• 2006-05-01

    GNOME赢了桌面之争,Linux会输了战争吗?(英文)

    Views: 10206 | No Comments

    GNOME won the desktop battle, will Linux lose the war?

    original content published on April 27, 2006, http://linuxboxadmin.com/articles/gnomewon.php

    Despite the head start that KDE enjoyed, the large number of KDE users and developers, and Linus Torvalds personally endorsing KDE, GNOME has won the desktop environment battle. The final victory came with the third piece of a corporate trifecta, giving GNOME the official nod from Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and finally Novell. The question is, will the triumph of GNOME lead to the rise or downfall of the Linux desktop?

    Novell goes GNOME

    Red Hat and Sun Microsystems have long supported GNOME as their primary desktop environment. In August, 2003, Novell acquired Ximian, a GNOME oriented company. Then, in November, 2003, acquired SUSE, the second most popular Linux distribution and a KDE oriented company. For a time, it appeared there was an internal struggle to determine the official desktop direction of Novell SUSE.

    After the departure of several high profile SUSE employees from Novell, GNOME was anointed as the default desktop. Novell pledged to continue support for both KDE and GNOME, but the writing is on the wall. With Red Hat and Sun already supporting GNOME, it probably made business sense for Novell to move in the same direction.

    Beating the dead equine

    The main argument I've heard for GNOME is that its license is more business friendly because the libraries are licensed under the LGPL while KDE libraries are under the GPL. Apparently, the LGPL provides more flexibility for vendors to integrate various bits of code into their distributions without GPLing all it. I am not a lawyer so I don't know how much this weighed in the decision of each company to go GNOME.

    A couple of Linux heavyweights have come down on the side KDE. The most notable is Linus Torvalds himself, saying "I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE." Another luminary to side with KDE is the Slackware founder and leader, Patrick Volkerding, who stated "I do believe it would be best to let Dropline produce Slackware's GNOME and quit wasting my own time with it. Probably 1/3 of development time here is used maintaining GNOME, and *most* of the bug reports I get have something to do with GNOME (and aren't bugs I caused, or can fix)."

    My own myopia

    I've created "hello world" programs using KDevelop and GTK+, but never written a substantial application in either. KDE is based on C++ and GNOME is based on C. While I am not a fan of C++, the KDE class library is clean, consistent, and well documented while I found the GNOME model confusing. To me, the relationships in GNOME among GLib, GTK+, Pango, ATK, GdkPixbuf, and GDK were harder to grasp. Then, there is a segment of the GNOME world that is pushing Mono (a clone of Microsoft .NET/C#). Technically, KDE seems better thought out while GNOME seems to have grown organically out of the Gimp libraries.

    As a user, I think both environments provide roughly equivalent feature sets and I can be happy and productive in both. Each has some programs I think are best of breed. In a vacuum, I would go with KDE, but I'd much rather use GNOME if all the programming talent from both camps could be focused in the same direction. Even 75 percent would be enough to smooth out whatever rough edges there are in GNOME.

    Finally, I think the desktop environment will grow less significant over time. I am strong advocate of web applications. Web apps, whether they are based on LAMP, JSP, J2EE, or Ruby on Rails offer all the benefits of centralized deployment like a mainframe, but can also be run without a network connection if the server stack is installed locally. I like that the same code can be used as a multi-user network application and a single user local application.

    Beggars have to be choosers

    A logical question is do we have to pick one over the other? The answer depends on what you want out of Linux. If the goal is to advance Linux on the desktop, I think the answer is yes. There are countless obstacles to overcome before Linux gains popularity as a desktop, and I don't think everyone who uses Linux cares if it does. But for Linux to get commercial desktop applications and more hardware vendor support, there needs to be one desktop standard. It is just too expensive to support two.

    This doesn't mean KDE would ever go away. It just means KDE would become a power user's choice like the dozens of other window managers and environments that exist. I've faced the fact that GNOME has won the battle and I'd better learn more about it. The benefit in the long run is more applications for the Linux desktop and better hardware and driver support.

