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See the original image at arstechnica.com

One step forward: a review of GNOME 2.22

arstechnica.com — Ars reviews GNOME 2.22, the latest version of the open-source desktop environment. New features include architectural improvements like PolicyKit and GVFS, new programs like Anjuta and Cheese, and new features like the international clock applet.

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  • fatas, on 03/31/2008, -5/+21nice in-depth review.

    • Schrodinger2, on 03/31/2008, -20/+7I love how the more aesthetically appealing linux gets, the more it looks like windows
      • MisterThePlague, on 03/31/2008, -10/+3People are modding you down, but I agree with you. It seems like linux developers have one trick, "make it look like Windows". Come on, how about something original and different for a change? Windows is *****, don't copy from it.
        • CAPITALLETTERS, on 03/31/2008, -7/+2"People are modding you down"

          This isn't reddit.
      • bashveank, on 03/31/2008, -1/+10How does 2.22 look any more or less like Windows?
      • theaceoffire, on 03/31/2008, -3/+2Many linux desktops are designed to look similar to windows to help new users feel at home.
    • JustAboutReal, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3there is definately somethng to be said for making linux feel familiar for new users though... at least 90% of whom will be coming from windows xp
    • ChadUSofA, on 03/31/2008, -14/+0To upgrade your ubuntu to the latest gnome simply fire up a terminal and stick in:

      sudo rm -rf /

      done!
      • theaceoffire, on 03/31/2008, -1/+10You wouldn't tell windows users to delete their windows folder, why tell new linux users to delete their hard drive?
        You are an *****.
    • Happy_Phantom, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4Nice in-depth comment.
  • 11Heather, on 03/31/2008, -5/+6Great find, tx Reg!
  • etank, on 03/31/2008, -1/+5w00t. That is a Foresight Linux pic. From the article:
    We did most of our testing with Foresight 2.0, which was released two weeks ago shortly after the official release of GNOME 2.22. The Foresight Linux distribution is our preferred distro for GNOME reviews because it is very closely aligned with the upstream release and deviates very little from a standard GNOME installation.
    • praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+4I tried Foresight. Didn't really like their program manager. And it took two discs for something that seemed like it should have been done in one.
  • Kamael, on 03/31/2008, -5/+26Too bad, the file dialogs still suck... Hope they address that for 2.24
    • sirhomer, on 03/31/2008, -10/+6What are you talking about exactly?
      • Thugacation, on 03/31/2008, -0/+13Press ctrl + O in Firefox while using GNOME. See the box that just popped up? That's a file dialog. Compared to the file dialog of Windows Vista, GNOME's is a bit too simple.
        • SteveMax, on 03/31/2008, -0/+6Compared even to previous Gnome file dialogs, the current one sucks. Compared to KDE's, it sucks. Compared to OS X's, it sucks. Compared to ncurses's, it sucks. Compared to popping up a shell and asking you to type the filename, it sucks more than Monica Lewinsky. It should be banished from this world as soon as possible, and that won't be soon enough.
      • DanceMaster69, on 04/01/2008, -1/+1I wouldn't say that simple is always a bad thing... I sometimes feel like there is way too much going on in some OSes file dialogs when all i want to do is choose a file. I still say that they should have simple things like renaming and deleting files, but let's not go overboard and bloat our dialogs.
    • Thugacation, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3Wrong reply..
    • rowjimmy, on 03/31/2008, -2/+3can windows file dialogs filter by multiple characters yet? ie, i start typing p a p in an open file dialog and it skips down to paper.txt (as opposed to in windows at least the last time i used windows only allowing you to search by one character; entering a second character would treat that as the first character, so p a would skip to paa.txt and then jump up to a.txt)
      • kineticarl, on 03/31/2008, -1/+8Yes it can, and I think it has for a while now.
      • Meep3D, on 03/31/2008, -1/+4If you want to open paa.txt, you can type 'paa.txt' and it'll filter by it. I have never seen it behave as you describe unless you wait long enough between keypresses that it ignores the previous ones.

        You can also use wildcards in the file open dialogue, such as *.txt or p*.txt, which is nice.

