDE, if you ALT-Rt.click on a window, you can resize by moving the mouse. It is much nicer than having to find a 2 pixel wide bar and clicking on it. Combine this with ALT-Lt.click to move any window without having to catch the title bar, and window management becomes much easier and quicker.

"without any notice."

[Anonymous Coward]

you smoke crack if you think there has been no notice about the switch to spatial mode went without any notice. how is near weekly artilces on slashdot, gnome desktop and tons of info on the gnome 2.6 start page count as "without any notice". same goes for dialog button ordering... it wasn't out of the blue at all, it was well reasoned and publicized. just because *you* dont like it doesnt mean its right. take a look around at some major websites (which is what 95% of real users end up interacting with all day) and you'll find that button ordering is not very standardized at all.

Re:As a KDE user....

[FooBarWidget]

Huh? Where do you see Ximian actively bashing KDE?
I see more people bashing GNOME, or accusing GNOME of bashing KDE even when it isn't true.

Re:Spatial Nautilus

[pyros]

here's a gconf key that let's the user default to the old browser-type view

I believe my last test install of Fedora Core 2 had an option in the Desktop Preferences -> File Manager application. Anyone know if that was an upstream change? Or are non-Fedora users going to have to use gconf?

And it's a double middle click,

Hopefully the Single/Double click option in the same Preferences application applies to the middle-click as well.

Re:Slashdotters just can't understand Gnome

[Jagasian]

Sorry, but I have been using Gnome on Linux exclusively for the past year on my desktop. I need an interface that is tailored to me, not some future theoretical average joe. I need an interface that is not slow and buggy. I need an interface that is feature-ful. Gnome just ain't cutting it, and I lately I have been flirting with KDE.

There is no doubt that KDE and Gnome are rivals. Hell, Gnome's very existence was due to the creation of KDE and KDE's license issues... which by the way are no longer a problem.

It is survival of the fittest. Gnome is looking quite sickly, while KDE is robust and nubile.

Re:Spatial Nautilus

[someonehasmyname]

Do you know what file-browsing needs that it doesn't have? A connected command prompt.

PathFinder for OS X does that nicely.

Re:Spatial Nautilus

[Ctrl-Z]

Yeah, double-middle-click is really easy on a scroll wheel. :-P

Re:Nautilus is looking very Mac-like.

[s3nns]

Well, OS X's Finder is steadily getting better. 10.0/10.1 was weak, 10.2 was an improvement, and 10.3 is pretty usable. It really pales in comparison to the software it replaced, though, and Panther's half-assed "spatial Finder" [arstechnica.com] is a pretty weak imitation. (Hopefully Nautilus does a better job.)

Double clicking

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, if Gnome really wants to be as newbie friendly as possible, how come they still use double-clicks (not to mention this double-middle-click idea in Nautilus)? One thing I have noticed is that total newbies have a hard time double-clicking ("Hmm, nothing seems to happen, should I wait some more or try again?"). In my opinion, this is one area where KDE has got it right.

Of course, this is probably a gconf setting or something, but the Gnome paradigm is to have sensible defaults, isn't it?