Re: I don't get gnome 2

[Mark Cooke <segfault blueyonder co uk>]

On Fri, 2002-06-28 at 22:01, Rob Brown-Bayliss wrote:
> 
> Hi, I have been using Gnome2 since RC1 and don't get it.
> 
> Firstly the much hyped AA fonts.  Where, I select the fonts panel there
> is no option to turn it on, and why is it off by default?  Well, I set
> GDK_USE_XFT and now I know why, half the fonts disappear and the ones
> that are left look worse than a non AA truetype font. 

 
Same here, no matter what size I make the fonts they still look awfull,
so I have gone back to normal, also *IMHO* there should be an option in
the control centre or something to enable (like Kde3).

> Then there is the any Window Manager you like so long as it's sawfish. 
> I tried changing the values (both current and default) in gconf but
> still only get sawfish, in the end I renamed enlightenment to sawfish,
> but have since changed back as under enlightenment task don't show up on
> the task list.

same again :-)

What I do is find the process Id for sawfish and kill it, then in my
case start metacity and then exit and save changes, log back in and
maetacity is the default.
> 
> Overall I feel like gnome 2 has taken a step back and am seriously
> thinking about reverting to 1.4

I have gone back to 1.4, occasionally playing with 2.0
> 
> Gnome 2 feels like it needs a few more months work.  settings seem
> confusing and don't work, session control has gone, and saving a session
> on logout seems to do nothing.
> 
> I understand that a lot of work has gone on under the hood to get it
> right, but there was so much talk about that back in the 1.2 days, will
> gnome 3 also be another re-write of the basics?

I again agree, it seems a very shabby quick and not thought out release,
even 1.4 was a whole lot better than this.
There needs to be more configuration options, not necessarily confusing
one, just a bit more control.
If it has taken a step back and the official 2.0 feels very much like
Alpha release in certain areas (Nautilus will never display any
sidebars, it keeps crashing all the time with these turned on, yes I
will check for a bug report)

I understand that a lot of apps have not been ported yet (which is no
fault of the gnome team), but I cannot see any commercial vendor's even
remotely shipping 2.0.

Hopefully 2.2 will bring a new ray of hope, but at this rate I can see
users either going back to 1.4 or begrudgingly go to Kde.
Without sounding like I'm trying to threaten (having used gnome since it
was first released and nothing else) If things havn't gotten better by
the time 1.4 is phased out, I will be moving to Kde (which I cannot
stand personally, but is at least configurable and functional)

> 
> I guess I am just disapointed, I like others was really hoping that this
> would be the one I could show others as ready for mainstream...

judging by other comments on the several hundred lists I'm subscribed to
this seems a fairly wide spread community feeling.

Just to point out, I do like Gnome2, just it needs a lot more work to
get to the quality of 1.4 (which is stable as hell)

All these comments are based on my own opinions.....