Re: Ximian Gnome 1.4 & RH 7.1 <- TheBS details further ...

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>Nautilus looks to me like a linux version of 'Active
>>Desktop' - sure it looks cool, but it run soooooo slow...
>>and on my p2 233 w/ 48 megs of ram, i cant afford that
>>slow speed..
>But with Linux, at least you have the option of running outside of
>Gnome and/or KDE.  Consider FVWM/v2/v95, IceWM or another WM on 48MB
>of RAM.

Agree, the minimum for a full GNOME enviroment (IMHO) is 64Mb.  For a long time I used XFCE (which is GNOME compliant BTW) until I had a machine with very ample capacity, and I needed things like PIM integration and CORBA both of which are native GNOME technologies.

>>And its not always a diamond either.. it could be a
>>square or circle..
>Dooh!!!  *SMACK* 'dat BS!
>   Green Circle = Beginner
>   Blue Square = Intermediate
>   Charcoal Diamond = Advanced

Ah!  I still think it is a dumb way to tag a menu.

>I should have pointed that out (bad assumption, very bad assumption
>on my part).  Sorry.
>> It does have it's ideosyncracies.
>So does Mac, so does BeOS, etc...  You have been programmed to think
>one way c/o Windows Explorer.  KDE caters to that.  Gnome does not,
>and takes a more "Nextist"-approach.  So if you are not a "Nextist"
>(I think I just coined a new term ;-), you won't like it.  After
>using Enlightenment 0.16 + Gnome 1.0 for a day, I became a Nextist
>in 1999.  Damn I love it 10x better (although I hated it for the
>first 2-3 hours of usage).

I gave up on Windows in the WfWg days and only use it on rare occasion by neccesity (have to support WinXX boxes for users), so I don't consider myself "programmed".  I mean by ideosyncracies that it is still apparent (much less so than in the recent past) that various "subsystems" are designed and assembled by disparate groups of developers.  Some things (Window Managers, GNOME-DB, PIM supports) use GConf, others don't...  Control Center has a tab "Use GNOME to paint the background",  Nautilus has a tab to make it do the same thing?  Why isn't this just a selection in Control Center?  Galeon has it's own MIME type bindings.  Galeon is one example where progess has been made as you can now tell Galeon to use GNOME's bindings or its own.  I don't want to have to associate .sdc (StarCalc) to StarOffice in >1 place.  I **LOVE** Ximian GNOME and think it is the most useful and flexible UI/desktop I've met yet (excepting GEOS on the CBM-128), but it is FAR from perfect.

>>Mostly I think the transition from GMC (Gnome Midnight Commander, the
>>previous file manager) to Nautilus (the current file manager) was
>>pre-mature.  They still provide GMC butthere is NO OBVIOUS WAY to
>>pick which one you want to use.
>???  I don't know about you, but use the icons.  ;-PPP
>Actually, in Gnome 1.4 -- I use *NEITHER* for the desktop!  My
>desktop is bare and there is no GMC nor Nautilus application
>running.  In fact, when I launch Nautilus, I have the option of
>binding it to the desktop or not (and I turn it off, which it
>remembers).  When GMC runs for the first time, it launches the
>desktop items (use the "--nodesktop" option to prevent this) .  Same
>problem with KFM (and Konquerer?) under KDE (or running
>KFM/Konquerer under Gnome -- yikes!).

Maybe OK for you,  but if I took the "desktop" file manager away from my wife things would not go well with me.  The ULTIMATE test of a desktop UI is people who don't care how it is developed , or what the heck is so great about how the Bonobo component architecture facilitates the creation of distributed applications in a heterogeneous environment. :)

>With Gnome 1.4, you get the flexibility.  So with Gnome 1.4, I'm
>actually _saving_ memory because I don't run GMC or Nautilus on my
>desktop.  I now launch GMC with the "--nodesktop" option (and
>changed my icon) so it doesn't keep the desktop icons resident after
>I kill the file manager portion (let alone the GMC desktop keeps
>respawning itself on a kill -9 if you don't -- Arrrggghhh!!!!).
>> By default (I think) Ximian GNOME wants to use Nautilus
>No, by default Ximian uses Nautilus, but it is easily disabled.  You
>can then use GMC instead (and it's simple to enable it by putting it
>in your ~/.Xsession file, or at least by 2 other methods).  In my
>case, I use _neither_ for a desktop and choose between the two when
>I want a file manager (running GMC with --nodesktop, and turning off
>Nautilus binding to the desktop).  No residency, less memory. 
>Hoo-rah!

It is easily disabled.  But if something goes wrong it does become confused,  and then the settings seem to "not stick".  I'm currently trying to figure out where the conflict is occuring.  It seems that if nautilus crashes,  and the "Use GNOME to draw the desktop" is selected in the Control Center,  then next time one logs in a one will "randomly" have no desktop manager, GMC, or nautilus.  I haven't proved this yet, but it appears that having both "Use Nautilus to draw the desktop" and "Use GNOME to draw the desktop" set is a problem.  Setting one ***should*** disable the other,  but since Nautilus doesn't appear to use GConf....