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As per this 5 year old bug, proper mouse button support would be nice. Hacks are not very user friendly, as the whole POINT of KDE is that an end user isn't going to have to monkey with something like imwheel. Heck, 7 button support has been in Window Managers like Sawfish for 7+ _YEARS_. I'm not quite sure why this isn't implemented, but it sure as hell isn't because of QT.

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34362

I wonder about a recent bug I found.. about three months ago, about applications not showing on iconification when also shaded, in the tasklist. The bug report I found was about three years old.

My point? Usability means that perhaps you should deal with usability bugs. I have KDE set up for my parents. Trust me, when they iconify an app that happened to be shaded, they don't know to use ps to find it and kill it. They don't know about alt-tab. They just think it crashed.

Citing DCOP as an advantage of GNOME only takes you as far as KDE 3, since KDE 4 will use dbus just as GNOME does.

"We've come a long way in ten years, but where must we still improve?"

For me, it's the two major sub-items covered under one big one: Beauty.

• The fonts are ugly. What does it take to make KDE display beautiful fonts. I am particularily impressed by this Kdevelop image. http://kdevelop.org/graphics/screenshots/3.0/full_ ide.png. If a product is touted as significantly better technologically, it should also be a pleasure to look at.

• The interface by default, is full of huge buttons wasting screen real estate. Why won't these two toolbars be merged? There is so much space wasted above the lower toolbar. Just have a look at this image. http://kde.org/screenshots/images/3.5/02-systeminf o.png

• They (KDE) should look at hiring a beautification expert. Xandros and Linspire should provide a hint. The point here is that KDE should be a pleasure to look at by default. Thank you.

Speed. KDE (and Gnome) need better speed optimizations.

This is most likely your video card drivers. KDE is plenty fast, but if you dont have acceleration working in X, then everything will seem sluggish. My card is poorly supported (ATI Xpress 200m) and it makes everything seem slow.

Memory usage. The memory requirements of KDE and and Gnome are ridiculous.

Yes, if you mean ridiculously low. Fresh boot, Debian with KDE 3.5.4 on my old box, 32MB of ram used. Start up konversation (irc client) and it's about 45MB. Every subsequent application uses less extra ram, because the libraries are already loaded. Fresh boot on windows xp is at least 100MB, on my laptop more like 150. Most likely you have no idea on how to measure memory usage on linux. Have a look here: http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/

Clutter.

You've got a point there, it's getting better with every release though. And no, sacrificing features for simplicity like Gnome did is not a good strategy.

Consistency.

That's one of the strengths of KDE actually. Everything works the same across the KDE apps. Keyboard shortcuts, look, general menu structure, colours, style, etc etc. And then we get into the even more important consistency, which is functional consistency. Just about every app that needs a text editor uses the same one, so they all behave the same. The same spell checking engine is used almost everywhere, and the password manager saves passwords for every application that has a need to store them. No other operating system is anywhere close to that consistent. Not OS X, not Windows, nothing.

DCOP already does something like this, but it is not present in all kde apps and not all functions are supported.
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/other/dcop. html

I'd just like to say congratulations and thank you for making such a great desktop. Keep up the good work for KDE 4. Just in case anyone is interested in getting involved, here's the link to the Support KDE page. There's info there on how to donate money, time, code, etc.

For IRC, have you tried konversation

The CSS support of Konqueror is also better than that of Gecko. It passes the Acid2 test, which to the best of my knowledge, Gecko still cannot do.

Acid2 is *not* the end-all be-all of CSS. Passing it doesn't mean something has great CSS support, nor does failing it mean you have poor CSS support. Konqueror does well at the CSS selectors it supports (unlike IE), but there are a lot it simply doesn't do. I've done some CSS development, and Konqueror doesn't hold a candle to Gecko, especially when you get into the more obscure CSS2/CSS3 things.

Konqueror also doesn't have Mozilla's extension-writing community. CSS isn't the easiest-to-use standard I've ever used, and having extensions to make development easier far outweigh being able to see a smiley face on some intentionally-wrong HTML test page.

KMail is another great application. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but its usability is far better than that of Thunderbird or Evolution. With the GNOME applications you have to take a moment to think about what you want to do, and how exactly to accomplish it, with KMail it's blatantly obvious. You just click instinctually, and often times it does what you want it to.

Based on the screenshots at kde.org, I'd say it's anything but "instinctual". The first line in an email is not "To:", as with every other email client in the world, but "Identity", which is "Default (Default)". I don't even know what that means. Then "Dictionary: English [british]" [sic] (why, do they think I'm going to alternate between English dialects?). *Then* comes "To", but note that even though this is the one field you'll always fill out, it's the only widget on the screen without a mnemonic. There's a checkbox called "Sticky" -- I don't know what this does, or even if it's related to the "Identity" popup it's next to (am I a sticky individual?). The list goes on and on.

