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Yes, exactly

Here's a list of tools that will help with that:

        Py2exe
        PyInstaller
        cx_Freeze
        bbfreeze
        py2app

You might want to check out the kdissert program. It runs in KDE, but if you have the proper libraries and dependencies, you should be able to run it on any WM.

The description follows (taken from Ubuntu 7.04, I'm sure the description is the same for other distros as well)

kdissert is a mindmapping tool for supporting the creation of complex documents: dissertations, theses, presentations, and reports. It supports pictures and features several document generators: LaTeX reports, LaTeX slides (based on Prosper and Beamer), OpenOffice.org documents, HTML, and plain text.

A mindmap is a multicolored and image centered radial diagram that represents semantic or other connections between portions of learned material. For example, it can graphically illustrate the structure of a thesis outline, a project plan, or the government institutions in a state. Mindmaps have many applications in personal, family, educational, and business situations. Possibilities include note-taking, brainstorming, summarizing, revising and general clarifying of thoughts.

Though this application shares some similarities with general-purpose mindmapping tools like FreeMind or Vym, the very first goal of kdissert is to create general-purpose documents, not mindmaps.

The kdissert website is located here. The program was designed to manage and organize disserations, which from what you described, is probably very similar to the work you're doing.

If you're looking for a tool more oriented towards 'mindmapping', there is Vym (website), which seems very interesting, and FreeMind (website), written in Java, though I have no experience with it.

It sounds like from what you described, and the solutions others are offering, you are more interested in a 'general-purpose' document where you can list your sources, and if needed, map links, connections, and references to the various sources you're using. Vym might be more to your taste, since the layout is provides a great deal of information in very (imho) visually appealing format, with the ability to link objects together in complex ways (such as doumenting various reference sources in a paper, where they appear and/or referenced in other works, etc.) Such tools like Vym and KDissert are really only limited by your own mind, though the differences between the programs are sufficient enough that each one should be evaluated individually, since all three accomplish similar goals in very different ways.

~ow3n

KParts is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. KDE previously tried something like XPCOM, found it to be overkill and too complex for what they were doing, and came up with KParts instead, a much simpler, better solution. But it's not even close to doing what CORBA tries to do, (and that's a good thing).

Comparing XPCOM to KParts will give you an idea of the insanity of this proposal. Heck, just comparing the documentation for the two is evidence that the XUL desktop is a non-starter. From this page

When the KDE core-developers realised that Corba was becoming an unmanagable nightmare, they wrote in a few days a lightweight and efficient component technology to replace it: KPart.
KPart is based on Shared Libraries. This makes the component appears directly as a C++ object. There is no need to wrap its features with an IDL language, everything is accessible without extra effort.

What I'm guessing is happening is some guys started working with XUL, thought it was pretty cool, and said, "Hey! We could make a WHOLE desktop environment out of this if we wanted to!" But just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea. There's plenty of history here to back that up, too.

It's also possible that XPCOM itself is a hindrance to the Mozilla project. Have they realized the assumed benefits of using a component architecture? Not when I can only write for their platform in maybe four languages, if we're being generous.

It wasn't that long ago that CORBA and DCOM were new and exciting, people were running around talking about how you could assemble standard applications like word processors that pulled components from "all over the Internet." It never happened, because quite frankly, it's a stupid idea for desktop apps. Not everything needs to be a distributed application.

XPCOM came along at about this time, and I'm afraid it's still around more because it's a holdover from that era than because it's a good idea. There are benefits to using a component architecture, but the much simpler KParts, QT, or wxWidgets approaches have those same benefits, are much more usable.

Good news all round, it would seem. :)

Indeed, here are some must-have KDE apps that are certainly going to help SuSE's popularity as a desktop operating system :
AmaroK music player -- Intuitive, powerful, good-looking music player. Supports transfers to/from iPods and many audio formats.

K3b -- Best CD and DVD authoring program with intuitive wizards, on the fly transcoding between WAV, MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis, normalization of volume levels, CDDB, DVD Ripping and DivX/XviD encoding, Save/load projects, automatic hardware detection/calibration and much more.

