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| Activities screen |
Showing posts with label GNOME 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GNOME 3. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Although I have reviewed a number of Fedora remixes, I haven't reviewed proper Fedora since the very first review/comparison test I posted on this blog over 3 years ago. There are, however, a few reasons for me to be trying this out today.
Fedora is typically more for Linux users with intermediate levels of experience and comfort with Linux, as well as for developers and administrators who want to see what is coming in RHEL/CentOS. That said, it can sometimes make a good consumer-grade desktop distribution as well, as long as it is done right; that's why there are so many remixes of it out there. But that doesn't explain why this review exists. I am trying Fedora today because I have not checked out GNOME 3/Shell in a while. I am also trying it because the Anaconda installer is supposed to have been thoroughly revamped. But mostly, I am trying it out because as a physics student, the codename tickled me enough to give it another look. (For those who don't know, a popular joke about physics problems takes such modeling to its logical extreme by applying it to a cow milking: "Imagine that this cow is spherical and radiates milk isotropically...".)
I tried the live session through a live USB system made with MultiSystem. As the revamped installer is a new feature, I tried the installation as well through a 64-bit Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce live USB system made with MultiSystem as well. Follow the jump to see what it's like.
Read more » |
| GNOME 3/Shell Activities |
I tried the live session through a live USB system made with MultiSystem. As the revamped installer is a new feature, I tried the installation as well through a 64-bit Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce live USB system made with MultiSystem as well. Follow the jump to see what it's like.
Sunday, 16 December 2012
There was one post that got a handful of comments this past week, so I will try to repost most of those.
Another anonymous commenter had this to say: "Cinnamon now comes with Nemo instead of Nautilus. I like it, but I am o so missing the ability to have scripts and actions from within Nemo. In my opinion it was made default file browser too early."
Reader ArcherB shared this experience: "I just installed MATE on top of my standard Ubuntu installation. Works great without the stability issues of Mint. Tried Cinnamon, but, like the author ran across, it was simply not stable enough for me. It would launch and run for a while, but then weirdness would crop up. It would either lock up, "tear", or certain aspects of it would fail. MATE works fine for me, so I'll stick with that and KDE."
Commenter Jonc said, "I've run into no stability problems with Mint 14.4 Cinnamon. Or any other problems. One of the pleasures of Cinnamon is that it requires little customization, unlike many other distributions that tout their configurability but release products that are ugly and disfunctional in their default state. I've found MATE to be slow after using it on Mint, Fedora and OpenSuse. The transitition from Gnome is incomplete (Check the Startup Apps: several instances of MATE processes running in parallel with their Gnome equivalents). I also wonder if the resources behind MATE are enough to sustain it and if it can make a successful transition to GTK3. If I wanted to run a Gnome 2 desktop, I'd go with CentOS. Now, that does require a good bit of tweaking to get a good looking usable desktop, but it is fast and very reliable."
Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I have final exams, but after that is finished, I'll probably have a post out looking back on this semester along with possibly another review. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!
Review: Linux Mint 14.1 "Nadia" MATE + GNOME 3/Cinnamon
An anonymous reader said, "It's too bad you didn't get to experience Mint 14 with Cinnamon. I have it running on both a Pentium E5300 desktop with Nvidia 440 GT, and on a 6-year-old laptop with Intel C2D T7200 with Intel 945GM integrated video, and it runs great on both."Another anonymous commenter had this to say: "Cinnamon now comes with Nemo instead of Nautilus. I like it, but I am o so missing the ability to have scripts and actions from within Nemo. In my opinion it was made default file browser too early."
Reader ArcherB shared this experience: "I just installed MATE on top of my standard Ubuntu installation. Works great without the stability issues of Mint. Tried Cinnamon, but, like the author ran across, it was simply not stable enough for me. It would launch and run for a while, but then weirdness would crop up. It would either lock up, "tear", or certain aspects of it would fail. MATE works fine for me, so I'll stick with that and KDE."
Commenter Jonc said, "I've run into no stability problems with Mint 14.4 Cinnamon. Or any other problems. One of the pleasures of Cinnamon is that it requires little customization, unlike many other distributions that tout their configurability but release products that are ugly and disfunctional in their default state. I've found MATE to be slow after using it on Mint, Fedora and OpenSuse. The transitition from Gnome is incomplete (Check the Startup Apps: several instances of MATE processes running in parallel with their Gnome equivalents). I also wonder if the resources behind MATE are enough to sustain it and if it can make a successful transition to GTK3. If I wanted to run a Gnome 2 desktop, I'd go with CentOS. Now, that does require a good bit of tweaking to get a good looking usable desktop, but it is fast and very reliable."
Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I have final exams, but after that is finished, I'll probably have a post out looking back on this semester along with possibly another review. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!
Monday, 10 December 2012
Wow. It's been a really long time since I've had the time to sit down and do a review like this. The reason for that is because this semester has been incredibly busy in pretty much every way, and today was finally the last day to turn in problem sets and other assignments. Now, I can finally do this review.
