Linux

[Brian-M]

Perhaps you haven't enabled "contrib" and "non-free" in your Debian sources, because there are in fact a huge ton of Debian packages available. There are other things about Debian such as http://www.deb-multimedia.org that you should know about. Debian is awesome, but it's political...

Okay, I'll take a look at that sometime later. Since I've installed Debian on a spare drive, there's no need to remove it

I'm fond of Xubuntu, so I don't want to discourage you from installing it if you want to try it, but I think you've got the wrong idea about Debian.

I've actually had Xubuntu on my desktop for a couple of years now, but I don't spend too much time on that computer. (I spend most of my time on my obsolete notebook, on which I've installed Puppy Linux because I needed an ultra-light system for it.)

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I know Xubuntu put off Mir and xMir, but I'm not sure what their future plans are. I know Kubuntu has essentially had to leave Ubuntu.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I don't know if you've seen this, but it's pretty scary.

I think I'm just one among many who hope that GTK2 will be forked so that it lives on. The situation where a project dramatically loses mindshare is exactly when this tends to happen. I think that the time for this is ripe, and it's probably even an idea in motion as we speak.

Very sad to read. But I don't think the GTK2 zombie can be revived.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

I know Kubuntu has essentially had to leave Ubuntu.

To be honest, I like it a lot more since they left. It takes Ubuntu quite awhile to come out with updates. I remember having to wait, like, a week for a Firefox update, or something like that. Just very, very slow. Since Kubuntu switched to Blue Systems, updates have been coming out faster. A lot faster. I get an update for something about every day or two...which was initially frightening, but so far I haven't hit any bugs (and it's been over 2 years now). If anything, my system is more stable, because I'm running all the latest versions of everything.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Very sad to read. But I don't think the GTK2 zombie can be revived.

It wasn't sad. The article can easily be rewritten as "I hate simplification."

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

It wasn't sad. The article can easily be rewritten as "I hate simplification."

I don't think simplification entirely reflects not listening to users and developers because you want to promote your brand. I actually think the Linux desktop could use a lot more simplification, but I think we can agree that that is the wrong way to go about it and for the wrong reasons.

 

[xtifr]

I don't know if you've seen this, but it's pretty scary.

I think I'm just one among many who hope that GTK2 will be forked so that it lives on. The situation where a project dramatically loses mindshare is exactly when this tends to happen. I think that the time for this is ripe, and it's probably even an idea in motion as we speak.

GTK3 is new, and it's unsurprising that some elements (like theming) are a bit unstable. Still, there were similar complaints when GTK2 was new. And I mean really similar. All sorts of options that GTK1 had were missing and people were complaining that the Gnome folk were trying to enforce the "one true way" of doing everything on a world full of people who like doing things different ways. And people were switching to KDE in droves. But once things settled down a bit, and the initial debugging was complete, options began reappearing, and some people came back. And of course, when KDE4 came out, people began switching to Gnome in droves.

When you've been using Linux for long enough, you learn to take this sort of stuff in stride.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

GTK3 is new, and it's unsurprising that some elements (like theming) are a bit unstable. Still, there were similar complaints when GTK2 was new. And I mean really similar. All sorts of options that GTK1 had were missing and people were complaining that the Gnome folk were trying to enforce the "one true way" of doing everything on a world full of people who like doing things different ways. And people were switching to KDE in droves. But once things settled down a bit, and the initial debugging was complete, options began reappearing, and some people came back. And of course, when KDE4 came out, people began switching to Gnome in droves.

When you've been using Linux for long enough, you learn to take this sort of stuff in stride.

This is hand waving, pure and simple.

 

[xtifr]

This is hand waving, pure and simple.

What, that I heard exactly the same complaints ("they're trying to force everyone to be exactly the same!" "They refuse to listen to users!" "They don't care about third-party developers!") when GTK2 came out? I assure you, it's not. GTK2/Gnome2 was widely predicted to be the end of the Gnome project. (And similar things were said about KDE4 when it came out.) I was an active member of the Debian project at the time, and the mailing lists nearly exploded with all the hate for GTK2 and Gnome2!

I, in fact, am one of the people who stopped using Gnome at that time (although I didn't switch to KDE--I went back to fvwm). For me, it was fairly simple, though. Focus-follows-mouse is a feature I will not live without, and the initial release of Gnome2 didn't support it (and temporarily dropped support for using third-party window managers). I didn't even look at Gnome for several years after the v2 release.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

What, that I heard exactly the same complaints ("they're trying to force everyone to be exactly the same!" "They refuse to listen to users!" "They don't care about third-party developers!") when GTK2 came out? I assure you, it's not. GTK2/Gnome2 was widely predicted to be the end of the Gnome project. (And similar things were said about KDE4 when it came out.) I was an active member of the Debian project at the time, and the mailing lists nearly exploded with all the hate for GTK2 and Gnome2!

