OpenSUSE 12.1 delivers Fedora punch with GNOME 3 The big news in openSUSE 12.1, whose first beta has recently dropped, is the arrival of GNOME 3 – in this case GNOME 3.2. Unlike Fedora, which is already into its second GNOME 3-based release, openSUSE had – thanks to its release schedule – stuck with GNOME 2 for its last release earlier this year. OpenSUSE 12.1 embraces …
Yes, Andy B.
There are Open Source GUI designers. Gnome 1.x was actually pretty good, if not great for its time. Then metacity came along, and we all were told to do what metacity wanted us to. Because it was done by experts. Some of those found out that Gnome 2.x was tweakable; much too much for their taste. And since the future is tablets for all, we all need to use the greatest interface for fondleslabs, the very moment when finally Linux will conquer the desktop - with Gnome 3.
Oooops, and KDE is actually done by German engineers. And it is done to a great engineering height, no irony here. But in order to make it usuable, one has to start configuring it from scratch.
"The interesting side effect of leveling the GUI playing field in GNOME is that it throws the spotlight on what arguably should be the primary means of judging a distro – all the stuff under the hood."
Erm... the average user of a computer *just wants to get the job done* and does not care at all about 'all the stuff under the hood'
How you or I judge a distro is irrelevant if Linux is to be taken seriously as a Windows replacement/alternative.
" Erm... the average user of a computer *just wants to get the job done* and does not care at all about 'all the stuff under the hood'"
. . .why Linux doesn't even have a measurable percentage of the desktop market.
As much as I enjoy the Unix / Linux environment -- and I recently switched 100% to Ubuntu -- much of it still sux! Music players are pathetic (where's MediaMonkey for Linux?!), movie players are worse, and on, and on.
The tweak tool is better than nothing at all but arguably virtually everything it provides access to should have been made available from a settings dialog.
GNOME Shell itself is a good experience, definitely on the right track, but it needs to be configurable to some degree, even for regular users, and definitely for power users. Not KDE levels of configurability or anywhere close, but the basics such as being able to set fonts, name workspaces, manage extensions and so on.
"I use OpenSUSE for its KDE support. "
Ditto.
"What does or doesn't happen to Gnome is wasted effort as far as I'm concerned."
I think "wasted effort" may be putting it a bit strong. I've tried Gnome on and off over many years but never really "got it".
Fedora 15 is favoured at work right now. But because the Fedora folks still have KDE as an option, because it's not seen completely as "wasted time", if I ask the nice sysadmin nicely enough, I still get KDE. Which is nice.
SUSE has long been associated with KDE.
SUSE has long been associated (vilified even!!) with a more relaxed view on competing license interaction. The fundamentalist approach to license intolerance as championed by genomes and youbuntus is tempered in OpenSUSE.
That is another of SUSE's USPs - alongside its preference for KDE...
Headlining changes to doctrinaire and inflexible [by your own admission] user interfaces when reporting a beta is not objective news reporting – you're devising an artificial agenda – like the 'mainstream media' you criticise..
Some consumers might consider complete inflexibility and a refusal to permit customisation as doctrinaire, off-putting and a deterrent to adoption. Not you.
This kind of me-too reporting is one of the prime factors in pushing consumers away. By all reliable accounts most OpenSUSE consumer use the default choice, [I know I do]
Why not pander to the mass-market?
Could you not force yourself to admit that OpenSUSE defaults to KDE?
Agreed, editors: please stop Scott Gilbertson writing all his Linux articles around his preference for GNOME, or just prefix them with "The GNOME Marketing team writes:"; it's not even a controversial point of view that brings something to the Reg, it's just boring and does not tell us anything about the supposed subject of the stories.
You say openSUSE will suffer because it can no longer tweak Gnome to make their product distinctive. I say openSUSE is now in a position of relative advantage; it's reputed to have one of the better KDE implementations, and judging by the number of forum-posters dismayed at the suckiness of Gnome3 and Unity, they may be looking for a solid KDE desktop. SUSE provides it - let's see this great distro get some of its mojo back after a few years in the wilderness.
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"The interesting side effect of leveling the GUI playing field in GNOME is that it throws the spotlight on what arguably should be the primary means of judging a distro – all the stuff under the hood."
If this is true, why did you spend most of the article on the GUI and four measly and almost information-free paragraphs on 'all the stuff under the hood'?
I'd be rather interested to know what stuff is under the hood in OpenSUSE, but your article didn't really help...
At this stage is there anyone seriously touting gnome 3 (or 3.2) as a plus. OpenSUSE has long been a KDE distro, and for the former gnome 2.x users Xfce is a great alternative. For that one person who is still promoting gnome 3, even Linus Torvalds called gnome 3 an `unholy mess´.
And like most other posters, I am a GNU/Linux user, I look under the hood all the time.
....under the hood in openTraitor and that's Microsoft funding and Microsoft licences.
Wait, that's two things.
There are only two things under the hood of openTraitor - Microsoft funding, Microsoft licences and patented code.
That's three, there are only three things under the hood, it's no good, I'll have to come in again.
For years, SuSE has relead heavily on SaX2 to manipulate the xorg.conf file and actually get xwindows visible.
With 12.1 landing and the Sandy Bridge chips (and associated new graphics capacity) coming online just as SaX2 is dropped hard... big fun.
I still have a viable SaX2 on an 11.3, and may have it on an 11.4 that was done as an upgrade, but on new installs, I don't have it any longer and it is truly annoying at times not to have it. (as, for instance, I was setting up a new laptop a few weeks ago - so, completely fresh install on new hardware.)
Its not for me anymore, I'm evaluating moving to KDE, and considering that as a long time Linux user and full-time Linux admin KDE feels repulsive says a lot about the current GNOME 3.x
Currently I'm running Debian 6 + Gnome 2.30, and seriously I do not understand why they had to screw with it just now that they just got it right.
PD: Not great or awesome, just right.
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