Linux Mint needs no introduction here. However, one thing to note is that this is the first release since version 4.X "Daryna" to have a version number with a digit after a decimal point. The reason for that was that some sneaky bugs got past final-release testing, so they needed to be fixed and the ISO file needed to be released as an updated image. Right now, the editions with MATE and GNOME 3/Cinnamon are out in final form, so those are the ones I am going to be reviewing today. For reference, the KDE and Xfce are coming soon, as those already have release candidates out now.
I tested this as usual on a live USB system made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation. Follow the jump to see how this fares relative to my current preferred version 13 LTS "Maya".
Read more » |
| Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu |
I tested this as usual on a live USB system made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation. Follow the jump to see how this fares relative to my current preferred version 13 LTS "Maya".
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
I haven't gotten the chance to do a review in a while. It's a long weekend, so I finally do have some more free time now, and I need to take a break from the otherwise endless stream of work, so I'm taking a look at Cinnarch now.
Cinnarch is a relatively new distribution on the scene. True to its name, it is based on Arch Linux and uses GNOME 3/Cinnamon as its primary DE. At first I figured that the packaging would be fairly stock, but as it turns out (and as you will see later in this post), there are a few other mild customizations present as well.
I tried this on a live USB using MultiSystem; I did not try the installation. To be honest, this is going to be more of a look at GNOME 3/Cinnamon in general rather than Cinnarch specifically as a distribution, though there may be certain things in the distribution affecting the experience of the DE. Follow the jump to see what it's like.
Read more »Cinnarch is a relatively new distribution on the scene. True to its name, it is based on Arch Linux and uses GNOME 3/Cinnamon as its primary DE. At first I figured that the packaging would be fairly stock, but as it turns out (and as you will see later in this post), there are a few other mild customizations present as well.
I tried this on a live USB using MultiSystem; I did not try the installation. To be honest, this is going to be more of a look at GNOME 3/Cinnamon in general rather than Cinnarch specifically as a distribution, though there may be certain things in the distribution affecting the experience of the DE. Follow the jump to see what it's like.
Monday, 2 July 2012
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| Main Screen + Cardapio Menu |
I previously reviewed Pinguy OS 11.10 and found that while there are certain things to which I may not be able to become fully accustomed, the "beta" label on Pinguy OS 11.10 seemed overly cautious considering its stability and high quality overall. The latest version has not changed much from that beta version besides having newer packages in general, but because version 11.10 was never truly official, the changes in version 12.04 LTS are of course huge compared to version 11.04. Also, accompanying the new release is a revamped website, which looks a lot cleaner and less bloated than before.
I probably would not normally seriously consider a distribution with GNOME 3/Shell for installation on my hard drive, but one of the things that caught my eye about this release was the option of using the Axe menu instead of the default Cardapio menu in the top panel. I did some searching and found out that the Axe menu looks and could potentially act almost identically to the Linux Mint Menu, which is amazing. That is why I am trying the 64-bit edition (as a live USB made with MultiSystem); sure, GNOME 3/Shell doesn't have my nice desktop cube, but it could potentially have everything else I could want, and given that, I'm OK with giving up the desktop cube if I am left with no other good alternatives. Follow the jump to see what this is like.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
This was actually going to be a preview of SolusOS, both because I wanted to do it and because a commenter had requested it. Unfortunately, MultiSystem refused to write SolusOS to the USB, while SolusOS was unbootable after being written to the USB by UnetBootin. Hence, I could not try it out. Instead, I am trying out Cinnamon 1.4.
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| Cinnamon Menu |
Last week, I wrote a post about how I would transform MATE into something that I already use on a daily basis, but I also mentioned that I should withhold judgment about Cinnamon until after actually trying it. Well, I am trying it now to see if it could do a reasonably good job of replacing my preferred GNOME 2 desktop setup. Follow the jump to see what it is like. I tested this on a live USB session of Ubuntu MATE Remix made with MultiSystem.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
I have reviewed Chakra GNU/Linux a number of times here both before and after its split from the Arch base, and I have fairly consistently said that it is an amazing distribution and has a great implementation of KDE. But when it comes to Arch-based distributions, I have never tried the other side of the DE coin — GNOME — until now.
That is where KahelOS comes in. It is an Arch-based distribution that ships with GNOME and aims to make it user-friendly, though like Chakra, it expects that users will be at least somewhat willing to learn and work with the system. It was originally targeted at a primarily Filipino audience, but now it has a more international perspective.
I tested the live session through a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in a VirtualBox VM in a Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" live USB host with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what this other offspring of Arch is like.
Read more » |
| Main Screen + KahelOS Welcome Center |
I tested the live session through a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in a VirtualBox VM in a Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" live USB host with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what this other offspring of Arch is like.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Recently, the latest version of Linux Mint was released. Considering that I almost exclusively use Linux Mint on a daily basis and I'm a huge fan of the distribution, I had to review it.
