There have been many FC2 reviews, littered all over the net. I thought I would do my own, because I have some things I feel Fedora 2 should be praised for, and a few things I think it should reconsider.
Overview:
Previously, I was using SuSE 9.1 while I was waiting for Fedora Core 2 to reach stable status. At the same time, I made sure to try the test versions and make bug reports accordingly, however, SuSE, as good as it is, had some things that really annoyed me (For example, the screen setting 1024×768 is actually 800×600, and the only way to get the same resolution is to set it to 1280×768 and suffer a 60hz refresh rate) so I eagerly installed Fedora Core 2 as soon as I had the CDR’s ready.
Installation:
Fedora didn’t really do anything here, this is the same installer we’ve been using since Redhat 8.0 and probably prior. I can’t really complain, because it works, so why change it? I did a custom install for a little over 3GB, and it took less than a half hour, so the speed (in my experience) has definitely increased. There was an error message stating something to the effect of “unable to align partitions correctly” but everything is working for me, so that’s a minor complaint.
Software:
KDE 3.2: What can I say, KDE 3.2 is exceptional. I was amazed at how much has improved, even though I tried KDE 3.2 first when I installed it with FC1. (Installing or updating a Window Manager is almost a rite of passage). KDE 3.2 is fast, beautiful and it get’s the job done.
Gnome 2.6: This is the default window manager in Fedora Core 2. My experience with it so far has been much less than KDE 3.2, and I don’t see why they went to “spatial” browsing. Give it whatever fancy term you like, “spatial browsing” is just a fancy term they gave it (Probably to make it sound cool, since it’s been around since Windows 95) to describe “all windows open in new window”. That’s it. I am not sure I understand why they did this.
For those of you that don’t know, with Gnome 2.6 every time you click on a window, it opens in a new window. (This is “spatial browsing”).There is no option (I’ve checked, I could’ve missed it, but I doubt it) to turn this off. No offense to those that like this, but there is absolutely no excuse for it. You could set previous versions of Gnome up this way, the only difference now is that they removed the option to disable it and set it to default.
Aside from how the option to remove spatial browsing was removed, Gnome is pretty solid. For me, it runs 1.5 times slower than KDE, but for those of you who like all the Gnome apps, it will probably fit the bill.
Usability:
When it comes to Stability, for me, Fedora Core 2 is less stable than the original release. With FC1, my system crashed about once a month. Now, it crashes twice a week. For example, last week I was copying a URL into my clipboard to paste in an email, and my system locked up so bad, the only way out of it was to hit the reset button and go through a disk check. A few days later, I had two Mozilla windows open, and my system slowed down so bad that it took me two minutes (yes, two minutes) to move my mouse cursor to the Kmenu to reboot it. At that time, I went and grabbed a sandwhich before it finally decided to reboot. However, this happens very rarely and with these problems, I can’t reproduce them. Most of the time things work, however in some occasions they don’t.
Next, with sound and music (one of the primary things my computer is used for) things aren’t so smooth. The major problem is when I am listening to music, I get a loud, annoying hissing sound in the left speaker and you can’t hear any vocals. When Test 3 was first released, there were at least two bug reports about this, one from me included, that were completely ignored. This doesn’t make me feel so inclined to submit bug reports in the future. Yes, I know the Fedora team can’t fix every problem, but this one is huge, and almost all the Fedora forums I have visited, had a half dozen users complaining about this problem before and after Fedora Core 2 Stable was released. The problem is solved now, but the only way is to disable surround, so now my surround system only uses two speakers. To dive further into my multimedia problem, if I load a Super Nintendo Rom into ZSNES, you have the Nintendo logo as usual, but the “ding” sound the logo makes isn’t heard until two screens later.
Good Things About Fedora Core 2:
Don’t get me wrong, Fedora Core 2 is great. I just feel it has some problems that should’ve been fixed. Fedora is one of, if not the, most supported Linux systems there is, I have no problem finding the software I need from only a minute or two on Google. The screens are smooth and everything runs fast for a Linux distribution. The installation is a dream and runs faster on 3-4 cd’s than Microsoft does with one.
Bad Things About Fedora Core 2:
As much as I hate to say it, FC2 has some major issues. Although it isn’t Red Hat’s fault Gnome went to spatial browsing, it still shouldn’t have. I will say it until I am blue in the face: Spatial Browsing doesn’t give us anything we didn’t already have, it just removed the choice to have it operate different. (Maybe I’m missing something, I hope I am).
Although KDE 3.2 and Gnome 2.6 are great aside from small complaints, these are the same KDE 3.2 and Gnome 2.6 versions you could get with any other distro. All that was done to them was adding in the bluecurve theme followed by a recompile. I feel that since Gnome and KDE are both open source, much more could’ve been done with customization. Gnome now has a neat “Computer” icon which lists your drives, but the same thing should’ve been done with KDE. I mean, I made one myself for KDE just making a directory and putting all my drive icons in it. Why didn’t Fedora?
On the same wavelength, maybe there should have been some more time put into this release. Not much at all has changed from FC1. The only difference now is that all the software is more up to date, and you now have SELinux (Which is really only useful for servers) and X.org instead of Xfree. (Can someone please tell me if this effects performance at all? Both seem exactly the same to me).
My point is that with Windows Longhorn a year or two away, if all Linux distributions release the same thing over and over with only updating the software, Linux won’t even put a scratch into Longhorn. I think all developers whom make Linux distro’s should consider overhauling it, to make it more feature packed in order to combat Microsoft. It’s like Microsoft is giving Fedora a head start in a footrace, and Fedora is just standing there looking at them funny.
Final Thoughts:
This review isn’t meant to make Fedora look bad. With Fedora being all that’s left of the once great Red Hat, I have a lot to expect from it. I feel they could have done a bit better. However, aside from all the letdowns of this release, I will continue using it. Now, if only I can *clearly* get surround sound working again without the static…
“to describe “all windows open in new window”. That’s it. I am not sure I understand why they did this.”
Spatial Nautilus is not just as simple as “open all folders in a new window”. The idea is to mimmic the real world, making things more intuitive for the new user. In spatial Nautilus, the window is the folder. You don’t see an application that views the folder – no, it is the folder itself.
You should read this article before throwing in any prejudice: http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-1.html
And there’s a very simple way to disable spatial Nautilus if you still don’t like it after having used it for a week: http://members1.chello.nl/~h.lai/gnome-extra-setup/index.html
You can disable it with one simple click. Also, no installation or compilation is required.
There’s no excuse anymore.
I experienced exactly the same behaviour with our RedHat 9.0 with 2.6.4 kernel. The desktop is Gnome. If I run Mozilla, it almost freezes. It takes minutes to close it.
I just want to say I used redhat/fedora and I learned a lot about linux, and I still like the company.
