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Perhaps you're thinking of KDevelop. Much of the User Manual is missing. Here's an example: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdevelop/kdevel op/ui-elements.html

Perhaps you're thinking of KDevelop. Much of the User Manual is missing. Here's an example: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdevelop/kdevel op/ui-elements.html

What about Akademy 2007 in Glasgow?

I had a Dell 1705 come into my work area, the owner wanting the XP partition formatted, and started over clean.
Was too slow due to all the programs that Dell preinstalls, according to the owner of the laptop.
I did not touch the restoration partitions, they have the OEM Dell drivers, some of them, at least.
Dell does have all of the necessary drivers online, so you can use a livecd linux to download them, and install until you get your wireless card working, and can boot into XP, and finish the setup.
These laptops are very nice, only complaint is the driver for the ATI video card, it wants you to use the maximum resolution to get top performance, if you back down to 1024x768, so you can see the text better, the driver says you are not getting the most out of the card. This is XP, not Vista, and the entire put-back-together is doable with XP. When I got finished with the laptop, it was very nice indeed. On that hardware, XP beats my live cd linux, in that I don't have a wireless card driver, for one thing. Printer support is another, XP wins there also.
Downside with XP is security, that OS is probably a disaster waiting to happen in the security area.
Rapidweather Remaster (see screenshots, below) wins there.
Glad to hear that Dell still offers XP for these fine machines, running a dual core with 2 GB of RAM is a good match for XP, and way more than enough with Rapidweather Remaster. The Remaster can do well with 256 MB of RAM.
I have heard complaints about the battery life going down within a few months with XP on these laptops, surely Vista would be worse, so the Upgrade to Vista is not being done, owners getting chicken about the new OS fowling up their nice XP installation. With the re-partition of the hard drive on this particular laptop, I can accommodate a livecd linux, with a "persistent home" partition, and a "tohd", "fromhd" partition for the /KNOPPIX folder.
Still has to boot into these hard drive setups with the CD, however. Since we were to keep XP, I couldn't do a loadlin batch file setup to get Linux booted up off the hard drive, without using the CD.
I do that on dual hard drive machines, a small MSDOS drive (2GB)with the files, and a big drive (160GB) for Linux.
You may use these batch files as a guide, just copy them to your MSDOS hard drive partition, and customize.
Should work with an OEM Knoppix 3.4 CD, or with a Rapidweather Remaster CD, (see screenshots below).
I am currently working from a HP Pavilion 8250 with this setup, this machine dates back to the Windows 95 days, but has a fairly decent Celeron processor that gives me good performance as I run Flock 0.7.12 today.
This machine is very quiet, does not beat up the hard drive like Windows 98 would do. Right now I am able to run Amarok and Flock at the same time.

The KDE documentation contains a brief comparison of open source licenses.

Konqueror is an Open Source web browser with HTML 4.01 compliance, supporting Java applets, JavaScript, CSS 1, CSS 2.1, as well as Netscape plugins (for example, Flash or RealVideo plugins).

Yes, I have, in fact. I regularly transfer music to my iPod from Amarok, and it works flawlessly. Next question!

I know a couple of people who'd save hours a day if they didn't have spider solitaire a click away

But... KDE includes an app named Patience which lets you play many kinds of solitaires, including Spider :-)

The iPod should publish it's interfaces so that people can make competing iPod software.

Firefox is not GTK based in the same sense Konqueror is Qt-based. It has its own graphics toolkit (XUL) under the hood of the GTK UI, and it does not use GNOME infrastructure to extent Konqueror uses KDE infrastructure.

But I looked up the (somewhat outdated) numbers I remembered, and you are right in the particular case of XFCE + Firefox vs. KDE + Konqueror:

http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmar k.html

As soon as we add more applications the picture changes though.

I think you can play AAC files with amarok and as we all know it rocks!

I think you can play AAC files with amarok and as we all know it rocks!

It was said earlier in the thread, but I think it bears repeating.

