Re: The rough edges ...

[Gerald Gutierrez <gutier intergate bc ca>]

> There is a difference between expecting applications to install seamlessly 
> and expecting the underlying components to install seamlessly. Asking the
> user to make a one-line change to ~/.Xclients is about the same difficulty as
> having the user edit their C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file under DOS 6.2 to start
> Windows 3.x.

The last time I saw a Windows applications asking someone to change their
C:\autoexec.bat manually was back in early Windows 3.x. I vaguely remember
the Windows 3.1 installation adding "win" automatically to autoexec.bat as
well. Regardless, this so-called OS is about a decade old now. I'd like to
think we've progressed since then.

>>Sorry, I simply cannot agree. GNOME 1.0 is the only thing that, in my 
>>experience, crashes more often than Windows. 
> Thanks for qualifying this
with "in my experience". Please understand that > people do have things
working 95% trouble-free, and that it is hard for them > to see where you
are coming from.

I understand. I develop software too. What I can see is that there has
been an incredible amount of effort put into GNOME. That it is based on
the spare time of most volunteers continues to amaze me and that it became
available in such a short timeframe dilates my pupils even more. Still,
from the purely technical, bird's-eye viewpoint, it is very unstable.

> >Do applications remember wihch directory the user visited last so that if
> >s/he needs to open multiple files it's unnecessary to traverse the
> >directory tree multiple times?
> 
> It depends on the application. I tried ghex and found that it didn't.
> 
> Please file a bug report in the bug tracking system if you consider this
> important.

I'll be sure to do that. Elliot, trust me when I tell you that I'd much
rather be using GNOME than KDE. The current state just doesn't seem
useable to me. I hope to find many of the issues resolved for the next
release.