I started out on mandrake, and then redhat, then suse, with several different distros intermingled. None of them felt *smooth* until I tried gentoo. Gentoo still doesn’t have the feel I want entirely, but after using everything else, I was amazed. For once I was using most of the programs as they were intended, not how some packager at redhat or mandrake thought the package had to conform to their distro. Now this means not everything is as tightly integrated, but it feels a lot cleaner now that I can set it to run how I want. Not trying to flame, but his problems sound a lot like the problems I had using redhat (and SuSe and Mandrake). I think my next step may be FreeBSD
Is there a simple key combination to close all the open windows in the spacial view? I don’t really mind it all that much, but there have been some instances where when I’m done I have four or five windows open and it’s a pain to always have to click close on each of them. Would be nice to do some alt+key to close all open windows.
“I was using SuSE 9.1 while I was waiting for Fedora Core 2 to reach stable status. At the same time, I made sure to try the test versions and make bug reports accordingly, however, SuSE, as good as it is, had some things that really annoyed me (For example, the screen setting 1024×768 is actually 800×600, and the only way to get the same resolution is to set it to 1280×768 and suffer a 60hz refresh rate)”
I had the same problem with Suse 9.1. I could never set my crappy old monitor to the correct resolution/refresh rate. Suse would always choose 800×600 or 1152×864 (at horrible refresh rates).
Then I tried entering the Horizontal Sync and Vertical Sync for my monitor manually. After that, it worked like a charm and I was able to set the resolution/refresh rate without issue (back to my standard 1024×768).
Shift-Ctrl-W will close all parent folder
Ctrl+W: close this window
Ctrl+Shift+W: close all parent windows (in the directory hierarchy)
“Is there a simple key combination to close all the open windows in the spacial view? I don’t really mind it all that much, but there have been some instances where when I’m done I have four or five windows open and it’s a pain to always have to click close on each of them. Would be nice to do some alt+key to close all open windows.”
*
Hold down the shift key when double-clicking, or double-click the middle mouse button. This closes the current folder when opening the new folder.
*
Choose “Close Parent Folders” from the File menu, or press Shift-Control-W.
*
Choose “Open Location” from the File menu, or press Control-L.
http://gnome.org/start/2.6/notes/rnwhatsnew.html
> I’m done I have four or five windows open
> and it’s a pain to always have to click close
> on each of them.
To close ALL windows you will need to use Nautilus CVS, because the shortcut was added just a few days ago:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=142632
I have to agree with the review, Spatial Natualis is just bringing back old ideas. Mac OS since v1.0 has used it, and Windows 95 decided to pick it up. However, Microsoft and later Apple found out that people just prefer windows in the same window. Spatial in theory would make sense to some, but any psychology text will say that guys are better with spatial reasoning than women.
Now, Mac OS X keeps partial spatial finder, where it makes sense, such as opening up a hard drive icon. But once you click anywhere past that first icon, you stay in the same window.
Think about it this way… is the internet browser spatial??? How easy would it be for grandma to go to a webpage and have it open up a new window EVERY link. She would have 300 windows and popups all over the place.
Fedora standing still? I may not be some fedora activist
but I can see the difference between the developer and
the distrobution. Some distro’s like gentoo do
innovate w/ software like portage, but personally I think
Fedora relies mostly on other ppl’s work.
I will go as far to say that I think they should be
pumping up RPM w/ features other distro’s already have
and other’s many of them are striving to accomplish
in the package management systems such as fully capable gui’s.
I think their should be a portage like feature added into
RPM along side SRPM’s.
Fedora to many has been dubbed as the newbie distro.
RH/Fedora should be taking drastic measures to ensure
that new users who come to fedora, stay with fedora
once their need for someone to hold their hand goes away.
>> Gnome 2.6: This is the default window manager in Fedora Core 2.
GNOME is a desktop environment, not a window manager.
Metacity is a window manager, KWin is a window manager, Kahakai is a window manager, Waimea is a window manager, but GNOME and KDE are not.
Clear?
Jeremy I think you should read this. Because it does more than win95 as you mentioned.
It is on page 2 of this link, but feel free to read all of it
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/004/software/gnome-2.6/gnome-2.6-1.h…
Windows 95 is not spatial. Spatial is not just open every folder in a new window.
Windows 95:
– Doesn’t save folder window position.
– Doesn’t save folder window size.
– Doesn’t save icon settings.
– Has no easy way to close all parent windows, in contrast to Nautilus.
After years of running Mandrake, and I found it suboptimal. In particular, I found Fedora’s customizations to KDE had less attention paid to them than their customizations to GNOME. Compare the old Bluecurve versions in KDE and the new Bluecurve version in GNOME.
This is especially bad, since in the installer, all it takes is one click to install KDE rather than (or with) GNOME.
Fedora should either hide KDE more, or pay more attention to it.
Microsoft has never done spatial browsing. New windows does not make something spatial. If that were the case, the nautilus developers wouldn’t have just spent the last six months writing these new capabilities into nautilus.
Psychology texts are not relavant here. Spatial reasoning in general is not the issue. The issue is: do people cope better with a realistic one-to-one representation of a folder to a window (very much like individual objects in the real world) or do they work better with an abstract filesystem hierarchy.
There is no comparison to web browsing. Web browsing is a generally linear activity – go to this page, go to next page, go back a page. File management is NOT linear – notice the “up” button on browsing-based file managers that doesn’t exist on the web.
Even to someone who understands the abstract hierarchy presented by browsing metaphors, there are obvious usability gains to spatial browsing. Explain to someone how to move a file with a browser. Right-click, copy, browse, right-click paste. Or with spatial: drag the file into the folder you want it in.
I haven’t seen the Mac OSX behavior you describe, but having spatial only for the first window while browsing a harddrive would make NO sense because it ignores the benefits of the spatial metaphor completely.
The point is that spatial nautilus is a more intuitive way of managing files. If you want to browse through a big directory hierarchy – something most home users never should have to do – use the browsers (it’s just a right-click away, or nicely seated in the Applications menu). So stop spouting off about Win95 – you’re misinformed, stop making fallacious comparisons – web browsing is not like file management, and if you are going to try to reduce the work of the nautilus developers to foolish retrogade waste, try reading a bit about the spatial metaphor in the many well-known articles online or on the nautilus mailing lists. The benefits are pretty obvious in many widespread use cases.
okay, i tried out the spatial view bit, it wasn’t my thing. so i opened up gconf-editor and disabled it (if you use gnome you should at least be somewhat familiar with that). i don’t necessarily think it should be the default, since it is not what users are used to though.
Does anyone know if the S-Video out using a radeon 7500 works in FC2
The last time it worked was under RH9 using the VESA driver.
> Even to someone who understands the abstract hierarchy presented by browsing metaphors, there are obvious usability gains to spatial browsing. Explain to someone how to move a file with a browser. Right-click, copy, browse, right-click paste. Or with spatial: drag the file into the folder you want it in.