"You can't fight the future".

As OO.org or other, more nimble alternatives (like KOfice 2, which is coming to Windows) get better and better, it will approach (and perhaps even overtake) Microsoft's functionality.

Look at what happened with IE6; Firefox and Opera aren't just arguably better than IE6, they are a lot better. Obviously Microsoft put some money into making IE7 better, but Firefox and Opera are still better at rendering CSS web pages.

I'm sure as OpenOffice and KOffice get better, we'll see investment (in the form of code, or programmers, or money) from companies that are friendly to open source (IBM maybe?), which will increase features and code quality.

Would someone be willing to use a product that is better than a product that costs $351 (for the "Standard" version), and is free?

I'm sure they would.

Microsoft is already at it's peak, it has nowhere to go but down.

I agree with you that this page is very misleading. On the one hand, they say "under an open source license" rather than "under the GPL". The page should be clearer that other open source licenses are possible and will stay possible in the future. Advising people not use the QPL in their own code any more is OK, though.

Trolltech can drop neither the GPL nor the QPL from future Qt releases because they are both included the KDE Free Qt Foundation agreement. There have been plans, however, to replace the QPL+GPL dual license with a GPL with special exception, which would be much clearer - something like: "As a special exception, you are also allowed to link to Qt from code that uses other open sources license, provided that all parts of your application are open source licensed."

Another problem is that the agreement only covers the X11 platform. We (that is, KDE people) hope that Trolltech will update it to also include Windows and MacOS.

The Trolltech website also has other problematic pages. For example, they do not always distinguish correctly between "commercial" and "proprietary" in their FAQ.

Amarok is by far my favorite "jukebox" program. There are only two things it doesn't have that iTunes does and those are the jukebox look (coverflow) and the APE (air port express) integration. Now, you mentioned OS X. Amarok is a great program, and when it's finally ported to Qt4, I will no longer use iTunes unless I have to. Here is a guide for getting Amarok running in OS X, and here is one to get it running "natively". There's a bit of a conversation as to an .app package for it.

• Be an ID3 tag-nazi - No player can compensate for 750 GB of badly named media. MP3Tag is your friend for batch editing ID3 tags.
• Sort all your files using a resonable naming system. I use '/path/to/archive/%Artist%/[%Year] %Album%/%02Track% - %Title%.%Ext%'. This comes in real handy for writing scripts to deal with an archive to large to manage by hand.
• Backup. Backup. Backup.

The workspace (that would be mostly KWin and Plasma) won't be ported to Windows. Only applications will.

The workspace (that would be mostly KWin and Plasma) won't be ported to Windows. Only applications will.

For one, the KDE 4.0 development snapshots are using Qt 4.2, and by the time KDE 4.0 is released in a few months, Qt 4.3 will probably be released and used as well.

Another gripe is that KDE 4.0 is the base KDE 4 release; that is, it will contain the foundation for all KDE 4 applications along with its "core" applications all updated to use said base. KDE 4.0 (like KDE 3.0 and presumably 2.0 and 1.0; I'm not that old a Linux user sadly) will be more of a "proof of concept" release that updates all the KDE 3.5 applications to use Qt 4 along with the new "Pillars of KDE" (check the Dot for articles about it). However, it is expected that KOffice 2.0, Amarok 2.0, KDevelop 4.0, and several other key applications will be released with KDE 4.0, and those are major upgrades beside the typical updated usage of KDE libraries, Qt 4, and all the other things updated with KDE 4.

What I'm getting at here is that KDE 4.1 and beyond are the Holy Grails if anything; at this point, the developer interest in KDE should spike to above KDE 3 levels (especially due to the new platforms it supports: Windows and Mac OS X) and the new applications and innovations will begin. Just look at the major differences between KDE 3.5.6 and KDE 3.0 for example to see how much a major revision tends to change over time and include new programs. Basically, KDE 4.0 is the beginning of the quest for the Holy Grail (not to mention all the Python usage in some KDE distros like Kubuntu), but the Holy Grail itself will be a future release of KDE 4.

