This is a little page I created in October 1998 to show off the, at that time, stunning beauty of this quite new Linux/X11 desktop and network environment called GNOME.

The page was created using Netscape 4.05. I left out obsolete links and comments but retained my eight screenshots running various programs in the 0.30 alpha release GNOME.

The Linux kernel (from ftp.kernel.org), parts of X11 (downloaded from ftp as well) and GNOME (cvs version) were self compiled on a i586. That meant nightly builds, not just ten minutes :)

And yes: both Quake 1 and Quake 2 running in parallel, Gimp 1.1.0. IIRC I left out several programs which either did not compile (I had lots of CORBA-related problems) or did not run. Nevertheless already in 1998 GNOME was a working desktop environment almost equally nice as the trendsetting NeXTSTEP desktop at that time.




G n u    N e t w o r k   O b j e c t  M o d e l  E n v i r o n m e n t 

The GNOME project is an attempt to create a free (in the sense of the GNU project) user desktop system on top of the X Window System. Like the KDE project GNOME consists of a set of user and administration tools specially written for it, a set of user-interface libraries to allow programs share a common look and feel and a mechanism for a high-level communication between applications.

The UI toolkit used is called GTK (Gimp Tool Kit) which was created while developing the GIMP. GNOME is still in its infancy, there isn't even a beta version. Some ftp-sites provide snapshots of the GNOME development (CVS) tree, some even offer compiled GNOME binaries. Nevertheless GNOME still has lots of errors, don't expect a current cvs version to compile properly. If you want to see how GNOME looks and feels like, get a pre-compiled version (some Linux distributions like RedHat, Debian or S.u.S.E. offer such versions). Have a look at the screenshots included here.

At the moment, GNOME works with many X window managers, I prefer AfterStep or icewm. If you need certain GNOME features (like the session management) you should use window managers which support these features. Consult the GNOME FAQ if you are unsure. After having switched from the MICO CORBA implementation to ORBit the current memory footprint of a running GNOME version here is below 10 MB. The main GNOME site includes a software map of GNOME (or gnomified) applications.


  Screenshots (1024 x 768, ca. 180k each)
 
About GNOME, GNOME Mines
Gnome Screendump 1
 
The Gimp 1.1.0
Gnome Screendump 2
 
gEdit, GHex
Gnome Screendump 3
 
Quake II, Quake I
Gnome Screendump 4
 
Solitaire, Gnomified GNUChess
Gnome Screendump 5
 
GNOME Calendar, GTimeTracker
Gnome Screendump 6
 
GNOME Help, GTCD, GMixer
Gnome Screendump 7
 
Menu-Editor, GnomENIUS
Gnome Screendump 8
 
The Gimp Logo
Alle Inhalte und Bilder (cc by-sa) 1998 - 2023 Michail Brzitwa, Hannover, Deutschland
 / Last update: 20.October 1998