GNOME ( ) is a desktop environment made up of free and open source software running on Linux and most BSD derivatives.
GNOME originally stands for GNU Network Object Model Environment , but the acronym is dropped because it no longer reflects the vision of the GNOME project.
GNOME was developed by the GNOME Project, part of the GNU Project. The GNOME project consists of volunteers and paid contributors, the largest contributor to the company is Red Hat. It is an international project aimed at developing software frameworks for software development, to program end-user applications based on this framework, and to coordinate efforts to internationalize and localize and accessibility of such software.
GNOME is the default desktop environment of many major Linux distributions including Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise (exclusive), Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Oracle Linux, SteamOS, Tail, and Linux Times; it also defaults on Solaris Unix.
Video GNOME
Design
Human Interface Guidelines
Since GNOME 2, productivity has become a key focus for GNOME. For this purpose, the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) are created. All GNOME programs share a coherent style graphical user interface (GUI) but are not limited to the use of the same GUI widgets. Instead, the GNOME GUI design is guided by the concept described in HIG GNOME, which relies on insights from cognitive ergonomics. Following HIG, developers can create high-quality, consistent, and usable GUI programs, all of which are designated from the GUI design to the recommended pixel-based widget layout.
During GNOME 2 rewrites, many of the settings considered to be of little value to most users have been removed. Havoc Pennington summarizes the usability work in his essay "Free Software UI" 2002, emphasizing the idea that all preferences have a cost, and better to make the software behave correctly by default rather than adding UI preferences to get the desired behavior:
Traditional free software applications can be configured so as to have the unification of all the features anyone has seen in any equivalent app on other historical platforms. Or it can even be configured to be the unification of all the apps anyone has seen on any historical platform (Emacs * cough *).
Does this hurt anything? Yes, right. It turns out preference has a cost. Of course, some preferences also have important benefits - and can be important interface features. But each has a price, and you have to carefully consider its value. Many users and developers do not understand this, and end up with a lot of costs and small value for their dollar preferences.
Accessibility
GNOME aims to create and maintain a desktop environment physically and cognitively ergonomically for people with disabilities. The GNOME HIG tries to consider this as far as possible but the specific problem is solved by special software.
GNOME addresses the issue of computer accessibility by using the Accessibility application (ATK) application interface, which enables enhanced user experience using custom input methods and speech synthesis and voice recognition software. Certain utilities are registered with ATK using the Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface (AT-SPI), and become used globally across desktops. Some technology auxiliaries, including Orca screen readers and Dasher input methods, are developed specifically for use with GNOME.
Internationalization and Localization
Internationalization and Localization of GNOME software depends on the locals.
GNOME Shell
GNOME Shell is the official user interface of the GNOME desktop environment. It features a top bar holding (from left to right) Activity button, application menu, clock and integrated system status menu. The app menu displays the application name in focus and provides access to various functions such as accessing app preferences, closing applications, or creating new app windows. The status menu contains various system status indicators, shortcuts to system settings, and session actions including exiting, user switching, locking the screen, and suspending the computer.
Clicking the Activity button, moving the mouse to the top left corner or pressing the Super button will display Overview. Overview gives users an overview of their current activities and provides a way to switch between windows and workspaces and to launch apps. The dashboard to the left saves shortcuts to your favorite apps and opens the app's selector window and buttons to display a list of all installed apps. The search bar appears at the top and the workspace list for switching between workspaces is on the right. Notifications appear from the bottom of the screen.
Starting with GNOME 3.8, GNOME provides Classic Mode for those who prefer a traditional desktop experience (similar to GNOME 2).
Compatibility
GNOME runs on Wayland and X Window Systems. Wayland's support is introduced in GNOME 3.10 and is considered "for most users [...] everyday experience that can be used" by 3.20 and prioritize them during the X session. GNOME 3.24 will extend Wayland compatibility to NVidia drivers.
The GNOME version is available in most Linux distributions either as the default desktop environment or as an option that can be installed as well as in the port collection of most BSD.
In May 2011, Lennart Poettering proposed systemd as GNOME dependency. Because sistemd is only available on Linux, the proposal leads to a discussion of the possibility of dropping support for other platforms in future GNOME releases. Since GNOME 3.2 multiseat support is only available on systems that use systemd. In November 2012 the GNOME release team concluded that the system was reliable for non-basic functions.