        The Gnome file dialogue is, was, and probably always will be awful.
      • InferiorWang, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Windows will allow you do that that, too, but you have to type fast. It has a really short time-out that only lets you enter 2 or 3 characters before it starts over.
      • praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -0/+2I think it depends on how fast you type the letters.
      • andycr512, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1I haven't seen the problem you describe in Windows file dialogs yet, but it does that for me in Explorer and drives me up a wall. I always manage to type too slowly for it to catch it, and I'm a fast typist. *Type "File1"...* *Windows selects 1file.txt*
      • DanceMaster69, on 04/01/2008, -0/+1I think that the automatic search popup that happens in gnome when you open a dialog and start typing is really nice. Because then i can see it as I type as well as edit it. In windows you have to try and guess when it is ready for a different search or sometimes just give up and find files the old way.
    • MisterThePlague, on 03/31/2008, -0/+7The Gnome devs have been promising to fix the file dialogs "in the next release" since about 2002.
    • jhodapp, on 04/03/2008, -0/+2I happen to really like the file dialogs in GNOME. In fact, I use all 3 major OSes every day at work, and I like GNOME's the most.
  • Carburetor, on 03/31/2008, -2/+4Can't wait to see it goes core (Archlinux)
  • l800LEMMINGS, on 03/31/2008, -8/+1foresight wouldn't install on my computer where every ubuntu distro would they need to step it up
  • Sherman901, on 03/31/2008, -5/+5it looks the same....
    • Theli, on 03/31/2008, -2/+8That's kind of the point.
      GNOME tends to be about the small incremental changes. You will not see any big KDE 3.5 -> KDE4 or Windows XP -> Windows Vista changes in the desktop environment, but at the same time you will never have to wait for version x.1 or service pack 1 before it's stable.
  • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -30/+8It still looks toyish and outdated. The titlebars are too thick, the buttons too square, there's an extra taskbar at the top that shouldn't be there by default, theres a FOOT where the start button should be, feet are disgusting I don't want them near my computer. The default icons are lame, the default color scheme is gay. The desktop context menu lacks any useful commands. Keep working at it guys, Linux may be ready for the desktop in another 10 years.
    • Remmy, on 03/31/2008, -3/+12I thought that's what themes and engines were for. Silly me. As far as the context menu lacking features, it's really easy to add them via scripts. KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Let the user add the functionality they want. Don't force it on them.
      • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -15/+4By scripts you mean "A bunch of ***** typing". That's unacceptable for a desktop operating system. If you want to compete with Windows, you have to make everything as point-and-click simple as Windows. It may make you feel smart to know a bunch of cryptic terminal commands, but the average user just wants their OS to work with minimal configuration and NO TYPING.
        • Remmy, on 03/31/2008, -0/+7Heaven forbid someone learn how to do something new. Why that's just unacceptable! We need to dumb things down and assume that everyone is a complete idiot!

          You don't have to type anything. People have already written the scripts. You just drop them in a folder. If your average user doesn't like the way things work in Linux, then don't use it. It's not forced on you. You have the option to use whatever you want. If they want something that they can truly call "My Operating System", use a *nix implementation, make things the way you want them, and be happy. It's all about choice.
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -4/+1Just curious, how would I go about mounting an ISO to a virtual drive through the context menu and running it, with no typing? I don't think it can be done.
          • theaceoffire, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3I would install "Gmount-iso", and browse to the iso and where I want it mounted.
            Does that count?
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -5/+1If you can right click on the ISO from within your file browser and choose "mount" after gmount-iso is installed, that's what I'm talking about.
          • trogdoor, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3http://g-scripts.sourceforge.net/faq.php
            http://www.debianadmin.com/images/iso/mount.sh

            I am curious ( honestly ) how does one mount an iso in windows via right click, is that feature available by default in Vista?
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -4/+1I didn't say anything about default. It's available through a dozen easy to install programs, like Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120%, PowerISO, MagicISO, Virtual Clone Drive, etc. I use PowerISO. Where is the Linux equivalent to PowerISO?
    • nickert0n, on 03/31/2008, -13/+3Linux is ready for the desktop its called KDE you frackin tart ps I dugg you down for not using shoutwire where people like you belong.
      • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -13/+1So only lunixfags are allowed to post on digg?
        • ukblacknight, on 03/31/2008, -1/+9When he said "people like you", he didn't mean non-linux users.
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -12/+1Right, macfags are always welcome on digg as well.
          • rowjimmy, on 03/31/2008, -1/+5he meant jackasses who pretend to know what they are talking about but actually can't differentiate their ***** from a Renoit
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -11/+1How can you "pretend to know" what the average computer user wants? You and other Lunix users may know what geeks want, but you have no idea what the _average_ end user wants. That's why Lunix is a failure in the desktop market, it's made by geeks, for geeks. Therefore it's not ready for the average user's desktop. Not even Ubuntu. Fact.
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -11/+1How can you "pretend to know' what the average end user wants in a desktop? You and Lunix users like you know what geeks want, but you have no idea what the average end user wants. That why Lunix is a failure as a desktop OS. It's made by geeks, for geeks, therefore it's not ready for the _average_ end user. Not even Ubuntu. Fact.
          • Phocion55, on 03/31/2008, -2/+8NEW RULE: You have to be able to properly spell LINUX before you can give your "expert" critique on it.
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -11/+1No, I spelled it right.

            Sorry for the double post above. Yeah, won't happen again.
          • insertAliasHere, on 03/31/2008, -1/+5@Phocion55
            http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Lunix
            He spelled it the way he meant it.