This release could easily be one of the most highly-anticipated new Linux releases in a long time, far surpassing the anticipation of its parent, Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot". Why? Well, although Unity had to be ported to GNOME 3, the interface is still essentially unchanged from version 11.04 "Natty Narwhal", so most of the changes have been back-end and bug fixes and general polishing. Linux Mint, on the other hand, used its classic GNOME 2.X setup through version 11 "Katya". Now, however, the small group of developers has had to port all that over to GNOME 3 with far fewer resources to do so than Canonical. Yet, the Linux Mint developers have essentially rolled 3 desktops into this one release. The main desktop is a heavily customized GNOME 3 Shell. The secondary fallback to that is a slightly customized GNOME 3 Fallback mode. The third (but really, equal to GNOME 3 Shell) desktop is MATE, which is a fork of GNOME 2.X akin to how Trinity is a fork of KDE 3.5; because MATE aims to be able to coexist with GNOME 3, it cannot use the "GNOME" names for files because otherwise there will be conflicts, so the MATE developers have had to completely rebrand GNOME 2.X along with making other small changes here and there. The Linux Mint developers advise using the GNOME 3 desktop, as MATE is still under heavy development and will still be a bit unpolished, but considering how much I really like GNOME 2.X, I think it's worth checking out.
I tested the live session through a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation using a VM in VirtualBox in the live USB session with 1024 MB of RAM, 64 MB of video memory, and 3D graphics acceleration capabilities allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.
Read more » |
| GNOME 3 Shell: Main Screen |
I tested the live session through a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation using a VM in VirtualBox in the live USB session with 1024 MB of RAM, 64 MB of video memory, and 3D graphics acceleration capabilities allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.
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| GNOME: Main Screen |
openSUSE doesn't really need much of an introduction here. There are a few new things with this release, though. The first is that GNOME 3 has become an official part of openSUSE; this is not surprising considering that openSUSE and Fedora were the only distributions who provided vanilla live CD previews of GNOME 3 before its official release. The second is that the release numbering and schedule have changed. Now, there will be releases in November, July, and March, and they will respectively have decimal numbers ".1", ".2", and ".3" before the number before the decimal point gets incremented by one with the next November release. This means that there will be no more ".0" or ".4" releases, and that the jump from, for example, version 13.1 to 13.2 will be just as significant as the jump from version 12.3 to 13.1.
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| KDE: Main Screen |
Friday, 18 November 2011
A new version of Pinguy OS has come out, and as can easily be predicted, it's based on Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot". And because I've taken a liking to past versions of it, I'm reviewing this new one now.
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| Main Screen |
I tested the live session on a live USB made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation, because (1) this is an Ubuntu derivative, so there isn't much point in going through the whole Ubiquity song-and-dance one more time, and (2) the lead developer has said that this release is still beta-quality in terms of stability. Regarding the second point, the developer has also said that the stability of GNOME 3.X is not likely to improve anytime soon, so there will be no official final release of Pinguy OS 11.10; this is also why I'm calling this a review rather than a preview like I usually do with pre-release distributions, because this is as official as it will ever get. Follow the jump to see if it's the same Pinguy OS I came to know and love.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
I've reviewed Sabayon here enough that I don't need to introduce it here anymore. Let's just say that version 7 was released recently, so I'm reviewing it.
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| KDE: Main Screen |
I tested all 3 editions using live USBs made with UnetBootin. I did not test the installation procedures, because I didn't see anything in the release notes about improvements to the installer, so I don't really anticipate any changes from last time. Follow the jump to see what each edition is like.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
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| KDE: Main Screen |
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| GNOME: Main Screen |
I tested both versions through live USB systems made with UnetBootin. I did not test the installation processes because there haven't been significant changes to the Anaconda installer since Fedora 14 "Laughlin". Follow the jump to see what each is like.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
There were two posts that garnered a handful of comments, so I'll try to repost all of those.
Another anonymous commenter had this counterargument to my overall criticisms of GNOME 3: "I don't agree with your idea that GNOME is for netbooks - I have a 24" monitor and enjoy the experience... You don't understand that the design principle behind banning unnecessary information, like panel-applets, is to reduce distraction from the task at hand and improve focus. It is about information management, not about saving space. I don't want to have to 'figure out' my netbook's homescreen like it was the dashboard of an airplane; that's what ANDROID 3 does, and it's horrible. I just want to get stuff done, and GNOME 3 is brilliant for that."
Another anonymous reader followed up on that, saying, "+1 I really like Gnome 3 with my dual screen setup (and the 40" HDTV when used). A well designed command-line interface minimizes how much information you need to recall/process for common tasks. A well designed GUI interface minimizes how much information you need to recognise/process for common tasks."
Yet another anonymous commenter had this to say: "I like Gnome 2 better. Far better. I almost feel like everything they did goes against everything I loved about Gnome 2. I like the option of making the top panel moved to the bottom, the time in the right-hand corner, menu driven not icon driven, adding launchers to the panel for the top 7 applications I use (kicker, nautilus, firefox, chrome, thunderbird, software updates, VLC) It is like a one click application launch, no need for any extra movements. I don't like the whole name/system menu thing. I know what my name is, I want to have to click on it for options. I would rather have that whole thing under the main applications button (or application launcher). I also don't have the option to add a "lock computer" button in the panel, for those times you need to jump up quickly to answer a call or get some documents from a printer that is at the other side of the room. I place this in the far right corner beside the time so that it is available to me with one click. Fast, Functional... not like Gnome 3, which claims to be forward thinking. Obviously they weren't thinking about office use much. Gnome 3 is nothing but a frustrating experience. The only way I can see myself liking Gnome 3 is if they make it more like Gnome 2... or just continue supporting Gnome 2 and Gnome 3 will become unnecessary."
