What's New in Gnome 2.10

Home , GNOME Dictionary, GNOME System Tools, List of GTK applications, Miguel de Icaza, Scalix, Sound Juicer

REVIEWS Gnome 2.10

What’s new in Gnome 2.10 LOOKING FOR TRACKS

The new Gnome desktop adds a variety of applications and applets. Under the hood, Gnome 2.10 is more

robust. BY CHRISTIAN MEYER

ince version 2.0, Gnome has the Gnome panel. Whereas previous harvested both criticism and versions had two entries: Applications Sacclaim. Just two and a half and Actions, Gnome 2.10 introduces a years ago, nobody would have consid- completely new structure with three cat- ered it possible for a graphical desktop egories: Applications, Places, and with a six month release cycle to main- System. tain the high quality standards that The Application category still has the Gnome has maintained. full set of Gnome programs, but now Despite the integration of new func- contains the Run program… item, which tions, the basic libraries continue to be was previously assigned to the Actions downwardly compatible, and this is category. something that has convinced major IT Places takes you to frequently used players such as Red Hat, Novell, or Sun directories. These frequently used direc- to use Gnome as the basis for their prod- tories could include home directories, uct lines. bookmarks from the file browser dialog, The new Gnome Version 2.10 down- any removable media mounted right load became publicly available on 9th now, any network servers, and the last March. This article will be looking at the few documents you opened. You can most important changes introduced by connect to a server from here and search Gnome 2.10, many of which are not just for locally or remotely stored files. under the hood, but real eye-catchers. Finally, System has a desktop configuration submenu and entries for taking

www.sxc.hu Eye-Catching Changes screenshots, locking the screen, and log- When you launch the desktop, you can’t ging off the system. The system adminis- help noticing the new menu structure in tration submenu takes you to the Gnome

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program works more or less completely autonomously, including title and genre assignments. Improvements Nautilus, the Gnome file manager, has been treated to many practical updates. Replacing certain system components has done wonders for Nautilus’ perfor- mance, and this is something you will notice when you first launch the file manager and when you use it later. Also, Nautilus will rename new directories immediately – this is something users had to do manually in previous versions. Pressing the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl]+[L] takes you directly to a spe- cific directory. Network connectivity is also improved, as are the integrated burning function and the Open with… dialog, all of which should make life much easier for Linux newcomers (see Figure 3). The Metacity window manager no longer takes the focus away from the Figure 1: The Gnome System Tools are a convenient interface for system management. window in which a user is currently working. This somewhat irritating System Tools for a full range of system and this may be a better choice in some behavior affected the productivity of administration tasks. cases. the system in previous versions. Totem plays both video and audio The Gtk+ library gives developers a Simple System files. The player is easy to configure, a type ahead feature that any Gtk+ pro- Configuration fact that both newcomers and more grams can leverage. In tree and list view, Administrators can use the Gnome experienced users will appreciate. or file browser dialogs, users can simply System Tools for easy user management Among other things, users can configure type the first few letters of the word they or to set the date and time. Gnome the audio system (this is interesting for are looking for, and the selection will System Tools also provides a number of 4.1/5.1 surround systems) and the automatically jump to the first match. additonal options. You can opt to set the visual effects when playing audio files. Nautilus itself does not harness this fea- time automatically via an NTP server. The “Sound Juicer” CD ripper con- ture, but it does have something similar. Network configuration is also child’s verts your CD collection into a more This said, it looks very likely that Gnome play. Laptop users will appreciate the convenient format for MP3 players. The 2.12 will include support for this. ability to create profiles or locations. Depending on where you are, at home or at the office, for example, you simply select the profile appropriate to your current environment. The Gnome System Tools allow system administrators to configure modems, ISDN devices, and the wireless network. You can define NFS exports or Samba shares, allowing other users to access them. Figure 1 shows the Gnome System Tools. New Programs Gnome 2.10 now has the popular Totem and Sound Juicer (Figure 2) multimedia applications. Totem is a multi-functional tool that relies on the Gstreamer framework [1] by default, although Totem can also use the Xine libraries if you prefer, Figure 2: The versatile Totem multimedia player is simple to configure via a configuration dialog.

