Re: GNOME Gripes
Felix Natter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ross Boylan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It looks as if potato is on v 1.0. Here are some package listings from my system: ii gnome-admin1.0.3-2Gnome Admin Utilities (gulp and logview) ii gnome-bin 1.0.56-3 Miscellaneous binaries used by Gnome ii gnome-control- 1.0.51-4 The Gnome Control Center ii gnome-guile1.0.1.cvs.1999 Guile-Gtk scheme interpreter (part of Gnome) ii gnome-gv 0.82-2 GNOME PostScript/PDF viewer I thought there should be an updated version, but this seems to be the latest one since 12/1999. Maybe development has stopped ? there is a new version up on ftp.gnome.org (0.95) it's probably written for gnome 1.2, though. If it does not compile on your machine, try posting a comment in the news-section on www.gnome.org (ask for .deb's ?) or wait until 1.2 is released (soon). -- Felix Natter
Re: GNOME Gripes
Ross Boylan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It looks as if potato is on v 1.0. Here are some package listings from my system: ii gnome-admin1.0.3-2Gnome Admin Utilities (gulp and logview) ii gnome-bin 1.0.56-3 Miscellaneous binaries used by Gnome ii gnome-control- 1.0.51-4 The Gnome Control Center ii gnome-guile1.0.1.cvs.1999 Guile-Gtk scheme interpreter (part of Gnome) ii gnome-gv 0.82-2 GNOME PostScript/PDF viewer I thought there should be an updated version, but this seems to be the latest one since 12/1999. Maybe development has stopped ? ii gnome-help 1.0.55-1 GNOME help browser ii gnome-help-dat 1.0.55-1 GNOME help browser data ii gnome-libs-dat 1.0.56-3 Data for Gnome libraries ii gnome-network 1.0.2-5The gnome network utilities. ii gnome-panel1.0.55-1 Launch and/or dock Gnome applications ii gnome-panel-da 1.0.55-1 Data files for GNOME panel ii gnome-pim 1.0.55-2 Calendar and address book for GNOME. ii gnome-print0.10-5 The GNOME Print architecture ii gnome-session 1.0.55-1 The Gnome Session Manager ii gnome-terminal 1.0.55-1 The Gnome terminal emulator application ii libglade-gnome 0.11-2 Library to load .glade files at runtime (Gno ii libgnome-dev 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries -- development package ii libgnome32 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries ii libgnomesuppor 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries (Support libraries) ii libgnomeui32 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries (User Interface) ii sawmill-gnome 0.20.1-2.1 GNOME components for Sawmill ii task-gnome-app 1.0.3 GNOME applications and utilities ii task-gnome-des 1.0.7 GNOME basic desktop ii task-gnome-gam 1.0.5 GNOME games ii task-gnome-net 1.0.4 GNOME network applications the core GNOME-system (October GNOME) is supposed to be very stable, it's the applications that aren't stable yet. As I said, there is a new desktop but it may not be as stable and there are probably no debian-packages, so you will probably want (have) to use the helixcode installation-software (www.helixcode.com?) There was announcement for a mail-client on www.gnome.org. actually there are two, I believe. Search the news-section on www.gnome.org (look for older news as well). I think they announced some email-clients that are stable. Are you any relation to David Natter in NY? No. I don't know any such person. Don't you think you are paranoid ? -- Felix Natter
Re: GNOME Gripes
Thanks to you and the other posters for some interesting points. I ended up with GNOME/enlightenment/balsa based on picking some of debian tasks for GNOME, so I do think the issues are partly GNOME and even partly Debiain. Specifically, Debian picks a standard window manager (Enlightenment) and theme, and it also chooses to install Balsa. It seems to me that if certain programs aren't at all stable they shouldn't be in the distribution, and certainly not in any kind of automatic install (e.g., Balsa and the GNOME gv--though the latter had spectacular anti-aliasing when it was up). On Wed, May 03, 2000 at 01:25:02AM +0200, Felix Natter wrote: Eric G . Miller egm2@jps.net writes: On Mon, May 01, 2000 at 07:59:25PM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote: I've been using GNOME for awhile in potato--my first encounter with it. It just doesn't seem ready. I know potato is pre-release, and we may not have the latest GNOME in it, and the GNOME folks are working hard. So I thought I'd gripe, check if this matches others experience, and then maybe file some bug reports if I haven't made some configuration to the original poster: which version of gnome are you using ? It looks as if potato is on v 1.0. Here are some package listings from my system: ii gnome-admin1.0.3-2Gnome Admin Utilities (gulp and logview) ii gnome-bin 1.0.56-3 Miscellaneous binaries used by Gnome ii gnome-control- 1.0.51-4 The Gnome Control Center ii gnome-guile1.0.1.cvs.1999 Guile-Gtk scheme interpreter (part of Gnome) ii gnome-gv 0.82-2 GNOME PostScript/PDF viewer ii gnome-help 1.0.55-1 GNOME help browser ii gnome-help-dat 1.0.55-1 GNOME help browser data ii gnome-libs-dat 1.0.56-3 Data for Gnome libraries ii gnome-network 1.0.2-5The gnome network utilities. ii gnome-panel1.0.55-1 