Apple, in the mid 90’s, with the adoption of the D&D Manager (at the same time that high level AppleEvents cropped up and AppleScript appear), tried to push Drag and Drop into everything, such as SimpleText/TeachText. They quickly learned that people are used to the copy+paste metaphor.
The hardest of part of spatial file browsing is the window management. It can become tedious without knowing hidden tricks and shortcuts. Hidden tricks themselves are a huge usability problem, and seems to be something that the Nautilus developers don’t have the compulusion of fixing. It just makes for poor usability.
It’s no suprise that Apple moved away from an exclusively Spatial interface to a spatial-in-computer-management, but not spatial-in-file-management scheme. I’m sure that the GNOME developers will follow suit after a few years as well 🙂
> File management is NOT linear – notice the “up” button on browsing-based file managers that doesn’t exist on the web.
Depends on the browser. In particular, Konqueror has a up button while web browsing. In firefox, there are extentions available to read the “link rel=” tags that are cropping up more and more often in the web.
The day I run KDE, 1.5 times faster than GNOME, is the day hell freezes over.
I’ve never experienced KDE anything but sluggish compared to GNOME – even when compared to newest KDE.
I say – rubbish. Give me hard numbers and an empirical foundation to stand on then I’ll at least consider it not being a flame bait – oops, I took that one didn’t I… 🙂
How many of those so called “reviews” do we have to read. I’m pretty tired of reading how spatial was used by win95 (which, of course is plain wrong) and how stupid the nautilus developers are.
The guy didn’t like spatial nautilus, fine, stop using it. There should be thousands of references on google on how to disable it and what the spatial concept actually means.
But hey, that would require the author to actually do investigation before writing a review.. *sigh*
hey, what’s going on here? another (lame?) review from a beginners point?
ok, linux makes the same problem like windows for a beginner. and if she/he know a bit about windows, then it’s even heavier for learning linux.
but why we must have 1000 fedora2 reviews from beginners???
you really want to have 1000 corvette reviews in an automobile mag from a 16 old girl, don’t you???
First, about web browsers, the reason that Konqueror has the up button is it’s combination of a the file manager and the web browser, which is a bad idea. And in Firefox, there are extensions for EVERYTHING. You have to admit that 99+% of users have no need for “Up” in a web browser.
Also, when Apple left the spatial metaphor, a lot of users complained. And I know from the experience of setting up many GNOME 2.6 boxes for novice-to-intermediate computer users that they find it easier to manage their files now. Window management is not a problem for someone with a relatively shallow directory structure – understanding an abstract filesystem hierarchy is, however.
I doubt wholeheartedly that the GNOME devs will ditch spatial. It’s only going to get easier as new versions are released. 2.8 will have likely have a shortcut to close all windows. Dave Camp has been considering a tree view to accompany spatial windows for a while. Other similar ideas are circulating. Spatial was a bold and good move on behalf of the nautilus devs. It demonstrates that GNOME is unique and aggressively in pursuit of a level of usability not yet achieved on any desktop. 2.8 and 2.10 are going to absolutely transform Free Software – evolution 2.0, an absolutely solid multimedia framework and accompanying apps, project utopia, etc. etc.
How many of those so called “reviews” do we have to read. I’m pretty tired of reading how spatial was used by win95 (which, of course is plain wrong) and how stupid the nautilus developers are.
Well you can argue about how superior spatial filesystem browsing is until you’re blue in the face but that doesn’t change the fact that the majority of people don’t like it.
Who determines what behaviour is better anyway? The users, and only the users. If most users don’t like the spatial thing then it is WORSE no matter how many arguments you come up with to the contrary. Especially with a useability issue that is so subjective to start with.
And if you don’t like having your window cluttered by open spatial windows, open your windows by double clicking folders with your middle mouse button. Then the parentent window is closed automagically.
It is still easy to go back by using the menu at the lower left corner of the window.
Once you get the hang of it, it is really easy to use and improves your productivity. This is definitely not something even similar to old win95 that some people implies.
In fact the spatialness was one of the main factors that made me switch from KDE to Gnome.
leo wrote:
“Well you can argue about how superior spatial filesystem browsing is until you’re blue in the face but that doesn’t change the fact that the majority of people don’t like it.”
You know the majority of GNOME users? I’m impressed.
The mere fact that a torrent of comments floods any misinformed review’s bashing of spatial should tell you that lots of people like it. I’ve installed GNOME 2.6-based desktops on 9 computers so far; the users of all of them have found nautilus – which they don’t even know as nautilus, evolution, epiphany, muine, totem, etc easier to use and better than their windows counterparts. Desktop Linux has problems, but spatial nautilus isn’t one of them. (And, again, the browser is in your Applications menu and the context menu of every folder.)
I’m down with the spatial stuff, I agree the benefits it brings are well worth the refactoring of my work flow. Now, the only thing that would make me happier than a puppy with 2 peckers is a contextual menu that drills down my ~/ structure, like that in BeOS. This would be the topping on the cake, I can quickly access my special spatial folders and they retain all their properties without having to wait for open ~/, click on ~/src, click on ~/superCoolSims, etc… Are there any plans on this front?
You know the majority of GNOME users? I’m impressed.
Read some Gnome 2.6 reviews. Most reviewers complain about the spatial browsing.
Also, after every such review people point out that it’s easy to switch back (“Just use gconf!”, “Just right click and choose Browse!”) but apparently the option is not easily self discoverable or all the reviewers would have found the option themselves.
There are two explorations going on that achieve functionality similar to what you suggest. One: Dave Camp – a nautilus dev – is experimenting with a treeview to accompany spatial windows. Two: I’ve seen discussion of something along the lines of a panel applet that would let you open and hide folders using a treeview or menu.
Perhaps we should have a poll about spatial browsing.
Just three choices:
What do you prefer for filemanagement:
1) Spatial view
2) Browser view (with the sidebar)
3) Indifferent
Reviewers are not exactly the target beneficiaries of spatial nautilus. They get the abstract filesystem hierarchy – they’ve been using a file manager for years. However, I have seen positive reviews of spatial – arstechnica was pretty positive about it. The option to disable spatial is already present in the nautilus preferences in CVS. I’m guessing the devs were reluctant to put it in originally because they wanted to encourage testing of the new system and encourage users to try it out – and again, spatial doesn’t eliminate the browser; it’s still in the Applications menu and the context menu of every folder. If reviewers don’t notice it, they obviously didn’t use the system much.
I did not use the version 1 of Fedora Core.
Now that I have used Fedora Core 2 for more than a week I can honestly say that it’s not a Linux that one would wanted to use for more than 2 months. At least, I will not (use it), thanks anyway.