DigiKam -- The most feature-rich application for digital photo management.

Wireless Assistant -- Most user-friendly app for connecting to wireless networks. Managed Networks Support, WEP Encryption Support, Per Network (AP) Configuration Profiles, Automatic (DHCP, both dhcpcd and dhclient) and manual configuration options, Connection status monitoring, etc

KDE Education -- Educational (Science, Literature, Geography, etc) programs for children. Could play a big role in whether school districts decide to use Free Software in their classrooms.

Konqueror File Manager -- Embeded image/PDF/music/video viewing (via KMPlayer [kde.org]) and a tree-view arrangement of the filesystem familiar to Windows users (Nautilus doesn't come anywhere close)

KDE Control Center -- Centralized location for desktop control. Controls _all_ common aspects of the KDE applications: language, power settings, special effects, icon and window themes, shadows, shortcuts, printers, privacy, etc. This is what makes KDE so well integrated -- all KDE apps respect changes made here, so they all have the same feel. SUSE has even made YAST a module of the KDE control center so users can access distro-specific settings from here. Compare this to the dismembered approach Red Hat (and other gnome distros) have been forced to adopt in the absence of a centralized gnome control center. (ie. a bunch of individial programs named redhat-config-**** that nobody can ever remember)

Seamless, transparent network file access on SMB, FTP, SSH and WebDav networks from _any_ KDE application.

Kaffeine -- The most polished FOSS movie player.

MythTV -- The most advanced analog and digital TV viewer/recorder in the Free Software world (built using QT).

Baghira -- A native QT style that faithfully imitates OS X eyecandy, aimed at new users coming from the Mac world.

Klik -- Gives non-expert access to bleeding edge versions of apps without requiring any compilation or permanent installation.

KDE and QT also make up a technically superior platform for developers, drastically lowering the learning curve for programmers new to FOSS development. KDE apps can be built from the ground up using the best development tools in the Free Software world (which also happen to be built on QT/KDE):

Kdevelop for syntax highliting, application templates, and project organization.

QT designer for GUI development

Quanta -- Rich web development environment for PHP, CSS, DocBook, HTML, XML, etc with advanced context sensitive autocompletion, internal preview and more.

BKSys environment for a complete replacement of the autotool chain (libtool

I think a lot of Suse customers will not be so pleased.

Of course SUSE customers won't be pleased. There are many must-have desktop apps built on the KDE framework that don't have any good gtk equivalents:

AmaroK music player -- Steve Jobs' nightmare, the single greatest threat to Itunes on the Free Software platform.

DigiKam -- The most feature-rich application for digital photo management.

Konqueror File Manager" -- Embeded image/PDF/music/video viewing (via KMPlayer) and a tree-view arrangement of the filesystem familiar to Windows users (Nautilus doesn't come anywhere close)

Seamless, transparent network file access on SMB, FTP, SSH and WebDav networks from _any_ KDE application.

Kaffeine -- The most polished FOSS movie player.

Baghira -- A native QT style that faithfully imitates OS X eyecandy, aimed at new users coming from the Mac world.

KDE and QT also make up a technically superior platform for developers, drastically lowering the learning curve for programmers new to FOSS development. KDE apps can be built from the ground up using the best development tools in the Free Software world (which also happen to be built on QT/KDE):

QT designer for GUI development

Kdevelop for syntax highliting, application templates, and project organization.

BKSys environmentfor a complete replacement of the autotool chain (libtool+automake+autoconf+make) that will make dependency a whole lot more simpler and efficient.

Gnome is way behind KDE with regards to these features. The only reason Redhat's doing so well with Gnome is because they're targeting geeky sysadmins who don't care about having a good-looking desktop. The other 99% of the world does care, and gnome just doesn't fit the bill.

A while ago, Stallman had tea with KDE developers and he told them how pleased he was about this project.

He is always saying good things about GPL'd Qt.

