GNOME 2.22: A Truly Amazing Desktop!

[Cyrus_the_virus]

Enlarge picture

Every six months, the GNOME team prepares a new and revolutionary release of the ever popular GNOME desktop environment. Today, we are proud to introduce you to the latest and greatest features of an 100% FREE and open source desktop. Whether you are on a Solaris machine or the latest Ubuntu distribution, GNOME is there and with every new release it makes your life... Simply Beautiful!

Let's have a look at the new features of GNOME 2.22:

The Cheese program - a brand new application designed to "take care" of your webcam. It allows you to make photos and record videos using your little... webcam! Say... cheese!

image courtesy of the GNOME Project

Window Compositing - a brand new technology introduced in GNOME 2.22, which will offer drop shadows on windows, live previews when hitting the Alt+Tab key combination and some very nice transparency effect. All this, without Compiz!

DVD or DVB? - why not both?! Because, starting with the 2.22 edition of the GNOME desktop, you will have improved support for DVD playback and digital television (DVB). Moreover, support for the popular MythTV and the Youtube service are also present.

GVFS - this new network-transparent virtual filesystem layer for GTK+ is here to make your desktop sessions much pleasant. How? Why? Well, for example: do you remember that simple file transfer/copy/move window that appears (yes! the one with the progress bar and remaining time)... well, because of GVFS, it's now able to show you more than a progress bar! It can also remember the login credentials and be more resilient to failures! But wait, that's not all, as with this technology, all GNOME users will have access to new protocols, such as: cdda:// (used to show the audio tracks of an inserted Audio-CD), gphoto2:// (used to access a connected digital camera's photos).

International Clock - a new function "injected" into the clock applet, which can display multiple timezones from around the world!

image courtesy of the GNOME Project

More Evolution Improvements - with the amazing Google Calendar support and custom message labels (tagging) for your emails, better spam filtering and making error dialogs less intrusive on your desktop session by using the status bar rather than popups!

image courtesy of the GNOME Project

Remote Desktop - yet another new application that can be found in the 2.22 edition of the GNOME desktop. It complements the existing remote desktop server support and has the ability to discover computers on your LAN (local area network) and bookmark them!

image courtesy of the GNOME Project

Simplified Keyboard Settings - with the redesigned "Keyboard Preferences" window, which now combines the old "Keyboard Layout" and "Keyboard Accessibility Preferences" dialogs. All the keyboard settings in one place... yeah baby!

image courtesy of the GNOME Project

Other noticeable features that can be found in GNOME 2.22 are:

• screenreading and magnification improvements;
• new mouse accessibility;
• PolicyKit integration;
• better system tools;
• directly open Evolution contacts in Deskbar;
• improved printing in Text Editor;
• network multiplayer in Chess;
• download notifications in Epiphany;
• LZMA (7-zip) support in Archive Manager;
• inhibit automatic suspend and hibernation while burning CDs;
• Document Viewer is now faster and uses less memory;
• Document Viewer can also now support page transitions in PDF slideshows;
• Tomboy can now organize your notes into notebooks;
• Sound Juicer now supports more metadata, including disc number and year;
• extensive improvements to Calculator's precision and usability;
• Keyring Manager has been completely replaced by Seahorse.

... and much, much more. But you will have to see it for yourself to believe it! Download the latest sources of the GNOME desktop environment right now from Softpedia (available soon) or wait for updated packages for your distribution.

In the end, as a bonus, here's a sneak peak at the upcoming features of GNOME 2.24:

• a new version of GNOME's Ekiga VoIP client featuring a revamped user interface and SIP presence support;
• the Empathy instant messaging client utilizing the Telepathy communications framework;
• the often requested column and list views in GNOME's File Manager;
• the completion of the port from GNOME-VFS to GVFS;
• bug fixes, performance improvements, and memory improvements throughout the desktop.

Source: Softpedia

[Faun]

I luv gnome, just the beauty in simplicity gets me

[MetalheadGautham]

yuck, what an ugly theme... can't gnome developers port the Crystal theme to their Desktop ?

[Cyrus_the_virus]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

yuck, what an ugly theme... can't gnome developers port the Crystal theme to their Desktop ?

