For users coming from 11.1, openSUSE 11.2 actually features two GNOME releases worth of updates. Because of the lengthy release cycle, openSUSE skipped the 2.26 release and jumped to GNOME 2.28, which was made available in September.

Nautilus now has a plugin to allow quick and easy file sharing. Just right-click on the folder you’d like to share and select “Sharing Options.” This makes use of Samba, so you need to enable directory sharing under the Samba Server module in YaST.

New and Improved Cheese

The Webcam application for GNOME, Cheese, includes some enhancements for 2.28, including a redesigned interface that’s better suited for netbooks.

Not only does openSUSE feature the goodness from upstream GNOME, but also some home-grown improvements as well. For instance, the Sonar theme that is the default in 11.2. It’s a slightly darker, but still green, theme that’s pleasant to look at and show off to users new to Linux!

Vincent Untz, a member of the openSUSE Booster team and member of the GNOME Foundation Board, says that part of the main focus for 11.2 was “to be a better upstream citizen” with GNOME. So, for the most part, openSUSE does not diverge greatly from upstream GNOME — but there are some differences.

For example, GNOME 2.28 ships Empathy as the default instant messaging client. Untz says that it’s likely openSUSE will switch to Empathy in 11.3, but due to issues with some protocols and proxies, it was decided to keep Pidgin as the default client for one more release. Empathy is, of course, available via the repositories, so users who want to start with Empathy now can do so.

Want to get a preview of GNOME 3.0? The final GNOME 3.0 release isn’t due until September 2010, but openSUSE 11.2 has an early build of GNOME Shell in the repositories and users can see what all the fuss is about (or will be about), early on.

And, of course, you’ll find Firefox as the default Web browser for openSUSE instead of Epiphany. openSUSE users will find the most recent stable version of Firefox (3.5) on their GNOME desktop, though Epiphany and its new Webkit backend are available in the openSUSE 11.2 repositories.

All in all, there’s a lot to look forward to in GNOME in openSUSE 11.2. Be ready to grab it on November 12th!

This release should be almost ready for the gold master stamp, but there’s still time to shake out remaining bugs. This release should not be deployed on production systems, but should be ready for early adopters and contributors who want to help with testing and development of 11.2.

Changes Since openSUSE 11.2 RC 1

Release Candidate 2 includes a few new packages, and several of the “most annoying bugs” in RC 1 have been fixed for this release. New packages include:

• Linux kernel 2.6.31.5
• SeaMonkey 2.0
• Firefox 3.5.4
• Samba 3.4.2
• xorg-x11-server 1.6.5

A more complete list can be found on the wiki and an updated list of Factory packages can be found on DistroWatch.

11.2 is looking fantastic. Want screenshots? We’ve got ‘em! Check out the shots here, and/or add your own.

Most Annoying Bugs

As this is a release candidate, we’re still shaking the release out for major bugs. However, at this point in the cycle, we’re almost ready to call 11.2 RC 2 production ready. We do know of one bug worth noting, however: The Net ISO images will call the factory repository. The URL for repositories needs to be changed from /factory/repo/oss to /factory-snapshot/repo/oss manually.

You can find more on adding repositories on the openSUSE wiki.

If any major new bugs do crop up, they will be listed on the openSUSE wiki.

Testing! Testing! Testing!

As you can see, 11.2 RC2 does have a few bugs that we know about — but there may be more lurking somewhere in the release that haven’t been found yet. If you want to make sure 11.2 final is free of Most Annoying Bugs, we’ll need your help finding, reporting, and fixing those hidden bugs.

To learn more about testing openSUSE, visit the Testing pages on the openSUSE wiki. To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

Get Release Candidate 2 Today!

What are you waiting for? Grab the milestone release today! Downloads are available at software.opensuse.org/developer/ now.

Note, if you need to try the live CD on a machine with no CD-ROM drive, you can copy it to a USB key with the following command:

dd if=image.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

Replace “image.iso” with the name of the ISO image that you have downloaded, and replace “sdX” with the actual device name of your USB drive. Be careful! This will erase the target device, so make sure you have the correct device name and have any vital data backed up!

The final release for 11.2 is scheduled to be released on November 12, 2009. See the detailed roadmap on the on the wiki.

We’re at the home stretch. A big thanks to all the contributors who have participated in the 11.2 cycle. Without you, we’d have no openSUSE.

