ozy writes "With all the fuss about searching and Spotlight and WinFS, check out the Database File System a completely different interface for your files, implemented in KDE. There is actually a request for developers to join a project to implement this under GNOME and leave how we use the desktop today behind."

prisonernumber7 writes "X.org is showing a lot of progress! The combination of the XFixes extension, Damage extension, Composite extension and XEvIE (X Event Interception Extension) present in X11R6.8 present user interface designers with a wide range of here-to-fore difficult to achieve possibilities. What does this mean for the enduser? That's window shadows and window shadows within windows as well as true translucency for the OSS community. Good samples of Gnome and KDE desktops with drop shadows, and so on can be found here, here, here, here, here, translucency here, here and here, and its use on handhelds running Linux."

Freshly Exhumed writes "Warly has announced the availability of Mandrake Linux 10.1 RC1 via torrent or FTP for those who enjoy bug reporting. Key ingredients: kernel 2.6.8 with parts of 2.6.9, xorg 6.7.0, KDE 3.2.3, Gnome 2.6, Mozilla 1.7.2, glibc 2.3.3, and gcc 3.4.1, among other goodies found in over 1,800 packages. This announcement follows on the heels of the Mandrake & LaCie project known as GlobeTrotter, a USB hard drive-based Mandrake distribution portable to most of today's PCs."

FlipmodePlaya writes "Linux Today reports the first release candidate for Gnome 2.8 has been released. A look at the new stuff can be found here. Notably, the possible inclusion of Evolution, and some networking goodies. My opinion: the GUI changes look too much like Windows/Internet Explorer for my tastes; I guess it's not just KDE."

An anonymous reader writes "The license changes in the last version of Xfree86 have caused many distributions to reject the project in favor of the forked X.Org X server. As X.Org prepares to release the second version of the X.Org "monolithic" X Server (dubbed version 6.8), Ars Technica investigates the future of the X platform, as cooperation between X.Org and projects like GNOME and KDE begin to take take hold at freedesktop.org. Already host to an impressive array of projects, it appears that freedesktop.org will become the hub in which other Free Desktop projects can collaborate. Daniel Stone, release manager for freedesktop.org, gets into the details on how it's all going to work, in conjunction with freedesktop.org's upcoming platform release."

Moochman writes "The recent Desktop Integration Bounty (funded by Novell) will surely please people who want Evolution to be part of GNOME. But the Ximian Evolution copyright assignment has stirred up concerns in the community about whether contributors will be able to maintain their Free Software mores. Essentially, contributors to Evolution must give Novell copyright over any code they submit; then Novell is allowed to include this code in a proprietary product. Is this a smart business move, or a violation of the GPL?" Since all contributions are only at the request of the contributing coder, and considering that the copyright assignment form says that "Ximian agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, nonexclusive, royaltyfree and noncancelable rights to use the Works," and specifies that Novell/Ximian release the code under a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (such as the GPL), it seems to protect the contributors rather well.

joestar writes "Just announced on Mandrakelinux.com: 'At last something to make your summer hotter, far better than all these linux unaware suntanned chicks and chaps you would like to get along with on the beach. Forget them and go back home, full up your fridge with soya drinks (or your favorite one, but remember that fast assimilated sugar shorten your life expectancy). It is time to test your new air conditionner limits, switching on all the computers sitting arround to test this new Mandrakelinux 10.1 beta! '. Software packages include: Linux 2.6.8 rc2, Glibc 2.3.3, Xorg 6.7.0, KDE 3.2.3 and GNOME 2.6.0."

prostoalex writes "Technology Review has a feature story on Miguel de Icaza, currently Novell VP of Product Technology, but more known as the leader of Gnome and Mono projects. Miguel is the man Don Box would like to see joining Microsoft for his "amazing amount of raw energy". If you read through the Technology review article, you will see that de Icaza was actually turned down by Microsoft at some point."

Leonardo writes "The GNOME foundation should release the new version of this desktop environment on the 15th of September. While we waiting for version 2.8, Foot Notes has a link that explains what's new in this release. Improvements include both core parts (like VFS and Nautilus) and UI modules, like a new applet manager, an improved gconf editor and a new theme. In addition there are some proposed modules like new system tools and a new VNC server. Take a look at Davyd Madeley' site (mirror) if you want to view some sweet screenshots."

uninet writes "Tim Butler and Ed Hurst have discussed GNOME quite a bit. Tim likes the current trend, and Ed doesn't. Read Ed's alternate perspective at OfB.biz."

