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Day: GNOME OSDay: GNOME OSPosted Aug 8, 2012 6:35 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333)In reply to: Day: GNOME OS by cmccabe Parent article: Day: GNOME OS
> what are the goals for GNOME?
It appears to be to make the software more usable and improve the ease writing and installing software.
> Is it building a Linux distribution?
Hopefully not, because Linux needs a new distribution like I need another hole in my head.
> Creating an OS for tablets and smartphones?
No. But having desktop that is also usable on a touch screen is a important priority for them. This is something that Linux distributions, in general, never had in the past. There existed lots of software and environments that were intended to make writing and using touch screen oriented software easier, but nothing in general to make Linux desktop usable using anything other then a keyboard and pointer device.
> Is it going to provide a low-level framework comparable to SELinux or seccomp?
Doesn't seem like it. They seem much happier working with "linux plumbing" type developers to improve and develop low-level Linux userland stuff like Systemd, udev, NetworkManager, and Pulseaudio to make Gnome better.
However they seem to be happy making software that uses low-level things better, like Boxes for Libvirt/KVM and panel items that work with NetworkManager or Pulseaudio...
> Is it going to create a new build system to compete with Koji, CDBS, or the Gentoo build system?
Gnome always had their own build system called jhbuild that would go out and download code from various repositories and build stuff. Other older large software projects had their own fetch and build systems too. Once projects reached a certain size or complexity they tend to develop tools to make downloading and building software easier for themselves. As with a number of languages and other frameworks... such as 'pip' for python (one of many for python) or cpan for perl.
Apparently they would like to improve it and create more formal set of APIs for developers to use.
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Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 7:40 UTC (Wed) by liam (subscriber, #84133) [Link]
I really hope gnome doesn't try to extend jhbuild (though my experiences with it were not as bad as some). I find it hard to believe they haven't long since migrated to something like hudson/jenkins.
Why build your own widget if someone is giving away free widgets of the kind you want?
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 8:18 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
We combined jhbuild and buildbot years ago: http://build.gnome.org/.
If you want to help, feel free. I'll re-activate gnome-os-list in a bit, just subscribe, etc. We also have a buildbridage list, but that is pretty dead.
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 10:36 UTC (Wed) by Frej (subscriber, #4165) [Link]
Ever thought of reusing homebrew instead of homegrown jhbuild? It does solve the 'install software on top/next to" another distro. But in this case the base distro is OSX, however it should be quite portable.
My recollection of jhbuild was just pain, it might be better today :)
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 8:38 UTC (Wed) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link] It appears to be to make the software more usable and improve the ease writing and installing software.There's something wrong here. If they want to make the software more usable then why they're turning it to be unusable?
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 8:48 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
You are confused. I suggest trying to re-assessing your assumptions to make them match closer to reality.
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 10:35 UTC (Wed) by jjs (guest, #10315) [Link]
I don't think he's confused. I loved GNOME1. Then GNOME2 came out, and I couldn't tweek it as much as I wanted, because it was determined that "I really didn't need to do that" and "it's too confusing." So I moved to WindowMaker and XFCE. Kept trying GNOME2, occasionally using GHOME2 apps. GNOME3 came out - and I'm really moving to KDE for apps (as well as WindowMaker, XFCE, LDXE, and Enlightenment).
GHOME3 is another step away from supporting users, IMHO.
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 14:11 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I loathed Gnome 1. I was very happy when I learned that I could run Enlightenment without it. I didn't touch Gnome again until 2.8 or so when it finally started becoming usable.
To each their own.
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 9, 2012 16:16 UTC (Thu) by thebluesgnr (guest, #37963) [Link]
GNOME is not for you; that's fine. That's not the same as saying it's not "supporting the users". Keep in mind you're not the only user in the world. ;)
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 16:29 UTC (Wed) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link]
> No. But having desktop that is also usable on a touch screen is a important priority for them. This is something that Linux distributions, in general, never had in the past. There existed lots of software and environments that were intended to make writing and using touch screen oriented software easier, but nothing in general to make Linux desktop usable using anything other then a keyboard and pointer device.
I'm curious to why this is important?
By making a desktop environment that works well with touch-screens, they created one that works horrible with a mouse and keyboard. I don't know many desktops with touchscreens, except for kiosks and the like. The last thing I want to do is to mess up my monitor with fingerprints.
Day: GNOME OS Posted Aug 8, 2012 17:22 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> I'm curious to why this is important?
Things like tablets are reaching parity with desktops and laptops in terms of performance and capabilities. Ideally they are not going to be locked down as much as they traditionally have been.
Also there are now more and more ways to interact with computers.
> By making a desktop environment that works well with touch-screens, they created one that works horrible with a mouse and keyboard
Mousing leaves a little bit to be desired, but Gnome 3 a hell of a lot more keyboard friendly then Gnome 2 was. A exponential improvement, IMO.
If you prefer to have window lists, static desktop choosers, start menus
> I don't know many desktops with touchscreens, except for kiosks and the like.
Koisk and point of sales are big ones. Despite Linux popularity in embedded devices the Linux environment proved too problematic for these sorts of things as POS seems to be predominately XP POS (a actual microsoft product)
> The last thing I want to do is to mess up my monitor with fingerprints.
In practice it doesn't seem to be a problem except that touchscreens are miserable on desktops and laptops anyways. Nobody wants that.
A nice way to try out Gnome 3 on a tablet-like struction would be on one of those Mimo USB+touchscreen monitors, if/when they get the GPU offload stuff sorted out.
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