New in GNOME 2.24

As always, a new version of GNOME means new features and enhancements that make using your computer easier. Many times, they’re small features that once you start using them, you can’t live without. One example is the new tabbed browsing in Nautilus, the file browser.

Communication

openSUSE 11.1’s GNOME Desktop includes some of the latest and greatest in communication and organization tools in Evolution, Pidgin, and Ekiga. The newest version of Evolution contains new functionality to make anyone who sends out many similar emails a day, or those who are fans of Google’s online communication tools very happy.

Evolution can now save mail as templates. Need to have a simple, standard message to send out to contacts who all ask the same question? Or do you want a standard message to send to new clients? Either way, you’ll find a use for this handy feature.

Living in the Gmail universe, but don’t want to lose the safety and speed of having a desktop client? Now with Evolution, your Evolution Address Book can be synchronized with Google Contacts, meaning you now have the full range of Google support: Gmail through IMAP mail support, Google Calendar which synchronizes with your Evolution Calendar, and now contacts synchronization support.

Frequent instant messengers will be happy to see that the new version of Pidgin, our multi-network instant messaging and chat client, is included.

Pidgin can connect to all of your different instant messaging clients and social networks, including AIM, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo! IM, and MySpace Chat. Pidgin also serves as an IRC chat client, through which community support for openSUSE can be received.

What to talk with your friends or family by voice or face-to-face? Meet Ekiga, the openSUSE Internet telephony client.

With Ekiga, a compatible microphone or webcam, and an SIP account (all of which can be set up upon first running Ekiga), talking to your friends, family, or colleagues is easy and free if they’re also using a SIP client. With an appropriate SIP call out plan, you can make affordable voice calls over the normal phone system, right from your computer!

Entertainment and Multimedia

When the work is done, it’s time to play! openSUSE 11.1’s GNOME contains some of the best multimedia playing and building applications available, from Banshee, our state-of-the-art music player; to Brasero, an innovative DVD and CD burning application which enables you to make videos from your computer burn on a DVD to share with friends and family; to F-Spot, an amazing yet amazingly simple photo organizer.

openSUSE’s Banshee Media Player is incredibly powerful, yet dead-simple to use. Bring over music from another operating system, a CD collection, or an MP3 player, and Banshee will catalog and apply cover art to them all. Organize and enjoy your movies with the video playback features. Stay up to date and entertained with your favorite audio and video podcasts, or listen to one of many streaming radio stations available. You can even discover new music with Last.fm, a music social network that’s built right in to Banshee.

Several new features are available in Banshee in openSUSE 11.1. Banshee now supports compilation albums. So whether it’s the greatest hits of the ’90s or the soundtrack to your favorite movie, Banshee now recognizes and correctly organizes compilation albums.

The developers of Banshee have taken special attention to the look and feel of Banshee. One of the areas this is most noticeable is the new Now Playing window. Although this pane is meant for showing videos, new in Banshee is that when playing audio, this window displays the album cover and song/show information, making it perfect for parties so your friends can see what’s playing.

Banshee also now supports Internet Radio. The application comes pre-installed with dozens of stations already, ranging from all spectrums of music to talk. Want to add more? As long as the Internet radio stream you wish to add has a compatible stream, it’s as simple as a click of the mouse in Banshee.

Managing photos on openSUSE is easy and fun with F-Spot, the photo manager. With F-Spot, you can browse your photo collection by date or tags, and making basic photo corrections is a snap. You can even export your photos to Internet photo websites, such as Flickr, Picasa, or SmugMug. F-Spot is also extend-able, with extensions written to make F-Spot even more powerful or more useful, such as an extension to export photos to Facebook. These are easily installed with just a few clicks of the mouse.

F-Spot in openSUSE 11.1 features a redesigned user interface, giving easy access and better descriptions to the photo editing tools, as well as easier access to photo metadata information in the sidebar.

Every now and then, you may have had duplicate photos show up in your library. What’s more annoying than that? Having to delete each one, one by one. Now, not only does F-Spot prevent duplicate photos by detecting duplicates upon importing new photos, but with a click of a mouse, F-Spot will analyze your entire photo library for duplicates and eliminate them.

You’ve got music, video, and photos on your computer. But what if you want to take them off your computer once in a while? With Brasero, the CD/DVD burning utility, it’s as easy as can be, and is included in openSUSE!