It didn’t have to be this way but the packages are just too bad to be a serious proposition [in general, of course there is some (few) good ones]. If osnews said Mandrake 10 was full of bugs I wonder why those people didn’t say even more bad things about this Version 2 of Fedora (the only one I know) like this author, honestly, did.
Some reasons follow:
– The zenith of it (for me) is the red icon on task bar flashing for online updates ! It doesn’t work ! (Fix it or remove it, don’t pretend you have one of this too).
– The package installer Interface is a so poor experience I don’t need to say nomore (can you criticize Mandrake 10 with a clear conscience ?).
– I was stupid enough to spend bandwidth to download the 4th CD. Well, I wanted to install the gimp-perl (from the web) for 2.0 and needed some gtk-PDL to compile it with perl ./Makefile. Never worked.
– It doesn’t dual boot with Windows XP (not an exclusive bug of Fred Hat Core 2.
– The rpm for xfce didn’t installed for some reason I didn’t care to understand ( I md5sum and did linux -mediacheck on all CDs, thank you).
– yum doesn’t work has you expected 80% of the times. I did a lot better with apt-get and Synaptic and freshrpms ! (Odd, isn’t it ?)
– I Gave up ! and don’t want to remember more flaws, but I could point more !! I also don’t want to spend CD on it again.
______________________
Conclusion: Red Hat didn’t do any work on it. It was the comunity who packaged it, and it is much worst than an amateur job.
Still, Red Hat can keep on fooling their users base with things like unified desktop environment and Blue Curve theme (actually the “Strawberry” Blue Curve theme is really clean). Do not lose your time with this ….. (can’t name it).
You can provide suggestion to Fedora Team and if the demand for better KDE Bluecurve is high enough, they will do it. I think the next Fedora Core 3 will focus on stabilizing. Bear in mind this product is very young.
Thanks Brad. I’ll look into them. IMHO, a nice context menu right above ‘Open Terminal’ would be the cats meow!
R
I am not sure. thats simplistic. the convenience of spatial management of files depends on the usage patterns. so you might want to switch between navigational and spatial at times
The auther is wrong when he claims that Red Hat does nothign but repackageing Gnome, KDE and other great software packages.
If that was the case, it would have bin possible to edit the Gnome menu using Nautilus. But not so in Fedora Core 2. You have to edit some obscure xml files. My guess is that it has something to do with KDE unification, wich is a good thing.
But if they decide to do things like this they need to make sure that the GUI works as well. Glitches like this hurts the adoptation of Linux on the Desktop.
Other than this and that Fedora seams to be somewhat less stable than e.g. SuSE 9.0 I really like it.
1. “For those of you that don’t know, with Gnome 2.6 every time you click on a window, it opens in a new window. (This is “spatial browsing”).There is no option (I’ve checked, I could’ve missed it, but I doubt it) to turn this off.”
2. “For example, the screen setting 1024×768 is actually 800×600, and the only way to get the same resolution is to set it to 1280×768 and suffer a 60hz refresh rate”
Both of these statements are not true and indicate the reviewer’s unfamiliararity with Linux. Every Gnome user should know about Gconf as well as knowing that when you right click and choose browse you get the navigational interface. As for Suse; I am using 1024×768 res and it works. Your problem is obviously confined to your type of graphics subsystem and not general. I consistantly read these uninformed reviews on OS News. Please stop allowing these poor reviews by inexperienced users. They give other new users innaccurate impressions of Linux.
That’s all ? And the review ? From your “review” I know FC2 includes gnome2.6 and kde3.2 and that you don’t like spatial browsing and it includes the same installer… but please, at least say how is the old installer or a link to a review of the old installer, and the features of gnome 2.6, kde 3.2, etc, etc.
It includes SELinux, but what is SELinux ? what are the features of SELinux ? Explain why it is useful for a server and not for the workstation (before answering think in client-side exploits). Are they enabled by default ? do you need to recompile the kernel ?
What’s the target user of FC2 ? Does it provides the utilities for the target user ? Define “newbie” and the needs of the newbie user.
Does it include OpenOffice, flashplugin, mp3 player ?
Arghh… your review is a waste of time. At least don’t call it “review”.
Why rehash the never-ending flames about spatial? NOBODY CARES! It was beaten to death. The reviewer has no excuse to bring it up, since a simple google search would of gotten him all of the information he needed (how to disable it, why it is not win95, that the next version will have a gui option and the current version dosn’t have it because of lack of time, and other previous arguments pro- and con-).
He has more poinst in his article that shows his complete lack of using google for the simplest of searches.
I am not saying that people should have to google search everything before doing a review (though it really couldn’t hurt to bring up some of their quality), but if your gonna have an opinion, atleast have an educated one!
Would it be possible to just moderate all the spatial comments out, since it is so offtopic, and the topic is so overused, that unless you have something new to bring to the table (in which case it should be done in a non-flamey way on the mailing lists like normal people do) just be quiet.
“When you rant about spatial nautilus, it is like chewing used gum”
With regards to fc 2’s stability, I have never had any problem. My system is an smb & ssh server, has alot of i/o in addition to runing a GUI almost 24/7. I experienced a freeze in X once, but that was just ‘bad luck’ (A windows machine just blue screen in the other room, so I say ‘That dosn’t happen in linux’ and it did
). Not only that, but I have a number of custom packages installed, and I really couldn’t find any problems.
“Conclusion: Red Hat didn’t do any work on it. It was the comunity who packaged it, and it is much worst than an amateur job. ”
actually thats a wrong assumption. every single package is done by redhat employees and no volunteer was even allowed to do anything. in fact that was one of the major complaints. fc3 would be the first version to probably include volunteers. so i believe you just assumed that and concluded everything is messed up
I think the next Fedora Core 3 will focus on stabilizing.
I don’t trust that !
leo wrote:
“Read some Gnome 2.6 reviews. Most reviewers complain about the spatial browsing.”
Most reviewers didn’t like Metallica’s new album either – that doesn’t mean their right. Especially when one considers the knowledge that most reviewers have (they don’t even look for facts first). No offense… but a reviewer is a _reviewer_ in most cases, not a user. (S)He should act reponsible and look for facts first before publishing their “reviews”.
I can only talk from my own experience with introducing people to the “spatial way” and they certainly found it non-intrusive and nice.
leo wrote:
“Also, after every such review people point out that it’s easy to switch back (“Just use gconf!”, “Just right click and choose Browse!”) but apparently the option is not easily self discoverable or all the reviewers would have found the option themselves.”
That, on the other hand, is already fixed and will be an option directly in the nautilus menu afaik. Might that be a proof that the developers listen to some of the users? Naaaah, probably just a new conspiracy theory forming…
I don’t want to be rude here but… if you find the spatial way so extremly offensive why not pick another desktop environment? E.g. KDE probably has 6 different ways of browsing a directory? (yes, that was a flame bait if anyone missed it)
To be honest, the spatial thing isn’t that annoying !