Launch and/or dock Gnome applications ii gnome-panel-da 1.0.55-1 Data files for GNOME panel ii gnome-pim 1.0.55-2 Calendar and address book for GNOME. ii gnome-print0.10-5 The GNOME Print architecture ii gnome-session 1.0.55-1 The Gnome Session Manager ii gnome-terminal 1.0.55-1 The Gnome terminal emulator application ii libglade-gnome 0.11-2 Library to load .glade files at runtime (Gno ii libgnome-dev 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries -- development package ii libgnome32 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries ii libgnomesuppor 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries (Support libraries) ii libgnomeui32 1.0.56-3 The Gnome libraries (User Interface) ii sawmill-gnome 0.20.1-2.1 GNOME components for Sawmill ii task-gnome-app 1.0.3 GNOME applications and utilities ii task-gnome-des 1.0.7 GNOME basic desktop ii task-gnome-gam 1.0.5 GNOME games ii task-gnome-net 1.0.4 GNOME network applications There is a much-improved 1.x out now (well, it is currently beta, but will be released sometime soon: April GNOME). goof. I also have no idea if the problem is GNOME or the debian integration of GNOME. I'm running on i386, mostly with sawmill window manager. gdm runs the show. Stability: Balsa crashes very frequently. [snip] Aesthetics: I think the default enlightenment theme--in fact most of the themes for most of the window managers--are just ugly. The default theme makes it look as if you have a rusting scrap heap on your desk. Only the NextStep derivatives have a decent look, to my eye. GTK is just not very attractive. GNOME can't do too much about that until the look of the base widget system is improved. But, heck, it looks better than Tk apps! Hmm, I though GTK itself was supposed to be pretty good--at least that's what I read in all the propoganda for GIMP. there are themes available at gtk.themes.org (for example aqua a la Mac-OS 9 or informer which aims to be plain). You can change this in the control-panel (win95, motif and pixmap are included by default). Internal Design: I think GNOME's facilities and interfaces should have been done in object oriented fashion. Instead, it's got this clunky C interface that reminds me of MS Windows. I understand KDE went the other route. Yes, I know it can all be packaged in CORBA someday, but why do the How to program for GNOME docs say (it has been awhile since I looked) that the C interface is the native one? because it is the lowest layer. all other language-bindings are stacked on top of it. I don't think the lowest layer metaphor is quite right here. CORBA objects can, in principle, be written in many different languages. Because CORBA models objects (vs. RPC's function calls), an object oriented language seems a better fit (C++ rather than C). C++ is quite capable of exporting functions callable from C. Similarly with the later comment on ORBIT being in C. That may be so, but again the
Re: GNOME Gripes
Eric G . Miller egm2@jps.net writes: On Mon, May 01, 2000 at 07:59:25PM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote: I've been using GNOME for awhile in potato--my first encounter with it. It just doesn't seem ready. I know potato is pre-release, and we may not have the latest GNOME in it, and the GNOME folks are working hard. So I thought I'd gripe, check if this matches others experience, and then maybe file some bug reports if I haven't made some configuration to the original poster: which version of gnome are you using ? There is a much-improved 1.x out now (well, it is currently beta, but will be released sometime soon: April GNOME). goof. I also have no idea if the problem is GNOME or the debian integration of GNOME. I'm running on i386, mostly with sawmill window manager. gdm runs the show. Stability: Balsa crashes very frequently. Balsa is something like 0.6.x, so consider using a different e-mail-client. Since I am not aware of any stable GNOME email-clients, I would prefer a text-based one or kmail if you've got KDE installed. Features: Session management is not there. All my windows come back in the first pane of the desktop. There seems to be no way to get rid of things once they are in there. I tried closing them and resaving the session. I tried deleting them from the session configuration tool (whose help button, by the way, does nothing). The net result of this is that I now have about 6 xman's running when I start up. The features in most places are pretty thin--for example, balsa is not very capable even when it is running. I wouldn't judge the whole kit-n-kaboodle on one application. Especially, one that's slated for replacement. However, I can't disagree that most of the GNOME apps have only a rudimentary functionality. Still, the improvement over earlier generations is quite significant. I read an interview of one of the GNOME developers recently who said GNOME is currently around the equivalent of early Windows or Windows 3 functionality. So, it's well known there's still a ways to go. Aesthetics: I think the default enlightenment theme--in fact most of the themes for most of the window managers--are just ugly. The default theme makes it look as if you