I, in fact, am one of the people who stopped using Gnome at that time (although I didn't switch to KDE--I went back to fvwm). For me, it was fairly simple, though. Focus-follows-mouse is a feature I will not live without, and the initial release of Gnome2 didn't support it (and temporarily dropped support for using third-party window managers). I didn't even look at Gnome for several years after the v2 release.

It is hand waving because the fact that you heard similar complaints in the past says nothing about the situation today. You are not taking into account whether the past accusations were warranted or not, whether the current ones are, the state of the Linux ecosystem, what the devs are doing, what competitors are doing, where their doomed mobile focus is leading them, etc.

And contrary to your claim, what I have read says that KDE still hasn't recovered to pre-4 levels. Xfce has had a huge boost, with KDE still respectable, and the largest distro is mandating another desktop all together. And toss in the forkers at Mint. The fact that people settled back with Gnome back at that time and in that situation is no predictor of what will happen today.

 

[xtifr]

It is hand waving because the fact that you heard similar complaints in the past says nothing about the situation today.

I think you're trying to shift the burden of proof here. What, exactly, do you believe it is that I'm claiming?

You are not taking into account whether the past accusations were warranted or not, whether the current ones are, the state of the Linux ecosystem, what the devs are doing, what competitors are doing, where their doomed mobile focus is leading them, etc.

None of those are relevant to my claim. They are, however, relevant to yours, and I haven't seen you provide any evidence, so I remain unconvinced by your claims.

And contrary to your claim, what I have read says that KDE still hasn't recovered to pre-4 levels.

In addition to all the other ways you seem to be trying to attribute claims to me that I haven't made, this is far and away the most perplexing. When did I ever claim that KDE has recovered to pre-4 levels? I merely said that a lot of people abandoned it when 4 was first released.

I get the feeling you're debating with some straw man of your own. And I wish you well in that debate, but I'm not sure why you're addressing me. All I was doing was listing some reasons why I'm not convinced by your assertion that Gnome/GTK is dead/dying. That, and that alone, was my claim. Telling me I didn't see a huge blowback against Gnome2 isn't going to convince me, since I did. Otherwise, I'm really not sure where you think you're going with all of this.

Heck, I'm all in favor of more options. I'd like to see Enlightenment stabilize, for example, and maybe start to attract a few more users.

 

[eerok]

When you've been using Linux for long enough, you learn to take this sort of stuff in stride.

I don't think what the GNOME3 devs are doing is the same kind of thing. Their goal is not to perform a rebuild of the framework, which gets messy and temporarily drops features and functionality. They seem to want to reinvent Linux as something quite foreign to what Linux users currently value. Who gives a crap about their brand?

Of course it's true that users are fickle, but I think the GNOME3 devs have gone too far in alienating their user base, and many of these users will never go back.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Sane people care about their own brand.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I think you're trying to shift the burden of proof here. What, exactly, do you believe it is that I'm claiming?

None of those are relevant to my claim. They are, however, relevant to yours, and I haven't seen you provide any evidence, so I remain unconvinced by your claims.

That the complaints aren't worrisome or won't amount to anything because you heard them during previous transitions? And I think the things I listed are relevant to your conclusion.

In addition to all the other ways you seem to be trying to attribute claims to me that I haven't made, this is far and away the most perplexing. When did I ever claim that KDE has recovered to pre-4 levels? I merely said that a lot of people abandoned it when 4 was first released.

But if X number of people didn't return after 4 then it puts a hole in your notion (that at least I got from your post) that this is somehow a normal/universal cycle that will pass.

I get the feeling you're debating with some straw man of your own. And I wish you well in that debate, but I'm not sure why you're addressing me. All I was doing was listing some reasons why I'm not convinced by your assertion that Gnome/GTK is dead/dying. That, and that alone, was my claim. Telling me I didn't see a huge blowback against Gnome2 isn't going to convince me, since I did. Otherwise, I'm really not sure where you think you're going with all of this.

Er, I never said it dead or dying (I said GTK2 is dead, but that should go without saying), nor did I try to tell you you didn't see blowback for Gnome2 (I was saying that that is not reason enough to believe the situations will be similar in other respects).

Heck, I'm all in favor of more options. I'd like to see Enlightenment stabilize, for example, and maybe start to attract a few more users.

Well, they did go from a 8 year release cycle to a 1 year one for 0.17 and 0.18. Kinda loses its magic .

 

[eerok]

Sane people care about their own brand.

And I find it darkly hilarious to introduce MBA-speak like that into Linux. The product is fill-in-the-blank, but let's sell it hard. It's all about the sell and not what it's good for. Many Linux users don't find this amusing at all, and have voted with their feet. Myself, I consider GNOME3 unusable.

Apparently we've both been around Linux for decades. I'm sure that you've seen projects die just as I have. Do you think that GNOME can't die? If the GNOME3 devs think that they can act like Windows or OS X and force their will on the masses, they will learn the hard way that Linux is not monolithic in a way that allows that kind of assumption.