You just have to right click on the icon and choose Browse this folder to disable spatial browsing. How many of you see that “feature” of Gnome 2.6 ?
🙂
Fair is fair !
Maybe that’s too hard for Gnome users to learn ( I use KDE 80% of the time so it was kind of intuitive for me because of that reason).
Next review coming on in…
”
You just have to right click on the icon and choose Browse this folder to disable spatial browsing. How many of you see that “feature” of Gnome 2.6 ?
”
there is another way. just use browse filesystem from the application menu in gnome
actually thats a wrong assumption. every single package is done by redhat employees and no volunteer was even allowed to do anything. in fact that was one of the major complaints. fc3 would
If that’s true, it got even worst for me;
(maybe there were only two employees assigned to it — and they have to sleep too).
“If that’s true, it got even worst for me;
(maybe there were only two employees assigned to it — and they have to sleep too).
”
just look at the packagers list. they are just the same people. due to agressive schedule and major changes it too much more work and more employees. the amount of selinux work and java packaging including gnome,kde and kernel changes in huge. you probably wont understand it. just use fc1 and jump to fc3
just use browse filesystem from the application menu in gnome
Thanks, I knew (found) that one too (it’s too low on the menu to get the attention of the user, so I though it was better to tell the right click work around – trick – tip…).
It isn’t as much intuitive.
Another positive point is the menu disposition and naming. It’s intuitive, though.
“Does it include OpenOffice, flashplugin, mp3 player ?”
Or it could have told you that they have Bluecurveified the user interface in OpenOffice. Nothing wrong in that, but why did they remove the support for java in OpenOffice. Not that many people use java to extend OOo, but I really miss the ability to use jdbc drivers to connect to databases. Yes, you can still use ODBC but that is usually much harder to set up than java and JDBC.
So my recomendation would be to download OpenOffice.org directly from their website.
I agree the review could have bin much much better.
including gnome,kde and kernel changes in huge. you probably wont understand it.
I think I do. I just don’t have time to see the packagers list of every distribution, and honestly don’t care. I ust expect some average quality. Fedora 2 is sub-par, in my humble opinion.
“Nothing wrong in that, but why did they remove the support for java in OpenOffice”
because java isnt open source and fedora is supposed to include only open source stuff.
”
I think I do. I just don’t have time to see the packagers list of every distribution, and honestly don’t care. I ust expect some average quality. Fedora 2 is sub-par, in my humble opinion.”
thats your opinion. fine but dont say it was the community who did the work or such nonsense
– The zenith of it (for me) is the red icon on task bar flashing for online updates ! It doesn’t work ! (Fix it or remove it, don’t pretend you have one of this too).”
It is called up2date icon. It has not changed much from Red Hat 8. If you have taken a time to read about Fedora before installing it, you should know about that issue. You can use this icon as update signal tools. Fedora Team will focus on that on the text release.
– The package installer Interface is a so poor experience I don’t need to say nomore (can you criticize Mandrake 10 with a clear conscience ?).
Because you are used to Mandrake thus making a false impression that every Linux distribution is like Mandrake.
– I was stupid enough to spend bandwidth to download the 4th CD. Well, I wanted to install the gimp-perl (from the web) for 2.0 and needed some gtk-PDL to compile it with perl ./Makefile. Never worked.
There is the problem. You did not specify if you used rpm or code sources. It does not make sense to use Makefile with a rpm package.
– It doesn’t dual boot with Windows XP (not an exclusive bug of Fred Hat Core 2.
It does. You have internet, you know dual boot issues affected kernel 2.6 based Linux distribution, you know the solution is already available on the net. That argument is already obsolete.
– The rpm for xfce didn’t installed for some reason I didn’t care to understand ( I md5sum and did linux -mediacheck on all CDs, thank you).
Fedora Team forgot to update Add/Remove Package and the installer. You know how to manually install these packages from the CD-ROM, didn’t you?
– yum doesn’t work has you expected 80% of the times. I did a lot better with apt-get and Synaptic and freshrpms ! (Odd, isn’t it ?)
Looks like you did not ajust your yum.conf repositories. It works fine on my Fedora so I presume it is your experience.
– I Gave up ! and don’t want to remember more flaws, but I could point more !! I also don’t want to spend CD on it again.
That is your choice.
Most reviewers didn’t like Metallica’s new album either – that doesn’t mean their right.
Well no, but only because there is no “right” or “wrong” when talking about musical taste, or in this case, taste in user interfaces. There are only preferences.
Especially when one considers the knowledge that most reviewers have (they don’t even look for facts first). No offense… but a reviewer is a _reviewer_ in most cases, not a user.
What? That’s absurd. There is no difference between a user and a reviewer aside from the fact that a reviewer records his/her experiences while they are using the OS.
”
What? That’s absurd. There is no difference between a user and a reviewer aside from the fact that a reviewer records his/her experiences while they are using the OS.
”
wrong. a reviewer should bother to do some better research, invest more time and come up with ideas, criticisms and such.
There is the problem. You did not specify if you used rpm or code sources. It does not make sense to use Makefile with a rpm package.
This forum is corwded with Red Hat supporters but this is just a civilized cnversion for me. Don’t take me as a fool. I like Linux and use it for years,
(doesn’t make me a better user, I know, but I think before I shoot. Just accept the criticism, old sport).
I know what up2date does, don’t explain it to me. Explain why it didn’t work. Or why it was on the taskbar if it doesn’t work properly.
____________________
I can’t write every detail. If you knew what this is all about and had read the Release.notes.html you would know that gimp-perl_2.0 wasn’t ready when Fedora 2 was packaged. I use gimp-perl a lot. I said that gtk-PDL didn’t installed or didn’t got some dependency. Only after that one installed I would be able to compile perl bin with gtk-bindings.
Uff.
Do you want me to draw on a piece of paper for You ?
I know what I am saying and
As I stated myself before Eugenia and OSNews should review/edit articles submitted by people who claim to have knowledge of a particular OS, software, hardware or platform. This appears to be not the case for not only this article but a few others that have been submitted and posted on OSNews. For example the writer didn’t list what hardware he used for his test system. What was the CPU, motherboard, RAM, graphics card, etc that was actually used?
Another error is that he made the screen size comment about his difficulty setting up SuSE 9.1 with out really going into it further. Why not post more compairsons about SuSE vs Fedora, etc instead of just making a brief comment? Anyway, this screen trouble was mostly caused by end user error or if he used an ATI graphics card. ATI doesn’t offer any official tech support on installing their drivers. I know this because I and my friend called ATI when having trouble with installing their drivers and was told they only officially support Windows. I know from experience that a user trying to follow their so called installation instructions will cause such errors as the one the writer pointed out. NVIDIA on the other hand works with developers such as Novell to provide 3D driver installation ability through SuSE’s YaST Online Update (YOU). If a Linux user uses an ATI card and are having difficulty installing the drivers your only complaints should be towards either yourself for having really outdated hardware, end user error or ATI. Don’t claim the error is with the Linux distro developer unless you can back up with proof.