have a rusting scrap heap on your desk. Only the NextStep derivatives have a decent look, to my eye. GTK is just not very attractive. GNOME can't do too much about that until the look of the base widget system is improved. But, heck, it looks better than Tk apps! there are themes available at gtk.themes.org (for example aqua a la Mac-OS 9 or informer which aims to be plain). You can change this in the control-panel (win95, motif and pixmap are included by default). Internal Design: I think GNOME's facilities and interfaces should have been done in object oriented fashion. Instead, it's got this clunky C interface that reminds me of MS Windows. I understand KDE went the other route. Yes, I know it can all be packaged in CORBA someday, but why do the How to program for GNOME docs say (it has been awhile since I looked) that the C interface is the native one? because it is the lowest layer. all other language-bindings are stacked on top of it. Well, I'm not going to get into a C vs. C++ flame war. However, my rudimentary knowledge of the GNOME and GTK interface is that it *is* designed in the closest approximation to object-orientation that C can do. I think there's a promising future for libglade with Python driving the show. Then there's a bit more object orientedness. Still, you'd probably want to do heavy processing with a compiled language. There are also advantages of a C-based GNOME: - usable from C-applications (like libxml) - it seems that many fsf-programmers are most familiar with C - many possibilities for scripting-languages. - GNOME still uses CORBA, as opposed to KDE. maybe this is only possible with the the fast C-implementation of CORBA: ORBit ? (CORBA is a standard for network-transparent interface-definitions) - C++-wrappers are available: Gtk-- and Gnome-- (gtkmm.sourceforge.net) -- Felix Natter
Re: Gnome gripes
On Tue, May 02, 2000 at 07:04:23PM -0400, David S. Bateman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: edited Xsession according to _Learning Debian GNU/Linux : I assume you mean ~/.xsession. I should hope the book wouldn't advise that you screw up /etc/X11/Xsession. #!/bin/bash xterm gmc enlightenment panel exit 0 ## The only thing that should be in ~/.xsession is #!/bin/sh exec gnome-session how do you get gdm working? do I really want to? That's entirely up to you. I have a screenshot up at http://www.pobox.com/~epg/gdm.png, if you want to see what it looks like. GDM offers something XDM doesn't: multiple types of X sessions. By default, Debian comes with a Debian session (which works just like logging in from XDM), an X session (similar to the Debian session, but i can't remember the difference except that it tries to use the X session manager, xsm), and a Gnome session. The Gnome session ignores ~/.xsession, but you can run programs from ~/.gnomerc if you want. how do you get the fonts (like in xterm) larger? For xterm, you will need to add a line to ~/.Xresources like this: Xterm*font: fontname For Gnome apps, this is in a rather unintuitive place. It's in the Theme Selector section of the Control Center. For other apps, there's no telling, but it might be an X resource. -- Eric Gillespie, Jr. * [EMAIL PROTECTED] Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And be happy. --OMM (THX 1138) pgpsQjwkBZLBv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Gnome gripes
On Tue, May 02, 2000 at 07:04:23PM -0400, David S. Bateman wrote could someone who has Gnome working post his/her configuation? I've edited Xsession according to _Learning Debian GNU/Linux : #!/bin/bash xterm gmc enlightenment panel exit 0 ## I use this: #!/bin/bash exec gnome-session That should be all you need, if gnome-session works for you. Start the apps you want, select your window manager, disable any session management that your window manager provides, save your session in Gnome. From there it should be automatic. John P. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mdt.net.au/~john Debian Linux admin support:technical services
Re: GNOME Gripes
On Mon, May 01, 2000 at 07:59:25PM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote: I've been using GNOME for awhile in potato--my first encounter with it. It just doesn't seem ready. I know potato is pre-release, and we may not have the latest GNOME in it, and the GNOME folks are working hard. So I thought I'd gripe, check if this matches others experience, and then maybe file some bug reports if I haven't made some configuration goof. I also have no idea if the problem is GNOME or the debian integration of GNOME. I'm running on i386, mostly with sawmill window manager. gdm runs the show. Stability: Balsa crashes very frequently. That was my experience. Supposed to be a new mail client coming down the pipe. I use mutt, since it works equally well through a console session -- and it works! The GNOME wrapper for gv crashed so much I could barely look at a page (the file started as .pdf.gz). Same experience. Just use gv. It's been working for a long time ;) Features: Session management is not there. All my windows come back in the first pane of the desktop. There seems to be no way to get rid of things once they are in there. I tried closing them and resaving the session. I tried deleting them from the session configuration tool (whose help button, by the way, does nothing). The net result of this is that I now have about 6 xman's running when I start up. 1. I think the multiple desktop thing is somewhat challenging to remember. Don't think that's a strictly GNOME problem. 