Mono or the GIMP?

[Zorklat DeOrc]

There is allegedly a fair bit of noise on the Ubuntu forums regarding Lucid Lynx, voicing displeasure with the decision to ramp up support for Mono and to deprecate the GIMP. Given the doubts expressed by Richard Stallman and the <Fedora Project team about Mono, I move that Mint Isadora go the other way: strip out Mono and related apps from the desktop, include the GIMP and Mono-free alternatives.

What does the community think?

[mmesantos1]

There is allegedly a fair bit of noise on the Ubuntu forums regarding Lucid Lynx, voicing displeasure with the decision to ramp up support for Mono and to deprecate the GIMP. Given the doubts expressed by Richard Stallman and the <Fedora Project team about Mono, I move that Mint Isadora go the other way: strip out Mono and related apps from the desktop, include the GIMP and Mono-free alternatives.

What does the community think?

Its all about choices! Like it or not.

[Aevum]

I do love the GIMP, I spent a while to learn how to use it deeply and still I'm sure I miss to learn some stuff.. I simply love it.

That's why I voted for it.

[Lantesh]

I don't care whether or not Gimp is installed by default or not in Mint. If it's not I can easily install it myself. I don't understand why the Ubuntu community is so up in arms about this. Did they all forget how to install software?

[Zorklat DeOrc]

The concern is mainly wrt places where bandwidth is relatively costly. The considered scenario is where the ISO is downloaded once for many installs, perhaps by somebody without the technical expertise to respin the ISO to make the changes I suggest, and also lacking the bandwidth to make those changes on multiple machines -- or even only one.

[Craig_Dem]

I love the GIMP. GIMP is also an excellent example of brilliant free software. It is a great program to front advertising and to really "WOW" people.

[Lantesh]

The concern is mainly wrt places where bandwidth is relatively costly. The considered scenario is where the ISO is downloaded once for many installs, perhaps by somebody without the technical expertise to respin the ISO to make the changes I suggest, and also lacking the bandwidth to make those changes on multiple machines -- or even only one.

That makes sense. A simple solution for someone in this scenerio would be to download the Gimp deb packages once, and have them available on a local server or a CD. That would solve the bandwidth issue, although it adds time to each install which would be undesirable.

[900i]

Every Install of Mint or CrunchBang that I do I invariably strip out Mono.

[Midnighter]

I prefer that Mono not be included by default. It is available in the repos, and people can add it and it's apps if you so desire.

I'm unsure on the other arguements/aspects, and will sit back and see what develops, but really, nothing about it, or it's apps, has really appealed to me, but if people want to use it, the choice is theirs to add it.

Personally, I strip mono out of my installs, I don't have any use for it, or the default mono apps, so i remove it/them. I don't feel the need to waste space and bandwidth, updating stuff i never use. It's my choice.

[gorfou]

.
In my sight, choosing between mono and gimp is asking two different questions:
- Do we need an image manipulation program, and which?
- Do we need an photo organiser, and which?


For the concern of the image manipulation program, the question resumes for me to "which?", since I need such a package.

• If the application proposed to replace gimp is what I install by doing

  Code: Select all

  sudo aptitude install f-spot

  then mono is not suited to replace gimp, IMHO. Nor my try nor the features convinced me. If someone could explain me why f-spot is great as image editor...
  
  However, we can't simply reject f-spot. the fact is that this suggestion outlines a problem : GIMP takes too much effort to get started. I personnaly like the GIMP. But I like it now, because I made the step to check the tutorials, and saw how useful it can be.
  
  People usually don't do it. They -and I - just click around, trying to get the hang of the application without reading any boring help.
  
  So, for the concern of having an image editor into mint, I'd say we need a simplified gimp, or kolourpaint -an enhanced clone of the windows paint-, or another easy image editor.

Now for the photo manager, f-spot might be an answer, but mine is no photo manager. I simply don't need it : tags are called directories, and everything is organised by that old-fashioned way, and I'm happy with that.

• I read some post on the internet arguing that the proposition of replacing the gimp is a conspiracy allowing Microsoft to get a foothold on linux. Stop it. That's child-play. Or extremism. The first thing stopping people to switch to linux is that some specialized programs they need simply don't run -even with wine or other-. So, even if windows might make some benefit, more compatibility doesn't hurt.

To conclude, I'd stick to the GIMP for now, but a simplification has to be found. And why not find a simple software that answers to both questions?

