Will it use a desktop environment designed for morons?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Grishnakh Aug 24, 2011 3:05 PM EDT |
I see from TFA that it uses Gnome2, as it's an Ubuntu 10.04 respin. Are they going to saddle their users with 2010-era software until 2013, or are they going to move to something newer before then? And if they do, what are they going to do about Gnome2, as that's now obsolete and unsupported? Surely they aren't going to stick intelligent scientists with Gnome3, which is designed for morons and teenage Facebook addicts who don't actually do any work on their computers. |
| lcafiero Aug 24, 2011 3:29 PM EDT |
I don't know, Grishnakh, but the article does say this: "The new 4.0 release is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Lucid Lynx, which will be supported until April 2013. It uses a customized Gnome 2 desktop, and includes a big batch of biology, chemistry, GIS/CAD (geographic information system/computer aided design), and math and statistics software." That leads me to believe that, since it's based on Lucid LTS, then it will probably have GNOME 2.30 (or 2.32) on it, depending on what comes with the distro. I don't agree that this version of GNOME is obsolete -- I don't think GNOME 2.30 or 2.32 are anywhere near obsolete -- and the distro will probably run quite well with it in the future. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 24, 2011 4:34 PM EDT |
Using 2010 software in 2013 ... the horror! |
| mrider Aug 24, 2011 5:09 PM EDT |
Quoting:Using 2010 software in 2013 ... the horror!Or for us Debian users "Using 2010 software in 2020 ... the horror!" (I joke, I joke...) |
| Grishnakh Aug 24, 2011 5:47 PM EDT |
Icafiero: Gnome2 is most definitely obsolete. Just ask the Gnome developers if they think it is or not, and they'll certainly say it is, and that you should "upgrade" to Gnome3. If you don't believe the people who actually made a piece of software when they say it's obsolete, then what are you doing using that software? Regardless, the fact is that using 2010 software in 2013 is a little ridiculous. Yes, some software is still perfectly usable after that time, or simply doesn't change much. How much will bash change by 2013? Probably not at all. However, with the way most distros (and Ubuntu is definitely like this) work, you don't get a choice in mixing-and-matching, it's an all-or-nothing affair. So by sticking with 10.04LTS, not only you be stuck with an old 2.6.3x kernel (plus security updates), which probably won't be a big problem, you'll also be stuck with a hopelessly out-of-date version of Firefox. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Firefox people have already cut off support for the 3.x version of Firefox that's included with 10.04. You'll also be stuck with a hopelessly-out-of-date version of Open/LibreOffice, which we can probably expect to change a fair amount by then, which could lead you to compatibility problems with your documents. Of course, it's always possible to install newer software on top of an older disto manually, but that's usually a big PITA compared to just "sudo apt-get upgrade", and entails either finding some alternate repositories with newer versions of certain popular programs, installing prepackaged binaries straight from the maker (like mozilla.org) (which also means they're not under control of apt and won't be updated at all when there's security fixes), or worse compiling from source (which also bypasses apt control). However, since these Poseidon guys certainly have their own repos, it would be possible for them to update certain packages there and keep this distro from having terribly out-of-date versions of certain popular applications, while leaving the rest to the Ubuntu repos it's based off of. Finally, there is one more worry here: what if Ubuntu and Canonical simply aren't around in a year or two, after this Unity debacle goes south, they can't get all these nontechnical tablet-using Facebook fans they're chasing, and they're not able to generate enough revenue to keep operating, and are forced to close their doors? |
| jdixon Aug 24, 2011 9:25 PM EDT |
> Regardless, the fact is that using 2010 software in 2013 is a little ridiculous. You need to have a talk with all those folks still using Windows XP then. |
| gus3 Aug 24, 2011 10:13 PM EDT |
I think that's a question of using 1994 technology in 2011. |
| nikkels Aug 25, 2011 12:57 AM EDT |
> Regardless, the fact is that using 2010 software in 2013 is a little ridiculous. You need to have a talk with all those folks still using Windows XP then. Please try to explain politely to me why I am..................because regularly I use a computer who has win98SE on it. Just be careful, as I have certain skills which I could use to do a format C:/ on your computer after I have hacked your precious 2011 firewall. |
| tuxchick Aug 25, 2011 1:50 AM EDT |
All versions of Windows are 1994 technology. |
| lcafiero Aug 25, 2011 7:14 PM EDT |
Grishnakh -- It depends on how you define "obsolete." If you define obsolete as not having further updates, then you would be right. I don't agree with that definition. I would define obsolete as not able to be used any longer. I was ridiculed in another forum topic several months ago because I have a stand-alone Dell desktop that still runs Fedora 10 -- this computer's sole purpose is to print out invoices which, after printing, are fold up and put in envelopes to send, via the Post Office, to my clients. Is Fedora 10 and it's "ancient" GNOME desktop obsolete? Nope, because it still does what I need it to do. GNOME 2.32, or whatever the last version of the desktop is, will live on, updates or not, until someone or "someones" come along and update it. Meanwhile, as long as it functions, it's not obsolete. |