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Last but not least, the Desktop Back- opt to double click in Nautilus, File ground Preferences” dialog (Figure 4) Roller will follow suit. and drag&drop with Mozilla/Firefox The Gnome dictionary now has a spell have been improved. And the developers checker. This has the advantage of find- have removed any number of minor ing words, even if you are not quite sure bugs from all over the desktop. of how they are spelled. Just like Wikis, the texts now link to other dictionaries Web Browsers and Email on the Web, and printing is now sup- The Epiphany web browser, which is ported. based on the Gecko engine, is now fully The system protocol viewer was a compatible with the current Mozilla and fairly neglected tool in previous ver- Firefox versons and has an optimized sions. In fact, some people were in favor full-screen mode. Just like Firefox, of removing it from the Gnome core. Epiphany now displays an icon to let Gnome 2.10 sees the introduction of a users know whether they are accessing a few interesting new features to the tool. secure page (via https). Extensions allow For example, you can now monitor you to add to Epiphany’s feature list. Figure 4: The Desktop Background Prefer- multiple files, including compressed or Earlier versions of the browser loaded ences dialog in its new clothes. non-local files (on network drives), with any extensions on launching the pro- the viewer. It also provides a search bar gram, and consumed vast amounts of this space for details of a connector very for more efficient searching and allows memory by doing so. Now there is an soon. users to copy data to the clipboard. extension manager for more convenient Users will be more interested to hear The formatting tool has also been integration and management of required that offline mode support is now a lot completely reworked. Whereas it was modules. smoother than in previous versions. only capable of formatting floppies in The Evolution groupware solution Files can be attached to events, and previous versions, it now supports combines email, contact, and to-do list Evolution also supports extensions, removable media. management, calendar functionality and which are enabled and disabled in a many other things. As it supports both management dialog in a similar style Gnome Panel and Gnome Novell Groupwise and Microsoft to Epiphany extensions. Applets Exchange, it integrates seamlessly in As the central control element, enhance- both environments, and additionally Application Programs ments to the panel added support for supports Scalix [2] and the Sun Java GnomeMeeting is now more tightly icon themes and SVG for Applets. The Enterprise System Calendar Server. integrated with the operating system; it Run program… dialog is a lot quicker, Novell is currently investing heavily in shares the Evolution address book, and applets in transparent panels are continuing the development of Evolu- meaning that users only need to enter now transparent throughout. tion; and Novell’s Hula project [3] in contact information once to have this The mount control applet no longer particular has caused a stir lately. Watch information available at a central loca- confuses users with complex configuration. If you have installed Zeroconf [4], tion and technical jargon. Drive icons GnomeMeeting will automatically locate hiding behind windows on the desktop other GnomeMeeting users on a net- are no longer a problem. The applet, work. which is visible in the panel, displays The Gedit text editor not only supports the set of mounted disks and even syntax highlighting, but also locates and allows admins to unmount. highlights matching pairs of brackets in The weather applet now supports a lot source code (Figure 5). This is a good more locations and gives users detailed thing for programmers who were used to information on the weather at their this feature from experience with Emacs, Vim, and developer environments. The Bash and Tcl environments are now sup- ported. As is the case with many other programs, the launch time for Gedit has improved drastically. The latest version of the File Roller archive manager now supports AR type files (this is the default compression type for Debian), Debian archives, password Figure 3: The new “Open with…” dialog gives protected RAR archives, and 7 ZIP newcomers a more intuitive approach to archives. File Roller is designed to reflect Figure 5: Besides syntax highlighting, Gedit using Linux. the click behavior set in Nautilus. If you now highlights matching pairs of brackets.

