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GNOME Announcements GUI Software Operating Systems Linux BSD

Release Team Proposes Gnome 3.0 Plans 306

benuski writes "Today at GUADEC, the Gnome User and Developer European Conference, the gtk+ team announced their plans for gtk+ 3.0; immediately after, the Gnome release team announced their plans for Gnome 2.30 to be changed into Gnome 3.0. This would mean a release date a year and a half to a year in the future. Details are short at the moment, but the Gnome team seems to be following in KDE's footsteps, but hopefully will avoid the problems that plagued KDE 4.0's release."
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Release Team Proposes Gnome 3.0 Plans

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  • Screens???? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SkankinMonkey ( 528381 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @01:46PM (#24138771)
    Worthless without pics ;) Is there any anticipated changelist for 3 yet?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10, 2008 @01:46PM (#24138781)

    Just re-name 2.2 to 3.0 and you've released ahead of schedule!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Gwow, this is Great Gnews! Let's Ghope they are Gstill Going to Geep Gusing the Gletter "G".

    • by Elliot_Lin ( 972399 ) <elliot,hughes&gmail,com> on Thursday July 10, 2008 @01:53PM (#24138953) Journal

      Gwow, this is Great Gnews! Let's Ghope they are Gstill Going to Geep Gusing the Gletter "G".

      A kbit klike kthe kpeople kthen ksince kthey kdo kthis kfar ktoo koften. kmuch kmore koften kthan kthe kGNOME kpeople

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        [quote]kGNOME [/quote]

        KGNOME -- A version of GNOME built on the Qt toolkit and compatible with KDE and KParts and such. ;)

        • by Enderandrew ( 866215 ) <enderandrew&gmail,com> on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:22PM (#24139597) Homepage Journal

          I know people will think I'm crazy, but I have a vision for kGnome.

          QT 4 actually has a Clearlooks engine designed to look like Gnome. Dolphin can be configured to operate largely like Natilus (except it works better these days).

          If QT 4 actully really does use less memory and runs faster, why not do a test and port a small Gnome app or two over to QT 4?

          The app can run with the QT 4 Clearlooks engine, and look largely like Gnome apps, except they can take advantage of many of the KDE features like Phonon, Solid, Sonnet, etc.

          As for the people who prefer C to C++, aren't there language bindings for both for QT and GTK?

          I'd love to see just a few small apps as a proof of concept. It could demonstrate the feasibility of a Gnome desktop built upon QT, especially considering the annoucement of Gnome 3, and the decision to break API.

          If you're going to build anew, shouldn't this concept at least be considered for a moment? Both projects can have their seperate apps, desktops, defaults, window decorations, features, etc. But more common libraries and toolkits are a win for everyone.

          • by harry666t ( 1062422 ) <harry666tNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:51PM (#24140171)
            Except that the Gnome apps aren't built on top of gtk, but on top of Gnome libs. And porting the Gnome libs to QT4 is what would be the pain.
            • Why would apps be built on a specific desktop library? Or better yet, why aren't they built on a generic library?
              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by harry666t ( 1062422 )
                > Why would apps be built on a specific desktop library?

                Gtk and Qt are just widgets. You want more than that: for example, KDE3 offers kioslave, with which you can dynamically mount devices without root privileges or rip CD audio to mp3 on-the-fly. The Kpart stuff allows you, for example, to embed text-view widget in Konqueror that looks and acts in the same way as in Kwrite. And so on.

                > why aren't they built on a generic library?

                Take a look at the X11 API, or at some apps written in it (xcalc, xevil,
              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by PixelSlut ( 620954 )
                You can try to abstract between different widget toolkits, but this always ends in disaster. This is what wxWidgets does, and their API sucks. Mono tried unsuccessfully to implement WinForms API on top of GTK, but it proved to be impossible so they started over from scratch.
            • Gnomelibs are currently going out the window to break compatibility. They're going to design a new gnomelibs for Gnome 3.0

              A test case would perhaps to port a Gnome app to QT and kdelibs to showcase using all the KDE features like Solid, Phonon, kioslaves, etc. There is even something similiar to GnomeVFS I do believe now.