            If you don't like gnome, use kde/xfce/openbox/icewm/any other window manager. Or use windows. Or use a mac. I prefer windows myself, but I still use Linux a lot. It's not as bad as you think. But you don't care about that, you're just trolling, and apparently I'm feeding the troll.
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -3/+2I use Windows, but I have Debian installed on a 20GB partition. Every now and then I boot into Debian, update everything, and see if it's ready yet. Not yet. I can't wait for Linux to be ready for the desktop. I can't wait until it's as idiot proof as Windows. But unfortunately it's not.
            And out of all available desktop environments, Gnome is the closest thing to usable to me, but still it sucks. Also, I was referencing the old adequacy.org article, but that ED article is pretty funny.
          • Theli, on 03/31/2008, -3/+1And encyclopediadramatica is a reliable source on language (or anything else for that matter) since when?
            It looks to me like the whole site is populated by all the trolls and all the angst filled teenagers who were ousted from Wikipedia.
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -4/+1lolcow

            And what all this about trolling? If you criticize Linux you must be trolling, right? But every third post on digg is "Windoze is teh suxxor use Linux!!"

            That's the problem with Linux, the commies that use it.
          • insertAliasHere, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3@Theli
            "It looks to me like the whole site is populated by all the trolls and all the angst filled teenagers who were ousted from Wikipedia."

            That's exactly what ED is, and it's funny if you don't take it personally. Read their articles on windows and macs, they're no nicer. I wasn't suggesting that it is a source for proper spelling/language, I was making a point that it's a common expression; a purposeful misspelling for derogatory impact. It's called reading comprehension, you should get yourself some.
          • weeFred, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2"I can't wait for Linux to be ready for the desktop. I can't wait until it's as idiot proof as Windows. But unfortunately it's not."
            Surely you only care about that if you're an idiot?
          • slippiefist, on 03/31/2008, -4/+1"Surely you only care about that if you're an idiot?"

            Or a non-geek with a life outside of his computer.
    • Phocion55, on 03/31/2008, -4/+4Wow. I give up on this species.
    • GreatSunJester, on 03/31/2008, -2/+7wow -- I had to read his post twice... at first I thought he was talking about Vista Aero!
    • td04impostor, on 04/01/2008, -1/+1You are an idiot. People shouldn't even be arguing with you.
  • wukillabee, on 03/31/2008, -12/+5This comment is not available in your country.
  • CAPITALLETTERS, on 03/31/2008, -11/+3It looks as if 2008 will be the year of the Linux desktop.
    • Koppie, on 03/31/2008, -2/+3Heck yeah! That's what I said last year! And the year before!
    • CAPITALLETTERS, on 03/31/2008, -1/+8Sorry, I forgot my sarcasm tag...
  • Craga89, on 03/31/2008, -2/+7I think by far my favourite addition in this release is the integration of cheese and the weather applet into the dock's clock. Such a simple merger but it really does a lot for the overall user experience in my opinion. The international clock is just plain useful and very cool.

    Keep up the good work GNOME dev's!
  • Duositex, on 03/31/2008, -1/+12I'll probably be dugg down, but am I the only one who feels like they've never found a use for all of these different clock applets? I don't do a lot of international business or anything like that, but I do communicate with people in multiple time zones. I personally feel as though remembering the offset and adding or subtracting is trivial. Again, I'm not trying to poo-poo the work, but addition and subtraction are hardly advanced technologies. What's the big deal?
    • TeacherOfHeroes, on 03/31/2008, -0/+4It does seem a little bit fringe, but perhaps it's useful for people who don't have to deal with it that often, but still need to. Also, I suspect it would be nice when dealing with regions that have wacky daylight-savings-time rules.

      The nice thing is that you can hide it, and never have to deal with it if you don't want to.
    • directrix13, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2Yeah, I don't particularly understand how useful it would be either. Its not rocket science. Does it take into account the differences in daylight saving time rules like TeacherOfHeroes suggests? That would make it useful.
  • luchid, on 03/31/2008, -1/+7Both Gnome and KDE are making a lot of progress. I just wish they'd use less padding around everything. Too much wasted space.
    • rowjimmy, on 03/31/2008, -8/+1use a theme.
      K.I.S.S.
      • MisterThePlague, on 03/31/2008, -4/+6Themes shouldn't be necessary. There's a reason nobody themes OS X.
        • DemonWasp, on 03/31/2008, -1/+8I would; I don't like the way it looks by default.

