Michael Meeks (michael@ximian.com)

GNOME 2.6:

The Linux Desktop

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls...” - Jeremiah 6:16

Overview:

Why Gnome ?

What is it ?

The stable platform: 2.6

What's coming soon ?

Freedesktop

OpenOffice.org

The future.

Why Gnome ?

'Free software on every desktop' (not 'Open')

Predictable time based releases ...

Independent Software Developers

API/ABI stability; a single platform to target.

Meeting government a11y requirements

Multi-OS: GNU/Linux, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX

Libraries free for commercial use

Vendor support: Novell, Sun, HP, RedHat, IBM

Why Gnome ? (more)

The Human Interface Guidelines (HIG)

clean, neat, usability-tested GUI

reduced feature exposure

Supportable – elegant simplicity pays

Language bindings

C – makes binding easier; C++, Python, Ada, Mono, Perl, Java, Eiffel, Guile, Scheme, Pascal ...

Friendly community: irc.gimp.org #gnome

Accessibility – a tough problem

Gnome: what is it ?

The (stable) foundation of a bigger whole

Infrastructure

system / portability abstraction (glib)

widget / application (gtk+/libgnome*)

Virtual filing system

CORBA ORB & component infrastructure

accessibility (a11y) foundation

Applications: ...

Nautilus:

Panel:

Evolution ...

Epiphany:

Mozilla under the hood:

the real magic bullet:

code-reuse.

And more:

Totem / gstreamer:

(multimedia)

Games

Accessories

Office suite(s)

Communication

Devel. tools

And more ...

New in Gnome 2.6 ...

Fast

Accessible

Beautiful

Specifics

VFS

Nautilus

Evolution

Gnome-Meeting

Performance ...

Always improving ... “faster than a speeding Gnome desktop”

gconf – parsing / scattered file (pwrt. panel)

pango – kerning / caching

GtkTreeView – huge dataset / fixed height

nautilus

mime/type: extension, then sniff

more efficient remote access

spatial – less cluttered / complex UI

The File selector:

Fear the Lart:

new combo:

New toolbar widget, artwork, RTL support

GUI improvements

Improved ergonomics & completion widget

GAIM + Groupwise integration

IM improvements ...

Mono:

W32

OS/X

meta-data

replication

caching, searching etc.

Nautilus/Mono

File sharing / peer2peer

iFolder ...

Accessibility ...

Effort driven by Sun (& Baum / U. Toronto)

Government compliance – Section 508 (US)

Why it is hard:

Immediate:

App

Redraw !

text '1', rect, rect, line

Container

Entry

Label

Title: 'Entry 1'

Text: ''

AT: Assistive Technology

state, associations

types, events

Accessibility: - the Demo

helping to shrink our potential user-base:

(new typing break capplet):

Architectural improvement

Daemon – GPL modules, [centralised caching]

network:// - network places storage, sftp://

Keyring: - secure password storage, single auth.

Improved IPv6 support

Gnome-VFS

File Manager

Daemon

Image viewer

SMB

CORBA

CORBA

Secure

Pretty

Remote hand-holding ... (vino)

Evolution – in development

System addressbook / contacts / calendar

integration with the platform / ABI stability

Re-designed UI / ergonomics

S/MIME & builtin spam filtering

Novell GroupWise connector

C# plugin bindings

http://codeblogs.ximian.com/blogs/evolution/

GAIM (& panel) integration

Lots of bounties to go ...

Beautiful Groupwise integration:

Also, Sun iPlanet

MS Exchange 2k

Gnome-Meeting

Chunky improvements & ongoing excellence:

NAT tunnelling

call hold / transfer / follow

IPv6

h323: &

callto:

support

Improved look: HIG

Wireless / tablet / Gnome

Improved thin client performance

OpenOffice.org pieces

Overview

Components

OpenOffice.org – it rocks.

6+ million lines of Free software

http://ooo.ximian.com/ - call for hackers

OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 – give it another try.

Gnome integration

Now

Printing, VFS, theme colors, icons, fonts, local evolution contacts

Under development

File selection, gtk+ theming, Groupwise / extended evolution mail-merge, improved ergonomics etc.

Freedesktop.org bits ...

D/BUS / HAL

X/Cairo

DBUS / HAL / Gnome ...

D/BUS – a system (and session) busA

Simple IPC, great for

secure event notification

HAL – hardware

abstraction layer:

device events.

Requires Linux 2.6.X

Hot-plug: just works

http://hal.freedesktop.org

Xserver / Cairo ...

http://xserver.freedesktop.org/ - the future of X

Damage extn – what drawable changed where?

Composite extn – off-screen&controlled render

Cairo – PDF 1.4 renderlike

vector graphics library

AA text, alpha etc.

outputs ps, pdf, png,

X11 (XRender)

The future ...

Dashboard (Foo)

Timeline

Deployments

Dashboard ...

A context sensitive association engine – ( prototype )

A timeline ...

A rough guide to the big plan:

2003

2004

2.4

2.6

XD 2

Evo. 1.4

OO.o 2.0

Mono 1.0

2005

2006 ...

OO.o 1.1

2.8

2.10

Mono 1.2

Mono 2.0

Conclusions:

Gnome is

Powerful, simple, supportable

ISV friendly & backwards compatible

The only accessible desktop

Well integrated with other leading projects

Supported by all the significant players

Links:

Hacker blogs: http://planet.gnome.org/

Bounties: http://www.gnome.org/bounties

This talk: http://www.gnome.org/~michael

2003-09-04T16:35:52