clearer
19th September 2007, 04:18 AM
This is going to be a very short review -- I have to get some sleep.
I just got test 2 down and booted it from the live cd (I decided not to use Qemu, although that might have been a good idea).
First things first:The RHGB theme looks awsome! I still don-t think that starting X in order to get this is the best idea, but if you have to use X to do this, it can at least look this good.
The default theme is something I think I might actually stick with for more than a few minutes -- it's blueish as usual. The new thing regarding the theme is that the window border is almost completly gone. This may not appeal to all, but I certainly like it. The minimize/maximize/close buttons stick out more. Their colours are lighter blue than the title bar and feel more like they have been attached than being part of the window -- very button like. I can almost press them with my fingers (but I guess that would need a touchscreen).
The GNOME desktop has seen some mild improvements. The look and feel configuration tool now handles the widget theme, the window manager decorations, the colors and the background image on your desktop. The view of the widget themes has been changed to display the themes in an "icon" fashion, instead of the usual list fashion. Personally I think lists are better for that kind of thing, but I don't change my theme enough to care too much about it (and I change my theme quite often).
Java is now well supported! It's not installed by default on the live cd, but there is now a functional (although not fully( java plugin for Gecko. Iced Tea, which is based on OpenJDK and classpath, appears to be working with no problems -- that is to say, it hasn't complained about any of the stuff I've thrown at it. I haven't tested Iced Tea for anything but the plugin, and I have no idea just how well it works for ordinary stuff or even if's useful for things like the OpenOffice.org plugins that require Java.
maxima (a CAS system similar to Maple for those who know what that is) fails completly on the x86_64 live cd -- I can't tell if it will do so on the i686 live cd or if I install it. I need this badly and it appears that it might be the only stopper for a full 64 bit system for me.
PulseAudio is now the default sound server -- and it's on by default. I don-t know what to say about this since I don-t know PulseAudio well enough. I do know that of all the evils of sound servers out there, I believe that PulseAudio is properbly the better choise.
The new Firewall configuration tool is very friendly to the eye and people who doesn't know the first thing about firewalls. Unfortunately it tries to thinks I need IPP, IPsec and mDNS (which I personally, have no use of) regardless of what I try to tell it. Disabling the firewall from the tool appears to be impossible due to a (minor) bug, which results in the tool trying to configure the firewall at the same time it tries to shut it down. Shutting it down manually works like a charm though.
Pirut has got a face lift. I\m not sure if this is Pirut itself or just GTK+/GNOME which has been updated. At any rate, when ever something is fetched, a message now appears in the progressbar. This is certainly a minor improvement, but a welcome one (it's nice to see where things are coming from and what package is being downloaded).
It's pretty hard to say anything about performance since I have just booted directly from the cd with no ramdisk. This means that whenever I start any program, it has to search and load for ages. This kills performance quite a lot, so if I have to test performance I have to get the thing installed on a harddrive -- luckily I have a few spare lying around (which I now plan to install F8T2 on to check performance).
That's it for now. I'll get back once I have it installed on a harddisk and have something more worthwhile to tell.
I just got test 2 down and booted it from the live cd (I decided not to use Qemu, although that might have been a good idea).
First things first:The RHGB theme looks awsome! I still don-t think that starting X in order to get this is the best idea, but if you have to use X to do this, it can at least look this good.
The default theme is something I think I might actually stick with for more than a few minutes -- it's blueish as usual. The new thing regarding the theme is that the window border is almost completly gone. This may not appeal to all, but I certainly like it. The minimize/maximize/close buttons stick out more. Their colours are lighter blue than the title bar and feel more like they have been attached than being part of the window -- very button like. I can almost press them with my fingers (but I guess that would need a touchscreen).
The GNOME desktop has seen some mild improvements. The look and feel configuration tool now handles the widget theme, the window manager decorations, the colors and the background image on your desktop. The view of the widget themes has been changed to display the themes in an "icon" fashion, instead of the usual list fashion. Personally I think lists are better for that kind of thing, but I don't change my theme enough to care too much about it (and I change my theme quite often).
Java is now well supported! It's not installed by default on the live cd, but there is now a functional (although not fully( java plugin for Gecko. Iced Tea, which is based on OpenJDK and classpath, appears to be working with no problems -- that is to say, it hasn't complained about any of the stuff I've thrown at it. I haven't tested Iced Tea for anything but the plugin, and I have no idea just how well it works for ordinary stuff or even if's useful for things like the OpenOffice.org plugins that require Java.
maxima (a CAS system similar to Maple for those who know what that is) fails completly on the x86_64 live cd -- I can't tell if it will do so on the i686 live cd or if I install it. I need this badly and it appears that it might be the only stopper for a full 64 bit system for me.
PulseAudio is now the default sound server -- and it's on by default. I don-t know what to say about this since I don-t know PulseAudio well enough. I do know that of all the evils of sound servers out there, I believe that PulseAudio is properbly the better choise.
The new Firewall configuration tool is very friendly to the eye and people who doesn't know the first thing about firewalls. Unfortunately it tries to thinks I need IPP, IPsec and mDNS (which I personally, have no use of) regardless of what I try to tell it. Disabling the firewall from the tool appears to be impossible due to a (minor) bug, which results in the tool trying to configure the firewall at the same time it tries to shut it down. Shutting it down manually works like a charm though.
Pirut has got a face lift. I\m not sure if this is Pirut itself or just GTK+/GNOME which has been updated. At any rate, when ever something is fetched, a message now appears in the progressbar. This is certainly a minor improvement, but a welcome one (it's nice to see where things are coming from and what package is being downloaded).
It's pretty hard to say anything about performance since I have just booted directly from the cd with no ramdisk. This means that whenever I start any program, it has to search and load for ages. This kills performance quite a lot, so if I have to test performance I have to get the thing installed on a harddrive -- luckily I have a few spare lying around (which I now plan to install F8T2 on to check performance).
That's it for now. I'll get back once I have it installed on a harddisk and have something more worthwhile to tell.