Maps GNOME
Apps
Core Apps
There are a large number of GTK and Clutter-based programs written by various authors. Since the release of GNOME 3.0, the GNOME Project has concentrated on developing a series of programs that contribute to GNOME Core Applications. The GNOME Core Applications Similarity is the adherence to the current HUD GNOME guidelines as well as tight integration with the underlying GNOME layers such as GVfs and also with each other eg. GOA settings (gnome-online-accounts accounts) and GNOME Files with Google Drive and GNOME Photos with Google Photos. Some programs simply rename an existing program with a revamped user interface, while others have been written from scratch.
Games
GNOME Games has the look and feel of the GNOME Core Application and is released in conjunction with GNOME. All has been rewritten in accordance with the current GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.
Development tools
Programmers have written software to provide development tools consistent with the GNOME desktop and to facilitate the development of GNOME software:
GNOME Builder is a new integrated development environment, Anjuta is the older one. Glade Interface Designer software builds a graphical interface using graphical control elements in GTK. Devhelp is a browser API, Accerciser Browser accessibility.
There are several debugging tools, including Nemiver, GtkInspector, and Alleyoop, also have been provided to facilitate the development of GNOME software.
Integration options for third-party development tools (eg NoFlo) also exist.
The libsoup library allows HTTP server access from Gnome applications.
BuildStream is a flexible and expandable framework for modeling builds and CI pipelines in YAML declarative format, written in Python. The mascot is Beaver, because the beaver builds something in the river.
Development
GNOME is developed by the GNOME Project and provides the GNOME Desktop Environment, a graphical user interface and a set of core applications, and the GNOME Development Platform, a framework for building desktop-integrated applications.
Like most free software projects, GNOME development is loosely managed. Discussions mainly occur on a number of common mailing lists. GNOME developers and users gather at the GUADEC annual meeting to discuss current state and future GNOME directions. GNOME combines standards and programs from freedesktop.org to work better with other desktops.
GNOME is mainly written in C, C, Vala, Python and JavaScript. A number of language bindings are available.
Release cycle
Each component software product in the GNOME project has its own version number and release schedule. However, each module manager coordinates their efforts to create a full GNOME stable release on approximately six months of schedule, in addition to the underlying libraries such as GTK and GLib. Some experimental projects are excluded from this release.
The GNOME version number follows the v.xx.yy schema. Here, v is the main version, which can include major changes such as ABI damage; this does not have a regular schedule and occurs in response to requirements for large-scale changes. xx is a minor version, released in the above schedule about every 6 months, where the parity of 1 or 2 digits indicates the release type: if xx Even (eg 3.20) releases are considered stable, whereas if xx it is a strange snapshot of the current development (eg 3.21) which will eventually evolve into the next stable release. yy indicates the release of a dot, e.g. 3.20.6; this is done at week frequency to fix the problem, adding uninterrupted improvements, etc.
The GNOME release is made to the primary FTP server in source code with the configuration script, compiled by the operating system vendor and integrated with other systems before it is distributed. Most vendors only use a stable and tested version of GNOME, and provide it in the form of packages that are easy to install and compile. The source code of every stable GNOME version and development is stored in the GNOME git source code repository. Interested users can always get snapshots of other _master_ or branch/tag branches and build up the latest versions for their own use.
A number of build-scripts (such as JHBuild or earlier GARNOME) are available to help automate the source code compilation process.
Development platform
The data structure and GLib utility library, object system and GObject type and GTK widget toolkit consist of the central part of the GNOME development platform. The Foundation is expanded with the IPC D-Bus framework, Cairo 2D vector-based image library, the Clutter accelerated graphics library, the Pango international text rendering library, the PulseAudio low-end audio API, the GStreamer multimedia framework, and several specialized libraries including NetworkManager, PackageKit, Telepati (message instant) and WebKit.
- GNOME Display Manager (GDM), which manages user sessions, X and Wayland.
- The tracker automatically searches for the directory specified for the file and stores its index to provide quick search; highly integrated into GNOME Shell and GNOME Files
- GVfs, the abstraction layer framework for file systems that add GIO; well integrated into GNOME Files and GNOME Disk
- front-end dconf for GSettings
- Mutter, Wayland composer and X Windows Manager
- Linux color management, udev, etc.
- Evolution Data Server, responsible for managing mail, calendar, address book, tasks and memo information
- Meson replaces GNU Build System (autotools) as the preferred automation tool
- BuildStream an agnostic distribution and integration tool
The GNOME desktop environment not only consists of GTK graphical element control libraries and core applications that make use of them. There are several additional software packages that make up the GNOME desktop environment, as above.