So the end result is either (A) We as readers choose to ignore such weak articles or at least help to point out the errors of such posts, or (B) Rely on OSNews to properly review and edit articles prior to giving the okay for posting on this news site. Myself I would prefer to read articles posted by those with some credibility and experience with not only the software and hardware but also writing review articles.
leo wrote:
“What? That’s absurd. There is no difference between a user and a reviewer aside from the fact that a reviewer records his/her experiences while they are using the OS. ”
Aahh, so true. But wouldn’t you like a reviewer to be responsible and check for facts first before posting a review? I know that is something I’d like reviewers to do.
To be a reviewer means not only to record facts, anyone can record the fact as (s)he sees it, but to ask questions such as “Did I misunderstand something? If so am I the only one?”, “Why is it like this?”, “How should it be instead?” but most importantly base the “facts” on an empirical foundation.
The author of this review wrote “Gnome is pretty solid. For me, it runs 1.5 times slower than KDE, but for those of you who like all the Gnome apps, it will probably fit the bill”. *sigh* Writing like that is something that would fail most 1st year CS students. Talk about being bias. With that sole sentence he threw his whole review into the trash bin.
That is bad review.
Then again, you might have your opinion when it comes to spatial browsing, and I will have mine. But nevertheless, an option will be present for you in the menu of Nautilus soonish, AFAIK. 🙂
I promise here and now that this is the last review I will read and comment on on OSNews! It just makes me agitated to read rubbish. 🙂
Even to someone who understands the abstract hierarchy presented by browsing metaphors, there are obvious usability gains to spatial browsing.
I haven’t seen the Mac OSX behavior you describe, but having spatial only for the first window while browsing a harddrive would make NO sense because it ignores the benefits of the spatial metaphor completely.
See? This is exactly the problem: the metaphor. Although I don’t agree with the tone and outright rejection of spatial browsing in the review, I have to agree with one point. I think some people have fallen in love with the term (spatial browsing) and theory behind it (the metaphor itself, which has of course very positive connotations).
Although the ars technica review has some good points, I think it is just that: a theory. And it isn’t very convincing. I think there is nothing more natural in the ‘spatial metaphor’ than in a tree structure. GNOME folks seems to have an ’emulate natural world’ fetish. It is time to recognize that this obsession (what the hell do they mean by natural world? There is nothing unnatural in a tree-like hierarchy.) doesn’t necessarily lead to easy of use or practical applicability.
Think of a library (the metaphor used in “Learning DOS 5.0” btw). Is the way books are organized spatial or hierarchical? Hint: it is the latter. And there is a good reading it is organized that way.
My own experience tells me there is something really wrong with this obsession of emulating the real world. I am sysadmin for a small computer lab, and those who wrote WindowsCommander (now TotalCommander) were right on target. I saw many computer-agnostic people who were only able to copy their work to a floppy, or even find their work after a week (since they forgot where they put it) with TC. Also, when I taught some of the more computer-illiterate among them to copy stuff, it was easier to pick up the basics with TotalCommander than with explorer, even though you had to copy pressing a button (there was help immediately on screen: F5-Copy). And dragging and dropping an item to your floppy is arguably more close to the ‘real world’ way of doing things.
This reminds me of the ‘less is more’ drum, which was so everbeaten that GNOME ended up with a crappy (and simple) file-selector, that had to be replaced with a new one (which resembles KDE’s file selector more) due to user uproar. What’s up with these obsession with obscure (but admittedly nicely sounding) theories and metaphors?
This forum is corwded with Red Hat supporters but this is just a civilized cnversion for me. Don’t take me as a fool.
I am not. I just pointed out the flaw with your argument.
I like Linux and use it for years, (doesn’t make me a better user, I know, but I think before I shoot. Just accept the criticism, old sport).
It is not about criticism, it is about your post with I found very unprofessional for a long time Linux user.
If you knew what this is all about and had read the Release.notes.html you would know that gimp-perl_2.0 wasn’t ready when Fedora 2 was packaged.
You know the problem is related to the software. So why labeling this software issues ar Fedora specific problem since you have tools to solve it?
:This reminds me of the ‘less is more’ drum, which was so everbeaten that GNOME ended up with a crappy (and simple) file-selector, that had to be replaced with a new one (which resembles KDE’s file selector more) due to user uproar. What’s up with these obsession with obscure (but admittedly nicely sounding) theories and metaphors?”
there is no need to bash the whole thing.a lot of people are happy with it. a lot of people complain. its useless to accuse the developers of somehow being struck with some preconcieved notions
the api had to be changed due to other reasons. you are pretty much ignorant on that. you should read the paper by hp@redhat for the details
Just accept the criticism, old sport).
It is not about criticism, it is about your post with I found very unprofessional
ok … you win,
now pay me a beer to celebrate it.
Lol!
You know the problem is related to the software. So why labeling this software issues ar Fedora specific problem since you have tools to solve it?
The problem is related to the fact that the 4th CD can not be inserted into the Fedora package manager database!
Some rpm’s can’t install without a previous rpm. The rpm package header isn’t (wasn’t) very clear about which rpm to install first (so I gave up, didn’t care)
Therefore, it’s a Fedora specific issue; maybe it’s me who is being “unprofessional” here…
Perhaps I’m a spoiled user. I use swaret, apt-get and yast to install packages and its dependencies.
I tried Mandrake CE,Offial, RHEL 3.0(Got it of E-bay for 30 bucks) Fedora Core 2 and Suse 9.1 and I am sticking with Suse, because the
1. Fonts are good, I am able to do things on SUSE .
2. System worked out of box my Atheros 5211 wireless card worked out of box.
“”Nothing wrong in that, but why did they remove the support for java in OpenOffice”
because java isnt open source and fedora is supposed to include only open source stuff.”
I don’t mind Fedora shipping without java. What I mind is that they alter OpenOffice so that it doesnt work with java if you install java later. According to your logic they should make it impossible to use the java plugin in Mozilla as well, but they don’t.
“What I mind is that they alter OpenOffice so that it doesnt work with java if you install java later. ”
sun has done that. not fedora. sun should have modularised the thing to pick up things dynamically but of course they wouldnt and hence a fork is necessary.
… I don’t see why they went to “spatial” browsing … I am not sure I understand why they did this.
This is my own interpretation of the whys of Spatial browsing:
Consider that a majority of desktop users usually do just two things: process information and store them. Put yourself in the shoes of Joe Regular who’s put in front of a new computer. He’ll just be concerned with how to use the app and saving them somewhere. He shouldn’t even be aware of $HOME directories. He doesn’t want to or care to see what’s in /usr or /bin. He just wants to create a document or a spreadsheet or a presentation, etc. and place them “somewhere” that makes it easy to organize these data. Spatial browsing does that for them.
