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GNOME 3 Released

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Re: GNOME 3 Released

#91

Post by sigzero »

ugh wrote: post #61
naner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's equally important what you choose to leave out from your product, as what you include. It seems Gnome has included the kitchen sink. What does this mean? Gnome 3.0 is rather incomplete. You can't even change themes or fonts yet.

Why should you be able to change themes or fonts? OS X (iOS as well and I think Windows Phone 7, too) doesn't allow you to do that. Those two don't seem like required features to me.

That is one of the things that almost everyone does.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#92

Post by sigzero »

"Window bars don't offer any minimise/maximise window controls; however, this functionality is still available by right-clicking on a window's top bar. GNOME and GTK+ development veteran Owen Taylor explained the reasons for removing the controls in a comprehensive email. In this email, the developer indicates that workspaces may make it unnecessary to minimise windows."

I don't think I like that one. I minimize all the time even with workspaces. To relegate to a right click is just going to confuse the novice end user.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#94

Post by lucasr »

hendi_ wrote: post #73
TuxPirate wrote: post #45

Does anyone have instructions on how to build this beast?

We have a tool called "jhbuild" that keeps track of all the dependencies and stuff. In short, just get jhbuild from git.gnome.org, build it and do a "jhbuild bootstreap && jhbuild build". More complete instruction can be found in the wiki: https://live.gnome.org/Smoketesting If you want to just check out gnome-shell without the other Gnome 3 stuff, you can find instructions on http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell

If you want to get started with Jhbuild, you probably want to have a look at the official manual:

  http://developer.gnome.org/jhbuild/stable/

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#95

Post by lucasr »

TuxPirate wrote: post #45

Does anyone have instructions on how to build this beast?

If you really want to build the whole thing for hacking purposes, yes, Jhbuild is probably what you want.

But if you just want to give GNOME 3 a try, I suggest you to simply run one of our live images here:

  http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#96

Post by bcrescimanno »

rufugee wrote: post #90
bcrescimanno wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've got some fair points here; but let's not forget that (at least as of a while back, I can't speak for newer releases) Ubuntu would not have support for even basic mp3 playback without downloading support for it. I understand the "free software" reasons for such restrictions--but I think it's difficult to justify the statement of Ubuntu having an "far superior out-of-box experience" when difficulties suc…

Actually, mp3 support is a checkbox during the install process now, so this is a non-issue. Video drivers have been just fine for me for the past six years or so, but perhaps that's because I always buy nvidia cards that are well supported. The only place OS X has a leg up on Linux IMHO is video codec support, and you can't really blame the open source developers for this one. I keep waiting for a hardware manufactur…

Didn't know that about mp3 support; that's really good to hear. What about installing proprietary video drivers? Can that be done at install time too? Has maintaining up-to-date versions of these drivers become easier?

I admit ignorance--the last time I used Ubuntu regularly on the desktop was just before my first mac arrived in late 2006. I've toyed with it since then; but never gone through installation and configuration.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#97

Post by lucasr »

watmough wrote: post #22
lucasr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll be setting up redirects for the old press releases to the new website soon. We just had so many things to sort out today for the release that these small things end up slipping out. Cheers!

Will Gnome 3 still be in Ubuntu? I'm unclear on how the changes relating to the desktop will actually change the experience. Congratulations to the Gnome team though! It does look great.

Have a look at jdub's comment on the item about Ars Technical review of GNOME 3. He summarizes pretty well what will happen (or not happen) in Ubuntu with regards to GNOME 3:

  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2419435

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#98

Post by GeneralMaximus »

bad_user wrote: post #65
GeneralMaximus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hazarding a guess here: because some of us might enjoy different colors and fonts?

I used to change themes a lot back in the day ; now I just wish for a usable desktop that doesn't get in my way, and Gnome / KDE are awful from that point of view. That's the reason why I'm developing software on Linux, but dual-boot in a Windows 7 partition for design-related work, as that requires mouse-based interactions, and in Gnome I can't even rely on copy/paste to work properly. Changing themes and fonts is n…

I understand. I only use a Mac because I get a simple, consistent desktop that works right out of the box. Still, the user should have the ability to at least change the default fonts and UI color. Some people might prefer larger fonts, others might find too many colors in the UI distracting.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#99

Post by hollerith »

rufugee wrote: post #52
hollerith wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is for someone who turns on their computer, does some work, and then stops using their computer. They do not want to bother themselves with a lot of learning. >Once you reach a certain level of interest in optimizing everything, you have to use tools to build your own desktop environment, because you are a unique flower Or the power user can switch to OS X, which requires less 'optimizing' to get it into a comf…

As someone who has used both systems at length and who has commented on the subject before, I'll simply tell you that your opinion is obviously very subjective. I find the out-of-box Ubuntu experience to be far surperior to the OS X one, and to get OS X to even approach the level of efficiency I get from Ubuntu/Gnome/Compiz I end up investing well over $100 in utilities. Not that I mind supporting the developers, but…

Well, I will definitely give Ubuntu (and Gnome) another try.

Re: GNOME 3 Released

#100

Post by Flow »

dman wrote: post #38
_frog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason that open source software is so often poorly designed is this committee approach where no one person can lead the design team. Strong leadership is extremely important when designing a good UI and I feel a lot of open source projects forget this. Also this leader needs to be thick skinned and self confident enough to take criticism from others on the project but also assert their own subjective vie…

Leadership is one issue. Another one is that the big Linux companies (Novell and Redhat) make most of their money from the enterprise market. So there isnt significant desktop design expenditure because the revenue slice from the Linux desktop market is vanishingly small. Canonical is trying to change this. As an aside - www.enlightenment.org is one project which has had pretty strong leadership (Raster is a great pr…

Lots of variations of "Dungeons and Dragons"-desktop environments are not a good show of aesthetics. IMHO.
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