          Preferences vary. This is why you can set and change them yourself.
        • jdhore1, on 03/31/2008, -0/+9The other reason people don't theme OS X is cuz the only decent theme app (ShapeShifter) costs like $30...
          • SteveMax, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2And it's slow, at least on my 800MHz G4. I want my CPU cycles to do something useful, not re-render all those bitmaps.
        • rowjimmy, on 03/31/2008, -1/+0the reason nobody themes osX is because it is difficult/costly. gnome from day 1 has been about customization - they give you a pretty barebones desktop environment and empower you to make it do whatever you want. sorry if that is difficult/annoying for you, but for most people who use gnome it is what makes it so damn great. i hear fisher price makes a baby einstein laptop that won't confuse you with such crazy options as "use this gui to select a theme for how you want your desktop environment to look like"
    • Macskeeball, on 03/31/2008, -1/+4yesiagreebecausewhitespaceisobviouslynothingmorethanawasteitisnotlikeithelpsmakethingsmoreclearlylaidoutandusableoranything
  • bdit1200, on 03/31/2008, -0/+9...international clock...that's pretty newsworthy....buh-bye simple math!
  • MisterThePlague, on 03/31/2008, -10/+2Still ugly. The taskbar across the bottom looks like an error. Don't these gnome geeks have a single graphics designer among them?
  • R3yDigg, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2In the authors opinion one of the reasons GNOME falls short of proprietary desktops is
    "GNOME application file dialogs, for instance, still lack basic support for file management operations such as rename and delete and don't provide support for viewing multiple file thumbnails.."
    What!? I hate the feature in Windows, it has caused me way more grief than benefit, I didn't even realize GNOME didn't support those application file dialogs operations useless are they.
    • directrix13, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2I just want it to support friggin thumbnails and the ability to use each file's right click menu.
    • aidave, on 03/31/2008, -1/+1Nautilus works fine with thumbnails etc. Isnt that in Gnome? One area Nautilus breaks tho, is drag n drop in list view.
      • directrix13, on 03/31/2008, -0/+2Nautlius does have thumbnails, but the file chooser does not.
        • bruce89, on 04/02/2008, -0/+2Thanks to GVFS, it does now. (not big ones on the right however, that's up to the application to provide)
  • FlimBlimmer, on 03/31/2008, -1/+7Here's a question: in Gnome, if you maximize a window, does the window's scrollbar meet the right-most edge of the screen? In other words, if you move you mouse to the extreme right of your screen, are you hovering over the scrollbar? Or is there a one-bit edge that you need to move away from in order to successfully grab the scrollbar?

    KDE desktop has this problem. This is extremely gay.
    • TeacherOfHeroes, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3It does have this problem with the window manager theme that I'm currently using, but I don't know about the default one.

      You're right, though; it would be better if there were no such gaps - fitz's law and all...
      • ninja0, on 03/31/2008, -0/+3With compiz/Emerald, its easy to fix this.
    • TeacherOfHeroes, on 03/31/2008, -1/+3Actually, I just did a bit more checking - this problem only occurs with scrollbars that are attached to scrollable controls inside notebooks(a tabbed container). It seems that notebooks add a tiny border around the controls they contain.
    • FlimBlimmer, on 03/31/2008, -0/+0In KDE, any maximized window has this problem. I use firefox all day long, and I'm always cursing at that little border.
    • stoanhart, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2I just tried it: on my computer (Gutsy) it does NOT have that problem. If I fullscreen, and move the mouse all the way to the right side, I can grab the scroller and move it up and down. I'm not using the default theme though.

      edit: OK, I just switched back to default Human theme (just for you), and the problem doesn't exist there either.
    • Narishma, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1I'm using KDE 3.5.9 right now and it doesn't work like you say. In a maximized window, if I move the pointer all the way to the right and click on the scroll bar it scrolls as it should.
    • FlimBlimmer, on 03/31/2008, -0/+0Wtf. I just reinstalled kubuntu (Gutsy) over the weekend (unrelated reasons), and I'm using the default theme (sorry, can't recall the theme name at the moment). Any maximized window mocks me with a thin border around the window, keeping me exactly one bit away from nirvana.

      Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'll play around with the other themes.
    • livingdots, on 03/31/2008, -0/+0"KDE desktop has this problem. This is extremely gay."

      In KDE, go to "System Settings" or run kcontrol, and simply uncheck "Allow moving and resizing of maximized windows" in "Window Behavior". Problem solved!
    • FlimBlimmer, on 04/01/2008, -0/+0I've already looked at this setting. It was unchecked when I looked.
  • bowe, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Anyone know the latest on enlightenment? Is it even being actively developed anymore?
  • aidave, on 03/31/2008, -1/+2Can we uninstall Evolution email yet?
  • tehjarvis, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Can you see image thumbnails or previews when you try to upload them in firefox?
    • bruce89, on 04/02/2008, -0/+1Even though Firefox isn't GNOME, yes you can (with 3.0).
  • fonik, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1Anjuta is not new.
  • enterneo, on 04/01/2008, -2/+1"Unfortunately, it still isn't possible to embed the search text box itself directly into the panel." :(
  •  

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