Another anonymous reader said, "I think that this is a pretty reasonable and nice review. Personally i like GNOME 3 is very much and i am pleasantly surprised by how stable it is. For those who prefer the GNOME 2 way of doing things, the fallback mode can actually be configured to resemble the older GNOME interface pretty well. Once you install gnome-tweak-tool and dconf-editor a lot of hidden options appear - like for example the ability to make nautilus draw the desktop (in a GNOME 2 style), the options to configure fonts and the titlebars buttons. I am also sure that the colour of the panels can be changed to the default GNOME 2 white colour. Right now i am pretty much using a GNOME 2 in the default configuration - i have only changed the icon theme and have added several launchers on the top panel - I already like GNOME 3 but should i decide i can pretty much recreate my old desktop in the GNOME 3 fallback mode - you can put launchers on the panels, make nautilus draw the desktop and configure the fallback mode to more or less appear like a standart GNOME 2 desktop."
Commenter neeraj said, "I have used Gnome 3 for over a week now, and I must admit its well thought out.You quickly get used to the new interface...plus if you know few shortcut keys (like windows/Super key to show activities) you'll never regret the change.Wish all a better experience with Gnome 3"
Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. I have a four-day weekend this week (yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after that), so I'll have a little more time to write. I do have two posts planned for this coming week, but these are going to be more personal things, not software reviews. Once again, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing (anywhere on the sidebar, though if you subscribe via email, please remember to click the link in a confirmation email to confirm your subscription) and commenting (at the bottom of every post)!
Review: GNOME 3
An anonymous reader had this tip regarding my complaint about the number of steps it takes to shut down: "You get that option if you hold down the alt key after selecting the profile menu. Can't begin to guess the thought process that went into that design decision."Another anonymous commenter had this counterargument to my overall criticisms of GNOME 3: "I don't agree with your idea that GNOME is for netbooks - I have a 24" monitor and enjoy the experience... You don't understand that the design principle behind banning unnecessary information, like panel-applets, is to reduce distraction from the task at hand and improve focus. It is about information management, not about saving space. I don't want to have to 'figure out' my netbook's homescreen like it was the dashboard of an airplane; that's what ANDROID 3 does, and it's horrible. I just want to get stuff done, and GNOME 3 is brilliant for that."
Another anonymous reader followed up on that, saying, "+1 I really like Gnome 3 with my dual screen setup (and the 40" HDTV when used). A well designed command-line interface minimizes how much information you need to recall/process for common tasks. A well designed GUI interface minimizes how much information you need to recognise/process for common tasks."
Yet another anonymous commenter had this to say: "I like Gnome 2 better. Far better. I almost feel like everything they did goes against everything I loved about Gnome 2. I like the option of making the top panel moved to the bottom, the time in the right-hand corner, menu driven not icon driven, adding launchers to the panel for the top 7 applications I use (kicker, nautilus, firefox, chrome, thunderbird, software updates, VLC) It is like a one click application launch, no need for any extra movements. I don't like the whole name/system menu thing. I know what my name is, I want to have to click on it for options. I would rather have that whole thing under the main applications button (or application launcher). I also don't have the option to add a "lock computer" button in the panel, for those times you need to jump up quickly to answer a call or get some documents from a printer that is at the other side of the room. I place this in the far right corner beside the time so that it is available to me with one click. Fast, Functional... not like Gnome 3, which claims to be forward thinking. Obviously they weren't thinking about office use much. Gnome 3 is nothing but a frustrating experience. The only way I can see myself liking Gnome 3 is if they make it more like Gnome 2... or just continue supporting Gnome 2 and Gnome 3 will become unnecessary."
Another anonymous reader said, "I think that this is a pretty reasonable and nice review. Personally i like GNOME 3 is very much and i am pleasantly surprised by how stable it is. For those who prefer the GNOME 2 way of doing things, the fallback mode can actually be configured to resemble the older GNOME interface pretty well. Once you install gnome-tweak-tool and dconf-editor a lot of hidden options appear - like for example the ability to make nautilus draw the desktop (in a GNOME 2 style), the options to configure fonts and the titlebars buttons. I am also sure that the colour of the panels can be changed to the default GNOME 2 white colour. Right now i am pretty much using a GNOME 2 in the default configuration - i have only changed the icon theme and have added several launchers on the top panel - I already like GNOME 3 but should i decide i can pretty much recreate my old desktop in the GNOME 3 fallback mode - you can put launchers on the panels, make nautilus draw the desktop and configure the fallback mode to more or less appear like a standart GNOME 2 desktop."
Commenter neeraj said, "I have used Gnome 3 for over a week now, and I must admit its well thought out.You quickly get used to the new interface...plus if you know few shortcut keys (like windows/Super key to show activities) you'll never regret the change.Wish all a better experience with Gnome 3"
Wireless Electricity: I Could Have Thought of That
Reader somethingquarky said, "more cool is near-field evanescent coupling of coupling of coils. madd cool science. i can send u the paper if you want, but im certain you have access to the paper at school as well (it was done by a founder of Witricity ;))."Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. I have a four-day weekend this week (yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after that), so I'll have a little more time to write. I do have two posts planned for this coming week, but these are going to be more personal things, not software reviews. Once again, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing (anywhere on the sidebar, though if you subscribe via email, please remember to click the link in a confirmation email to confirm your subscription) and commenting (at the bottom of every post)!
