From: PCMan <pcm...@gm...> - 2009-06-05 14:38:58
|
The current standard/specifications followed by most of the major UNIX desktop enviromnents, such as Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, and ROX, is called freedesktop.org. See http://www.freedesktop.org/ for detail. Freedesktop.org is formed by a group of developers. Developers duscusses on the so called ‘xdg’ mailing list to come up with some specs which will be followed by major desktop environments. The specs developed by Freedesktop.org are not formal standards, but they are widely used in Gnome, KDE, and XFCE. Freedesktop.org standards defines the way window managers work, they way how file types are recognized, how icons are named, the way to define the main application menu, to exchange data between applications and different desktop environments, and more. The process to form those specs, however, is quite inefficient and problematic. All discussions are held on their xdg mailing list. If someone has a proposal, he/she then writes a draft of the spec for it, and then post it to the mailing list. Then, if you’re lucky enough, or you’re a big guy (famous Gnome or KDE developers), you’ll get attentions and some feedbacks. After lenghthy discussions, if there are no obvious objections, the draft will be added to freedesktop.org repository, and was posted on their wiki. This is roughly how the specs are formed. Nevertheless, if there is no one implement your spec, your spec soon became useless. That means, either Gnome or KDE should support your proposal, otherwise no one will use it. How can something be called ’standard’ when nobody is following it? Later, if someone has some good ideas regarding to improving the spec, he/she can post his/her proposal in the mailing list with a patch, and if there is no objection, the patch *might* be applied to the spec. However, once the original author/maintainer of that spec doesn’t like your idea, your proposal will never be accepted. Or even worse, your messages got omitted by the original author/maintainer of existing specs, then there is no way to improve anything in existing specs. This is a real problem in freedesktop.org. Besides, another big issue here is, most of the specs/standards are advocated by Gnome or KDE developers, and they don’t even consider the needs of other desktop environments. The so-called cross-desktop standards are actually well-implemented in Gnome and KDE only. XFCE tried hard to follow all those standards, but never get everything work flawlessly. LXDE tried to follow those specs, too, but found that many of the specs are very complicated and inefficient, which can slow down our desktops and add bloatness. Nowadays they are trying to add more things, and get modern desktops more and more complicated. It’s nearly impossible to keep lightweight if you want to follow ‘all’ the standards developed by Gnome and KDE. So that’s why we only supports the parts we need. Recent changes in freedesktop.org, like PolicyKit and ConsoleKit, are mainly developed and implemented by Gnome-related developers. Then the KDE guys are forced to follow them. They even drop their well-designed and high performance IPC mechanism, DCOP, and adopt dbus, which is mainly advocated by Gnome developers. Some people even suggested that KDE should replace their own VFS with GIO/GVFS developed by Gnome. Some new technologies are developed by Gnome first, and then they wrote freedesktop.org specs for them. Later, those things are copied to KDE and they soon have their KDE equivalence. Unfortunately, all other desktop environments are forced to follow those standards whether they really need it or not, to keep the compatability with those two major desktop environments. Why should we always be forced to follow all those things we don’t like or don’t even need? If we don’t follow them, we lost compatibility with many existing Gnome/GTK+ and KDE programs. In addition, they modify the specs frequently, and always break backward compatibility. So our precious time are wasted on re-implement everything in their new specs and try to fix all broken compatibility left by them. It’s enough! Sometimes things developed by the two major DEs are quite awesome and useful. However sometimes those specs just don’t suitable for other DEs and they didn’t consider the needs of users of DEs other than Gnome and KDE. So, every enthusiastic developers/users of lightweight desktop environments, please join their xdg mailinst list and join their discussions and let them listen to your voice. If you don’t want to be forced to use things developed by Gnome and KDE, please let them hear your voice in the mailing list. Since they are now moving gnome libs into GTK+, like it or not, all gtk+ applications will be affected. Desktop environments other than Gnome and KDE might have some special needs and goals and those Gnome standards might not suitable for us sometimes. So we need to let them hear our voice and we should be part of the decision making. So, please, join the xdg mailing list and get involved if you can. Subscribe to xdg mailing list at http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg . |
From: Manu <ho...@gm...> - 2009-06-05 19:37:10