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selected location, including sunup and Should some Luminocity fea- sunset times (this is only available for tures prove stable by the time major cities). Gnome 2.12 is released, you will The sticky label applet now remem- see them in Metacity, Gnome’s bers which desktop and monitor you standard window manager. How- added a notice to. The complete list of ever, Luminocity must be viewed new applets supplied with Gnome 2.10 as a test environment at present; it includes: is not intended for production •a modem applet which integrates machines. If you are interested, perfectly with system management. check out [9] for a how-to on •a trashcan which allows users to Figure 7: The revamped mixer applet looks really building Luminocity. drag&drop files to dispose of them in clean, as it does without superfluous elements. the usual way. Clicking on the icon Conclusion opens the trashcan and reveals the alerter, as its maintainer has no time to Version 2.0 of Gnome shows the desktop files and directories hiding there. work on it. heading in the direction of intuitive use, •a CPU clock speed display, which is simple configuration, and a productive useful for displaying the clock speed Fun and Games environment. Many features missing in for laptops with AMD PowerNow! or Users can now challenge their neighbors earlier versions have been added or Intel SpeedStep technology (Figure 6). on the local network to a game of Nib- completed in the last few months. you can select a clock speed here, if bles (which uses the same technology as Gnome 2.12 will keep heading down automatic clock speed scaling is not GnomeMeeting). Although the game is this path, and attempt to remove some enabled. very simple, it is much more fun than rough edges. The Gtk+ 2.8 library will A new mixer has joined the existing previously. be an enormous boost to speed, which is applets in Gnome 2.10. Same Gnome has revamped a failing in any Gtk+ based programs at Like the remaining sys- graphics and new board sizes. And it present. However, there is no way of tem, the revamped mixer allows you to take back wrong telling if this version will be the basis for uses the Gstreamer Figure 6: The moves. A few bugs that interrupted the next Gnome. ■ framework. The configu- new CPU clock the game flow have also been ration dialog for the speed applet removed. INFO mixer looks cleaner and allows you to [1] GStreamer: http://www.gstreamer.net monitor and set Future gives users Playback, [2] Scalix: http://www.scalix.com Capture, Switches and your laptop’s One topic that is the subject of [3] Hula project: http://hula-project.org Options tabs (Figure 7). clock speed. heated discussion is the amount of If you have installed memory that Gtk+-based applica- [4] Zeroconf: http://zeroconf.sourceforge.net ALSA support, you can switch between tions require. The developers are work- OSS (the legacy sound system) and ing hard on sorting out this problem. [5] Information on Gtk+ memory usage : ALSA (which became the standard with You can check out their progress at [5]. http://live.gnome.org/ MemoryReduction kernel 2.6). Switching to ALSA helps you Gnome 2.12, which is due for release avoid a flood of sliders and buttons, mid-September, is also being developed [6] Freedesktop menu specifications: which are a common plague in other in parallel. Although we can’t be sure http://freedesktop.org/wiki/ Standards_2fmenu_2dspec environments. what 2.12 will have in the way of new The new Gnome version has dropped features, let’s look at two examples just [7] Sun Looking Glass: http://www.sun. three applets, which have either been to whet your appetite. com/software/looking_glass/ replaced or were unmaintained. These Many users have had a menu editor at [8] Luminocity Videos: http://www. applets are the CD-Player applet; the the top of their wishlists for a long time. gnome.org/~seth/blog/xshots WLAN applet, as its functionality has Although Gnome 2.10 honors the [9] How-to on building Luminocity: been part of the network monitoring Freedesktop specification for menus [6], http://live.gnome.org/Luminocity applet since Gnome 2.8; and the email it does not give users a convenient menu [10] GUADEC 2005: management tool. Gnome 2.12 looks set http://2005.guadec.org Gnome Hands On to change this. The Gnome developer conference And things are starting to liven up on Christian Meyer has been working GUADEC [10] scheduled to take part in the 3D desktop front. Sun’s “Looking with Gnome for five years now and Stuttgart, Germany, at the end of May Glass” [7] demonstrates that this is not is the chairperson of Gnome promises to give attendees insights and just a gimmick. A 3D Gnome might be Deutschland e.V. (a non-profit a look at the future of Gnome. The VIP based on Luminocity, a hybrid window organization that supports Gnome list for GUADEC includes Mark Shuttle- and composition manager. To see for in Germany) which was founded in October 2004. You can contact worth (Canonical/Ubuntu Linux) and yourself, check out the impressive Christian by email at Miguel de Icaza (Novell/Gnome Initia- Luminocity videos [8] for more details of THE AUTHOR [email protected]. tor). the desktop.