Monday, 11 April 2011
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| Shell Main Screen |
The biggest change in GNOME 3 is of course the GNOME 3 Shell. This has gotten several changes, updates, and other revisions through its development. Since then, however, a GNOME 3 fallback mode has also been added. One of the common complaints about GNOME 3 has been that the new Mutter WM requires 3D effects to work correctly, and not all computers have this, especially older ones. This is where GNOME 3 fallback mode comes in, so in addition to trying out GNOME 3 Shell, I have also tried GNOME 3 fallback mode.
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| Fallback Main Screen + Calendar Applet + User Profile Menu Applet |
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
HP has been best known for its peripheral computer devices, especially printers and scanners, though it is also well-known for its desktop computers, and, to a lesser extent, laptops and netbooks. Its printers and other peripherals are held in high regard for fully working with Linux distributions out-of-the-box, but it has never officially supported Linux among its product portfolio. Sure, it has sold business-/enterprise- and server-grade computers with SUSE (SLED, not openSUSE), but those are tucked away in dark corners of its website; even Dell, with its on-again, off-again, relationship with Ubuntu, does sort of advertise its Ubuntu-based machines. Well, that's all about to change at HP.
Today, HP first announced a couple WebOS-based phones and a new WebOS based tablet to compete with Apple's iPad. WebOS is HP's mobile operating system based on Linux; as far as I know, other than using the Linux kernel and base GNU tools, WebOS is not related to Android, and the two will probably compete in the mobile marketplace. But the most exciting part came later: HP announced that not only would WebOS come in phones and tablets, but it would also make its way into its printers and PCs. That's right: HP is introducing its own Linux-based competitor to Microsoft Windows. Sweet! This could, after all, be the oft-proclaimed year of the Linux desktop.
Of course, with this new announcement comes new responsibilities; now HP has absolutely no excuse for their peripherals not fully supporting Linux, considering many of them will run Linux under the hood. Then again, as I said earlier, HP has been pretty good to Linux so far in terms of peripheral support.
But there's another aspect to HP's WebOS announcement. If you noticed, WebOS is supposed to be a mobile platform; yet, it's being ported to conventional desktops as well. This is similar to how Ubuntu's Unity interface, originally designed for netbooks and similarly small screens, will become the default interface for desktops as well, and how future versions of Google Chrome OS will likely be very much like Android scaled up for netbooks. In addition, it looks like GNOME 3 was also designed with small form factors in mind, what with the Activities feature and the panel only being able to show the active task, and this has been scaled up for traditional desktops. I think there's a new trend here of creating new interfaces designed for mobile devices and then scaling them up for desktop use, and I think for that reason it's true that the future of end-user computing is in mobile devices. A while back I wrote a post about how Microsoft's push for Windows 7 on netbooks was misguided and that it should scale up the Windows Phone 7 interface instead to make better use of hardware resources, similar to how Apple scaled up the iPhone's iOS for use in the iPad instead of trying to cram in Mac OS X. Well, now that we're seeing mobile OSs being scaled up to full desktops and not just netbooks, I don't think Microsoft is just misguided anymore — I think they're dead wrong, and I think it's already costing them.
The only concern I have though is that WebOS on desktops and laptops may be relegated as a lightweight "instant-on"-style OS secondary to Microsoft Windows, similar to what Asus did for a while on its laptops and netbooks. Then again, HP seems to be pretty darn serious about WebOS for desktops, and not just because consumers want something fast; they recognize that consumers also want the same polish found in modern mobile OSs, so I don't think WebOS will be playing second fiddle to Microsoft Windows on future HP desktops/laptops.
Today, HP first announced a couple WebOS-based phones and a new WebOS based tablet to compete with Apple's iPad. WebOS is HP's mobile operating system based on Linux; as far as I know, other than using the Linux kernel and base GNU tools, WebOS is not related to Android, and the two will probably compete in the mobile marketplace. But the most exciting part came later: HP announced that not only would WebOS come in phones and tablets, but it would also make its way into its printers and PCs. That's right: HP is introducing its own Linux-based competitor to Microsoft Windows. Sweet! This could, after all, be the oft-proclaimed year of the Linux desktop.
Of course, with this new announcement comes new responsibilities; now HP has absolutely no excuse for their peripherals not fully supporting Linux, considering many of them will run Linux under the hood. Then again, as I said earlier, HP has been pretty good to Linux so far in terms of peripheral support.