With Brasero you can save movies on DVDs to watch on your TV, save songs and other audio shows on CDs to play in the car, or burn ISO images onto discs.

Finally, when it’s just time to have fun, there’s Cheese. Cheese is a webcam studio app that, with a compatible webcam, allows you to take pictures or videos of yourself and your friends.

With Cheese, you can apply special effects to the pictures or video, and make a funny video to upload to YouTube or other video sharing website. You can even apply multiple effects, to create a unique image!

Configuration Improvements

openSUSE 11.1 features several new improvements for the GNOME desktop’s administration and configuration, including further YaST integration with GNOME, setting up 3G cellular data connections, and more.

YaST Integration Improvements

Even with the improving integration of YaST into GNOME, YaST has still remained with the same button and UI structure of it’s KDE counterpart, which doesn’t exactly match GNOME. With openSUSE 11.1, YaST has been given a visual refresh. Now, at the top of every YaST screen is a short description of what the YaST module does, with a link to getting further help. The buttons have also been relabeled so they match the GNOME standard, meaning YaST now truly looks at home on the GNOME desktop!

Cellular Broadband Connectivity

Since openSUSE 11.0, openSUSE has been able to easily connect to cellular broadband networks (with the correct card installed in the computer). This continues for openSUSE 11.1, with NetworkManager handling the connectivity. So connecting to cell networks is nearly as simple as connecting to a WiFi hotspot.

Multi-monitor Support

Another feature that has been in openSUSE for a while is the great multi-monitor support. With a simple applet and automatic configuration of extra monitors, using more than one monitor in openSUSE 11.1 is as simple as can be.

New Login

openSUSE 11.1 includes a revamped login screen for GNOME. Simply click on your name, and enter your pasword. No more having to remember and type both usernames and passwords, it’s a simple process. Plus, access accessibility and multi-monitor settings right from the login screen, making the experience more open to everyone. In addition, the background in the login screen is time sensitive: if it’s midnight where you are, your screen is a pleasant dark color. If it’s high noon, you’re in for a bright login!

Counting Down the Days

With only days to go until openSUSE 11.1 is released and you can try these features for yourself, so get ready! Plus, there are more Sneak Peeks coming in the next few days, so stay tuned to openSUSE News for all things openSUSE!

See the Banshee download page for the one-click installer for openSUSE 11.1 and 10.3, as well as packages for other platforms.

The 11.0 release of openSUSE includes more than 200 new features specific to openSUSE, a redesigned installer that makes openSUSE even easier to install, faster package management thanks to major updates in the ZYpp stack, and KDE 4, GNOME 2.22, Compiz Fusion, and much more.

On the Desktop

GNOME 2.22

GNOME users will find a lot to like in openSUSE 11.0. openSUSE’s GNOME is very close to upstream GNOME, because Novell and openSUSE want to do as much work as possible in the upstream release. However, we do modify GNOME’s artwork to provide a unified look and feel for the distro. The default GNOME configuration, such as panel layout, is slightly different than “stock” GNOME, and the openSUSE GNOME team backports a number of bug fixes into our GNOME release to ensure stability and the best possible GNOME experience.

GNOME 2.22 in openSUSE 11.0 includes the GNOME Virtual File System (GVFS), with better support for networked file systems, PulseAudio for better sound management, improvements in Evolution and Tomboy, and much more!

KDE 4.0

openSUSE 11.0 is the first openSUSE release to include a stable release of KDE 4.0. This release includes sweeping changes in the KDE desktop, and represents the next generation of KDE. This release includes a new desktop shell, called Plasma, a new look and feel (called Oxygen), and many interface and usability improvements.

KControl has been replaced with Systemsettings, which makes system configuration much easier. KDE’s window manager, KWin, now supports 3-D desktop effects.

KDE 4.0 doesn’t include KDEPIM applications, so the openSUSE team has included beta versions of the KDEPIM suite (KMail, KOrganizer, Akregator, etc.) from the KDE 4.1 branch that’s in development and scheduled to be released in July and for online update.

Note that KDE 3.5 is still available on the openSUSE DVD for KDE users who aren’t quite ready to make the leap to KDE 4.

Compiz Fusion

The openSUSE desktop is not only a green glorious sight to behold, it’s also available in 3-D! Compiz Fusion is now the default in openSUSE 11.0. You’ll find a slew of interesting Compiz plugins, as well as easier configuration with Simple CompizConfig Settings Manager (CCSM) and the more comprehensive CompizConfig Settings Manager that allows detailed configuration of your Compiz setup. See the Sneak Peek for a detailed look at Compiz Fusion on openSUSE 11.0.

