I don't use GNOME, but...
Posted Jan 27, 2010 19:00 UTC (Wed) by
drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to:
I don't use GNOME, but... by dskoll
Parent article:
Stormy Peters: What should the GNOME Foundation accomplish in 2010?
Include man pages for all applications.
So far Microsoft has done a much better job of doing this (providing
documentation) for the desktop then anything I've seen come out of a Unix
tradition.
Make programs that involve editing large amounts of text capable of
calling an external editor. IBM got this right in the early 1960's with
System-360, for crying out loud!
Well the 360 is not really Unix is it? Then again it does not really use
the concept of files and directories either... In fact it's completely a
alien OS to Unix in every way imaginable.
Use standard terminology that's been around since the early 1970's
instead of introducing inconsistent terminology.
Like what? MiBs?
Use human-readable configuration files under the hood. (You can use
whatever flashy GUI configuration editor you like for neophytes.)
A flat directory system containing hundreds of files, each using different
formats and
different naming conventions is not 'human readable'. Individually; yes,
but collectively; no. It's inhuman, actually.
Gconf is better then most things I've seen. Directory trees containing
individual text files with keyword-value pairs is standardized and easily
editable. Editing gconf by hand using Vi is a hell of a lot easier then
trying to figure out most rc files. Too bad about that lack of
documentation, of course. It's what kills it.
These have all successfully been built on top of a UNIX-like base
without abandoning the UNIX philosophy of small, cooperating programs that
each do one thing well.
Really? Why is nobody using these systems then? Got any real examples?
Because while it's entirely possible you have something in mind that I am
unaware of, I have no clue what it is and I have not seen a Unix system
that is successful at it.
I'm fairly happy with Thunderbird. The It's All Text plugin integrates
it with my favorite text editor... a perfect example of the UNIX
philosophy.
Thats funny because Thunderbird comes almost completely from a Windows/DOS-
based tradition. Also it's a monolythic application with it's own widget
set and rendering system and shares very little functionality or code with
other applications in your system, except Firefox. Very un-Unixy. Also
plugin systems and extensions to applications probably existed in
Windows/DOS desktop applications first.
Except maybe Emacs. I suppose emacs had the same sort of functionality.
Except that comes from a LISP machine background and not Unix.
There are lots of reasonable file managers. Take your pick. I happen to
hate all file managers anyway, so whichever one GNOME picks for that task
doesn't matter to me.
Not in any Unix system I've ever seen. The closest to 'traditional' you can
get is 'Midnight Commander' 2-pane-style managers (there are a whole group
of applications similar to that that were popular) and that is a unabashed
clone of a popular proprietary DOS application.
You are confusing the term UNIX-like with similar to previous UNIX
desktops. That's not at all what I meant.
I think that your just confused about the situation. Not trying to be
offensive so don't take it the wrong way... it just seems to be a normal
thread of thought with discussions around Linux desktops.
There is no UNIX-like anything with pretty much everything you've talked
about and shown examples
of liking. I think that besides some general system design and programming
approaches there is nothing in the Unix tradition that really helps out in
making a quality desktop experience. There are just features that you want
that sound actually nice to have. Especially the documentation thing.
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