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GNOME Linux BSD

GNOME 3.28 'Chongqing' Linux Is Here (betanews.com) 132

BrianFagioli writes: GNOME 3.28 is the latest version of GNOME 3, and is the result of 6 months' hard work by the GNOME community. It contains several major new features, as well as many smaller improvements and bug fixes. In total, the release incorporates 24105 changes, made by approximately 778 contributors.

The Project explains, "GNOME 3.28 comes with more beautiful things! First, and most significantly, GNOME's default interface font (called Cantarell) has undergone a significant update. Character forms and spacing have been evolved, so that text is more readable and attractive. Several new weights have also been added -- light and extra bold -- which are being used to produce interfaces that are both modern and beautiful. Other beautiful things include GNOME's collection of background wallpapers, which has been updated to include a lovely set of photographs, and the selection of profile pictures, which has been completely updated with attractive new images to pick from."

Unfortunately, you can't just click on a button and upgrade to GNOME 3.28 today. Actually, for the most part, you will need to wait for it to become available for your operating system. Sadly, this can take a while. Fedora users, for instance, will have to wait for a major OS upgrade for it to become available.

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GNOME 3.28 'Chongqing' Linux Is Here

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  • Chongqing? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What the fuck is Chongqing and what does it have to do with GNOME or Linux? The more important question is how many trans or non specific gender developers does GNOME have?

  • Chongqing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Beyond Opinion ( 959609 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @11:45AM (#56259839)
    In case anyone is wondering about the name, Chongqing is China's fourth municipality, and was apparently the location of the GNOME.asia conference last year. This will save you from having to Google it.
    • by nhtshot ( 198470 )

      It's also home to some of the most fantastically delicious spicy food ever created. I might have been born in the US, but my heart will always be in Chongqing.

    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      Chongqing is perhaps better known as Chungking (in the old Wade-Giles system).
      And the name is clearly a reference to the legendary Chungking Mansions [bbc.com]" in Hong Kong.
      What better metaphor for the Gnome code-base?

      Eyesore, ghetto, jungle, goldmine, little United Nations. These are all words that have been used to describe Chungking Mansions, a building complex that is seen as both a foreign island in Hong Kong and an important part of the Chinese city's identity.

      From the outside, Chungking Mansions looks like a single, imposing concrete block - 15 identical residential floors on top of a neon-lit, two-storey mall.

      Past the front, it is like a maze - there are in fact five separate blocks, 10 lifts and multiple old, twisting stairwells filled with swathes of electrical cable, crumbling concrete and graffiti in multiple languages.

      The complex began life as an upmarket residential estate in the 1960s, but has since become a hub for traders from developing countries, backpackers and asylum seekers in Hong Kong.

    • Nobody would have had to look it up if TFS linked to the original release notes [gnome.org].
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Do I need systemd to run it?

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Of course.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Indeed. Gnome was one of the first pieces of software to bake in an artificial dependency on systemd, at the direct request of Poettering himself.

        That single dependency is what railroaded systemd into all of the major distros.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      It runs on OpenBSD, so no you don't need systemd.

    • by caseih ( 160668 )

      I shouldn't feed the trolls, but the answer is, technically, no, Gnome does not require systemd to run. It does, however require a number of services such as ConsoleKit, which are provided by systemd. For most distros, then, systemd is a hard dependency. But it's only that way because no one seems that interested in providing the necessary services outside of systemd proper. There's nothing that says systemd has to be the system that provides this and other services. Distros are free to build their own eq

      • by Anonymous Coward

        ConsoleKit was developed by the same people behind SystemD (Pottering and Co.), that's why it's development stopped. And there's a non-systemd alternatives, like consolekit2; elogind, which is a fork of systemd logind for use in systemd-free linux systems, and i think there's another in use in BSD systems.

        • by caseih ( 160668 )

          Pottering himself wrote a non-systemd ConsoleKit, but no one was interested in taking it up, not even the other distro makers who weren't so keen on systemd, so he let it drop. My point still stands. The link I shared includes instructions and patches for using consolekit2, and elogind with Gnome 3.

      • by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @06:08PM (#56262233)

        Just use Devuan with XFCE. Better in every way.

  • Fedora users (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <kapimi>> on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @11:59AM (#56259925) Homepage Journal

    Have these things called compilers. They can build the bloody SRPMs and then use those to build installable RPMs any time they bloody well like. That is the difference between Real Linux Users (who CHOOSE whether to wait or not, and who understand that their decision is a CHOICE) and those who believe that open source means you have to wait for a vendor.