I beg to differ. I remember reading an article about a Free Software conference where some KDE developers demonstrated kvim (http://www.freehackers.org/kvim/) to RMS.

His response was that he didn't know which to feel sorrier for: Vim or KDE. :)

KDevelop uses the Kate interface from KDE, which can handle any number of editor plugins (kvim, ) for example. I think the lack of a KEmacs, so to speak, stems mainly from the fact nobody has written it.

One version.

vim in kmail
vim in evolution

Me, as soon as my favourite IDE gets ported to Linux, I'll swap ;-)

You are kidding right? VIM has been available on Linux for longer than I can remember, there is even a KDE GUI for it - kVim, so if you weren't kidding then you need to go ahead and swap. :o)

In fact, after a brief look at the FAQ for Kvim:

What's an editor component ?

A component is a subpart of an application that you can embed dynamically in other applications. Making KVim available as a Kde component means that every Kde application will be able to embed Vim when it needs an editor : KDevelop, mail clients, news clients, ...

PS, More IDE's need vi(m) support!!!

In fact, after a brief look at the FAQ for Kvim:

What's an editor component ?

A component is a subpart of an application that you can embed dynamically in other applications. Making KVim available as a Kde component means that every Kde application will be able to embed Vim when it needs an editor : KDevelop, mail clients, news clients, ...

PS, More IDE's need vi(m) support!!!

your "less than a day" is still longer than the 30-60 minutes it takes to install/upgrade mandrake with all the trimmings.

Yeah, multiply that by how many times you will reinstall Mandrake over the next 5-7 years because of the distro's end of life and new releases. Then add all your rpm dependancy troubleshooting time you will go through for each install. Then add your time of turning un-needed services off, securing the system, etc. If you think all that is less effort than a one-time Gentoo install you're nuts.

but i had to repeately configure and recompile the kernel until i had the options just right.

That's true of any distro until you get to know your hardware. I suspect if you want a bloated kernel with everything compiled in then you're golden using Mandrake. I'd rather have a smaller, faster kernel myself so I always compile my own. Then I backup my .config files so I never have to do them again for a given machine. make oldconfig works great on old kernel .config files.

alsa is just nuts

I suppose some people are incapable of following simple instructions. I've never once had an issue getting alsa working with Gentoo.

everyone is not like you, so give your ego a rest. recognize that different people have different needs. and, thus, more than one distro is good for all linux users.

It's not about ego, it's about doing the job right. Running binarys that are not optimized for the hardware they run on is just lazy on the part of the system administrator.

Compiler flags exist, use them!

Actually, according to this article, RMS rarely uses X. He uses mostly emacs on the console.

Wicked! I get to catch no other than Bruce Perens himself posting a sizeable but subtle fallacy. I suppose that I get to really feel cool now, in a geeky sort of way. Anyway. Apologies, Bruce, for I strongly doubt you did it on purpose, but here it goes!

> One nice thing about GNOME is that a commercial license is not
> necessary to write and distribute a proprietary GNOME application.

*clears throat*

"One nice thing about paper and pencils is that a pricy PC is not necessary to design and write loads of code."

I mean this seriously, and this says nothing either for or against paper and pencils as opposed to computers.

Only, well, in both cases, the right tool will simply save enough time to make the cost well worth it.

And before some excited kid mods me down for daring to disagree with Bruce, let me tell you that if you've never used paper and pencil to design a piece of code you just thought up where no computer was at hand, you don't deserve your /. geek points.

Different tools work well in different circumstances, that's all. Deal.

And in this specific case, it is not unlikely there's a reason why one of the Linux desktop environments has more proprietary companies developping for it than the others.

Food for thought, I hope.

(Having karma to spare is a nifty thing, you get to speak plainly and maybe get people to think. That's way cool.)

Bali out.

Except kvim.

HA!


smeat!

I also have high hopes for someday being able to use vimpart as a textarea editor in Konqueror - that alone would get me to switch over from Moz.