Distributions can create Folders on the Desktop (the user doesn’t even need to be aware of the $HOME directory or that the Desktop “folder” is actually the $HOME/Desktop/ subdirectory. Here he can create folders like “My Recipes” or “Pictures” or “Public” inside a “Documents” folder (the equivalent of $HOME/public_html/. No subdirectory trees. Nothing in the windows that relate to anything other than that folder. Simplicity. Non-confusing to Joe Regular.
I believe that’s a reason, at least, for Spatial Browsing.
For other people who have src/ subdirectories in the $HOME, or bin/ or nwn/ or tmp, etc. or those who want to delve into /usr/share/backgrounds/images/ should be able to switch to Explorer view. You’re right: the lack of the option to switch to it was short-sighted. Luckilly, this has been fixed in Rawhide, I believe.
Thank you guys for the comments!
Like I said there was no offense intended with me not liking spatial nautilus, and yes now I am aware of how to switch it back, but the way to switch it back is not user friendly for beginners.
I have read 3 or 4 articles about spatial nautilus, and I still don’t agree. It’s still as simple as “open all folders in new window”, I mean I respect whatever analogy it’s given (mimic real world folders) but it’s still as simple as all folders opening in a new window. I mean, I see no difference from Windows 95, and I’ve been playing with it (gnome 2.6) since I wrote the article.
It’s kind of the same as making all icons default to being very large, and praising it for being easier to see, when we could have done it before. The only difference now is that its default. That’s what spatial gnome is to me.
”
I have read 3 or 4 articles about spatial nautilus, and I still don’t agree. It’s still as simple as “open all folders in new window”, I mean I respect whatever analogy it’s given (mimic real world folders) but it’s still as simple as all folders opening in a new window. I mean, I see no difference from Windows 95, and I’ve been playing with it (gnome 2.6) since I wrote the article. ”
buddy. you seriously need some clues. there is a whole lot of comments explaning the difference between how win 95 did it and how nautilus does it.
> However, I have seen positive reviews of spatial – arstechnica was pretty positive about it
Because, uh, the people who wrote the Arstechnica review on GNOME 2.6 were GNOME enthusiasts?
To tell the truth, Java support in OpenOffice.org was not modularized at all. Debian guys made a patch to make Java optional, since there was no Java clone that could build/run OO.o and the freedom is damn important to Debian. So it is not Fedora’s achievement. And now you want pluggable Java support? Please, give them some time to work.
:And now you want pluggable Java support? Please, give them some time to work.”
fine. just dont fedora for something thats not fedora’s problem
“Because, uh, the people who wrote the Arstechnica review on GNOME 2.6 were GNOME enthusiasts?”
what are you trying to imply by that. a lot of people using classic macs liked spatial too. were they gnome enthusiasts?
For the reference, here is the bug entry detailing Debian’s “Build without JDK” patch:
http://bugs.debian.org/211288
There was an error message stating something to the effect of “unable to align partitions correctly” but everything is working for me, so that’s a minor complaint.
Uh Jeremy – have you tried booting into windows yet? This is exactly what you see when getting bitten by the dual-boot bug. :/
With Fedora being all that’s left of the once great Red Hat, I have a lot to expect from it.
Uh – RedHat still exist and according to their books – they are doing better than ever!
Thanks for the review
I love spatial nautilus!
A web or file browser is exactly what its name implies: a window for browsing files or web pages. Spatial nautilus is something else. If you want to browse around the file system, launch the nautilus file browser–that’s what it’s for. Spatial nautilus, on the other hand, was designed to abstract out the concept of a “directory” or move in a direction of even abstracting out the file system. There is still progress to be made, but a spatial file manager goes a long way towards this goal. Since I’ve been running GNOME 2.6, after a couple weeks of getting used to spatial nautilus (having been using file browsers for a few years), I’ve found that my desktop and home directory have become much cleaner and I actually *use* nautilus more for file management, whereas before I only really used it for things like viewing a directory full of images. It’s brilliant.
I am not sure how the selection process works for what “reviews” are posted and what are not, but the general quality is just terrible. Not only is the author clearly ignorant of several important distinctions that make his worth as a reviewer questionable (spatial/non-spatial, window manager/desktop environment), the style is abhorrent. I cringe when I read lines like “For me, it runs 1.5 times slower than KDE, but for those of you who like all the Gnome apps, it will probably fit the bill.” What, he took out a stopwatch and timed it? “Yep, 1.5 times.”
But this problem isn’t specific to this review; most of the reviews on OSNews seem to be the same. They are filled with vagueries, hyperbole, and anecdotes. It is the sort of quality I’d expect from an article about tax law written by my barber. It might be folksy and charming, but it’s still going to be a bad article about tax law.
<<- It doesn’t dual boot with Windows XP (not an exclusive bug of Fred Hat Core 2.
“It does. You have internet, you know dual boot issues affected kernel 2.6 based Linux distribution, you know the solution is already available on the net. That argument is already obsolete.”
Is there a solution or a workaround? There’s a difference.
“Is there a solution or a workaround? There’s a difference.”
for me, the workaround is the solution.
The problem is related to the fact that the 4th CD can not be inserted into the Fedora package manager database!
Some rpm’s can’t install without a previous rpm. The rpm package header isn’t (wasn’t) very clear about which rpm to install first (so I gave up, didn’t care)
That is much better post =). Now we can talk.
In my first reply to your post, I wrote Fedora developers forgot to add the 4th CD database. Obviously they receive that feedback about that issue so they will fix it on the Core 3 Test Release.
Now that you know how to use Synaptic, it should not be that hard to install let say XFCE. Alternatetly , use yum with update yum.conf. The choice is yours.
Even to someone who understands the abstract hierarchy presented by browsing metaphors, there are obvious usability gains to spatial browsing. Explain to someone how to move a file with a browser. Right-click, copy, browse, right-click paste. Or with spatial: drag the file into the folder you want it in.
People like my parents know how to copy and paste and they know how to use a browser. What they don’t know is how to drag and drop.
*there are obvious usability gains to spatial browsing.
*The point is that spatial nautilus is a more intuitive way of managing files.
Those theories are presented as facts. My experience with inexperienced users tells me otherwise.
My daughters 128 MB USB flash recognized and automounted immediately Fedora Core 2. What a concept. I didn’t have to install a driver or reboot like I did in the “other platform”.
You had to reboot on the “other platform” ? What were you a windows 9x OS?
Some have complained about reviews on OSNEWS.
I would actually like to see tutorials on how to do stuff in OSes.
eg. Someone specify their problem and how they went about a solution by listing reference (if any) too.
I think that would make it more interesting.
Or lets say you are working on a small project. Show how it is done in one OS and then show how it can be done in another OS. At the same time showing the tools used and things that may be lacking in a tool.