    I emphasize this again. There is nothing wrong with waiting. As long as it is a CHOICE. If you feel that it is sensible to wait, or that you don't want to take the time, that is perfectly fine. That is choosing. It is one of the three Great Powers that open source gives.

    • by geek ( 5680 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @12:09PM (#56260023)

      Everyone, please get off this guys lawn.

    • by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @12:09PM (#56260025)
      Gentoo users scoff at lazy Fedora users. And they'd tell you themselves if their kernel ever finishes compiling.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        The kernel is nothing these days. Chromium or Libreoffice is the real pain in my ass.

      • by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @12:33PM (#56260267)

        Gentoo user here, eternally grateful to AMD for selling relatively cheap 8c/16t CPUs. :)

      • I use Calculate Linux, which is based n Gentoo.

        Supposedly Calculate is all Gentoo under the hood.

        I practically never compile anything. I just use emerge. Binary versions are out there.

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      And how about FVWM? That's good enough to manage the GUI for me.

    • Linux vs. OS X / MacOS typography has always been very bad and considering its efforts, it is highly appreciated. https://newzealand.babasupport... [babasupport.org]
    • Sure we have compilers, but is the future outside the freshly paved road likely or even able to be outflanked by a better idea? When does this gang or that gang get to define that road? We have a benevolant dictator http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resourc... [oss-watch.ac.uk] - is this landscape free from beneficial disturbance?
    • That is the difference between Real Linux Users (who CHOOSE whether to wait or not, and who understand that their decision is a CHOICE) and those who have learnt about the package dependency hell and upgrade problems caused by self compiling large and critical packages within the distribution.

      FTFY.

      I'll wait for something stable thanks.

      • by jd ( 1658 )

        You know that warranty clause in software that says that nothing is ever stable and will never be stable? It means it.

        • You know that warranty clause in software

          Nope, I'm not autistic, I don't read software EULA clauses.

          • by jd ( 1658 )

            Given that it's talked about extensively, that's surprising. Given the WARRANTY file is distinct from the GPL or LICENSE file, your claim has no validity. Given that it's not autistic people who read EULAs, that's extremely phobic of you.

            Congratulations, you manage to be wrong on multiple levels in a single insult. That requires considerable talent.

            • Given that it's talked about extensively

              Again, only a few autistic people talk about it. The vast majority of the "discussion" around this is either mocking, dismissing or questioning about who would ever read it.

              Nearly all people don't read licenses, few people including developers using the license have read the GPL, and even fewer people even register the existence of warranty files even when they are separate from the EULA.

              You can call me wrong all you like, but keep looking for that mythical end user whose actually read that legal documents

  • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @12:08PM (#56260019)

    The article seem to be mostly on how much nicer it looks. But it is 2018 the roll of the PC is very different then it was in 1998 or even in 2008.
    Back 10 years ago. The PC was the persons primary computing device for all things work and fun. We needed an attractive desktop environment as it would be one of our main views into the system. However even in 2008 most of our computing is via Web Sites. Back in 1998 when we used mostly application and installed mountains of applications on our PC's The UI and how well to use the Operating System was extremely important.

    Mobile Technology has taken the place of much of our personal computing. The average person can go days or weeks without having to use a traditional PC. The PC has moved from its job as a Personal Computer to a Workstation where we use it for actual work (and High end games). For this type of work, we need the OS to take a step back from saying Hey look at me how cool of an OS I am, to a place to showcase the application(s) needed to be ran. Features need to be focused on bringing the application running to the attention of the user when they need it, and keep many applications well organized so we don't get bogged down by clutter.

    • And this is why we switched from KDE and Gnome to Xfce. It doesn't get in the way of productivity and is small and fast.

    • by mccalli ( 323026 )
      Don't underestimate the font improvements mentioned for doing exactly what you're talking about. The typography of Linux vs OS X/macOS has always been pretty poor, and seeing effort put in here is greatly appreciated.
    • I disagree. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      When I roll a PC today I get mostly much the same odd results as when I rolled a PC in 1998 - it nearly always lands with one of the larger sides facing up, and very rarely on end. Its still poor at fulfilling its role as a dice.

    • by Trogre ( 513942 )

      I was about to post a rebuttal about mobile technology taking the place of personal computing, but then realized you are right.

      The PC is now more focussed on getting stuff done and less about looking nice and consuming menial content.

      That is why I use XFCE.