    Trickle down theory

    While Linux as a server infiltrated the business world from the bottom up, I think the desktop will have to go from the top down. The people who brought Linux into the datacenter and the people who use Linux as a desktop today are by definition early adopters. They are power users not afraid to tinker with their computers that for most people are mysterious black boxes. I've even had trouble getting IT colleagues to try out desktop Linux because they don't want to invest the time. Most people are busy and have enough going on in their lives that they won't try Linux until they are introduced to it at work (i.e., forced to use it).

    Most large desktop deployments will be driven and implemented by the big dogs in business, and will likely use GNOME. If desktop Linux can make inroads in the work place, it will become a lot less scary to the rank and file. It would also create an incentive for people to try it at home to improve their job performance.

    With more Linux users at home, large hardware vendors have more incentive to offer it preloaded (and supported). That's when Linux on the desktop will really take off. I cringe at using the words "domino effect", but that's the way I see it happening, if it does.

    I think the immediate hurdle is to standardize on the desktop. If the community refuses to get on board, and so far they have, no progress will be made. I have been ambivalent about it up to now, but see the wisdom in standardization.

    The Long and Winding Road

    Settling on a single desktop is just one step in a long, twisty path toward getting desktop Linux into the mainstream. GNOME has won the corporate battle and needs the support of the broader community. Because many people view KDE as technically superior and there are some egos at stake, that may be a bitter pill to swallow. Even if the community does coalesce around GNOME, it in no way guarantees success, but the continued fragmentation of the desktop guarantees it will languish.

    Posted by ideawu at 2006-05-01 11:30:16
  • 2006-04-30

    GNOME与KDE的统一

    Views: 10352 | No Comments

    在我看来,GNOME和KDE只不过是Linux桌面环境的两套不同的主题而已。

    有些人喜欢KDE,无非是因为KDE的程序界面看起来像甜心。因为第一眼喜欢上了,所以用着就习惯了,竟然产生了更加优秀的错觉。无论是GNOME还是KDE,如果要说孰优孰劣,我可不想说。那就好像让我说30度的气温好还是31度的气温好。

    事实上,我使用的是GNOME桌面主题。不过,我也十分喜欢kate这个KDE下,即使在GNOME下运行也是KDE界面风格(像所有的在GNOME下运行的KDE套件中的程序一样)的文本编辑器。如果你喜欢KDE的任务栏,那么就从GNOME的系统菜单里运行一个名为kicker和程序,你就可以得到KDE的任务栏。如果你认为你的KDE的程序,例如kate在GNOME下运行界面不好,那么你就从GNOME的系统菜单里运行一个叫做kcontrol的程序(就是KDE的控制中心)来调节。

    这样看来,不就是两套主题吗,何必像个小孩一样争来争去 --- 没有几个人是争论代码级的问题。

    这就是为什么我在功能的方面认为GNOME和KDE是统一的。你可以看看我上传的屏幕截图,请你说说我是在KDE还是GNOME下截的图?

    gnome_or_kde

    Posted by ideawu at 2006-04-30 22:18:49
  • 2006-04-30

    在Debian Linux的GNOME环境下用BMP播放MP3音乐

    Views: 11495 | No Comments

    运行apt-get install beep-media-player安装bmp,或者运行aptitude之后搜索到它,选中后安装。

    Posted by ideawu at 21:14:29
  • 2006-04-30

    安装Linux的ATI显卡驱动,支持硬件3D加速

    Views: 17670 | 2 Comments

    记得好像是去年12月,我把ATI显卡对Linux的支持态度骂个狗血淋头。不过,看起来现在ATI对Linux的支持好多了 --- 或者是我有经验了。不管怎么样,我现在即使重装系统,也只是花5分钟就可以把ATI9550的Linux驱动搞定。

    安装ATI驱动需要一些开发包和库文件包,但是我认为这些包都是基本配置,所以看起来也不复杂了。如果你当前系统没有这些包,那么你应该安装上,以后进行其它的使用将更加方便。

    这里提到一些有可能你没有安装上的包: gcc3.x, g++3.x, make, libx11-dev, libstdc++, libstdc++x.x-dev, x-dev, binutils, autoconf, automake. 注意, 如果你运行 gcc --v 显示不是 3.x 的版本, 请创建一个链接: ln /usr/bin/gcc-3.x /usr/bin/gcc.