Just visit the screenshot pages of the major/new applications: Kontact (2, 3, 4), JuK, Kgpg, KAddressbook, KBruch, Kig, Kopete, KVim, KCacheGrind, Umbrello, KDevelop, Plasktik,

I've tinkered with various distributions over the years and the main reason I like Gentoo is the package management system, Portage. It is by far the best package mgmt system I've ever used in a Linux environment. The thought of RPMs frighten me.

It's hard to say if it feels more optimized than say RH 9 or the latest Mandrake, but it's perfect for my needs as a desktop system. I am able to play Warcraft III under Transgaming's WineX without a hitch.

Also, with the install process and actually compiling from sources, you will learn more about linux and how it works in the first week than in the first few months with other distros - my opinion/personal experience of course.

Sites to help you get started:
Gentoo Installation Guide for x86
Optmized CFLAGS for compiler - Be wary of Pentium 4 options. See forums for more information.
Gentoo Forums - arguably the best linux support site on the 'net

So here's the stupid question: why didn't (or hasn't) someone build a graphical syb-system that's modular?

At what level? SDL? GGI? GTK? Qt? wxWindows? KPart? Six of one, half a dozen of the other, perhaps you're spoilt for choice?

Personally, I use KVim. I set the font to something san-serif, big, and very readable, repeatedly use the 'j' and 'k' keys (for ease of scrolling), and use marks ("m[a-zA-Z]" and "m'"). I also make the KVim window really big, but not full-screen; I keep the title bar on the screen.

I do this on my monsterous LCD monitor, and this helps.

Usually, I prefer to save a tree.

Trolltech's QT costs $1550 each, per developer, for commercial use on Windows and Mac.

QT versus Java (PDF file)

QT versus MFC, in English (See the French below.)

QT versus MFC, in French (MFC contre Qt)

Trolltech's QT costs $1550 each, per developer, for commercial use on Windows and Mac.

QT versus Java (PDF file)

QT versus MFC, in English (See the French below.)

QT versus MFC, in French (MFC contre Qt)

VI lovers will just have to use KMail instead.

As most of you desktop users already know, the KDE Project recently released KDE 3.1beta2, which will be the final development release before KDE 3.1. The good news is, KDE 3.1 is scheduled for release in just a few weeks.

KDE 3.1, the strongest KDE release to date, promises new goodies for just about everyone who gets to enjoy the full KDE desktop experience. Here is a sampling of what is in store for you:

Browsing with Tabs. The many fans of tabbed browsing will be delighted by this new addition to the KDE web browser ( Konqueror ) (screenshot). To simplify downloading a large number of files, a new download manager (KGET), which fully integrates into Konqueror, has joined the network package (kdenetwork). It manages any number of downloads in one window, where transfers can be added, removed, paused, resumed, queued or scheduled. A dialog displays transfer status, including progress, size, speed and estimated time to completion.

Eye Candy. The artistically-inclined KDE contributors have showered us with a basket of new eye candy. As shown in this screenshot, KDE 3.1 will ship with the contemporary Crystal icon set as well as the original new Keramik theme. The screenshot also shows the new drop-shadows. To help manage these stunning themes, KDE will provide a new theme manager with improved theme style and color decoration previews (screenshot). Menus and other desktop windows can also use attractive drop shadows, as shown in the screenshot above.

Personal Information Management. On the PIM front, the email client ( KMail ) has gained several privacy and security enhancements - namely S/MIME, PGP/MIME and X.509v3 support - in collaboration with the Aegypten project, an IT security project sponsored by the German government (screenshot). The calendar / scheduling application (KOrganizer) features a new Exchange 2000 plugin. The address book (KAddressbook) has gained the ability to fetch contact information from one or more LDAP servers. It can also print contact information and import industry-standard vCards.

While not included in the 3.1 release, the next quantum jump in KDE's email / groupware architecture is scheduled for KDE 3.2, when KDE will ship a completely copy-lefted, integrated groupware system. Currently known as the Kroupware Project, it is being sponsored by the German government and will integrate the major KDE PIM applications (screenshot, screenshot). More about this project, and some additional screenshots, can be found on the dot. KDE 3.2 will also feature the ability to use Vim as the mail composer (screenshot).