    • by doom ( 14564 )

      Mobile Technology has taken the place of much of our personal computing. The average person can go days or weeks without having to use a traditional PC.

      And yet, mobile devices are not actually suitable for serious creative work (no one writes a smartphone app on a smartphone), so they're essentially toys that encourage passive consumption.

      But the big linux distros are veering from their largely unsuccessful attempts at competing with Apple and Microsoft on the desktop to competing with Google for the mo

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Who gives a shit about the system font? How about fixing display resolution independence, so I can have a 4k display next to a WXGA display without one showing everything stupidly tiny, or the other one showing everything fischer-price huge. Yeah, I know, install a gnome plugin that increases font size - except that does nothing for window components or non-text things you may want to display.

    This is a problem that OS X and Windows solved fucking YEARS ago, and it's still fucking horrible in Gnome.

    • You have the source so fix it yourself n00b!

    • Yes! Any time I see a new Gnome version announced I check the pics to see if the title bars and widgets are still uber big. Running Gnome on my laptop makes it feel "old", so I stick with Elementary which has sized their components to fit my screen in a much nicer way. C'mon Gnome... The thinking probably has to do with installing Gnome on tablets, which I'm sure is happening everywhere even though I've never seen it.
  • Oh good. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sootman ( 158191 )

    Because Gnome was perfect except for the fonts and the fucking wallpaper.

  • by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @01:24PM (#56260687) Homepage

    Gnome 3 changed in a way that removed things that I had become used to, eg the ability to create a set of desktops 3 by 4 and then do some tasks in specific desktops. Yes: you can have multiple desktops but only move up & down -- hard to use; no option to do it the way that I want.

    • Have you given XFCE a try?

      Highly recommend it.

      • by caseih ( 160668 )

        Not sure there's a good reason to try xfce when he already said the Mate desktop works well for him. In my opinion Mate is host better than xfce.

    • IMO: MATE blows Gnome out of the water.

  • Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scumdamn ( 82357 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @01:28PM (#56260707)
    Fonts and desktop backgrounds. I'm glad those items are top of the line there. Too bad Gnome is still unusable and weird.
  • by iampiti ( 1059688 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @01:37PM (#56260787)
    n/t
    • I've been following debian testing for a while now, and my click-pad mysteriously changed from clicking in the corners to multi-finger gestures. Trying to use Libreoffice without knowing how to right-click anymore was very frustrating. Took me ages to work out which keywords to google and where the setting was to change it back. Why was this option not in the default settings dialog? Even hiding behind an advanced button?
  • Can I get the top bar mirrored on both of my monitors like I want yet? I tried plug-ins, but they are all in the "kinda doing what I want, but not really" category, so I installed Unity 7 on my Ubuntu 17.10 after about a month of trying to use Gnome Shell. Also: Alt+Space, X you *expletive removed*.

    • by doom ( 14564 )

      Alt+Space, X you *expletive removed*.

      Can I infer that you actually think that there should be a keyboard control to open up the window control menu, so that the keyboard alternates there are actually useful?

      I look at gnome every now and then, but things like that keep sending me back to icewm, where pretty much everything can be controlled by keyboard commands.

      • by iTrawl ( 4142459 )

        Alt+Space, X you *expletive removed*.

        Can I infer that you actually think that there should be a keyboard control to open up the window control menu, so that the keyboard alternates there are actually useful?

        Alt+Space does open the window control menu, but there are no one letter selectors in it, thus pressing "x" doesn't "maximize" and one has to use the arrow keys to select the option instead.

        • by doom ( 14564 )
          Ah, my apologies. I'm clearly out-of-touch: I could've sworn it was the reverse. Whenever I try playing around with gnome, I always run back to icewm, and the last time that was why.
    • I use Multi Monitors Add-On [gnome.org] which has this feature.
      • by iTrawl ( 4142459 )

        I think I gave it a shot. Just like in their screenshot, the second monitor does not get:

        - tray icons
        - power / logoff / settings icon
        - clock

        My second monitor isn't just a side show. It's an alternate primary, depending on what I'm doing. I don't want to look at my left monitor temporarily while I'm focused on the right. E.g. I have an applet that tells me if my Caps Lock is pressed because my laptop doesn't have a Caps indicator light at all.

        And I don't recall very well, but I think maximised windows behave

        • I think I gave it a shot. Just like in their screenshot, the second monitor does not get:

          - tray icons - power / logoff / settings icon - clock

          Clock can be switched on/off, just like app menu and Activity. You’re right about the other two though.