History
GNOME was started on August 15, 1997 by Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena as a free software project to develop desktop environments and applications for it. It was founded in part because the K Desktop Environment, which is increasingly popular, relies on a Qt widget toolkit that uses proprietary software licenses until version 2.0 (June 1999). Instead of Qt, the GTK toolkit is selected as GNOME base. GTK uses the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), a free software license that enables connected software to use a much wider set of licenses, including proprietary software licenses. GNOME itself is licensed under LGPL for its libraries, and the GNU General Public License (GPL) for its applications.
The name "GNOME" was originally an acronym GNU Network Object Model Environment , referring to the original intention of creating a distributed object template similar to Microsoft OLE, but the acronym eventually declined because it was no longer reflected. vision of the GNOME project.
Startup California Eazel developed the Nautilus file manager from 1999 to 2001. De Icaza and Nat Friedman founded the Helix Code (later Ximian) in 1999 in Massachusetts; the company developed GNOME infrastructure and applications, and in 2003 was purchased by Novell.
During the transition to GNOME 2 around 2001 and soon there was a short talk about creating the Office suite GNOME . On September 15, 2003 GNOME-Office 1.0, which consists of AbiWord 2.0, GNOME-DB 1.0 and Gnumeric 1.2.0 was released. Although some release planning for GNOME Office 1.2 is happening on the gnome-office mailing list, and Gnumeric 1.4 was announced as part of it, the 1.2 release of the suite itself never materialized. On May 4, 2014, the GNOME wiki only mentioned "Useful GNOME/Gtk apps in an office environment".
GNOME 2
GNOME 2 is very similar to a conventional desktop interface, featuring a simple desktop where users can interact with virtual objects, such as windows, icons, and files. GNOME 2 uses Metacity as its default window manager. Handling windows, applications, and files in GNOME 2 is similar to a contemporary desktop operating system. In the default GNOME 2 configuration, the desktop has a launcher menu for quick access to the program and location of installed files; the open window can be accessed by the taskbar along the bottom of the screen, and the top right corner shows the notification area for the program to show notifications when running in the background. However, these features can be moved to almost any position or orientation that the user wants, replaced with another function or deleted altogether.
GNOME 3
Previously GNOME used traditional desktop metaphors, but in GNOME 3 it replaced with GNOME Shell, a more abstract metaphor where switching between different tasks and virtual workspaces takes place in a separate area called Overview. Also, since Mutter replaces Metacity as the default window manager, minimize and maximize buttons no longer appear by default, and the title bar, menu bar and toolbar are replaced by title bar through Client Side Decorations. Adwaita replaces Clearlooks as the default theme. Many GNOME Core Applications are also redesigning to provide a more consistent user experience.
These major changes initially led to widespread criticism. The MATE desktop environment is derived from the GNOME 2 code base in order to maintain the traditional GNOME 2 interface while remaining compatible with modern Linux technologies such as GTK 3. The Linux Mint team addresses this issue in other ways by developing a "GNOME Shell Mint Extension" running over GNOME 3 and allow it to be used through traditional desktop metaphors. This ultimately leads to the creation of the Cinnamon user interface, which is extracted from the GNOME 3 code base.
In 2005, on the official GNOME development mailing list, Linus Torvalds encourages users to switch to KDE 3 instead of using GNOME. In 2009, he tried GNOME again but, unsatisfied with the loss of his productivity, he switched to Xfce, making another hard post against GNOME. In 2013, he returned to GNOME 3 stating that "has become less painful" and "everything is better than a year ago".
By 2015, critical reception is far more positive. For example, Debian, a Linux distribution that historically uses GNOME 2, switched to Xfce when GNOME 3 was released but GNOME 3 was read back in time for the release of Debian 8 "Jessie".
In September 2017, the GNOME Project released GNOME 3.26, providing bug fixes as well as new key features.
GNOME Shell is the default interface for Ubuntu since version 17.10, replacing Unity.
Gallery
GNOME 3 has a modern approach in User Interface Design and naming applications:
Release
See also
- The GNOME Foundation
- GNOME Panel
- Comparison of desktop environment X Window System
- Cinnamon desktop environment based on GNOME 3
- MATE desktop environment based on GNOME 2
- Unity is an alternative graphical casing for GNOME 3, not GNOME Shell
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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