I know it is a News site but we can also learn stuff as well as be informed.
to the very first poster, thanks for the following link.
http://members1.chello.nl/~h.lai/gnome-extra-setup/index.html
This makes me think that someone can develop a GNOME powertoys.
For all the hidden settings. I am sure they are there
-snip-
The idea is to mimmic the real world, making things more intuitive for the new user.
-snip-
Well, I want to manage files and put them in my own order and layout. I do not want my computer to mimic or resemble anything that it is not, such as a tablet of notebook paper, or whatever. I always hated the “look like a stereo” audio programs that used to come on sound card driver cds. Further, every time I log into GNOME, I find something I cannot do which KDE or windows or OS/2 can. Oh well, it is good that open source gives the freedom to choose something different, eh?
It’s fine not to like spatial nautilus. But at least read what’s come before you on the subject. The reviewer was completely uninformed on the topic, as others pointed out. He loses all credibility for me when he displays such ignorance about the desktop scene. Anyone who reads osnews should know that win95 is not truly spatial. Yet another cursory shallow uninformed review.
The message you see about partition alignment is from parted – and it seems to always say that – which means it’s a bogus message. They need to either get rid of it or explain it better. Parted needs some serious reworking and not just because of the change in geometry reporting in the 2.6 kernel. ALL of these partition managers need to be reworked to GET IT RIGHT. Christ, it’s only 512 bytes and NOBODY seems to be able to handle it correctly.
And the fix for the dual boot problem is to use sfdisk to rewrite the geometry table so Windows XP can boot – no data loss is apparently involved. But this is a FIX – NOT a solution. The solution is to get these damn installers and partition table editors to handle the partition table CORRECTLY. It’s not goddamn rocket science, it’s 512 freakin’ bytes!
To everyone tired of having noobs review stuff, I understand why it must be frustrating. The thing to keep in mind though is that if Gnome wants to attract new users, they will be attracting noobs. If all the noobs complain about it and don’t know how to turn it off, there is obviously a problem.
People say that spatial is easier, but from what I can see, the noob reviewers bash it, and those more experienced defend it. Seems to be preferred by more experienced users, not the other way around like so many people are claiming (see all the comments about how a regular browser is better for someone experienced, who understands filesystems).
Personally, I don’t like multiple windows. A lot of other people don’t either. Why else would so many browsers (and in the case of Konqueror, obviously the file browser too) be adding tabbed interfaces? Spatial Nautilus goes the opposite direction, and I doubt I’ll follow it, but who knows. I’ll be interested to see how it plays out.
“Spatial Nautilus goes the opposite direction, and I doubt I’ll follow it, but who knows. I’ll be interested to see how it plays out.”
The subject has been beaten to death – but once you adjust to spatial Nautilus, you generally start to like it a lot more. I also grew up as a Mac user, so that might have something to do with it as well. I think that a quick switch option would mostly remedy the issue, and I can’t believe it’s not going to be put in.
The problem with the OSNews lately is that many of the reviews and editorials have had VERY little research done for them. Eugenia’s stuff generally doesn’t suck too much (I sometimes think she overstates her qualifications in the UI realm), but almost everyone else has been horrible, if it wasn’t an interview. Witness the Win95 thing – the reviewer has obviously not bothered to actually _compare_ Nautilus and Win95, whereupon he would discover that Win95 (and 98, for that matter) do not function at all like Nautilus except in the most superficial of ways.
It’s a similar story for dual monitor stuff with Win2k and GNOME. Yes, both handle two monitors from a superficial standpoint, but GNOME handles it so much better that it’s almost impossible to compare the two. Yet, if it were an OSNews review, we’d see “GNOME and Windows 2000 possess similar capabilities for multi-monitor setups”. It just ain’t true, but the writers are simply NOT acting as proper journalists and exhaustively reviewing the products, and double-checking their “facts”.
-Erwos
I just want to say a few things about Gnome and spacial browsing.
First, I have to admit that there are a few things I don’t like about how this turned out in Gnome 2.6, and I hope that they will make it easier to close all the windows when your done instead of having to do it all one by one, or even more anoying, being able to close all of a window’s parents but then still have to close it manually. But if you don’t like spatial browsing the easiest thing to do is copy the “Browse Filesystem” laucher onto your desktop and browse through it.
Secondly, in general I have had a very good experience with spacial browsing. I really like how easy it makes it to explore several branches of the filesystem tree at once. And even more I like how it launches external apps to handle files instead of running them embedded. I always found that that was the quickest way to get lost when browsing.
That’s all I can say for now as my battery is about to die, but give spacial browsing in Gnome a try, seriously, I think it is worthwhile, and I hope I never have to go back.
Fedora is destroying Red Hat’s reputation. I’ve downloaded four different versions of it and have never had things work right w/o much tweaking. I used to be a Red Hat user but Fedora gave me the final push to defect to Debian.
“Fedora is destroying Red Hat’s reputation. I’ve downloaded four different versions of it and have never had things work right w/o much tweaking”
wow man. there was only two versions and you got 4 different things. you better stay in your fantasy land. bye
Excellant point. Both Suse and Fedora have their ups and downs, but to pass judgement on an OS that you do not understand is ludicrous. I have been an advanced Linux user and developer for 4 years now, and I don’t feel qualified to write a review on a distro because I don’t feel that my knowledge has plumbed the full depth of Linux. Let’s get some old Unix hands in there writing reviews.
I don’t like it. I don’t use it. Simple as that.
Look on the main menu where there’s (default) a shortcut to the former tree view browser.
Right click that shortcut, choose properties.
View stuff of both tabs here.
Now, create a new desktop shortcut, in it, duplicate what you found the properties of that main menu shortcut.
I assigned the old “home” icon (like default Slackware desktop “home” icon) (yes, theme is out of place the theme Fedora core 2, oh well, which I named my new desktop shortcut: File Tree
And, my new shortcut is the only file browser that I use (except for rarely I do open one the spatial so as to drag and drop from the tree browser to that spatial window).
So, there, I use them both, both the old and the new.
Adios.
—
Alan.
This should be a review about fedora 2 but not gnome 2.6 behaviour right? People are getting OT here.
Anyway, why care about whatever spatial blah? just stick with CLI.
I know that it is being beaten to death here, but just one remark. I do not know about Win95 or 98, but Windows 2000 and XP has spatial capabilities – each folder can remember its settings (view mode, background, location on screen etc.) and of course you can open each folder in a new window. Only… no one overhypes it as much as GNOME folks. It is a nice feature, but nothing very special or technologically advanced. When I think about it – what are GNOME is going to present to the users when they are going to decide whether to install Longhorn or GNOME based system. New file selector? This spatial browsing? Gnome settings database? I do not know the technical details but all this *sounds* so old and so primitive…