File Management. The file manager (Konqueror) has a number of new goodies, such as folder icons which reflect a folder's contents, a video thumbnail generator and a number of plugins for providing enhanced- or meta-information about various file types (e.g., images, binary packages, source code). The file search utility can now search file meta-information for searching multi-media files.

Desktop Sharing. For those who switch work stations frequently, KDE offers a new VNC-compatible desktop sharing framework. It enables users to share a KDE desktop across multiple machines (screenshot).*

Enterprise. Enterprises, Internet cafes and similar users will appreciate enhancements to the KDE Kiosk framework (the Kiosk framework provides an easy way to disable certain features within KDE to create a more controlled environment). In addition, the panel (Kicker) now supports fully customized menus.

Multimedia. The multimedia framework (kdemultimedia) has a new video decoder based on Xine. Xine is a video framework which provides support for various video formats, such as AVI, DivX, Cinepak, Sorenson Video, MPEG 1/2 and 4, QuickTime / MOV, ASF and others.

Games. For the playful among us, KDE 3.1 will offer a number of new games in the games package (kdegames), including a golf game ( Kolf ) (screenshot), an Atlantik and Monopoly-type game ( Atlantik ), a Blackjack game ( Megami ). and a Same-like game ( Klickery ).

Ease of Use. A number of other improvements are meant simply to make the desktop easier to use and configure. For example, the application finder (KAppfinder) provides a nice tree view for selecting the applications to include in the KDE desktop menu hierarchy. Two new user notification methods have also been added for providing non-obtrusive informational messages: a passive popup window (KPassivePopup), which pops up next to the application's entry in the panel's taskbar (without stealing the focus), as well as messages which appear in an application's title-bar (KWindowInfo). In addition, the control center (KControl) has received a face lift and better organization (screenshot).

Miscellaneous. Of course work under the hood continues for KDE 3.1 as well. It provides a number of speed improvements, such as Konqueror start-up time, a number of usability enhancements by the KDE Usability Project, as well as almost 1,000 critter fixes.

More information about planned KDE 3 features is available for KDE 3.1 and KDE 3.2.

Some interesting KDE statistics: the KDE CVS source code repository consists of about 2.6 million lines of code (LOC) (for comparison, the GNU/Linux kernel version 2.5.29 consists of about 3.1 million lines of code). The KDE Project consists of hundreds of active contributors, with 300 of them translating KDE into over 70 languages (KDE 3.0.4 shipped in 51 languages). In May 2002 over 11,014 CVS commits were executed. The KDE website has 24 official mirrors in 16 countries and the KDE FTP site has 71 official mirrors in 30 countries.

As most of you desktop users already know, the KDE Project recently released KDE 3.1beta2, which will be the final development release before KDE 3.1. The good news is, KDE 3.1 is scheduled for release in just a few weeks.

KDE 3.1, the strongest KDE release to date, promises new goodies for just about everyone who gets to enjoy the full KDE desktop experience. Here is a sampling of what is in store for you:

Browsing with Tabs. The many fans of tabbed browsing will be delighted by this new addition to the KDE web browser ( Konqueror ) (screenshot). To simplify downloading a large number of files, a new download manager (KGET), which fully integrates into Konqueror, has joined the network package (kdenetwork). It manages any number of downloads in one window, where transfers can be added, removed, paused, resumed, queued or scheduled. A dialog displays transfer status, including progress, size, speed and estimated time to completion.

Eye Candy. The artistically-inclined KDE contributors have showered us with a basket of new eye candy. As shown in this screenshot, KDE 3.1 will ship with the contemporary Crystal icon set as well as the original new Keramik theme. The screenshot also shows the new drop-shadows. To help manage these stunning themes, KDE will provide a new theme manager with improved theme style and color decoration previews (screenshot). Menus and other desktop windows can also use attractive drop shadows, as shown in the screenshot above.