Dude, why are you always so worried about the theme? you can always change it! it's the basic desktop functionality that you should be worried about! There are about or more than a 100 improvements and you're concerned only about the theme?

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by Cyrus_the_virus

Dude, why are you always so worried about the theme? you can always change it! it's the basic desktop functionality that you should be worried about! There are about or more than a 100 improvements and you're concerned only about the theme?

the first look matters the most.
why do you think we need to wear neat and pressed suits while going for interviews ?
why do you think Set Wet sells a lot in the market ?

[Cyrus_the_virus]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

the first look matters the most.
why do you think we need to wear neat and pressed suits while going for interviews ?
why do you think Set Wet sells a lot in the market ?

Dude, comeon, I get your point, but just saying 'yuck' stupid theme is not an appreciative answer if you read about all the changes.

BTW, this is not setwet or a pressed suit Both of them have nothing more than their external appearence, but an OS is not just appreciated on it's appearence..

[Faun]

Frankly, i like this theme, its clear looks, nothing seems bloated or exaggerated

[ray|raven]

^ Besides, every distro is gonna use its own theme.
But yeah , a unified single theme would make linux more identifiable IMO.
Hope the Tango project comes up with standards for gtk themes too.

And as for Gnome, apart from Cheese, I really dont see anything spectacular.
Btw , anyone know if its more bloated or less than 2.20?

[praka123]

^performance!that's what is getting improved on Gnome on every releases!not to mention inclusion of gvfs
clearly,the clearlooks theme is simple and clean.it is fine IMHO

Gnu cheese is something similar to mac os x's photobooth IIRC.

looks like kde(4) is going for eyecandy ,while Gnome goes for stable software nice!

Anjuta IDE is now part of Gnome!it is Indian nabakumar's work
GNOME FTW 8)

[CadCrazy]

There should have been some visual improvement. Anyway lets see how it performs. Any idea when it'll be available in ubuntu repo ?

[kalpik]

^^ Hardy already has it It wont come ever on Gutsy repos..

[CadCrazy]

Why ?

[kalpik]

Cause they don't do major upgrades on stable distros.. Just like Kernel 2.6.24 wont ever come on Gutsy

[CadCrazy]

Then i have to compile it. Hell for a lazy boy

[ray|raven]

^Maybe some one is/will be offering third party repo.
Try the ubuntuforums.

[aku]

Is ver. 2.22 gonna be there in ubuntu 8.04 installation source?

yaay... finally i'm just aku

[gary4gar]

Originally Posted by CadCrazy

Then i have to compile it. Hell for a lazy boy

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=646755

btw i don't see i need to upgrade the kernel, Better is Upgrade to hardy iteslf

[CadCrazy]

Yaar as of now Hardy is in alpha stage.

[kalpik]

Its pretty much stable.. You just need to keep an eye on the updates

[Hitboxx]

Cool, hope Fedora 9 will ship with it in April. And I wished improvements for Nautilus was here already instead of waiting for another six months, but, oh well..

[aditya.shevade]

Great Gnome.... Efficiency with Simplicity

[ax3]

WOW .... superb ....

[praka123]

fedora's Gnome is nice,quick.there is no lag when we open applications menu etc.(in slow systems!).the same is not with ubuntu

[FilledVoid]

I love the features . Especially this one

network multiplayer in Chess

And the Malayalam Translation now available . I'm also praying for easy Mobile Synchronization to any of the programs on Ubuntu

[praka123]

well,I am on Gnome-2.22 on my Debian Sid 8) So fast!

[techy_geek]

cool 8)

[kalpik]

Originally Posted by praka123

well,I am on Gnome-2.22 on my Debian Sid 8) So fast!

Ubuntu's build date is 10th March

[naveen_reloaded]

cooolll...

[praka123]

@kalpik:I like Debian Gnome,it is not much altered,my ubuntu Gnome takes much time to load apps compared to Debian Sid Gnome

and,believe it or not,the best Gnome bundled is by Foresight Linux!
http://foresightlinux.com

[sujoyp]

Wow its Beautiful....Loved it.