Firefox 3.0

Firefox is one of the most popular open source applications on the planet, and the openSUSE desktop just wouldn’t be complete without Mozilla Firefox. The 3.0 release has a number of new features and improvements that will make browsing the Web on openSUSE convenient and safe, including better site identification features, simplified add-on installation and management, detection of “phishing” sites, the ability to save tabs on exit, better download manager, and a new page zoom feature that lets you zoom text or the entire page.

Note that openSUSE 11.0 ships with Firefox 3.0 beta 5, and updates to the final 3.0 release will be available through online update.

Banshee 1.0

openSUSE 11.0 includes Banshee 1.0. The Banshee media player has been re-written to improve performance and includes many new features, including video playback, better “shuffle” playback, support for iPods, MTP devices, and mass storage player devices, and support for podcasts and better Last.fm integration.

OpenOffice.org 2.4

You can work hard and play hard with openSUSE. If you need a high-quality office suite that’s Microsoft Office compatible, look no further than Novell’s OpenOffice.org 2.4. This release includes import support for OpenXML, 3-D transitions in Impress, SVG import support, improved performance over standard OpenOffice.org, and better Excel support and VBA macro support.

NetworkManager 0.7

NetworkManager has been vastly improved since 10.3, and now includes support for multiple network interfaces and UTMS and EV-DO cards.

Under the Hood

• Linux kernel 2.6.25
• glibc 2.8
• GCC 4.3

Media and Download

• openSUSE 11.0 DVD 32-bit
• openSUSE 11.0 DVD 64-bit
• openSUSE 11.0 KDE 4 32-bit Live CD
• openSUSE 11.0 GNOME 32-bit Live CD
• openSUSE 11.0 KDE 4 64-bit Live CD
• openSUSE 11.0 GNOME 64-bit Live CD

You can download openSUSE 11.0 via HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, and Metalink from software.openSUSE.org.

You can also purchase a retail box with openSUSE 11.0 that includes 90-day installation support, physical media, and a printed Getting Started guide.

Communicate

• Official openSUSE Forums: forums.opensuse.org.
• Mailing Lists: The openSUSE mailing lists.
• IRC: #opensuse on irc.freenode.net and and other channels.
• Jabber, Usenet, and more.

To keep up to date with openSUSE, be sure to keep an eye on openSUSE News and watch Planet SUSE for blog posts from the openSUSE community.

Want to help the openSUSE Project? To get involved with openSUSE see the How to Participate page on the openSUSE wiki. We can use lots of different skills to help the project, so feel free to jump in!

All of the contributors who have worked on openSUSE deserve a huge thank you. Without your hard work, this release would not have been possible. openSUSE 11.0 is the best openSUSE release yet, and will help promote the use of Linux everywhere! Now, get openSUSE 11.0 and have a lot of fun!

openSUSE News: What kind of changes have happened “behind the scenes” in GNOME that users might not see right away, but are important? (Like performance increases, backend changes, etc.)

Vincent Untz: Several things have changed:

• PulseAudio: Instead of using esound as the sound server, we now use PulseAudio. It’s basically much better A cool thing, for example, is that you can set the volume of the stream of each application, instead of just having a global volume. Another cool thing is that you can use Bonjour/Zeroconf/mdns&dns-sd to find out about PulseAudio servers on the network and dynamically move a stream to this server.
• PolicyKit: This is a new technology to make it easier to change some system setting. An example is how you change the system timezone in the clock applet, for example.
• PackageKit: For now, we only use this for the notification icon that tells you about update. But it’s a framework to make it easier to handle packages from applications. It’s full of Libzypp love in openSUSE.
• 3-D effects: Not strictly GNOME, but I think it has improved quite a bit now. XGL is not required anymore (with AIGLX) and so more people can use this.
• Less divergence from upstream. We started some serious work to send more patches upstream and remove changes that will never be accepted by upstream and that are not that interesting to us.

openSUSE News: How does openSUSE GNOME differ from “stock” GNOME? What kind of added features or improvements would openSUSE users see that may not be in other distros?