| jdixon Aug 25, 2011 8:56 PM EDT |
> Please try to explain politely to me why I am... Not you nikkels, Grishnakh. He's the one who made the comment about using 2010 software in 2013. Windows XP users are using 2002 technology in 2011. But yes, Win98SE still works fine if you keep it off the Internet. > Just be careful, as I have certain skills which I could use to do a format C:/ on your computer after I have hacked your precious 2011 firewall. Well,t hat would get you 1/3 of the way in. :) You'd still have two more systems to hack first though. :) Not that I doubt you could do it, it's just a question of whether it's worth your time or not. > All versions of Windows are 1994 technology. All currently supported versions, yes. Some are even older than that. |
| tmx Aug 29, 2011 10:13 PM EDT |
I haven't beat System Shock 2 or Thief 2, and its been impossible getting it to work on Windows 7, unless they made some mod lately. So 98SE can be useful. Just hard finding hardware that support it anymore, maybe an old Thinkpad. |
| Grishnakh Aug 30, 2011 2:49 PM EDT |
Icafiero wrote:It depends on how you define "obsolete." If you define obsolete as not having further updates, then you would be right. I don't agree with that definition. I would define obsolete as not able to be used any longer. In the context of this discussion, I'm using the former definition, not the latter. In fact, I can't think of any technology that cannot be used any longer, only technologies that don't make sense to use because better technologies have replaced them. There's no reason you can't use a horse to travel from LA to NY, but it'd be a lot easier with a car or an airplane. You can use a 8086 with DOS to do many computing tasks, but it'd be a lot easier to use a modern computer. I was ridiculed in another forum topic several months ago because I have a stand-alone Dell desktop that still runs Fedora 10 -- this computer's sole purpose is to print out invoices which, after printing, are fold up and put in envelopes to send, via the Post Office, to my clients. The problem with this is that older Linux distros like that may have unpatched vulnerabilities, unless that particular distro is still being supported with security patches. I doubt that's the case for Fedora 10. This may not be a huge concern for you if it's on an internal network, but it's still a risk. GNOME 2.32, or whatever the last version of the desktop is, will live on, updates or not, until someone or "someones" come along and update it. Meanwhile, as long as it functions, it's not obsolete. Not exactly. Gnome isn't like some standalone program that has no dependencies and can be easily compiled from source with a simple "./configure; make, make install"; in fact it's full of dozens of dependencies. You're probably not going to be able to take some brand-new distro in a year, and slap Gnome2.32 on it, without doing a LOT of work backporting Gnome to use newer versions of various dependencies, manually installing other dependencies that have been dropped by the distro, etc. The whole reason people use distros is so they don't have to do all this work themselves. Of course, you can just stick with an old distro, but then you have the whole problem where 1) you're missing out on all the security updates, which probably isn't a good idea for your primary workstation (unlike a standalone print server that's probably headless), 2) you're missing out on new hardware support, which may be important if you ever decide to upgrade to a newer CPU/motherboard, new wi-fi adapter, or are forced to upgrade because some piece of your HW dies, and 3) you're missing out on newer versions of other apps, such as LibreOffice, Firefox, or other important apps you use regularly. Yes, you can upgrade all these manually too, but again how valuable is your time? I don't have time to manually compile all my software from scratch, fixing dependency problems along the way. |
| skelband Aug 30, 2011 4:25 PM EDT |
I recently (sort of) tried to install Windows 95 onto a PC for fun.
It just wouldn't grok any of the hardware on that machine, USB being a prime example.
So in a sense, Windows 95 is obsolete now because it cannot be used on modern hardware. I don't think that Gnome 2 can be called obsolete using any sense of the word just yet. I realise that things move apace in the software world, but I think it is a little premature to call the prior version of any piece of software obsolete. <soapbox> But then as far as I'm concerned, Gnome 3 is not really a new version of Gnome 2, rather a completely different product. So for me, Gnome 2 is the latest version of the DE that I'm used to using. </soapbox> |
| patrokov Aug 30, 2011 5:44 PM EDT |
So Gnome 2 is just obsolescent? |
| lcafiero Aug 30, 2011 8:44 PM EDT |
I agree with you, skelband -- maybe there will be a fork so GNOME 2 will keep going. That remains to be seen. |
| skelband Aug 31, 2011 1:01 PM EDT |
@icafiero: Personally, I'm hoping that common sense will prevail and the Gnome developers will realise that they can move on the Gnome infrastructure and support two different UI shells: their new poster boy Gnome Shell and the original UI in some ported form. After all, they are doing in some reduced way anyway as their fall-back for lower spec machines. I realise that more effort is involved but that would be the better plan. H#ll, more work would be involved but what in tarnation is their rush, anyway? |
| Steven_Rosenber Sep 01, 2011 8:54 PM EDT |
They'll have to pry GNOME 2 from my cold, dead hands ... at least until Debian Wheezy goes stable sometime in 2013. |
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