But there's another aspect to HP's WebOS announcement. If you noticed, WebOS is supposed to be a mobile platform; yet, it's being ported to conventional desktops as well. This is similar to how Ubuntu's Unity interface, originally designed for netbooks and similarly small screens, will become the default interface for desktops as well, and how future versions of Google Chrome OS will likely be very much like Android scaled up for netbooks. In addition, it looks like GNOME 3 was also designed with small form factors in mind, what with the Activities feature and the panel only being able to show the active task, and this has been scaled up for traditional desktops. I think there's a new trend here of creating new interfaces designed for mobile devices and then scaling them up for desktop use, and I think for that reason it's true that the future of end-user computing is in mobile devices. A while back I wrote a post about how Microsoft's push for Windows 7 on netbooks was misguided and that it should scale up the Windows Phone 7 interface instead to make better use of hardware resources, similar to how Apple scaled up the iPhone's iOS for use in the iPad instead of trying to cram in Mac OS X. Well, now that we're seeing mobile OSs being scaled up to full desktops and not just netbooks, I don't think Microsoft is just misguided anymore — I think they're dead wrong, and I think it's already costing them.
The only concern I have though is that WebOS on desktops and laptops may be relegated as a lightweight "instant-on"-style OS secondary to Microsoft Windows, similar to what Asus did for a while on its laptops and netbooks. Then again, HP seems to be pretty darn serious about WebOS for desktops, and not just because consumers want something fast; they recognize that consumers also want the same polish found in modern mobile OSs, so I don't think WebOS will be playing second fiddle to Microsoft Windows on future HP desktops/laptops.
Friday, 4 February 2011
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| Main Screen + Calendar + Notification Area |
There are some pretty big changes in store for GNOME 3, much of which can be seen in the front-end. Because many major distributions are planning to upgrade to GNOME 3 once that gets released (in a few weeks, apparently), it's important that users try GNOME 3 beforehand both to get accustomed to it as well as to find and report lingering bugs. Happily, the good people at Fedora and openSUSE have put together live CD ISO files with vanilla GNOME 3 on them, just for the purpose of trying out GNOME 3. I downloaded both files and intended to make a multiboot live setup using MultiSystem, but unfortunately MultiSystem reacted with error messages to both ISOs. Knowing that openSUSE doesn't play well with UnetBootin, I decided to just try out the Fedora version on a live USB through UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see how it goes.
Sunday, 17 October 2010
There were two posts from this past week that garnered comments.
An anonymous reader points out, "You shouldn't worry about Compiz. Mutter will provide the desktop effects. If you really, really want Compiz integration with GNOME 3 you are out of luck. Don't ask me why but GNOME developers designed GNOME Shell to be a Mutter plug-in, so as you can see the former depends heavily on the latter, thus making impossible for Compiz developers to support GNOME Shell."
Another anonymous reader adds to this, "If I recall correctly I believe I once heard Compiz was never supposed to be permanent. It was an example of what the Windows managers (aka GNOME an KDE) could and perhaps should/should not do."
Reader twitter adds, "A lightweight desktop with modern features is E16. It has transparency and excellent 2D desktop management. E16's clear distintion between virtual screens and virtual desktops implemented the concept of "activities" more than a decade ago."
Commenter Eric Mesa adds to the previous anonymous reader's comment, "I was surprised to find out that Compiz still exists. Kwin, Fluxbox, and Metacity have all, to some degree, incorporated this. I know they aren't as flashy as compiz, but I think it's just a matter of time. Compiz was the fire under the butts of developers, showing them what X could do and daring them to match it. [...] I have to say that, in my experience, everyone who saw Compiz thought it was neat, but no one was converted because of compiz. They wanted to know if they could still do the work they did on their windows computers."
Finally, a certain anonymous reader (because I'm fairly sure it's the same reader who wrote all 3 of those comments) complained about my analysis in 3 comments too long to repost here verbatim. I'll try to analyze it point by point.
First of all, my comparison wasn't especially apt only because I'm comparing my experiences with KDE 4.5 with other reviewers' experiences with both KDE 4.5 and GNOME 3. But let's continue from there.
I specifically state that KDE 4 Activities were unusable until KDE 4.5. Hence, KDE 4.5 Activities are quite usable and stable.
From the reviews I've read, GNOME 3 doesn't crash and is about as stable as GNOME 2.X. When KDE 4.0 was first brought into the pipeline, people were comparing its beta releases to KDE 3.5 and GNOME 2.X; why is it not fair to do the reverse now? Furthermore, GNOME Shell can be used in GNOME 2.X, so I would say that if it's made it into the repositories of distributions that use GNOME 2.X, it's certainly not a "future technology", even though it will see its first official implementation in GNOME 3.
What you (the anonymous commenter who wrote these comments) say about GNOME 3 already knowing what pitfalls to avoid is known as the second-mover advantage. It's the reason why in the battles of the jetliners in the 1940s and 1950s, the Boeing 707, which came after the De Havilland Comet, prevailed: the De Havilland Comet, while very sleek, had flaws that caused a number of fatal and spectacular accidents mostly due to the same issue, so Boeing was able to analyze this and build an airplane that did not suffer these issues. Is that really so bad? (Of course, unlike KDE with its Activities, De Havilland was loath to even admit there was a problem until after the occurrence of about 5 major accidents, after which point it was told to stop manufacturing altogether, without being given a chance to reassess its design and engineering and fix its mistakes.) Really, do you want to fly in the De Havilland Comet? No? So aren't you glad that GNOME 3 learned from KDE 4's mistakes?
