GNOME 2.6: The Linux Desktop Mich ael Meeks (m ich ael@xim ian .com ) “Stand at th e crossroads an d look; ask for the an cien t path s, ask w here th e good w ay is, an d w alk in it, an d you w ill find rest for you r sou ls...” - Jerem iah 6:16 Overview: ● Why Gnome ? ● What is it ? – The stable platform: 2.6 ● What's coming soon ? ● Freedesktop ● OpenOffice.org ● The future. Why Gnome ? ● 'Free software on every desktop' (not 'Open') ● Predictable time based releases ... ● Independent Software Developers – API/ ABI stability; a single platform to target. – Meeting government a11y requirements – Multi- OS: GNU/ Linux, Solaris, HP/ UX, AIX – Libraries free for commercial use – Vendor support: Novell, Sun, HP, RedHat, IBM Why Gnome ? (more) ● The Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) – clean, neat, usability- tested GUI – reduced feature exposure – Supportable – elegant simplicity pays ● Language bindings – C – makes binding easier; C+ + , Python, Ada, Mono, Perl, Java, Eiffel, Guile, Scheme, Pascal ... ● Friendly community: irc.gimp.org #gnome ● Accessibility – a tough problem Gnome: what is it ? ● The (stable) foundation of a bigger whole – Infrastructure ● system / portability abstraction (glib) ● widget / application (gtk+ / libgnome*) ● Virtual filing system ● CORBA ORB & component infrastructure ● accessibility (a11y) foundation ● Applications: ... Nautilus: Panel: Evolution ... Epiphany: Moz illa u n d er th e h ood : th e real m agic bu llet: cod e- reu se. And more: ● Totem / gstreamer: (multimedia) ● Games ● Accessories ● Office suite(s) ● Communication ● Devel. tools ● And more ... New in Gnome 2.6 ... ● Fast ● Accessible ● Beau tiful ● Sp ecifics ● VFS ● Nautilus ● Evolution ● Gn om e- Meeting Performance ... ● Always improving ... “f aster than a speeding Gnom e desk top” ● gconf – parsing / scattered file (pw rt. panel) ● pango – kerning / caching ● GtkTreeView – huge dataset / fixed height ● nautilus – mime/ type: extension, then sniff – more efficient remote access – spatial – less cluttered / complex UI GUI improvements ● The File selector: – Fear the Lart: ● new combo: ● Improved ergonomics & completion widget ● New toolbar widget, artwork, RTL support IM improvements ... ● GAIM + Groupwise integration iFolder ... ● Mono: ● W32 ● OS/ X ● meta- data ● replication ● caching, searching etc. ● Nautilus/ Mono ● File sharing / peer2peer Accessibility ... ● Effort driven by Sun (& Baum / U. Toronto) ● Government compliance – Section 508 (US) Red raw ! Im mediat Ap p ● Why it is hard: e: text '1', rect, rect, line Con tain er AT: state, Label En try Assistive astsyopceisa,t ieovnesn ts Techn ology Title: 'En try 1' Text: '' Accessibility: - the Demo ● helping to shrink our potential user- base: (new typing break capplet): Gnome- VFS ● Architectural improvement – Daemon – GPL modules, [centralised caching] – network:/ / - network places storage, sftp:/ / – Keyring: - secure password storage, single CORBA auth. Im age Daem o viewer – Improved IPv6 support CORBA n S File Man ager MB Remote hand- holding ... (vino) ● Secure ● Pretty Evolution – in development ● System addressbook / contacts / calendar – integration with the platform / ABI stability ● Re- designed UI / ergonomics ● S/ MIME & builtin spam filtering ● Novell GroupWise connector ● C# plugin bindings ● http:/ / codeblogs.ximian.com/ blogs/ evolution/ ● GAIM (& panel) integration ● Lots of bounties to go ... Beautifu l Group wise in tegration: Also, Su n iPlanet MS Exchange 2k Gnome- Meeting ● Chunky improvements & ongoing excellence: – Improved look: HIG – NAT tunnelling – call hold / transfer / follow – IPv6 – h323: & callto: support Wireless / tablet / Gnome ●Im p roved th in client p erform ance OpenOffice.org pieces ● Overview ● Com p on en ts OpenOffice.org – it rocks. ● 6+ million lines of Free software ● http:/ / ooo.ximian.com/ - call for hackers ● OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 – give it another try. ● Gnome integration – Now ● Printing, VFS, theme colors, icons, fonts, local evolution contacts – Under development ● File selection, gtk+ theming, Groupwise / extended evolution mail- merge, improved ergonomics etc. Freedesktop.org bits ... ● D/ BUS / HAL ● X/ Cairo DBUS / HAL / Gnome ... ● D/ BUS – a system (and session) busA ● Simple IPC, great for secure event notification ● HAL – hardware abstraction layer: device events. ● Requires Linux 2.6.X ● Hot- plug: just works ● http:/ / hal.freedesktop.org Xserver / Cairo ... ● http:/ / xserver.freedesktop.org/ - the future of X – Damage extn – what drawable changed where? – Composite extn – off- screen&controlled render ● Cairo – PDF 1.4 renderlike – vector graphics library – AA text, alpha etc. – outputs ps, pdf, png, X11 (XRender) The future ... ● Dashboard (Foo) ● Tim eline ● Dep loym en ts Dashboard ... ● A context sensitive association engine – ( prototype ) A timeline ... • A rou gh gu id e to th e big p lan : 2003 200 200 2006 ... 4 5 2.4 2.6 2.8 2.1 0 XD 2 Evo. 1.4OO.o OO.o 1.1 2.0 Mon Mon o 1.0 o 1.2 Mon o 2.0 Conclusions: ● Gnome is – Powerful, simple, supportable – ISV friendly & backwards compatible – The only accessible desktop – Well integrated with other leading projects ● Supported by all the significant players ● Links: – Hacker blogs: http:/ / planet.gnome.org/ – Bounties: http:/ / www.gnome.org/ bounties – This talk: http:/ / www.gnome.org/ ~michael.