              It would be great if every major app on my Linux desktop could use all these features.

              The new gnomelibs could be designed to use many of these features and borrow from kdelibs.

          • by Per Wigren ( 5315 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @03:03PM (#24140409) Homepage

            If that isn't enough, Trolltech will also provide QGtkStyle [trolltech.com] which will draw using native GTK widgets in the same way it uses native Cocoa/Carbon on OS X to make all Qt/KDE 4 applications have a Gnome look and feel, including things like the order of the dialog buttons.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by moosesocks ( 264553 )

            What you describe sounds suspiciously like KDE exactly as it is, but with a gnome-like skin on top.

            Come on. QT isn't "better" than GTK, nor is GTK "better" than QT.

            Although it'd be nice to unify the two projects, they have extremely different mindsets. While KDE is set on becoming as feature-rich as possible (sometimes to a fault), the GNOME folks like to keep things as simple as possible (sometimes to a fault).

            Also, nobody ever said that GNOME or GTK can't be lightweight [xfce.org]. I'd personally like to see the

            • I didn't say the two projects should become one. If they are going to design a new gnomelibs and base for Gnome 3.0, I think many of the core underlying libraries should come together between the two projects.

              Gnome can still have all the Gnome apps, and a Gnome desktop configured how they want. However, a proof of concept app might open the door to discusing gnomelibs3.0 being built on QT and maybe even incorporating some KDE features.

          • I use GNUSTEP you insensitive clod!

          • I know people will think I'm crazy, but I have a vision for kGnome.

            You call that vision?
            Apple adopted kGnome, and begat ikGnome.
            Asus bought Apple, and begat eeeikGnome.
            Warren Buffet bought Asus, shuffled the letters, and made a digital surfboard of the product:
            MeNoGeekie.
            He retired to Hawaii and surfed, like, for real, dude.
            Now that's vision.

      • by Fri13 ( 963421 )

        Seems you have not used KDE4 series, K letter has trowh out of window. It actually does bad things for new comers because they dont know is application for gnome or kde and then they complain that open/save dialog sucks if they use GTK application on kde or they complain that applications does not follow themes when using kde apps on gnome.

        It was much better to have G and K somewhere on names so you always seed right away wich enviroment application it was.

  • I run 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10, 2008 @01:50PM (#24138865)

    It gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's how I likes it.

  • Background (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @01:51PM (#24138895)
    Can Gnome 3.0 allow programs to render to the root window? Try running xplanet in gnome - you might catch a glimpse of something when you shut down. Try playing video on root with VLC - no uh uh. There are hacks to get screen savers and things to run on the background. This seems to be a fundamental design "feature" of gnome - the kind of thing you'd want to change in a major version bump. Or are they calling it 3.0 because 2.30 sounds too much like some really old software being patched over and over?
    • Re:Background (Score:5, Informative)

      by jwkfs ( 1260442 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:23PM (#24139625)
      Gnome draws the desktop+icons on the root window. If you want to draw something else there, you need to disable this (there's a gconf key somewhere).
      • Re:Background (Score:5, Informative)

        by burner ( 8666 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:45PM (#24140071) Homepage Journal

        Probably /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop.

  • Reverse Position (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Elliot_Lin ( 972399 )
    Funny that this is a precise opposite of the position that the GNOME project has held for so long - perhaps the KDE people are beginning to scare them? I sincerely hope not (and doubt it)
  • by l2718 ( 514756 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @01:53PM (#24138935)
    It involves a relatively smooth transition from 2.x to 3.x, a more focused and inclusive development process, long-term development cycles, and more.

    In other words, at this stage this is about the development team, not about the technical issues.

