GNOME 1.0 "Bongo GNOME" Now Available

[jacob gnome org]

	     GNOME 1.2 "Bongo GNOME" has been Unleashed!
			 Head for the Hills!


KING OF THE BONGO

    The GNOME team is proud to announce the availability of GNOME 1.2,
    affectionately known as "Bongo GNOME."  GNOME 1.2 is the latest
    stable release of the GNU desktop.
    
    This new release represents a dramatic step forward in the
    usability, attractiveness, and stability of the GNOME desktop.
    Since the release of October GNOME, the pace of development of new
    features and bugfixes in the GNOME project has more than doubled,
    and it would be impossible to name them all here.
    

GNOME 1.2 FOR USERS
 
    End users will be able to impress their grandparents and younger
    siblings with the following large-scale changes to the GNOME
    desktop:

	* Ease of use.  In response to feedback from our users, we
	  formed the GNOME UI team, focused solely on improving the
	  user experience.  The result is a lean, intuitive, and
	  attractive desktop which just plain feels good.

	* Help.  Thanks to the relentless effort of the GNOME
	  documentation team, on-line documentation and user's manuals
	  are ubiquitous in GNOME 1.2.

	* Polish.  We corrected countless problems and bugs which
	  users had reported in the previous version, and GNOME is
	  more stable and smoother as a result.

	* Polyglot.  Updated localization and documentation from
	  our international team of translators and writers.


GNOME 1.2 FOR HACKERS

    GNOME hackers and developers of GNOME applications now have a much
    more powerful development platform available to them:

	* Stability.  The same APIs you used in GNOME 1.0 are
	  still available to you in GNOME 1.2.  We have worked hard to
	  preserve source- and binary-compatibility everywhere.

	* Simplicity.  The Glade UI design tool has much improved
	  support for GNOME, and is now an official part of the GNOME
	  project.  Thanks to Glade, even the most inept programmers
	  can construct beautiful user interfaces.  And
	  non-programmers can contribute to the development process by
	  designing interfaces which can be dropped wholesale into an
	  existing project.

	* Power.  The robustness and utility of the GNOME libraries
	  and development tools has been improved across the board.

	* Documentation.  The majority of the GNOME APIs are now fully
	  documented.

	* Support.  The developer.gnome.org web site contains a
	  wide variety of resources for those individuals and
	  companies that use the GNOME development platform.
	  

NEW WEB PAGE

    The introduction of GNOME 1.2 is accompanied by a new web site
    design.  Check it out at http://www.gnome.org/

    Updates and news the GNOME community are available daily from
    http://gnotices.gnome.org/gnome-news/


SOURCE CODE AVAILABILITY

    The GNOME 1.2 source code is available from the GNOME FTP site at:

	ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/releases/gnome-1.2/

    Our web site contains full details for installing GNOME from
    source:

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


READY-TO-INSTALL GNOME 1.2

    Helix Code provides easy-to-install packages for GNOME 1.2.
    Installation instructions can be found here:

	    http://www.helixcode.com/desktop/download.php3

    An extensive set of platforms are supported:

    	Linux/Intel:
    	    Debian GNU/Linux (Woody, Potato) 
    	    TurboLinux 6.0 
    	    Red Hat Linux 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2 
    	    Linux Mandrake 6.1, 7.0 
    	    Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4
    	    SuSE 6.3 (6.4 coming soon)
    
    	Linux/PPC
    	    LinuxPPC 2000 
    	    Yellow Dog Linux Champion Server 1.2 
    
    	SPARC:
    	    Solaris 2.7 on UltraSparc 

    Helix Code's web site uses Akamai to ensure that downloads are
    speedy from every corner of the planet.
    

SCREENSHOTS

    If you want to see just how beautiful a desktop can be before
    downloading GNOME 1.2, check out our 

	http://www.helixcode.com/desktop/screenshots.php3


THE GNOME STEERING COMMITTEE

    At the first GNOME Users and Developers European Conference held
    in Paris, the GNOME steering committee was created to oversee the
    development of the GNOME 2.0 platform.  The committee will also
    help establish the GNOME Foundation which will be a non-profit
    organization that will insure GNOME's future as the world's
    leading free desktop.


Thanks to all of the people that made Bongo GNOME possible:

    The GNOME team would like to thank our GNOME 1.2 release
    coordinator Jacob "The Bod" Berkman who devoted endless hours to
    making sure the GNOME 1.2 user experience was superb.  (Miguel)

    Our documentation team pulled one of the most impressive efforts
    in the story of free software documentation.  Special thanks to
    Dave Mason for motivating contributors and coordinating this
    effort.

    The users who reported bugs, suggested improvements and provided
    constructive criticism.

    Our translation team that worked constantly to keep our
    applications fully internationalized and localized.  Special
    thanks go to Kjartan Maraas, the team coordinator.

    The hackers and families of the hackers that made this software
    possible.

    All of the companies that have supported GNOME over the years.

    Special thanks go to Mathieu Lacage and all of the companies,
    organizations and individuals that made the first GNOME Users and
    Developers European Conference (http://www.guadec.enst.fr/)
    possible: ACT/Europe, AFUL, Alcove, Eazel, Helix Code, Linux
    Magazine/France, Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, Telecom Paris and Mike
    Shaver.

    The GNOME User Interface Improvement team for devoting countless
    hours evaluating, commenting, redesigning, polishing, improving
    and rethinking our user interfaces.  Thanks to James Cape for
    heading up this team.

    Thanks to the free software community.

Enjoy,
Jacob                   jacob@gnome.org
The GNOME Team          http://www.gnome.org/