[myspacecommassergio]

eh, i say gimp becuase I took some time to get used to it but I don't know how to use everything in GIMP but it would suck to see what I learned go to waste.


I downloaded tons of brushes for GIMP from Deviant art it makes start up slow but it makes editing fun
~I Voted GIMP~

I know it's downloadable in the repos but I'd hate to waste time downloading it
=P

[Midnighter]

For an imge organiser and basic editor, I quite prefer Picasa.

[Zorklat DeOrc]

Another photo manager besides f-spot and picasa could be gthumb.

Regardless, this is Clem's baby, and he can do with it as he pleases. I'm just interested in the issue, and in letting him know the community's mood.

[beefstu]

The same argument applies for both GIMP and Mono, they can both be installed from the repositories if they weren't installed as default. Someone with limited bandwidth could download once and use APTonCD to install on other machines.

The thing is, GIMP is just one program, I would imagine used by a minority of users, some of whom may actually use it only because its there, even though another image editing program may be more suitable for them.

Mono is required for some other programs to work, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28so ... _with_Mono I would need it as i love Gnome Do, and I'd imagine quite a few people use Banshee or Tomboy. I realise that it would get installed as a dependency along with one of these programs but still think it would affect more people than GIMP, although personally it would be likely that I would download it too at somepoint if it was removed.

Maybe we need to stop saying what needs to be removed and think about moving to a system which requires more than 700MB to work with, so only DVD or USB installs, although this could increase the likelihood for bloatware. AFAIK Mint 8 KDE had to do this anyway.

If you look through your mint menu, how many of the programs do you actually use and how many of the ones you do use have you installed yourself? It's impossible to cater for everyone.

[MrCleanWithHair]

If you look through your mint menu, how many of the programs do you actually use and how many of the ones you do use have you installed yourself? It's impossible to cater for everyone.

This resonates with me, and hopefully with others.

How many people truly use only software included with a particular distro? I know I personally spent hours getting this box set up, and continually add and remove things. I know in just the last week I've tried 8 media players, and I'm still not sure which I like best.

Every options has pros and cons, and not everyone can be pleased. Enough said.

Though I will say I voted for GIMP.

[BrenR]

Maybe we need to stop saying what needs to be removed and think about moving to a system which requires more than 700MB to work with, so only DVD or USB installs, although this could increase the likelihood for bloatware.

.

I hope you don't make it larger. I have one tower with only a cdrw and can't afford a new dvd rom.
Please take into account that some are running this OS on older computers and can't afford to upgrade.

[markfiend]

Please take into account that some are running this OS on older computers and can't afford to upgrade.

Agreed.

[tower]

I only used GIMP for the basics crop, rotate, saturate, contrast, sharpen for my Ebay pics, then I discovered it can do so much more.
I tried other software but when I used F-Spot not all the claimed features were available, maybe I didn't have mono?

Digikam seems to be OK for KDE
The new GIMP interface seems to make it easier to use why loose it now.
The argument is that it takes up too much space, but what is the space used by F-Spot + MONO?

[DrHu]

Man, this is the OSS world, why is it that various people/groups keep trying to insert otherwise proprietry software into the Linux core applications

• desktop, windows manager (KDE or Gnome or other)
• Graphics, not using Gimp/Inkscape
  --prefer to use something brought over, a .net framework
• Hardware
  --I don't object to nvidia or ATI providing their kernel drivers, although I ultimately agree with *BSD systems, that blobs are inherently a bad idea for OSS systems... And the open source drivers keep improving, but are unlikely to match the binary drivers provided: they don't have those NDA signed nor access to the code
• Office, always wanting to use MsOffice suites
  --even though OpenOffice can read, use ms word data
• Trusted computing, an idea foisted on OEMs that allows manufacturer control of the hardware and the OS
  --so far the group supporting this has avoided the opt-out provision for the user/owner of the system, in that it is exactly like DRM control..

There is probably a whole list of other software and reasons not to keep defiling OSS with propriety extensions, even if they do offer some type of GNU licensing..

I vote to incinerate mono and keep Gimp..
--and I wish Gnome would stop trying to insidiously add mono into the desktop and applications, tomboy is the one that comes to mind: I removed it fast..

[tower]

The thing is, GIMP is just one program, I would imagine used by a minority of users, some of whom may actually use it only because its there

Why stop at GIMP? How many average users use Open Office to its full extent? Is Mr or Ms average busy at home making databases and presentations ?

Why give users a system they will grow out of (unless you plan to charge for additional software)?