GNOME 2.16 Released 473
Kethinov writes "The GNOME Project has just released version 2.16 of their popular *nix desktop environment. Among many snazzy new features, is lots of new eye candy, including an experimental compositer in Metacity, feature enhancements, usability improvements, and much, much more. Ars Technica has a review."
Re:Probably that you're running Ubuntu, like me. (Score:5, Informative)
So to answer your question, 2.16 will be in Edgy. And 2.18 will be in whatever comes after Edgy. And so on.
The important part: Mono (Score:5, Informative)
As a C# fan, and knowing how much of a pain GTK was in C, I think this is a very good move. KDE has always had a better API, official Mono support with GTK reverses that! This could really clear up GNOME, and the Linux desktop generally.
reasons to use gnome (Score:2, Informative)
I may be incorrect about either of these points, so someone please say so if I am wrong, but I can think of two reasons to prefer gnome over kde:
1) gtk is written in C, whereas QT is C++, making it less easy to use from C programs.
2) gtk is licensed as lgpl, whereas qt is gpl. This means that a non-gpled program (such as a commercial application) can be linked with gtk with no problems, but with qt the developers must pay licensing fees.
Re:Almost sounds like KDE 3... (Score:5, Informative)
For the record I use Gnome, Enligthenment (DR17), and Blackbox and I refuse to even touch the peice of bloated crap that is KDE.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:reasons to use gnome (Score:2, Informative)
As far as C vs. C++: Qt is C++, yes. GTK is C, yes. But there's also GTKMM, the C++ bindings for GTK. So this makes Gnome more flexible because it has both C and C++ bindings. I'm not sure if this is a win for Gnome or not, because I don't think any GUI C app could be more maintainable, flexible, and stable than a GUI C++ app, so I find it best to discourage the use of C in a GUI app. I have no grounds to back that except experience, and I admit it.
Re:God help Nautilus (Score:1, Informative)
Re:So? It still sucks. (Score:1, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:5 Year Old 3D features... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Probably that you're running Ubuntu, like me. (Score:3, Informative)
I've used Ubuntu for around 9 months and had no problems at all with the Hoary-to-Dapper upgrade.
When I use Debian, I just select "testing" or "unstable" and continously update to the latest packages, which gets rid of the annoying version-lag that Ubuntu has. On the other hand, Ubuntu's big all-at-once upgrades makes quality assurance easier and so I expect Ubuntu upgrades to be smoother than Debian upgrades.
Re:But does it have a useable file-save dialogue? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But does it have a useable file-save dialogue? (Score:3, Informative)
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Beautify_GNOME#Save_
credit where credit's due (Score:3, Informative)
"My parents told me never to go through the cellar door because horrible things lay on the other side. But one day, curiosity got the better of me, and I went through the cellar door. On the other side, I saw strange and wonderful things, things I'd never seen before, like trees... and clouds..."
Re:God help Nautilus (Score:3, Informative)
Konq. actually does a decent job of showing directories with loads of images (8+ Mpixel jpegs/tiffs) as thumbnails. Something bash doesn't (yet) do well.
The much cooler feature is, that the *same* file browser component is used in every KDE app - so when you want to burn a CD or whatever, K3B shows you the *same* thumbnail-view of your image catalogue as you used in Konq before when sorting the images. This may sound simple but it is such a basic necessity that it is beyond me why neither windows nor gnome seems to have even thought of it.
It's the little things in everyday usage...
Re:Sourceforge? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:5 Year Old 3D features... (Score:4, Informative)
If you have a newer card or a nvidia card, the only option is XGL/compiz which has the same effects (and more) than the new Metacity. If you still want to use Metacity you will have to wait until Nvidia/ATI releases their drivers with texture from pixmap [freedesktop.org] support which could be 6 months to a year from now. XGL has tfp already built into its server which allows one to use accelerated 3d effects even if their driver does not support it.
Also I should note that one could use compiz with AIGLX (not sure if you can right out of the box or requires a patch).
Re:The important part: Mono (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Almost sounds like KDE 3... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here's another problem with Gnome branding (Score:5, Informative)
Totem is 'Movie Player'
Baobab is 'Disk Usage Analyzer'
Alacarte seems to be 'Menu Layout', although Ubuntu might have changed something here.
Tomboy is unfortunately 'Tomboy notes'
So overall they've managed to use fairly clear and simple names for these programs, much as you were hoping for.
Re:Technically great (Score:1, Informative)
Why are you complaining about him making valid and constructive criticism?
Re:Almost sounds like KDE 3... (Score:3, Informative)