There's a fair few Gnome applications that are really excellent, but must confess I'm not fond of the Gnome desktop interface. It seems inflexible and old fashioned to me, a poor compromise between the flashier, much more impressive KDE and plainer, thinner, zippier interfaces like fluxbox.
I find the default Ubuntu look of grey strips top and bottom slow to get around, and depressingly reminiscent of 2000-and-before era Windows and Mac interfaces. Neither of those are things I particularly want to be reminded of when I'm using Linux. :P
The GNOME Foundation announced the release of version 2.22 on Wednesday, an update that offers enhanced multimedia support, new file system, and enhanced e-mail, internationalization and accessibility features. GNOME is used in many popular Linux distributions from Ubuntu, Novell, Red Hat, Mandriva and Debian.
The version 2.22 announced today will be incorporated into the soon-to-be-released Ubuntu Linux V. 8.04, code named “Hardy Heron,” Mandriva’s 2008.1 and in forthcoming distributions such as Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 6 as well as Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Destop 11. In the interim, the GNOME update will soon be in Fedora 9, Debian and in Novell’s OpenSUSE 11 due in early summer. It is also incorportated in an update of Foresight Linux released today.
Those distributors may also opt to use the GNOME 2.24 update, which is due in six months, a GNOME spokesman said. GNOME also said it is hard at work on GNOME 2.24, due in six months. Planned features include a new version of its Ekiga VoIP client with a redesigned user interface and SIP presence support, an Empathy IM client that uses the Telepathy framework and a column and list view in the file manager.
According to a recent survey from desktoplinux.com in 2007, GNOME has 45 percent of desktop share, ahead of rival KDE with 35 percent.
GNOME 2.22 offer a variety of new features to enhance its use in multimedia applications. One is a new feature called Cheese that allows users to take photos and make videos using a computer’s webcam. Additionally, the MoviePlayer offers enhance support for DVD playback and new support for digital TV (DVB).
The update also offers a new virtual file system on GTK+ that replaces GNOME-VFS. The network transparent file system offers improvements such as the ability to recollect login credentials for a full session, enhanced reliability and use of the Freedesktop.org’s Desktop Trash Can to handle the storage of deleted files. The File Manager offers improved handlong of removable media.
The GNOME Foundation also emphasized that version 2.2 offers significant accessibility improvements, including enhanced screenreading and magnification and better mouse accessibility.
As part of its close collaboration with the Mozilla.org, GNOME 2.22’s Orca screen reading technology offers better support for Rich Internet Applications and Live regions. The update also features new support for Level 3 Braille, enhanced screen magnification for smother scrolling and support for colorblind filters.
That’s not all. Version 2.2 offers a host of those enhancements and new features including:
Drop shadowing on Windows and transparency effects
Evolution’s client support for the Google Calendar
Remote Desktop Viewer
Improved text editor printing
Download notifications in the Epiphany
Faster document viewer
Inhibited automatic suspend and hibernate when burning CDs
7-zip support in archive manager
Network multiplayer in chess
Deskbar opens Evolution contacts
PolicyKit integration for administrators
Anjuta IDE is now in the GNOME Developer Suite
Support for international clock and more than 46 languages
The release of GNOME 2.22 is dedicated to Raphael Higino, member of the GNOME translation team and GNOME Brazil who died in a motorcycle accident last year. He was 24 years old.
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