REVIEWS Gnome 2.14 A look at the Gnome 2.14 desktop environment BLUE FOOTPRINTS New features and a leaner, faster, prettier desktop. Are you ready for the played as virtual folders for simpler na- vigiation. latest Gnome? BY CHRISTIAN MEYER The HIG modifications [4] to various Nautilus dialogs contribute to Gnome’s uniform look and feel. The desktop now nome Version 2.14 brings the browser, all benefit from the perfor- supports auto-completion throughout, a famous Gnu desktop back to its mance boost. feature that was only supported in the Gtraditional motto of “less is Gnome co-founder Federico Mena- file browser dialog previously. To go to a more.” Completely new usability con- Quintero analyzed the launch time for file, users can simply type the first few cepts currently distinguish Gnome from Nautilus and other components involved letters in the filename. its competitors. And the Gnome develop- in the process [1], while Nautilus devel- ers have put a lot of work into improving oper Alexander Larsson discovered other Simple Help resource consumption for this latest re- bottlenecks [2]. The current version of Just like Nautilus, the Yelp help browser lease. the Gnome file manager removes various includes Beagle-based searching. The issues that the investigations revealed, tool can handle requests in a very re- Full Speed Ahead and the Gnome developers will be tack- sponsive way because the help files are Gnome 2.14 benefits from the work that ling more problems in the coming Beagle indexed. And at long last Yelp went into the version 2.10 performance weeks. now has a print function, something that project. The developers have consis- One of the more obvious changes to earlier versions sorely lacked. Add to tently removed bottlenecks and intro- Nautilus is the integrated search feature. this the fact that the help browser can duced more intelligent algorithms. The The Beagle desktop search engine [3] how handle info pages and manpages. most prominent example is the Gnome provides the basic framework. Beagle terminal / Vte pairing, which has be- assumes a working Mono framework, Phoning Home come one of the fastest terminal emula- which most distributions now have. Thus far, Gnome users who wanted to tions on Linux. And other core compo- Users have the ability to store searches use their computers as softphones had nents, including the Nautilus file and rerun them later. The results are dis- no genuine alternative to Skype. Unfor- 46 ISSUE 69 AUGUST 2006 WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM Gnome 2.14 REVIEWS thumbnails in the sidebar. And searching in documents is far less complex. Epiphany and Evolution The developers have ditched much of the ballast weighing down the Epiphany web browser, thus considerably reducing the loading time for HTML pages, mean- ing that users can do without a parallel Mozilla or Firefox installation. Epiphany now accesses XULRunner [7], the Mozilla/ Firefox kernel, directly. The browser now draws on the network manager package to automatically detect the network status (online/ offline) – a big advantage for laptop users. Intelli- gent bookmarks are another neat feature with the new version. Epiphany does not organize bookmarks in a tree structure like other web browsers, but themati- cally. A bookmark can belong to multi- Figure 1: Gnome 2.14 provides enhanced search capabilities. ple topics, and this is why Epiphany warns you if you try to create duplicate tunately, Skype is a proprietary applica- typical Gnome style, Python and C are bookmarks for the same address. tion and doesn’t integrate very well with the supported languages. The developers have had a close look Gnome. New plugins remove blanks at end- at Evolution launch times, and this is not Enter Ekiga, the tool formerly known of-line, compile source code in any pro- trivial task with a codebase of more than as GnomeMeeting. It uses STUN [5] to gramming language, or provide tab com- half a million lines. The code has obvi- detect your firewall and automatically pletion. Of course, GEdit detects docu- ously been optimized to reduce delays modifies its own configuration. This ment modifications, in cases where a on program launch, but there is still a lot removes the need for time-consuming document has been modified by another of work to do. The next release promises manual modification of the firewall set- program. The print preview no longer a more efficient Evolution that is even tings. Ekiga still supports the H.323 pro- needs to open a separate dialog but dis- easier to use. tocol (NetMeeting) and can add contacts plays in the current dialog instead. In to an Evolution address book or an a similar manner to Vi(m) or Emacs, LDAP directory. GEdit now supports searching with syn- tax highlighting. Also, GEdit will warn Boundless Editing you if you open the same document If