  • Content free article (Score:5, Informative)

    by sundarvenkata ( 1214396 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @01:56PM (#24139043) Homepage
    The link leads to a tersely worded page which captures the entire essence of the plans for GTK+3.0 :) which in turn leads to another blog with a color scheme that threatens my corneal legerdemain.
  • let's wait and see (Score:5, Informative)

    by C0vardeAn0nim0 ( 232451 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:03PM (#24139191) Journal

    "but hopefully will avoid the problems that plagued KDE 4.0's release."

    instead they're gonna have all sorts of their own problems. it happened before, it'll happen again.

    all major projects have this kind of stuff when major releases come out the door. examples ?

    MacOS X 10.0
    Windows Vista
    Gnome 2.0
    Netscape 4.0
    .
    .
    .

    maybe it'll be a set of completely diferent problems. but they'll be there. murphy is unforgiven.

  • "the Gnome team ... ... hopefully will avoid the problems that plagued KDE 4.0's release."

    Let's hope so, and if /.ers could stop obsessing over release dates and numbers, that would be good as well.
  • by mweather ( 1089505 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:09PM (#24139335)
    Luckily for Gnome, when 3.0 ships missing a lot of features, nobody will notice.
    • Luckily for Gnome, when 3.0 ships missing a lot of features, nobody will notice.

      Maybe this is a slashdot joke I missed out on (or perhaps just a bad joke), but if you're being serious.... why would nobody notice? You can't be suggesting that nobody uses Gnome since it's the desktop of Ubuntu, a rather popular desktop distro that you might have heard about.

      • by FlyingBishop ( 1293238 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:32PM (#24139773)

        I think he's implying that Gnome has no features.

        Which, while not entirely true, is not entirely unfair.

        • Re:KDE's footsteps? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @03:15PM (#24140679) Homepage

          KDE3 was bloated to a fault, and had an unhealthy obsession with identical-looking blue toolbar icons. It was also due for an architectural revamp.

          GNOME started going down the "less is more" minimalistic path a few years ago, encouraged by Apple's similar philosophy that seemed to go over well with consumers. Unfortunately, many feel that they stripped a bit too much out (still, I prefer this approach, and was a rabid Xfce [xfce.org] user for quite some time).

          KDE4 on the other hand, doesn't feel like it was designed with a minimalistic philosophy in mind. Granted, there was a clear and commendable goal to cut out most of the cruft from KDE3, but it currently still feels a bit incomplete

          Do you think that's a fair assesment?

          • Re:KDE's footsteps? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by X0563511 ( 793323 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @03:40PM (#24141241) Homepage Journal

            KDE4 is still in development, so yes it is incomplete.

            That withstanding, I would say it is a fair assessment. Although I like XFCE more for its small footprint than lack-of-features (simple without being, er, simplified). But to be honest, KDE is my favorite and KDE4 is looking to be very nice (for me) once it's 'done'.

      • What he meant by "nobody will notice" is that Gnome is lacking so many features *already*.

        I don't exactly agree with that, but that's the joke.
  • will avoid the problems that plagued KDE 4.0's release.

    I made the folly of installing KDE-4 on my mom's new computer (she had KDE-3.5.x before). There were no "problems". There was a total disaster.

    The amount of features available in KDE-3 for years, that did not make it into KDE-4 is staggering... Add bugs to that.

    And I was not entirely unprepared — I knew better, than to try KDE-4.0, when it came out with the enormous (and Google-sponsored [kde.org]) hoopla. I waited for 4.0.2... You can't even move widgets around on your task-bar yet — that's "scheduled" for version 4.1!

    The all-new "plasma"-desktop can't show you the contents of files in ~/Desktop/ — that's still "in the works". Showing the list of files themselves is buggy — every time you login, a new set of icons (one for each of your files) is added to the desktop.