          My second monitor isn't just a side show. It's an alternate primary, depending on what I'm doing. I don't want to look at my left monitor temporarily while I'm focused on the right. E.g. I have an applet that tells me if my Caps Lock is pressed because my laptop doesn't have a Caps indicator light at all.

          Fair enough. Maybe raise the issue to the extension maintainer?

          And I don't recall very well, but I think maximised windows behave differently on the second monitor in regards to title bar and menu bar than they do on the first. I have a hazy memory of being unable to get the close/max/min triplet because it wasn't shown at all on the second one.

          Seems to work exactly the same on both screens for me here.

  • ``Fedora users, for instance, will have to wait for a major OS upgrade for it to become available.''

    Hmm... seems like something I might have expected to come from Microsoft: "You need to upgrade to Window XX to get this new interface". Since when did the user's choice of desktop become an operating system decision? Not that distribution packagers give a crap about what users want but, IMHO, the desktop software ought to get pulled out of the "/usr/..." tree and placed under "/opt/desktop/..." and be updat

    • Since when did the user's choice of desktop become an operating system decision?

      (Most) distributions don’t make any decision regarding your choice of desktop environment. You can e.g. run KDE or GNOME or XFCE or something else on Ubuntu, as well as Fedora, or openSUSE. The correct question would have been since when did the version of the desktop environment become a distribution decision, which boils down to the version of software being a distribution decision, and the answer would be forever. It has been precisely the job of distributions to carefully select compatible versio

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @02:37PM (#56261095)

    First, and most significantly, GNOME's default interface font (called Cantarell) has undergone a significant update.

    You updated the font? Can't wait to hear about the subsequent and less significant changes.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      In fact 10 engineers were devoted to calculate the kerning for every pair of UTF-8 character.
      So the font is 1.2gb large.
      So they have to remove some stuff so that it still can fit on a DVD.

      So they drop the file manager which is now discontinued

    • You can read all about them in the release notes [gnome.org]. Probably a better choice than an article that picked their favourite ones from there.
      • Thanks for the info/link. I'm not really a fan of the GNOME 3 interface -- I use MATE w/Ubuntu 16.04 -- so it doesn't really matter what they've done, but I'll look over the page you referenced anyway to reinforce my dislike. :-)
  • For this will make sure that Linux in the desktop will continue to spin its wheels. Why is this a good thing? Because my XFCE linux desktop does all that I need, quickly and efficiently, and by virtue of the fact that, thanks to Gnome (and, to a lesser extent, KDE) Linux in the desktop will remain a non-entity, the bad guys will carry on neglecting it in their attacks. Thanks, Gnome people, for your invaluable contribution to make sure that the Linux desktop remains secure and safe.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I had to setup a computer a few weeks ago, and decided to give gnome another shot. This would be the first time using it in 5+ years. I was looking for something convenient, so I wanted it to work out.

    It was just a bit too user friendly. Why is it so hard to change the default terminal? Why is the nautilus menu so counter intuitive? Why, after installing an application with the gnome package manager thinger, can I not find my new application in the list of installed apps? I mean, even windows will search ar

    • Why is it so hard to change the default terminal?

      What exactly makes a terminal application the default one? It’s not like the default video player that will open when you double click on a video file, or your default office suite. Installing another terminal application makes it appear alongside the previous one. What more do you need?

      Why is the nautilus menu so counter intuitive?

      That’s a bit of an empty statement and can’t be addressed if you don’t elaborate on what’s wrong or why it’s wrong.

      Why, after installing an application with the gnome package manager thinger, can I not find my new application in the list of installed apps?

      It should work. Maybe you hit a bug? Worth checking if it’s been re

  • by Anonymous Coward

    vtwm is the original "twm" window manager that came with X windows. vtwm is the virtualized form, with a modest box in one corner showing multiple panels one can select and get a different screen with different X applications running on it. This is much cheaper and more reliable than running multiple physical displays,. it's incredibly lightweight by modern standards, it contains none of the confusing debris that Gnome insterts by default to suck away your CPU and RAM,

    I'm sick to death of developers trying

  • by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn@@@earthlink...net> on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @06:44PM (#56262409)

    Every example on the link showed only one window open. Sorry, that implies that they think I'm using a smartphone. I can't tell without additional checking, but it looks as if it's unusable for my use case, as I normally have several windows open in different applications. Even if this is possible at the moment in this release, I have a hard time trusting that they will keep the capability around. They've arbitrarily made changes too often in the past...and it's clearly not something they're interested in.

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