2. Make sure when you use the logout from GNOME that you save your current configuration. Also, make sure you aren't starting such things in ~/.xsession before gnome-session. I've seen this with xterms in the past. Try again, you'll get it sorted out. 3. The help docs still leave something to be desired. The features in most places are pretty thin--for example, balsa is not very capable even when it is running. I wouldn't judge the whole kit-n-kaboodle on one application. Especially, one that's slated for replacement. However, I can't disagree that most of the GNOME apps have only a rudimentary functionality. Still, the improvement over earlier generations is quite significant. I read an interview of one of the GNOME developers recently who said GNOME is currently around the equivalent of early Windows or Windows 3 functionality. So, it's well known there's still a ways to go. Aesthetics: I think the default enlightenment theme--in fact most of the themes for most of the window managers--are just ugly. The default theme makes it look as if you have a rusting scrap heap on your desk. Only the NextStep derivatives have a decent look, to my eye. GTK is just not very attractive. GNOME can't do too much about that until the look of the base widget system is improved. But, heck, it looks better than Tk apps! Internal Design: I think GNOME's facilities and interfaces should have been done in object oriented fashion. Instead, it's got this clunky C interface that reminds me of MS Windows. I understand KDE went the other route. Yes, I know it can all be packaged in CORBA someday, but why do the How to program for GNOME docs say (it has been awhile since I looked) that the C interface is the native one? Well, I'm not going to get into a C vs. C++ flame war. However, my rudimentary knowledge of the GNOME and GTK interface is that it *is* designed in the closest approximation to object-orientation that C can do. I think there's a promising future for libglade with Python driving the show. Then there's a bit more object orientedness. Still, you'd probably want to do heavy processing with a compiled language. Everybody's got to flame every now and then. Remember, you used to have to pay for software that didn't work as advertised. Now you can get it for free! Seriously though, we've got a bunch of volunteers from all over the globe, who mostly have day jobs putting out software for free. Sure, there may be better commercial software for some things -- but it's just amazingly cool that people would go to all of this trouble just for fun! So, if someone gives you a gift, you should at least be gracious (even if you don't particularly like polyester neon-green leisure suits!). -- ¶ One·should·only·use·the·ASCII·characterset·when·compos » ing·email·messages.
Re: GNOME Gripes
Ross Boylan wrote: I've been using GNOME for awhile in potato--my first encounter with it. It just doesn't seem ready. I know potato is pre-release, and we may not have the latest GNOME in it, and the GNOME folks are working hard. So I thought I'd gripe, check if this matches others experience, and then maybe file some bug reports if I haven't made some configuration goof. I also have no idea if the problem is GNOME or the debian integration of GNOME. I'm running on i386, mostly with sawmill window manager. gdm runs the show. Stability: Balsa crashes very frequently. Same here (and I also agree with your later observation that it is missing a lot of desireable features). Balsa is not ready for prime time. And you didn't mention it, but the GnomeCard program (which implements Balsa's address book) might be the single buggiest, flakiest and poorest implementation of *any* program I have ever tried to use. The GNOME wrapper for gv crashed so much I could barely look at a page (the file started as .pdf.gz). I didn't even try it. gv works just fine for me. Features: Session management is not there. All my windows come back in the first pane of the desktop. There seems to be no way to get rid of things once they are in there. I tried closing them and resaving the session. I tried deleting them from the session configuration tool (whose help button, by the way, does nothing). The net result of this is that I now have about 6 xman's running when I start up. The features in most places are pretty thin--for example, balsa is not very capable even when it is running. Aesthetics: I think the default enlightenment theme--in fact most of the themes for most of the window managers--are just ugly. The default theme makes it look as if you have a rusting scrap heap on your desk. Yes, but E! themes are easy to get and install and some are (to *my* eye) wonderful. I particularly like Absolute E and Blue Steel, but there are a slew of others. Be certain that you get the latest [16] versions I tried