Vincent Untz: It’s kind of hard to reply to this for one reason: we’re trying to be as close as upstream as possible. However, things that are important and that we change:

• Artwork, obviously. This helps having a unified look & feel with the rest of the distro (splash screen, e.g.).
• Default configuration — like panel layout, including gnome-main-menu, and some settings in some applications.
• Bug fixes: We backport many bug fixes from SVN to get something more stable.

We also have some brand new stuff when it comes to things where we have developers. For example, we use NetworkManager 0.7 (which is still unreleased), but Ubuntu still ships the old 0.6 (Fedora uses 0.7, I believe).

I think the main point here is that we’re trying to do development upstream, and then polish things where they can be polished for the integration with the rest of the OS.

openSUSE News: Can you talk a bit about the relationship between GNOME and openSUSE?

Vincent Untz: Well, some of the developers in the openSUSE GNOME team are GNOME contributors (some are really deeply involved in GNOME). For example, Federico is a GTK+ maintainer, Rodrigo co-maintains the control center, I maintain a few modules, etc. It’s not just about code (Federico has been on the GNOME Foundation board for a few years, I’m on it right now, etc.)

We’re trying to do our development upstream, to also upstream bugs (bugs opened in bugzilla.novell.com but that really should be in bugzilla.gnome.org), etc. Basically, we’re trying to be a good GNOME citizen

openSUSE News: What kind of plans are on the table for openSUSE 11.1 and GNOME?

Vincent Untz: We’re starting to discuss this, and we have a list of ideas at http://en.opensuse.org/GNOME/Ideas/11.1.

There will be the new rewritten GDM, better integration of the PulseAudio features, better printing administration, integration of the Telepathy framework, etc. All of this is “maybe”, of course

openSUSE News: Anything else you’d like to mention or add?

Vincent Untz: Also quite important to mention the whole community that is doing an awesome job — people are helping with many things, from bug triage, to organizing meetings, giving ideas, testing, etc.

openSUSE News: Thanks for taking the time!

See the entire release announcement on the Banshee homepage, including screenshots and a full list of new and notable features.If you’d like to help spread the news, please use this Digg link to vote it up.

The Banshee team includes openSUSE contributors Aaron Bockover, Gabriel Burt, and James Willcox.

The GNOME and KDE teams have teamed up to provide two packaging days, from November 30th until December 1st (from any timezone to any timezone). It will take place on IRC in the #opensuse-buildservice channel.

We will help interested newcomers and already experienced packagers in learning all the little tricks and bits needed for creating good openSUSE packages of your favourite application with the openSUSE Build Service. A little existing experience in compiling software from source is recommended, and the wiki page also lists several other useful things to read.

So join our effort in creating more packages for your favourite Linux Distribution!

Dirk Mueller and Michael Wolf

In general we will follow the meeting guidelines outlined for the openSUSE project, except we will use #opensuse-gnome as the IRC channel. Please add agenda items and questions to the meeting page. This particular meeting will be centered around 10.3 cleanup, 11.0 planning and the process/planning improvements for the team (ie having these meetings, and re-organizing our section of the wiki like we’ve done over the past couple of weeks).

Meeting agenda:
http://en.opensuse.org/GNOME/Meetings/20070927

GNOME meetings info:
http://en.opensuse.org/GNOME/Meetings

New in GNOME 2.20

The new GNOME release, as always, brings convenient new features to every new user. These can often present themselves in a beautiful way. For example, take a look at the new “World Clock Applet” (intlclock) developed by SUSE engineers:

It allows you to very easily view the time in the various timezones you are tracking, as well as get a nice overview of sunset/sunrise all over the world.

Hack Week

SUSE’s Hack Week last June saw a bunch of improvements being added to GNOME. Many ideas were posted for Evolution (Mail and Calendar), Tomboy (Desktop Notes), F-Spot (Photo Browser) and others. We’ll take a quick look at two of these:

Tomboy Note Syncrhonisation

Many people have to work on multiple computers. Whether it is at work, a friend’s house, or your home computer, you often want to have your notes easily accessible. The new Note Synchronisation feature allows you to synchronise your notes with all the computers that have Tomboy:

Evolution Attachment Reminder

As the result of another Hack Week project, Evolution now has a handy little feature that will never let you accidentally forget to attach a file when you intended to. If you mention an attached file in an email you are sending, and forget to attach it, Evolution will now pop up a little reminder asking you if you really wish to send the email without an attachment:

As always, all of these features have been developed and integrated into upstream GNOME, to benefit all.