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IMHO, gio/gvfs/gconf look very interesting since it already implement freedesktop.org specs, for example, a trash can : # apt-get install gvfs-bin # touch test-file # gvfs-trash test-file This moves "test-file" into a trash can located in "$HOME/.local/share/Trash" The project Ridley looks also very interesting. http://live.gnome.org/ProjectRidley That might be more interesting to contribute to GTK+/gio/gvfs/gconf instead of re-inventing a square wheel and have to maintain it in the future. Manu. PCMan wrote: > The current standard/specifications followed by most of the major UNIX > desktop enviromnents, such as Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, and ROX, is > called freedesktop.org. See http://www.freedesktop.org/ for detail. > > Freedesktop.org is formed by a group of developers. Developers > duscusses on the so called ‘xdg’ mailing list to come up with some > specs which will be followed by major desktop environments. The specs > developed by Freedesktop.org are not formal standards, but they are > widely used in Gnome, KDE, and XFCE. > > Freedesktop.org standards defines the way window managers work, they > way how file types are recognized, how icons are named, the way to > define the main application menu, to exchange data between > applications and different desktop environments, and more. > > The process to form those specs, however, is quite inefficient and > problematic. All discussions are held on their xdg mailing list. If > someone has a proposal, he/she then writes a draft of the spec for it, > and then post it to the mailing list. Then, if you’re lucky enough, or > you’re a big guy (famous Gnome or KDE developers), you’ll get > attentions and some feedbacks. After lenghthy discussions, if there > are no obvious objections, the draft will be added to freedesktop.org > repository, and was posted on their wiki. This is roughly how the > specs are formed. Nevertheless, if there is no one implement your > spec, your spec soon became useless. That means, either Gnome or KDE > should support your proposal, otherwise no one will use it. How can > something be called ’standard’ when nobody is following it? > > Later, if someone has some good ideas regarding to improving the spec, > he/she can post his/her proposal in the mailing list with a patch, and > if there is no objection, the patch *might* be applied to the spec. > However, once the original author/maintainer of that spec doesn’t like > your idea, your proposal will never be accepted. Or even worse, your > messages got omitted by the original author/maintainer of existing > specs, then there is no way to improve anything in existing specs. > This is a real problem in freedesktop.org. > > Besides, another big issue here is, most of the specs/standards are > advocated by Gnome or KDE developers, and they don’t even consider the > needs of other desktop environments. The so-called cross-desktop > standards are actually well-implemented in Gnome and KDE only. XFCE > tried hard to follow all those standards, but never get everything > work flawlessly. LXDE tried to follow those specs, too, but found that > many of the specs are very complicated and inefficient, which can slow > down our desktops and add bloatness. Nowadays they are trying to add > more things, and get modern desktops more and more complicated. It’s > nearly impossible to keep lightweight if you want to follow ‘all’ the > standards developed by Gnome and KDE. So that’s why we only supports > the parts we need. > > Recent changes in freedesktop.org, like PolicyKit and ConsoleKit, are > mainly developed and implemented by Gnome-related developers. Then the > KDE guys are forced to follow them. They even drop their well-designed > and high performance IPC mechanism, DCOP, and adopt dbus, which is > mainly advocated by Gnome developers. Some people even suggested that > KDE should replace their own VFS with GIO/GVFS developed by Gnome. > Some new technologies are developed by Gnome first, and then they > wrote freedesktop.org specs for them. Later, those things are copied > to KDE and they soon have their KDE equivalence. Unfortunately, all > other desktop environments are forced to follow those standards > whether they really need it or not, to keep the compatability with > those two major desktop environments. > > Why should we always be forced to follow all those things we don’t > like or don’t even need? If we don’t follow them, we lost > compatibility with many existing Gnome/GTK+ and KDE programs. In > addition, they modify the specs frequently, and always break backward > compatibility. So our precious time are wasted on re-implement > everything in their new specs and try to fix all broken compatibility > left by them. It’s enough! > > Sometimes things developed by the two major DEs are quite awesome and > useful. However sometimes those specs just don’t suitable for other > DEs and they didn’t consider the needs of users of DEs other than > Gnome and KDE. > > So, every enthusiastic developers/users of lightweight desktop > environments, please join their xdg mailinst list and join their > discussions and let them listen to your voice. If you don’t want to be > forced to use things developed by Gnome and KDE, please let them hear > your voice in the mailing list. Since they are now moving gnome libs > into GTK+, like it or not, all gtk+ applications will be affected. > Desktop environments