    其中有些x确实是字母'x',有些是指0-9的数字中的一个。

    运行uname -a,你将看到类似

    Linux debian 2.6.16-1-k7 #2 Tue Apr 25 20:52:06 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux

    好了,运行apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.16-1-k7安装内核头文件。

    从ATI官方网站上下载驱动程序安装包,我下载了ati-driver-installer-8.22.5-i386.run到~/download目录下。双击或者从终端运行~/download/ati-driver-installer-8.22.5-i386.run (请到ATI官方网站下载最新的安装程序)运行安装程序。只管按回车。

    安装程序运行完毕后查看/usr/share/fglrx/fglrx-install.log,如果你没有看到error这个单词或者其它说明安装失败的话,并且看到

    AGPGART build succeeded with return value 0
    finished compiling for fglrx_agp
    duplicating results into driver repository...
    done.
    ==============================
    - creating symlink
    - recreating module dependency list
    - trying a sample load of the kernel modules
    done.
    

    安装成功!你可能需要重启。运行glxgears输出类似

    11979 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2395.666 FPS

    如果在1500 FPS以上,恭喜你,你安装上了ATI显卡在Linux下的驱动。

    Posted by ideawu at 14:26:09
  • 2006-04-10

    Linux下使用Gaim聊MSN

    Views: 11306 | 2 Comments

    1. 安装Gaim

    Gaim支持ICQ/MSN/Yahho等聊天方式。以root身份运行apt-get install gaim就可以安装Gaim了。

    2. 设置Gaim的MSN账号

    启动Gaim进入Login主窗口。然后点击主窗口的Accounts按钮进入Accounts账号管理窗口。点击Add按钮进入Add Account添加账号窗口。Protocol选择MSN,在Scrren Name中输入你的MSN账号的Email地址。点击Show more options标签,它将显示更多的选项,并且自己变为Show fewer options。

    如果MSN OPtions里的Login server和Port没有帮你默认设置好你就分别设置messenger.hotmail.com和1863。然后选中Use HTTP Method选项。你可能想选上Remember password和Auto-login两个选项。

    点击Save按钮保存回到Login主窗口。

    Gaim

    3. 登录MSN

    从Login主窗口选择你的账号和输入密码后点击Sign on按钮登录!

    4. 设置个人首选项

    在Buddy List窗口中选择Tools->Preferences

    Posted by ideawu at 2006-04-10 21:14:06
  • 2006-04-10

    Linux下使用Evolution收发Email

    Views: 12065 | 2 Comments

    1. 安装Evolution

    Evolution是一个整合了邮件,日历,计划任务,地址本功能的套件。以root身份运行apt-get install evolution就可以安装上Evolution了。

    2. 设置Email账号

    从任务栏的Application(程序)菜单中选择运行Evolution,然后从Evolution的Edit(编辑)菜单中选择Preferences(首选项)打开Evolution Settings设置窗口。点击的Mail Accounts,再点击Add按钮启动Evolution Account Assistant添加账号。

    点击Forward进入Identity设置。在Required Information栏中的Full Name中填写你要建立的账号在Evolution中显示的名字,在Email Address中输入你的Email地址。假设我的Email地址是myemail@163.com

    点击Forward进入Receiving Email设置。在Server Type中选择POP。如果你不知道选择哪个选项,你需要到Email提供商的网站查找或者直接咨询你的Email提供商。在Server栏中输入pop3.163.com。Use Secure Connection选项这里选择Never,你也可以选择Whenever Possible,具体看你的Email提供商所提供的方式。点击Check for Supported Types查找Email服务器支持的Authentication Type,这里我选择Password。然后你可以看是否需要选上Remeber password选项。

    点击Forward进入Receiving Options设置。如果你不知道里面的选项是什么意思,你就一个也不用选择。

    点击Forward进入Sending Email设置。Server Type选择SMTP。在Server栏中输入smtp.163.com,并且选上Server requires authentication,Use Secure Connection选择同上。在Authentication的Type栏中选择Login。

    你已经完成163.com的Email设置了。一直点击Forward直到完成。

    3. 从服务器收取邮件

    点击工具栏的收取邮件的图标或者从File菜单中选择Send/Receive收取邮件。

    4. 发送邮件

    比你所能想象的还要简单!

    Posted by ideawu at 19:08:49
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