GNOME 3.4 released

Posted Mar 29, 2012 6:19 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: GNOME 3.4 released by jospoortvliet
Parent article: GNOME 3.4 released

> that is what session management is for.

No it isn't and it never worked on any OS. Suspend is fair superior.

GNOME 3.4 released

Posted Mar 29, 2012 9:22 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (4 responses)

Just because it doesn't work in the apps you use does not mean it is not useful. To me it seems a weird attitude: "it doesn't work in my favorite applications so it's probably not an useful feature"

It IS a very useful feature. I suspend my laptop most of the time, but when I have to reboot (say after an update) I don't have to start my apps and open my documents again. Nice. On my desktop it is even better - I don't use suspend (it boots up fast enough) so I like to not have to open my 20 apps again. Hell, I wouldn't use a web browser without session support, would you?

On my media center it's even worse as suspend there kills the HDMI output so I have to shut it down to save the trees. Session management means I continue where I left off...

The fact that you prefer to spend time with things others rather have their computer do for them doesn't mean it's an useless feature. I've got work to do, you know...

GNOME 3.4 released

Posted Mar 29, 2012 10:35 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

> Just because it doesn't work in the apps you use does not mean it is not useful. To me it seems a weird attitude: "it doesn't work in my favorite applications so it's probably not an useful feature"

It seems weird that you think that I said it wasn't useful when I never said anything of the sort. I am just saying it's fundamentally broken.

The fact that a few programs implement something like it in a fairly useful manner is besides the point entirely.

> Hell, I wouldn't use a web browser without session support, would you?

Despite all your assumptions and attempts to change the subject I wouldn't even notice or care, personally. Other people seem to find it useful, but that's besides the point, again.

> The fact that you prefer to spend time with things others rather have their computer do for them doesn't mean it's an useless feature. I've got work to do, you know...

Why would I spend time struggling with a feature that never worked and is never going to work for most of the applications I use when I have something that is much faster and actually works for all of them?

If I run into bugged out hardware or actually find myself caring about the minuscule amount of power it takes to maintain my ram state in my laptop then I can always just change the default to 'suspend to swap'.

GNOME 3.4 released

Posted Mar 31, 2012 14:33 UTC (Sat) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

I don't get it. There are just a few broken applications where this doesn't work - Novell's GroupWise, Inkscape and Gimp are the only three I can think off right now on my system. Actually, I believe this used to work in Gimp, they just broke it at some point. So you saying that it doesn't work is just silly.

So the few app maintainers which have been incapable of implementing this just need a gentle push - or a patch. At that point, we can save trees and make the reboot experience nicer - you don't have to loose all your state anymore.

Much more important, the session capabilities are put to use in a far more innovative way: Activities. Being able to save the state of a group of your applications and stopping/starting them based on what you're working on, and even more cool, moving it all to another device, is something really new and useful.

Imagine - you're at work, and are working on a task but don't want to miss the train. Transfer your work (not just the files but the whole session) to another device (say laptop, or tablet, if your desktop is smart enough to adapt to such a device) and keep working in the train!

You might think it's not possible. Maybe start using less obsolete software? Because it is - and millions of users on Linux are using it already as it was introduced on the Linux desktop years ago... This is from September 2010:
https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/358560:kde-45-deskt...

And may 2011:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/how-to-use-kd...

(granted, the moving of activities from one system to the next isn't possible yet, but managing and using them on one system works just fine)

I think it's time to look at a calendar: yes, it is 2012 and your computer can do more than you think. Trowing around workarounds like suspend are imho just a bad excuse for unwillingness to adopt new, good, useful technologies. The idea that shutting down the computer means loosing everything you were working on is DOS era stuff. Does the fact that MS and Apple can't get their act together mean we have to be similarly restricted?

GNOME 3.4 released

Posted Mar 29, 2012 15:57 UTC (Thu) by davide.del.vento (guest, #59196) [Link] (1 responses)

+1 (have to add the parentheses since LWN comment system force me to write a longer comment)

GNOME 3.4 released

Posted Mar 29, 2012 21:51 UTC (Thu) by blujay (guest, #39961) [Link]

Maybe the system is trying to tell you something... ;)