GNOME3 has pissed a lot of people off, and there seems to be a huge disconnect with their vision of the future. I think that this won't end well unless a change in attitude takes place.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Since I keep mentioning it, here is how things went down in Kubuntu land earlier last year. The second post has all the relevant blog postings. If you read the thread, you will see that they consider going to a Debian base, or a mix of that and Ubuntu or Mint.

Canonical/Ubuntu/Shuttleworth's probably most infamous moments of the last year:

For example, he accused those who do not support Mir, Canonical's proposed replacement graphical system for Linux, as attacking the project "on purely political ground grounds" and adding that "At least we know now who belongs to the Open Source Tea Party."

Shuttleworth appended a winking emoticon, but few took his comment as a joke. His remarks were widely interpreted as an attack on KDE, which is focusing on supporting Wayland, another replacement graphical system that has no immediate plans to support Mir.

KDE developer Aaron Seigo responded by criticizing Shuttleworth's hostility and challenging him to a debate on the merits of Mir -- a challenge that has had no response.

An even stronger reaction came from Martin Graesslin, whose work for KDE includes implementing Wayland. He wrote that "it is no longer possible to criticize Ubuntu/Canonical for their technical decisions and to disagree with them."

Reacting to Shuttleworth's claim that the opposition was political, Graesslin noted that, "I experienced a strong constant pressure that we support Canonical's in-house solution which is completely unsuited for our needs given their provided public documentation....I had to ask several people at Canonical and people close to the Ubuntu community to leave us alone." Shuttleworth, Graesslin claimed, was violating his own Code of Conduct with his incivility.

A week or so later, Canonical responded to what Shuttleworth characterized as a "sucks site" with a legal notice of violation of copyright. In fact, the site was nothing of the sort -- it was simply a page published by Micah Lee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation that explained how users could prevent information being sent to Ubuntu each time they used smart scopes to search on the dash.

The over-reaction and the singling out of Lee's site was quickly and widely denounced. Yet it took nearly three weeks for Shuttleworth to apologize for both his Tea Party remark and Canonical's treatment of Lee.

Unfortunately, any good such a long-delayed apology might have done was diluted by Shuttleworth's careful hedging and his insistence that only technical critiques of Canonical and Ubuntu were valid. Instead of laying the issues to rest, Shuttleworth only managed to have many criticize his apology as evasive and insincere -- in other words, as one more reason for conflict.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

And I find it darkly hilarious to introduce MBA-speak like that into Linux. The product is fill-in-the-blank, but let's sell it hard. It's all about the sell and not what it's good for. Many Linux users don't find this amusing at all, and have voted with their feet. Myself, I consider GNOME3 unusable.

Apparently we've both been around Linux for decades. I'm sure that you've seen projects die just as I have. Do you think that GNOME can't die? If the GNOME3 devs think that they can act like Windows or OS X and force their will on the masses, they will learn the hard way that Linux is not monolithic in a way that allows that kind of assumption.

GNOME3 has pissed a lot of people off, and there seems to be a huge disconnect with their vision of the future. I think that this won't end well unless a change in attitude takes place.

What I've never understood about Gnome 3 is that there are all manner of things that they want to lock down to push a certain workflow or "brand", but then they want you to have to install extensions for the most basic of desktop functionalities. And then those extensions break when they update the desktop, and when the extension breaks everything breaks. Even His Linusness had this problem.

I've heard things have been more stable in the past year, but that was why I gave up on it.

 

[Lolly]

And of course, when KDE4 came out, people began switching to Gnome in droves.

I didn't switch to gnome, I never liked gnome, I just gave up..... There was something missing in xfce that I wanted, and I never got around to figuring out how to make it work.

Has kde gone back to how it was before, or is it still the same?

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Oh, hey. Xubutnu's still around. Too bad fluxbuntu imploded..

 

[jenspen]

Has kde gone back to how it was before, or is it still the same?

For me, personally, it's better because it's more configurable and beautiful than ever. KDE and Xfce are winning the popularity polls these days, I read.

BUT some KDE developer(s) thought users would be better off if we weren't in charge of our own data, emails, calendar etc. They integrated a non-optional Networked Environment for Personal, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge.(Nepomuk) into KDE ... "a social semantic desktop that enriches and interconnects data from different desktop applications using semantic metadata stored as RDF." Google "Nepomuk" and you'll see that the hits are mostly about how to disable it.

I still use KDE4 and love it but had to give up using the PIM and anything that Nepomuk wanted to get its evil mits on (the last time I tried to open KMail, Nepomuk had the system at a standstill for over 24 hours as it went about its mad indexing).

The point of this post is to spread the good news to KDE users. Just read today:

"Michael Larabel of Phoronix.com said the other day that "Nepomuk Doesn't Seem To Have A Future." After putting users through years of tumult, KDE developers have just about decided to phase out Nepomuk ".