Finally, with regard to Aaron Seigo's blog post, I think in his analysis, he's missing a key point: although GNOME 3 and KDE 4's Activities are implemented very differently, in that GNOME 3's Activities are a more formalized and structured implementation of virtual desktops, while KDE 4's Activities are collections of different applications, it's important to remember that if you think about it, both come from essentially the same core idea, and that is a way to group sets of applications in some manner. GNOME 3 requires the user to do it each time, while KDE 4 allows the user to do it once and then select from whatever Activities have been made. Part of the difference also comes from KDE 4's Plasmoids, for which there really isn't any GNOME 3 analogue; also, my comparison stems from the fact that although this certainly isn't the default behavior, many online writers recommend after installing KDE 4 that the user tie each virtual desktop to a different activity. Yes, KDE 4's Activities are a good bit different and a bit more advanced than Activities as implemented in GNOME 3, but it's hard to deny that they both come from the same basic idea.
I hope all this clears up my position on this debate.
Well, that wraps up the comments for this past week. Again, I hope I've made my position a little more clear. In addition, I will say once again that if you enjoy what I write, please do take a moment to subscribe via RSS or email!
GNOME 3, Activities, and KDE 4
The most common complaint about this post was that I should have read Aaron Seigo's post on the matter before writing this; unfortunately, it didn't happen that way. I'll get back to this point later. Let's continue with the comments themselves.An anonymous reader points out, "You shouldn't worry about Compiz. Mutter will provide the desktop effects. If you really, really want Compiz integration with GNOME 3 you are out of luck. Don't ask me why but GNOME developers designed GNOME Shell to be a Mutter plug-in, so as you can see the former depends heavily on the latter, thus making impossible for Compiz developers to support GNOME Shell."
Another anonymous reader adds to this, "If I recall correctly I believe I once heard Compiz was never supposed to be permanent. It was an example of what the Windows managers (aka GNOME an KDE) could and perhaps should/should not do."
Reader twitter adds, "A lightweight desktop with modern features is E16. It has transparency and excellent 2D desktop management. E16's clear distintion between virtual screens and virtual desktops implemented the concept of "activities" more than a decade ago."
Commenter Eric Mesa adds to the previous anonymous reader's comment, "I was surprised to find out that Compiz still exists. Kwin, Fluxbox, and Metacity have all, to some degree, incorporated this. I know they aren't as flashy as compiz, but I think it's just a matter of time. Compiz was the fire under the butts of developers, showing them what X could do and daring them to match it. [...] I have to say that, in my experience, everyone who saw Compiz thought it was neat, but no one was converted because of compiz. They wanted to know if they could still do the work they did on their windows computers."
Finally, a certain anonymous reader (because I'm fairly sure it's the same reader who wrote all 3 of those comments) complained about my analysis in 3 comments too long to repost here verbatim. I'll try to analyze it point by point.
First of all, my comparison wasn't especially apt only because I'm comparing my experiences with KDE 4.5 with other reviewers' experiences with both KDE 4.5 and GNOME 3. But let's continue from there.
I specifically state that KDE 4 Activities were unusable until KDE 4.5. Hence, KDE 4.5 Activities are quite usable and stable.
From the reviews I've read, GNOME 3 doesn't crash and is about as stable as GNOME 2.X. When KDE 4.0 was first brought into the pipeline, people were comparing its beta releases to KDE 3.5 and GNOME 2.X; why is it not fair to do the reverse now? Furthermore, GNOME Shell can be used in GNOME 2.X, so I would say that if it's made it into the repositories of distributions that use GNOME 2.X, it's certainly not a "future technology", even though it will see its first official implementation in GNOME 3.
What you (the anonymous commenter who wrote these comments) say about GNOME 3 already knowing what pitfalls to avoid is known as the second-mover advantage. It's the reason why in the battles of the jetliners in the 1940s and 1950s, the Boeing 707, which came after the De Havilland Comet, prevailed: the De Havilland Comet, while very sleek, had flaws that caused a number of fatal and spectacular accidents mostly due to the same issue, so Boeing was able to analyze this and build an airplane that did not suffer these issues. Is that really so bad? (Of course, unlike KDE with its Activities, De Havilland was loath to even admit there was a problem until after the occurrence of about 5 major accidents, after which point it was told to stop manufacturing altogether, without being given a chance to reassess its design and engineering and fix its mistakes.) Really, do you want to fly in the De Havilland Comet? No? So aren't you glad that GNOME 3 learned from KDE 4's mistakes?
Finally, with regard to Aaron Seigo's blog post, I think in his analysis, he's missing a key point: although GNOME 3 and KDE 4's Activities are implemented very differently, in that GNOME 3's Activities are a more formalized and structured implementation of virtual desktops, while KDE 4's Activities are collections of different applications, it's important to remember that if you think about it, both come from essentially the same core idea, and that is a way to group sets of applications in some manner. GNOME 3 requires the user to do it each time, while KDE 4 allows the user to do it once and then select from whatever Activities have been made. Part of the difference also comes from KDE 4's Plasmoids, for which there really isn't any GNOME 3 analogue; also, my comparison stems from the fact that although this certainly isn't the default behavior, many online writers recommend after installing KDE 4 that the user tie each virtual desktop to a different activity. Yes, KDE 4's Activities are a good bit different and a bit more advanced than Activities as implemented in GNOME 3, but it's hard to deny that they both come from the same basic idea.
