Re: Most Recent version and etc

[Garrett Mickelson <garrett penguincomputing com>]

Leonard,
First off, are you running Ximian GNOME (formerly know as Helix GNOME)?
If you have installed a version (distribution) of Linux and have not
downloaded Ximian GNOME then you are not running the latest. Most
distributions have a "branded" version of GNOME, and they are not as
quick to update them. If you have installed Ximian GNOME, then the best
thing to do is a little known trick called "Recreate Default Icons". Do
this by right clicking on the desktop and selecting Recreate Default
Icons. One of the icons is labeled  Helix GNOME Update, or possible now
Ximian GNOME Update. The icon is that of a cola can, purple in color
with the Ximian spidermonkey symbol. This program keeps you up to date
on the latest packages, though there have not been any new updates
recently. The gang at Ximian is working overtime to get out a new
packaging scheme. They will release new packages once they work that
out. If you have already done all this, then you are running the latest
GNOME. 
As for your question regarding the benefits of GNOME vs. KDE, I'm not
really qualified the answer this on a technical level, but I will say
this. As an end user, I find GNOME more customize-able, flexible, and
powerful. KDE looks good enough, but functionality just ain't there for
me. It is designed to run under it's own Window Manager, as opposed to
GNOME which works well with several WMs. With GNOME you get a variety of
Panel Applets available, unlike KDE. You can have multiple panels at any
location along the border of your desktop and you can even have floating
panels. KDE tries to stay alot closer to the MS Windows desktop
structure. I assume this is to make migrating a lot easier for Windows
users, but I think in the end Ximian GNOME will be the desktop of
choice. Also, Ximian GNOME has the update program, something KDE has yet
to do. Anyhow, I defer all other, more technical differences to the
Ximian team.

Garrett Mickelson 

On 23 Jan 2001 21:37:35 +0000, Leonard Smith wrote:
> Greetings!
> 
> I am a new user of Gnome and I want to know how to determine whether I
> have the most up-to-date version. How can I go about this?
> 
> Also, I have been using KDE, and I want to determine which is the better
> environment. I realize that this may not be a politically correct
> question, but I do want to know the benefits of Gnome's approach as
> opposed to KDE's. From what I have been reading Gnome seems to have a
> larger corporate backing.
> 
> Thanks for the help and the info.
> 
> Leonard Smith
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-list mailing list
> gnome-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-list



-- 

Garrett Mickelson, Linux Systems Engineer
Telephone: 415.358.2600   http://www.penguincomputing.com

Penguin Computing - The World's Most Reliable Linux Systems