HandyAndE writes "For everybody out there who has been waiting for Enlightenment 0.17 or been thinking what alternatives are there to Gnome/GTK and KDE/QT this is an important day for you. The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) today have an (albeit pre) release named Asparagus. From the E site: 'We are pleased to announce the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries Preview Release, codenamed "Asparagus"! After years of work, we've come to a place where it is time to start opening these powerful tools to the wider world to use.' " Read more for more information.

An anonymous reader writes "Project GoneME is the first attempt to try moving the GNOME Desktop into a new direction. The intention is to create a community of people, who are willing and interested to help fixing issues brought up by people for a very long time and make the vision of a usable Desktop in the means of good old Unix fashion become true. In case you are interested to help, please join the project. Plenty of people have shown interest and welcome this step and the IRC channel got filled up within a short time." Update: 07/26 02:33 GMT by T : A project mailing list has been set up for anyone interested in taking part in this endeavor.

TuringTest writes ""The user-centric UI webzine" UserInstinct has published a usability overview of the latest version of the GNOME desktop. While their conclusions and recommendations are not mind-blowing, it includes two interesting appendices with a survey of new users (and their reactions to the system) and a list of common tasks of modern computer users with a commentary on how Gnome performs in each one. Note that usually You Only Need to Test With 5 Users (this report tests 4), you need to test additional users when an interface has several highly distinct groups of users and thus the conclusions in this review should not be taken as definitive."

Gudlyf writes "Notice just went out to the Fedora Announce List about the availability of Fedora Core 3 Test 1. Things expected in FC3 include Linux kernel 2.6.7, GCC 3.4, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, and Evolution 2.0. As always, you can get Fedora Core test releases at redhat.com, specifically here and (for a torrent) here."

Joe Barr writes "Linux.com is running a followup article by Ken Barber to his initial review of Fedora 2. This time he explains how to tame the GNOME and Fedora 2 problems he noted the first time around and get them both in working shape.."

PostThis writes that there's been "a lot of talk about Gnome's spatial Nautilus lately and so Christian Paratschek puts everything into perspective weighing in the pros and cons of this particular user interface paradigm. In any case, there are always alternatives."

Ur@eus writes "The GNOME European Users and Developers conference is currently underway in Kristansand, Norway. The whole conference is available live online as an Ogg Theora stream (the videos of the talks are also archived). This is very exciting as it is a proof of concept that it is possible to do high quality streaming using a fully free format today. The stream is done using the Fluendo streaming server software which will be released under the GPL in a few months. You find information on how to view the streams at the GUADEC streaming website."

BRTB writes "Slackware 10.0 is out! X.org 6.7.0, kernel 2.4.26 (2.6.7 optional), KDE 3.2.3, GNOME 2.6.1, GCC 3.3.4... it's all new, and just as stable as you'd expect from Slackware, if RC2 was any indication. There's an official announcement, as well as some ISO BitTorrent links, and a mirror list. Of course, the non-cheapskates among us should go buy the CD-set to support the project. Have fun, everybody..."

An anonymous reader writes "While the 'Linux on the desktop' battle has yet to be won, KDE and Gnome are making great progress. There are too many apps to list on the cutting edge of software development for the X environment. But what about those of us stuck with old machines? Or who just want to work with the console? What console-based apps, that are undergoing just as much development as their X counterparts, do you use? Things like instant messengers and bittorrent clients, for example..."

An anonymous reader writes "Sun's Java System Calendar Server connector (Hydrogen) for Evolution 1.4 on Solaris and Linux was GPL'ed today and is now available in GNOME CVS. This follows the recent GPLization of Novell's Ximian Connector (for Microsoft Exchange servers). In related news, the next major version of Evolution (version 2.0) is supposed to be released sometime during the next month, and beta testing have picked up pace. If you have some spare time, you can also give the Evolution 1.5.9 a spin. You can also use jhbuild to build Evolution from CVS (since the binaries are quite old by now). There is also a new project in GNOME CVS, called Evolution Brainread which adds a blog viewer to Evolution. It is not yet quite ready for production use, but looks quite good."