    And to think, that I was getting impatient with FreeBSD KDE-team [kde.org] for not upgrading the KDE-ports! These guys were simply protecting me, but no, I wouldn't listen... I installed the much tauted Kubuntu and paid the price (don't even get me started on Ubuntu itself)...

    • So you had less problems with FreeBSD on the desktop than Ubuntu? I must ask you, sir... do you live in bizarro world?
      • by mi ( 197448 )

        So you had less problems with FreeBSD on the desktop than Ubuntu?

        Yes, as a matter of fact. Although I admit, that most of the frustration was with the switch — for some reason, Ubuntu considers most single-byte encodings (such as KOI8-U [wikipedia.org]) to be "obsolete" and forces UTF8 upon you.

        This is a major pain for someone, who already has many files in the "obsolete" encoding and/or whose names contain it. Yes, you can add more encodings, but if you start using them, the GUI breaks and other things get subtly

    • by draugdel ( 1301987 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @03:14PM (#24140659)

      As far as I know KDE4.0 was never meant for the end user but for developers. I tried it once and told myself: "Looks promising but is not ready to use for me.[0]"

      So I waited and at times looked a bit a the latest progress with packages from the svn trunk for my distribution. My impression is that the progress, that KDE4.0 to now made, is just amazing. I am currently using the svn packages more often than my old KDE3.5.9 install, simply because it is a very pleasant experience. I would have switched already, if it was not a "unstable"[1] version and I will definitly switch when 4.1 sees the light of the day.

      So let's go on to your issues: Moving widgets in the panel (the task bar is only for displaying your applications) should have been added yesterday or so (according to a blog post at planetkde.org).

      Showing the contents of ~/Desktop: The folderview can do that, but not only that. It can also display any folder (for instance on a remote machine as well). It will be able to show the results of nepomuk searches, but this is not ready yet. I for my part had never any icons on my old desktop, because, I think, it looks like I still have lot of work to do. Now I can easily display the folder(s) that I am currently working on and hide them when I am done. I must say, it is way better than the old system for me.

      For launching applications, I never used icons (Keyboard > mouse for me) but used the old "Run command". Now there is krunner which is way better than the old system.

      As another developer to the KDE team: I love what you are doing with KDE4 and I hope that you can keep the good work up.

      [0] I am a developer as well.
      [1] unstable as in not finished. I have not experienced lots of bugs, but instead it almost never crashes, which is quite impressive for this kind of packages (compiled directly from the latest source code).

  • by sundarvenkata ( 1214396 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:34PM (#24139807) Homepage
    GNOME HCI guidelines are one of the best I know of. Following the HCI leads to surprisingly good physical and mental health. 1) Navigating the GNOME dialog box with just the keyboard provides a rejuvenating and rigorous finger and mental exercise at the same time. 2) The font choices make pupil dilation effortless 3) The occlusion of "OK/Cancel" in elongated dialog boxes make accepting/rejecting dialog boxes into a fun hideAndSeek activity.
    • by Fri13 ( 963421 )

      Please tell me how to navigate on those dialoges. I have tries so many times and everytime it just shows small filter window and does not do things what I have readed people's step-by-step instructions. Mayby I have missed lots of information :-/

  • by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @02:39PM (#24139953) Homepage Journal
    What I would really like to see from the GNOME team is a pledge to keep the framework free of unencumbered technology. Specifically, this means we need them to promise that both the framework itself, and its core applications, will not be built with .NET (Mono).

    Miguel de Icaza may enjoy appeasing Microsoft, but most of the Free World does not.
  • Where's The Story? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by segedunum ( 883035 ) on Thursday July 10, 2008 @04:57PM (#24142929)
    All we have is some article that says Gnome 2.30 = Gnome 3. Nothing else. No details, nothing. No details on GTK 3, which will have to happen before Gnome 3, and I'm not sure what problems did affect KDE 4.0's release. .0 releases are what they are, and it was the same story when Gnome 2.0 came along.

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