Personal Information Management. On the PIM front, the email client ( KMail ) has gained several privacy and security enhancements - namely S/MIME, PGP/MIME and X.509v3 support - in collaboration with the Aegypten project, an IT security project sponsored by the German government (screenshot). The calendar / scheduling application (KOrganizer) features a new Exchange 2000 plugin. The address book (KAddressbook) has gained the ability to fetch contact information from one or more LDAP servers. It can also print contact information and import industry-standard vCards.

While not included in the 3.1 release, the next quantum jump in KDE's email / groupware architecture is scheduled for KDE 3.2, when KDE will ship a completely copy-lefted, integrated groupware system. Currently known as the Kroupware Project, it is being sponsored by the German government and will integrate the major KDE PIM applications (screenshot, screenshot). More about this project, and some additional screenshots, can be found on the dot. KDE 3.2 will also feature the ability to use Vim as the mail composer (screenshot).

File Management. The file manager (Konqueror) has a number of new goodies, such as folder icons which reflect a folder's contents, a video thumbnail generator and a number of plugins for providing enhanced- or meta-information about various file types (e.g., images, binary packages, source code). The file search utility can now search file meta-information for searching multi-media files.

Desktop Sharing. For those who switch work stations frequently, KDE offers a new VNC-compatible desktop sharing framework. It enables users to share a KDE desktop across multiple machines (screenshot).*

Enterprise. Enterprises, Internet cafes and similar users will appreciate enhancements to the KDE Kiosk framework (the Kiosk framework provides an easy way to disable certain features within KDE to create a more controlled environment). In addition, the panel (Kicker) now supports fully customized menus.

Multimedia. The multimedia framework (kdemultimedia) has a new video decoder based on Xine. Xine is a video framework which provides support for various video formats, such as AVI, DivX, Cinepak, Sorenson Video, MPEG 1/2 and 4, QuickTime / MOV, ASF and others.

Games. For the playful among us, KDE 3.1 will offer a number of new games in the games package (kdegames), including a golf game ( Kolf ) (screenshot), an Atlantik and Monopoly-type game ( Atlantik ), a Blackjack game ( Megami ). and a Same-like game ( Klickery ).

Ease of Use. A number of other improvements are meant simply to make the desktop easier to use and configure. For example, the application finder (KAppfinder) provides a nice tree view for selecting the applications to include in the KDE desktop menu hierarchy. Two new user notification methods have also been added for providing non-obtrusive informational messages: a passive popup window (KPassivePopup), which pops up next to the application's entry in the panel's taskbar (without stealing the focus), as well as messages which appear in an application's title-bar (KWindowInfo). In addition, the control center (KControl) has received a face lift and better organization (screenshot).

Miscellaneous. Of course work under the hood continues for KDE 3.1 as well. It provides a number of speed improvements, such as Konqueror start-up time, a number of usability enhancements by the KDE Usability Project, as well as almost 1,000 critter fixes.

More information about planned KDE 3 features is available for KDE 3.1 and KDE 3.2.

Some interesting KDE statistics: the KDE CVS source code repository consists of about 2.6 million lines of code (LOC) (for comparison, the GNU/Linux kernel version 2.5.29 consists of about 3.1 million lines of code). The KDE Project consists of hundreds of active contributors, with 300 of them translating KDE into over 70 languages (KDE 3.0.4 shipped in 51 languages). In May 2002 over 11,014 CVS commits were executed. The KDE website has 24 official mirrors in 16 countries and the KDE FTP site has 71 official mirrors in 30 countries.

VIM can easily be configured as a KPart component and used in almost all KDE programs. take a look at KVim. Vi rocks period.

People do what they like. This guy wanted to have some C# bindings. He did them. Congratulation. Although I don't find those bindings useful and I would prefer to see people spending time on more useful stuff (fixing and developing KDE for example), he can do whatever pleases him.

This is why we have free software, because people enjoy doing stuff. You even have project recognised as unuseful such as zeta