I hope all this clears up my position on this debate.
Facebook's Worrying Privacy Changes
An anonymous reader writes, "Now you can use Facebook but still keep your messages private. And you don't have to depend on Facebook privacy settings. Just ‘CLOAK’ your messages with your own private keyword using the free CloakGuard browser plugin. This garbles your message and only the people you've shared your keyword with (and not Facebook) can read your messages."Well, that wraps up the comments for this past week. Again, I hope I've made my position a little more clear. In addition, I will say once again that if you enjoy what I write, please do take a moment to subscribe via RSS or email!
Monday, 11 October 2010
There have been a slew of new articles detailing the progress of work on GNOME 3, and the refrain in all of them has been that "GNOME 3 will revolutionize the desktop". The focus on GNOME 3, ever since the release of the first mock-ups, has been on the new GNOME Shell and GNOME Activities (which are really just two sides of the same coin). The thing is, GNOME Activities has essentially the same concept (and even the same name) as KDE 4 Activities. So I was thinking for quite a while: how can this be called "revolutionary" with a straight face? Today it hit me: while KDE may have had the idea first, GNOME presents a far superior execution of this idea; GNOME Activities in the alpha and beta versions of GNOME 3 was very usable and improved with each iteration, while KDE Activities remained very slow, very buggy, and nearly unusable until the release of KDE 4.5.
All this makes me rethink my previous position on GNOME 3. I previously believed that GNOME 3 would suffer the same fate as KDE 4, in that a lot of current GNOME users would migrate to other DEs upon seeing GNOME 3 (be it for its radical nature or its buggy nature). Now, however, I don't think this is the case. I think the major *nix DEs are finally falling into fairly well-defined niches. GNOME will emphasize simplicity, ease-of-use, and understated modernity over flashiness and over-the-top effects. KDE will be the way forward for ultimate customization, web-connected computing through Plasmoid widgets, and flashy desktop effects (as well as tools for power-users, like Dolphin/Konqueror vs. Nautilus, Okular vs. Evince, Kate vs. Gedit, etc.). (Xfce and LXDE will, of course, remain the DEs of choice for people who need lower-resource but still fully-functional and modern DEs.)
But with GNOME moving towards a more tightly-integrated and powerful Metacity WM, one WM is still left out in all this: Compiz. Unfortunately, Compiz and its desktop effects still don't work in recent builds of GNOME 3. While Compiz integration with KDE has gotten better, it still isn't seamless, and Kwin is almost there (but not quite). While most everyday Linux users don't use most Compiz effects (except maybe window decoration transparency and minimize/maximize effects), these effects often play a role in convincing non-Linux users to try Linux. There have been stories after stories of people just using their Linux computers with their friends and their friends being awed and intrigued by the desktop cube and the wobbly windows; don't underestimate the power of these effects to convince people (in the implicit form of "can your OS do this?"). So what does all this mean? It'll become a lot harder to convince people to use Linux through this route, as there will be many people put off by the confusing and endless customization options of KDE 4 (or simply can't run it because they have lower-end hardware). So, GNOME 3 developers, can we please get Compiz integration with GNOME 3 before the first official release? Thanks!
All this makes me rethink my previous position on GNOME 3. I previously believed that GNOME 3 would suffer the same fate as KDE 4, in that a lot of current GNOME users would migrate to other DEs upon seeing GNOME 3 (be it for its radical nature or its buggy nature). Now, however, I don't think this is the case. I think the major *nix DEs are finally falling into fairly well-defined niches. GNOME will emphasize simplicity, ease-of-use, and understated modernity over flashiness and over-the-top effects. KDE will be the way forward for ultimate customization, web-connected computing through Plasmoid widgets, and flashy desktop effects (as well as tools for power-users, like Dolphin/Konqueror vs. Nautilus, Okular vs. Evince, Kate vs. Gedit, etc.). (Xfce and LXDE will, of course, remain the DEs of choice for people who need lower-resource but still fully-functional and modern DEs.)
But with GNOME moving towards a more tightly-integrated and powerful Metacity WM, one WM is still left out in all this: Compiz. Unfortunately, Compiz and its desktop effects still don't work in recent builds of GNOME 3. While Compiz integration with KDE has gotten better, it still isn't seamless, and Kwin is almost there (but not quite). While most everyday Linux users don't use most Compiz effects (except maybe window decoration transparency and minimize/maximize effects), these effects often play a role in convincing non-Linux users to try Linux. There have been stories after stories of people just using their Linux computers with their friends and their friends being awed and intrigued by the desktop cube and the wobbly windows; don't underestimate the power of these effects to convince people (in the implicit form of "can your OS do this?"). So what does all this mean? It'll become a lot harder to convince people to use Linux through this route, as there will be many people put off by the confusing and endless customization options of KDE 4 (or simply can't run it because they have lower-end hardware). So, GNOME 3 developers, can we please get Compiz integration with GNOME 3 before the first official release? Thanks!
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