Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: I did the deed!

Author:Eric Kidd
Posted:5/12/1999; 4:57:33 AM
Topic:Installing RedHat 6.0
Msg #:6068 (In response to 6067)
Prev/Next:6067 / 6069

Haven't gotten that far yet. I haven't figured out how to get the command line. Still fumbling around with GNOME.

Click on the foot menu. ;-)

You should have a number of different choices under the Utilities menu. The best options are Gnome Terminal, Color XTerm and Regular XTerm.

Gnome 1.0.8 (shipped with RedHat 6.0) isn't quite mature. Some of the online help is missing, and you can still break it if you work hard enough. The Gnome file browser has several severe problems (and it feels clunky); RedHat has decided to rewrite it for a future release. KDE is more mature, and might be more pleasing to the average Windows user. The KDE file manager is certainly better.

This is why Linux is still a server operating system, not a desktop contender. However, Gnome and KDE are only about two years old, and both are improving quickly. Yesterday, for example, various hackers checked in fifty-one sets of improvements to Gnome.

Right now, Gnome and KDE are just handy desktops for experienced server admins and Linux hackers. They need another twelve months or so before they're ready for end users.

We want to have a good desktop story on Linux, but decent user interfaces take time. Most of interesting kernel problems have been solved, and all the interesting stuff is taking place in user land[*] today. Linus has been saying this for years, of course.

What Windows feature do you miss most in Gnome? It's important that new Linux users record their wishlists as they learn Linux; it allows us to improve things.

Cheers, Eric

[*] No kidding. The Linux community refers to the world of servers and desktops as "user space" or (occasionally) "user land".

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:50:03 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.