other than Gnome and KDE might have some special > needs and goals and those Gnome standards might not suitable for us > sometimes. So we need to let them hear our voice and we should be part > of the decision making. > > So, please, join the xdg mailing list and get involved if you can. > > Subscribe to xdg mailing list at > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg . > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > OpenSolaris 2009.06 is a cutting edge operating system for enterprises > looking to deploy the next generation of Solaris that includes the latest > innovations from Sun and the OpenSource community. Download a copy and > enjoy capabilities such as Networking, Storage and Virtualization. > Go to: http://p.sf.net/sfu/opensolaris-get > _______________________________________________ > Lxde-list mailing list > Lxd...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lxde-list > > |
From: PCMan <pcm...@gm...> - 2009-06-07 03:39:04
|
Because xkb plugin is broken, and it never works. Some code is taken from xfce4 xkb panel plugin, but it's not finished. We live in Taiwan, and we don't need to switch keyboard layouts since we uses input method. So, we have no idea how xkb works. Help is definitely needed. The netstat plugins cause various bugs and crashes on some systems. Besides, its companion component lxnm failed to work correctly. So they are removed temporarily. Fred is now working on a new version. On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 6:10 AM, YUP<yup...@gm...> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm just want to ask you why xkb plugin is not compiled by default with > all lxpanel plugins from svn tree? Every time I have to add xkb string > option to configure to compile it properly. > Here is a discussion on archlinux AUR packages page: > http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=16443 > As they suggested, the mistake (or not?) is in configure.ac, where > string plugin_xkb= should be replacsed with plugin_xkb=xkb. > > Second, it is known bug, that netstatus plugin doesn't work good with > wireless interfaces and can cause lxpanel crash. It seems to me that > netstat plugin should be included by default and netstatus plugin as an > option. > > Regards, > > Yarema > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > OpenSolaris 2009.06 is a cutting edge operating system for enterprises > looking to deploy the next generation of Solaris that includes the latest > innovations from Sun and the OpenSource community. Download a copy and > enjoy capabilities such as Networking, Storage and Virtualization. > Go to: http://p.sf.net/sfu/opensolaris-get > _______________________________________________ > Lxde-list mailing list > Lxd...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lxde-list > |
From: YUP <yup...@gm...> - 2009-06-07 13:19:59
|
Thanks for the answer. BTW, xkb plugin works fine my on my system (Ubuntu and Archlinux). Regards, Yarema PCMan написав(ла): > Because xkb plugin is broken, and it never works. > Some code is taken from xfce4 xkb panel plugin, but it's not finished. > We live in Taiwan, and we don't need to switch keyboard layouts since > we uses input method. > So, we have no idea how xkb works. > Help is definitely needed. > > The netstat plugins cause various bugs and crashes on some systems. > Besides, its companion component lxnm failed to work correctly. > So they are removed temporarily. Fred is now working on a new version. > |
From: YUP <yup...@gm...> - 2009-06-06 22:13:34
|
Hi, I'm just want to ask you why xkb plugin is not compiled by default with all lxpanel plugins from svn tree? Every time I have to add xkb string option to configure to compile it properly. Here is a discussion on archlinux AUR packages page: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=16443 As they suggested, the mistake (or not?) is in configure.ac, where string plugin_xkb= should be replacsed with plugin_xkb=xkb. Second, it is known bug, that netstatus plugin doesn't work good with wireless interfaces and can cause lxpanel crash. It seems to me that netstat plugin should be included by default and netstatus plugin as an option. Regards, Yarema |
From: Rune <u-l...@ae...> - 2009-06-07 12:09:49
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Hi PCMan, On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 10:38:02PM +0800, PCMan wrote: > Desktop environments other than Gnome and KDE might have some special > needs and goals and those Gnome standards might not suitable for us > sometimes. So we need to let them hear our voice and we should be part > of the decision making. > > So, please, join the xdg mailing list and get involved if you can. Sorry I can't engage in more projects than I already do... Anyway, I think you are right, the problem is imminent and important. Unfortunately the standards seem to be indirectly influenced by Windows which is by design a monolithic, big and complex system :-/ Windows as a widely used DE certainly affects the way of thinking of the developers of Linux DE environments. They are concerned about not "losing against Windows feature-wise" - despite the features possibly having a sense only in the context of a monolithic, complex and proprietary system. Thanks LXDE developers for providing a viable alternative! Regards, Rune |