several and just dumped the ones I didn't really like. As for opening windows in a particular desktop, a right click on the title bar of running windows should give you a pop-up menu which includes the option called Remember. This has several sub-options which include Desktop and Location. (I said should because different themes do behave a little differently, so if it's not a right click on the title bar, try different clicks on various buttons. And, of course, all of this is E-specific and is not implemented by GNOME without E.) Or, if you prefer the command line, enter 'eesh' in an xterm window, then enter 'help' to get a list of available commands, or 'help command' to get a description of how to use any command. (Hint: 'window_list' is a very helpful place to start.) That said, it's also important to add that Black Box and Saw Mill (now Sawfish, btw) have recently become popular wm's in part, at least, because E is definitely a resource hog. Perhaps one of them would be more appropriate with an i386. (Many folks find them more appropriate -- period.) Personally, I think Black Box is gorgeous, but I can't figure out how to do some pretty fundamental stuff, such as resize windows. Maybe if I found the right set of docs I'd learn to like Black Box or Sawfish myself. Also, E has nothing, really, to do with GNOME. In fact, it (E) aims to do most everything that GNOME does all by itself, although it definitely can be used as a GNOME-aware wm. I believe it was the first available GNOME-aware wm. Only the NextStep derivatives have a decent look, to my eye. Yes. I used NextStep before I switched to Enlightenment, and I liked it. Internal Design: I think GNOME's facilities and interfaces should have been done in object oriented fashion. Instead, it's got this clunky C interface that reminds me of MS Windows. I understand KDE went the other route. Yes, I know it can all be packaged in CORBA someday, but why do the How to program for GNOME docs say (it has been awhile since I looked) that the C interface is the native one? There's no reason to rehash the entire KDE-QT/free software history here, but it is worth remembering that KDE started way ahead of GNOME and remains WAY ahead of GNOME in almost every aspect. Unfortunately, to my eye, I find KDE very boring. And it works far too much like a certain Washington state computer virus for me. Even down to that stupid start here button. No. KDE gives me the willies. (Does anybody still ever say that?) On the other hand, I love lots of the KDE software. Especially 'korganizer' and 'kab' (the KDE address book) and 'kmahjongg' grin. Btw, there is one GNOME program that I really do enjoy using. That's gftp. It's very thoughtfully implemented, it's stable, it's actively maintained (so that any bugs which do appear are *quickly* corrected) and it helps me a lot 'cause I maintain several
RE: GNOME Gripes
Hi there. Features: Session management is not there. All my windows come back in the first pane of the desktop. There seems to be no way to get rid of things once they are in there. I tried closing them and resaving the session. I tried deleting them from the session configuration tool (whose help button, by the way, does nothing). The net result of this is that I now have about 6 xman's running when I start up. I had a similar problem with WindowMaker. WindowMaker was to save session on exit and saved gmc and pannel as tasks. Then gnome-session also started these. I cursed gnome (big problems trying to get it to work), until I figured it out, turned WindowMaker's sessions off and cleared programs from WindowMaker first. I haven't played with E, but doesn't it do it's own session management? Aesthetics: I think the default enlightenment theme--in fact most of the themes for most of the window managers--are just ugly. The default theme makes it look as if you have a rusting scrap heap on your desk. Blame the window managers not gnome. A lot of aesthetics are supposed to be fixed with April Gnome (which I don't think is going to make April) ;-). I'm not brave enough to try it yet as unstable. Will work for .sig
Re: GNOME Gripes
Hello out there, On Mon, 1 May 2000, Ross Boylan wrote: Stability: Balsa crashes very frequently. This seems to be a widely encountered problem. On my box (i486), balsa from potato crashes just on startup (Segfault). It was the first time I installed it, so I got the one from stable for testing purposes. This worked. It really seems to be a problem with the new version. Aesthetics: I think the default enlightenment theme--in fact most of the themes for most of the window managers--are just ugly. The default theme makes it look as if you have a rusting scrap heap on your desk. That's not a GNOME-Problem. There are hundreds of themes out on the web (for example at: http://e.themes.org/), just get the one that suits your needs. Only the NextStep derivatives have a decent look, to my eye. I also like the NextStep Look and Feel very much. By the way, I think GNOME has a much more beautiful interface out of the box than for example KDE. But that's a matter of taste, and as we all know it's just a matter of configuration. Regards, Daniel
