GNOME and input method integration [LWN.net]

GNOME and input method integration

Posted Jun 27, 2012 13:58 UTC (Wed) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285)
In reply to: GNOME and input method integration by pizza
Parent article: GNOME and input method integration

But they probably will break things that aren't broken.

There are people who have managed, however they had to do it, to get input systems working in current versions of Gnome.

Everyone suspects because of past history with these things, that these new improved versions of Gnome will break all the currently working things. And, these new "improved" versions of Gnome will have no way to turn off the new things because the Gnome developers want to force everyone else to fix the problems rather than revert to what already works.

The distros don't help with this because they make it nearly impossible to run older versions of desktop software. For example, if you want to use a new version of Ubuntu, all of the packaged software will be linked to the newest possible version of Gnome. The same with Fedora.

For many people then, to keep using software that works and still get at least some modern features, like hardware support for this year's laptops, they will have to switch to using Gentoo Linux or more likely Mac OS X.

So in the quest to make things "better" Gnome developers often end up making it impossible to get work done and drive people to proprietary software.

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GNOME and input method integration

Posted Jul 3, 2012 12:25 UTC (Tue) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]

> like hardware support for this year's laptops, they will have to switch to using Gentoo Linux or more likely Mac OS X.

Mac OS X only has hardware support for a few laptop models.

GNOME and input method integration

Posted Jul 3, 2012 16:35 UTC (Tue) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]

And on those laptop models OS X works perfectly.

I do know that when I upgraded to a Macbook Pro in 2008 it was a great relief and very refreshing to know that every time I closed the lid it went to sleep. Every time I opened the lid it woke up.

It didn't stay awake and burn away the battery because Gnome had decided to create their own power management daemon and do it very badly. (Oooh, there's a sysfs file that is missing/in the wrong place/has different contents or permissions! I had better crash and not restart!)

It didn't kernel panic on resume.

Playing sound worked in every application, every time, without needing to search for whatever app had locked the sound device.

Linux cannot claim these things. It is certainly a more interesting OS, but it does cause a strain.