If you speak from a developer's standpoint, KDE 4.0 can be argued to be the Holy Grail, but not from the user's standpoint.

I also hope that this release will make KDE fonts look sharp, crisp and beautiful by default. It is unfortunate that many times, we in the Linux community have to seek Microsoft's help on fonts in order to have a desktop that is a pleasure to look at.

First, KDE3 relied on QT3 which for a long time did not have a GPL licensed version for Windows. Second, porting KDE4 has begun, http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDE4+Windo ws+Port

Version 2.0
        Estimated Release Date: The same day or slightly before KDE 4.0 is released
        Will be Released on Linux, Windows and Mac.
        Will kick all other media player arse :-).

amaroK will not be ported to windows until (if ever):

* amaroK 2.0, which will use the Qt 4 toolkit. Qt 3.x releases, although have windows editions, are not compatible with the amaroK GPL license
* KDE-libs, and respective engines are ported to windows
* There is an open source windows developer willing to do all the hard work. There is as much chance of any of the current dev's porting to windows as there is
copyrighted music download becoming free. I'll do it if it does.

So, stop harrasing us - it's not going to happen for a while.

This simply isn't true. A system used to run Linux with X, a desktop and some typical end-user applications (say Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice) requires more resources than an XP system with IE, OutlookExpress, Office.

I would recommend trying Kubuntu, OpenSUSE (or SUSE even, although that would involve supporting that damn Microsoft-Novell patent deal), Mandriva, or Linspire/Freespire. These distributions use KDE (K Desktop Environment), which in my opinion (and even Linus himself along with many, many others) is far more usable, customisable, and useful than GNOME, the default desktop environment for many other distributions such as Ubuntu. Although GNOME tends to look cleaner than KDE, its usability is quite, well, limited. I don't understand the circle jerk going on between most distributions and their need to use GNOME by default, but I do know that a lot of people's complaints in regards to the GUI on Linux are GNOME-specific and are not a problem with KDE.

Kmousetool is the KDE-port of Jef Roush' excellent Mousetool (for Windows) application. He maintained Kmousetool, a very (very) rudimentary version of Mousetool, for a short while. Mousetool was freeware, but since Jef started working for Designer Appliances, it is now no longer free and Kmousetool development has stopped. The KDE Accessibility team (that hosts the Kmousetool project) is now mainly interested in supporting the AT-SPI accessibility framework (which is nice, by the way), so they don't continue to work on it. A student of mine wrote a Qt4 port of Kmousetool, and he has notified the KDE Accessibility team in case they were interested, but got no response. Pity, that.

I use Kmousetool regularly, when my hands are too sore, but only when really necessary. Reason is that it doesn't always behave as expected and is very limited (Mousetool and GentleMouse have many, many more features). For example, Kmousetool only does left clicking and you still need to right/middle click manually. Selecting an item from a context menu is awkward: often an automatic left click click is generated right after the manual right click to show the menu and the item that happens to be under the cursor is selected without having actually seen it properly.

If only I had some more time to learn some C++... I actually started working on Kmousetool a few years back, but had to stop because of other duties...

There's mousetool and kmousetool too. And don't forget hit-a-hint for almost onehanded web browsing (use letters instead of numbers).

Both of those work just fine on codeweaver's version of Wine.

I once burned a cd containing what turned out to be only half of a friend's home directory. After that, I became extremely paranoid about verifying burned data, and that paranoia has saved me extra work (although not on the order of the original event) since then.

Since k3b has gone 1.0 recently, tell me if my add to bug 77432 is overly paranoid?

I took their willingness to work with the Mozilla folks, and the already released Linux player as an indication that we may see a FreeBSD version. If not officially, perhaps some work by projects like this will suffice.