GTK YaST: New Look and Integrated Feel in GNOME

Though a lot of work was done during a 2006 Google Summer of Code Project, one of the largest developments that the GNOME and YaST teams have been working on is a GTK+ (the development toolkit that GNOME uses) front-end to YaST.

This means that all users can still have a fully integrated feel when launching YaST, whether they’re in KDE or GNOME. Below you can see the result of the new port, as it displays all the available YaST modules:

Below you can take a look at the YaST modules for Bluetooth, Software Management, and AppArmor respectively:

As always, you can see that for just about any administrative or standard computer task, YaST has a module covered and prepared for it, and this greatly contributes to openSUSE being the world’s most usable Linux.

The new version will even have a native GTK updater applet, which can inform you of all security updates, as well as software upgrades (with the click of a button). See it below:

YaST now defaults to the GTK front-end if you are using GNOME, but don’t worry — for older time openSUSE users, if you wish to you can still enable the Qt+ front-end by going to: YaST -> /etc/sysconfig editor, then clicking on System -> Yast2 -> GUI. Then simply change the values of WANTED_GUI and WANTED_SHELL from auto to qt.

Desktop Improvements

A Better Panel and Menu

In the past, extensive usability studies in the SUSE usability lab lead the GNOME team at SUSE to re-design the GNOME menu and panel. The result was SLAB, a new menu for GNOME. After further testing in openSUSE 10.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, a few additional changes were made to the menu that improve usability, ease-of-use, and of course top it up with a polished and professional look that gives you a better desktop:

F-Spot and Banshee: Photo Browsing and Music Player

Two other light, usability-centric and accessible Mono applications available in openSUSE 10.2 were F-Spot and Banshee. Each of them have seen a great round of improvements over the last openSUSE release, and several new features have been added.

The new F-Spot saw several additions, including view mode improvements, a better red-eye removal algorithm, possibility to export images to PicasaWeb (flickr, too, has always been supported), and much more:

Banshee has also had its share of improvements. You can now share local playlists over DAAP (the iTunes protocol), there’s a new interactive rating menu item, and as always comes with full MP3 support if you install helix-banshee from the Non-OSS repository. Here are a few up-to-date screenshots:

With the additions and improvements that keep going into F-Spot and Banshee, it has become clear that they’re most comprehensive and easy-to-use applications for their purpose available in GNOME.

Try it now!

All of the features and applications will be available with the new openSUSE 10.3, and you can help testing this right away with the openSUSE 10.3 Release Candidate. Note that though the RC1 does not contain the actual GNOME 2.20 (it missed the deadline), it contains a very near version to it; the full version will be available in RC2 (internal release).

Talk with JP Rosevear

I caught up with jpr, an openSUSE and GNOME developer to find out a little more.

How well has the GNOME 2.20 release cycle gone so far? What have been the main tasks?

The GNOME 2.20 release cycle went fairly well upstream, lots of nice little features, especially when compared to GNOME 2.16 which was shipped in openSUSE 10.2.

Integration is always a big task, especially as you have a moving target with GNOME in development underneath you. Updating patches, checking for breaks, figuring out if bugs are upstream or downstream. We also spent time making sure as many SLED 10 SP1 improvements (like the world clock) as possible made it into 10.3 as well as straight up bug fixing.

What was involved with porting YaST to GTK+? Who has been working on it?

Ricardo Cruz as a Google SoC student was the real leader on this, under the mentorship of Michael Meeks starting in 2006. The main work was to implement the UI abstraction layer of YaST (Qt and ncurses are other implementations). Ricardo and Michael did a fantastic job and we felt it had to be included in 10.3.

What kind of targets does the GNOME team have for the future?

We’re actually just getting ramped up on planning openSUSE 11.0 right now. Boyd Timothy and Scott Reeves have been working up a plan to organize GNOME information better in the wiki (including feature planning). See opensuse.org/GNOME/Wiki_Layout

We have also started to flow some ideas for 11.0 on the openSUSE.org/openSUSE_GNOME_post-10.3_ideas

For me personally some high level targets would be building up the GNOME:Community build service repository with a lot more packages, upstreaming a lot of our patches into GNOME proper and implementing more little polish features like the printer autoconfig Chris Rivera wrote for 10.3

It would be great if people who want to get involved can join the #opensuse-gnome IRC channel and the opensuse-gnome@opensuse.org (subscribe) mailing list.

Thanks!