you find Vi(m), Emacs and other tradi- multiple times. tional Linux text editors too difficult, you might try GEdit. For more than a year, Improved Viewer the developers have been working hard The Eye of Gnome (Eog) and Evince on making the editor more user-friendly, viewers have been improved with re- more powerful, and more easily extensi- spect to usability, shorter launch time, ble. Now, finally, users can store files on and quicker processing of files and func- remote machines – previously users had tions. Additionally, Eog now has more to store files locally and manually copy simple navigation through image collec- to the remote machine. GEdit now also tions. Evince now sports faster display- has a powerful extension framework. In ing of PDF and PS files, along with GLOSSARY HIG: Short for Human Interface Guide- detects and works around firewalls and lines. Gnome HIG defines which proper- NAT routers. The STUN protocol is de- ties an application must possess to inte- signed to support uncomplicated use of grate seamlessly with the Gnome desk- devices (or programs) on home net- top. The guidelines cover look and feel, works. usability, and accessibility. CalDAV: Protocol standard draft de- STUN: Simple Traversal of UDP over signed to support calendar data access Figure 2: Ekiga is the tool formerly known as NAT. A simple network protocol that via WebDAV. GnomeMeeting. WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 69 AUGUST 2006 47 REVIEWS Gnome 2.14 resistance, that is, the desktop edges at- tract windows in the vicinity, making it easier to align applications on the desk- top. The window manager tags windows on remote machines with a label in the title bar. Besides this, the developers have fur- ther extended multi-monitor support. Di- alogs from third party toolkits no longer appear in the center (that is split across two screens), but decide on one screen, without users needing to enable the X server Xinerama extension. The new version also aims to revital- ize the dormant compositing manager and add new features. This gives Metac- ity everything it needs to support new Figure 3: Gnome’s Evolution groupware client includes improvements to the calendar system. gimmicks such as wobbly, transparent, or fading windows. Check out Fedora The Gnome developers have added the • when to enable the screensaver; Core 5, which has an X server [9] to support for the CalDAV calendar data ac- • whether to lock the screen when the match, for a first impression of the new cess standard promised six months ago screensaver is active. tricks Metacity has up its sleeves. to the Evolution groupware client, allow- The “Fast User-Switcher Applet,” alias ing the client to cooperate with various FUSA, supports fast switching between GStreamer – Fat Sound groupware servers, including the free user accounts, a feature that many users The move to the new version of Hula [8] server. Additionally, the latest are familiar with from Windows and GStreamer has numerous positive side- version of Evolution supports memo Mac OS X. FUSA can optionally log on a effects. The quasi-standard among multi- entries (VJOURNAL) in iCal files. user in an XNest window. If you try to media frameworks for Linux is now change to an account that is already ready for production use. GStreamer is Desktop Control logged on, the system will warn you and more stable and faster than previous ver- The latest version of the Gnome Control offer to quit the attempt. FUSA integrates sions, offering far better audio and video Center sees a number of small, but im- seamlessly with Gnome and can be con- synchronization. Plugins are loaded dy- portant extensions. The Preferred Appli- trolled via the Gnome panel. namically, and threading has been dras- cations configuration dialog gives users The applet also supports user manage- tically improved. a clearer approach to setting their web ment; it can configure the login screen Audio formats such as Ogg, Flac or browser, email client, and terminal pro- and modify credentials. WAV, and videos in any kind of encod- gram options. This also applies to the ing, are (more or less) no problem for Sound Preferences, which give users Metacity GStreamer now. Assuming the matching more granular control over the sounds Gnome’s standard window manager, – non-free plugin support, GStreamer to play when specific events occur. Metacity, has been through a few will also play MP3s and DVDs, including Some distributors give users a second changes in Gnome 2.14 including edge subtitles. Players such as Totem or setup utility besides the Control Center to help make the most of energy saving functions on a laptop. Power Preferences gives users options previously restricted to Windows or Mac OS X, such as dim- ming the screen when not in use. In the future, the program will be looking to add more functionality.