I am assuming some of the GNOME/GTK projects got rejected this time to add some balance, they can always put their ideas under their umbrella project like KOffice does.

Well... Except that:

• GIMP is not a GNOME project. It uses GTK+, though: the GIMP ToolKit.
• GStreamer is not a GNOME project, it is a cross-desktop library that can be used in KDE, GNOME, XFCE and others.
• Avahi is not a GNOME project. In fact, it is even used for providing ZeroConf support in KDE (KDNSSD) when Apple's mdnsd cannot be used (usually for license reasons). See the description in the KDE wiki.

It would be nice to become a bit more familiar with these projects before assuming that they are GNOME projects. On the other hand, it is clear that KOffice is part of KDE so it is understandable that it would be supported under its umbrella project.

More like a problem starting.

I guess you haven't tried Amarok recently then... it blows away iTunes in so many ways I could never have imagined. Things are dramatically more intuitive, it supports at least 30 features that iTunes does not (and will not support), and most of all, it works on my platforms, with all of my media players (not just iPods).

More features, more support, more functionality, more platforms, and the GUI that is just useful and intuitive? Using iTunes is like using rocks and sticks to manage my music. No thanks.

You are apparently wrong. Check out the link: http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=104956 Around comments 35-36, they state that the copy on the server is deleted.

KDE's Konqueror does a great job as a replacement for windows exploror. You'll just need to install KDE - if it isn't there already. Here's a screenshot from the KDE org site:

http://www.kde.org/screenshots/images/3.5/06-konqu eror-mc.png

You are so completely incorrect about this. You can block non-authorized applications (centrally, based on MAC addres, user ID, group ID, etc etc), and have been able to for years using workgroup manager under OS X server.

Roaming profiles under OSX works brilliantly, and yes it does cache on the local host.

What type of network do you run?? are you still on coax??? the load caused on any modern network for remote homeDirs is perfectly acceptable.

You can also choose to boot disklessly with Netboot and acheive all sorts of usefull administrative tasks. I could go on.

You slag off OpenDirectory, have you actually used it?

Remeber the M$ attack on Kerberos?

And you bitch about vendor-lock in... You are living it.

Use Amerok.. lol. Go ahead and prefer Windows over OS X

it's obviously out of ignorance and fear, not objective assesment.

This 2 links will be good lecture for you :)
http://commit-digest.org/issues/2007-01-14/
http://dot.kde.org/1168899755/

Memory footprint larger in KDE? Are you sure? Maybe you should have done some research: http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmar k.html Now of course this is slightly bias (just look at that domain!) but I'm sure I've read this elsewhere also.

As for KDE, meh, if you mean Kubuntu, say that.. if you don't WTF are you doing running KDE?

I don't really go for Kubuntu, but I have run KDE under SuSE since 6.1, so I am very comfortable with YaST & KDE.

Correct. The current packaging systems are not the full answer however. It works now with 1% of market share. It will suck when more ISV's jump into Linux. If we don't offer a reasonable framework to install and upgrade distributed packages, every ISV will create it's own setup.exe and update system. Like every Windows application has it's own auto-update function.

RPM and DEB are really good for the base system. Simply really good. They don't scale though when you want the latest Firefox, Gaim or Amarok that was just released. Nor do they scale up when you install more less common third-party software (e.g. some new KDE widget style). It still happens I compile software at distributions like Gentoo and openSUSE which offer a lot of up-to-date software. It's because it's impossible to package all available software out there. Notwithstanding the fact it's a duplicated effort.

Looking at the download page of a random project, I think something is wrong there. Why can't there be just one installer? What is so different between all RPM or DEB-based distributions you need separate packages for each one of them? These are things Zero Install and Autopackage try to fix this. I agree these are intermediate solutions; a good central system is not available yet.

I think Linux needs a distributed packaging system. A system where ISV's can plug-in their "feed url" as well. Perhaps even like RSS does it, place a feed icon at the website. A local cronjob and central update server then check all feeds to provide software updates for really all installed software. I really wish something like that would emerge.

