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GNOME 2.7.4 Development Release

Submitted by stro on Sat, 2004-07-24 09:23. Gnome 2.x

Here's the latest set of tarballs for the GNOME 2.7 development branch. We
have now entered our API/ABI, Feature and Module freezes, with our modules
decision to be finalised next week. The biggest change in this release is
the new MIME system, masterfully wrangled by Jonathan Blandford, Dave Camp
and Ray Strode. Please read the extra notes regarding this change below...
platform: http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/platform/2.7/2.7.4/NEWS
tar.gz: 44M total
tar.bz2: 31M total

desktop: http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/desktop/2.7/2.7.4/NEWS
tar.gz: 142M total
tar.bz2: 102M total

bindings: http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/bindings/2.7/2.7.4/NEWS
tar.gz: 13M total
tar.bz2: 8.1M total

Notes about the new MIME system
-------------------------------

With GNOME 2.7.4, we have rewritten the old MIME system and replaced it with
the current shared specification found on freedesktop.org. We expect things
to be somewhat buggy with the initial release, but are working quickly to
improve matters. There are a couple comments to go along with this release:

* In order the to see any applications available, they must be registered
with the MIME system. This can be done by getting the latest verion of
desktop-file-utils and running:

update-desktop-database $PREFIX/applications

jhbuild in CVS has been modified to build this, and we expect
applications to do this on install automatically in the future.
Additionally, not every application used the new system as released.
This will also be fixed over the next week.

* The new user interface is modeled after the proposal at:

http://www.gnome.org/~jrb/files/mime/

Work on it isn't complete yet, but it's progressing well. Also, the old
File Types capplet has been removed in favor of a nautilus-only
interface.

* Monitoring of MIME changes doesn't fully work yet. Changes won't be
noticed until you hit reload in nautilus.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
--------------------------

This release is a snapshot of development code. Although it is buildable and
usable, it is primarily intended for testing and hacking purposes. Like the
Linux kernel, GNOME uses odd minor version numbers to indicate development
status. Please check the 2.7 start page for more information:

http://www.gnome.org/start/2.7/

Happy testing!

- The GNOME Release Team

How many are actually using these development releases?

Submitted by misGnomer on Sun, 2004-07-25 04:25.

You know the saying about having enough eyeballs making all bugs shallow? Well, since nobody (?) is packaging these snapshot releases for the popular distros and the Gnome.org hierarchy isn't releasing these as liveCDs, the number of actual users must be pretty low.

When only the geekiest of Gnomers get to play with these development releases and to provide feedback, it is understandable if a small elite group of hardcore developers ends up running the show and deciding about Gnome's direction.

It would be enlightening to have a poll on some popular desktop-environment-neutral Linux site asking people if they use Gnome and if so, what version. But I don't see the Gnome developers thinking, let alone worrying about adoption rates. They're just building it, and the users will come (if they're patient or geeky enough).

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