The AC answered it perfectly. For some bizarre reason the mods didn't see his post. But basically, once upon a time, Qt's licensing was not GPL.

KDE has the full history here.

KDE started out with Qt before Qt was GPL because, as they claim (and having used Qt, I agree), "Qt is the best GUI toolkit available for the UNIX platform."

I have a saying: If Ubuntu is the worst thing to happen to KDE, then Kubuntu is the second. I simply don't understand how they've made such a great desktop so bad.

Oh, and since I've resolved to keep posting these links until it finally penetrates into the public consciousness, here are links comparing the memory usage of GNOME and KDE. The first is by a KDE dev using a slightly outdated version of GNOME; the second by a GNOME dev using GNOME 2.16:

http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmar k.html

http://spooky-possum.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/kde vsgnome.html

This is, of course, without the significant automatic gains that will come with the switch to Qt4. I think it's time to put the "KDE is teh bloated!!!" (at least, compared to GNOME :)) meme to rest, don't you?

Next up: "KDE is teh windoze!" in the face of GNOME integrating a clone of Microsoft's fucking .NET platform (initiated, of course, by everyone's favourite GNOME founder and would-be Microsoft employee). If only KDE had taken the bold step of moving the taskbar to the top of the screen like their GNOME brethren, this meme would likely never have taken hold :(

nfortunately Word is the only guy left on the block

I say that governments and the people can demand the standards and APIs to be open, and then competition will naturally follow.

And that Linux box will run iMovie, GarageBand, iTunes, [Microsoft] Office, require no command-line knowledge, and work out of the box with most major peripherals without having to download or install any drivers, right?

Amarok does have DAAP support. http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/193-iTunes-Mus ic-Sharing-Client-Works.html
The support has only been in for about 8 months, so it's understandable you hadn't noticed...

What're these "must-have" features in KDE? Any time I've used it, I've found a bunch of stupidly-named applications, and a big, bulky UI filled with toolbars. I'd rather use GNOME. Hell, I'd rather use Windows.

I like how you linked to an article on KDE 4, has anything of KDE 4 even been shown yet? All I recall seeing is some hand-drawn diagrams and some mock-ups. The Release Plan indicated they were aiming for a technical preview release in October, did that even happen?

I did find a screenshot, hardly looks like the revolutionary improvements shown in the mock-ups (linked site not in English, but if you scroll about half way down the page you can see the mock-ups).

I would really like to use iTunes in Ubuntu

My point is that these memory sticks are being given out with the intention of exposing kids to OSS; but I'm saying these kids are going to say, "does it do what I want? No; not unless I get on the command line and .... Then I'll stick to iTunes, because all I have to do is press one button and it just works."

Also, I have not found an open source music player that works as well as iTunes, but I think Songbird will be good once the bugs are worked out.

Actually, a KDE dev ran experiments in the past and had numbers that agreed with the article. Heres his results: http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmar k.html

Later a GNOME dev ran his own tests with a more optimized version of GNOME and GNOME did a bit better, but KDE still won: http://spooky-possum.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/kde vsgnome.html

Looks like reality is a bit different than your beliefs!

Well, it sure seems the author could have chosen a better title for this article - wishing to satisfy everybody, which is not easy in a diverse Linux distro world, he ended up satisfying very few.

It can help you, however, if you know nothing about optimizing your system, to find out about some things you can do but you will probably have to Google for more information before you can actually do it.

Also, I don't know if you've noticed but there's a "Resources" part at the bottom which leads you to sites with more info about some of the things discussed in the article. Haven't checked any but the one for exmap tool, which I'm going to use to assess the memory usage situation on my system - one useful thing from the article! :)

For all of you using KDE, I found an interesting wiki on KDE performance tips, that KDE users with modest systems might appreciate. It doesn't have an exact HOWTO on every thing it touches though but you can use Google to find these... ;)