I guess it's one of those "intuitive once you learn how to use it" things, which is another way to say "unintuitive".

KDE has produced an admirable amount of code, and they do great at some things (like memory usage, as you point out). But it kills your credibility to suggest that KMail is "instinctively intuitive", just as it would strain my credibility if I was to claim that GNOME is as responsive as KDE (it's not, I know). Neither KDE nor GNOME is completely ahead or behind the other, and both have things they can learn from the other. In fact, that's true of everything in life: nobody is better at everything, and everybody has something they can learn from you, and vice versa.

There change-log lists only about 182 changes.

There SVN commits are to 483 unique files. (cat kdebase.txt|grep branches|sed 's/*/ /g'|uniq|wc), Otherwise there are 485 (cat kdebase.txt|grep branches -c)

But total number of lines are 1586 (wc kdebase.txt)

Draw your own conclusions. (I have mine ;) )

There change-log lists only about 182 changes.

There SVN commits are to 483 unique files. (cat kdebase.txt|grep branches|sed 's/*/ /g'|uniq|wc), Otherwise there are 485 (cat kdebase.txt|grep branches -c)

But total number of lines are 1586 (wc kdebase.txt)

Draw your own conclusions. (I have mine ;) )

The fix to Kopete that lets it use Adium skins is definitely welcome, as there are a ton of Adium skins.

However, I wish they had spent their time making Kopete compatible with Gaim's plugin architecture rather than a basically glitzy UI improvement. At least last time I checked, Kopete was completely incompatible with OTR encryption, and it looked like it was going to stay that way. (The reason I heard was that something about the existing Kopete plugin structure doesn't allow plugins to actually orginate messages, just modify them as they pass through, and OTR uses specially crafted messages to initiate connections and resend data. Or something like that; don't quote me on it directly.)

Seems like the request is still open on Bugzilla, I encourage people to vote, as IMO this is a major limitation of Kopete versus Gaim. Kopete definitely looks nicer than Gaim, but it's not as functional because of that.

Actually, I'm not sure why they don't just rebuild Kopete to use the libgaim backend, like Adium does (and Proteus, and Fire...). Maybe there are good reasons for not using it, but it strikes me as serious wheel-reinvention.

I was speaking on the general state of windows computing. Currently under XP this can happen if you're not careful what you check. I had someone ask me about this just yesterday. MS isn't known for admitting they screwed up and backtracking on something like that. If they have, great, but the fact of the matter is they already went down that road. Its just proof that they have no problem testing the waters with highly restrictive DRM.

I'll check that out next time I boot my XP to play The Sims 2 (Currently gives me some minor graphical glitches in Vista RC2 that I haven't bothered investigating). If you would be so gracious as to provide proof positive that Microsoft did make copy protection the default for MP3s in any iteration of Windows Media Player that made it to XP, please let me know since I'm going to be so gracious as to provide links to you that you requested.

and I doubt they form 51% or more of MS customer base.

So we only care about the majority of users with something that's entirely optional. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to provide all these tools for creating your own music, video, whatever with tools that come with Vista, and instead of making it easy on content creators large or small, we decide to instead tell them that they need to go elsewhere for that when it's trivial to implement? That makes no business sense.

As for your education, here you go oh lazy one:

on DRM in KPDF

Re: DRM-crippled Banshee has no copyleft protection

Torvalds: "DRM is Perfectly OK with Linux

Linux and DRM - succeeding where MS failed?

The RIAA - Hollywood - DRM - Linux Suicide Pact

GStreamer to support DRM

Then they changed their form so they no longer accept feature requests for iTunes, only iPods. As for my request, iTunes 6 doesn't remember where I was in a playlist after closing the program, does version 7?

Amarok does this quite nicely. They also happily take requests for new features.

Ah yes, I'm well aware that there are major changes coming up under the hood that are already made possibly by the new technology being used, but I'm talking more about... more about the GUI aspect of things first off, since this is a GUI article, but also about how there are no solid plans for anything related to KDE4 as far as I can tell. Plasma is going to revolutionize the desktop, Phonon will usher in "a new era of writing multimedia-enabled applications in KDE". Look, I'm ready to accept this and listen to their ideas and also see it put into action, but we've been talking about these things for a long time and as far as I know there aren't even any QT4 apps of import right now outside of what little bit works with KDE thus far.

I guess I just worry because I want to see everything they say happen and I've always been impatient. But when this Release Plan is so sparse on the details, it doesn't help things with me. :)

Good luck KDE, may your v4 rock the socks off of the mockups and competition.

That's hardly true at all. Just look at this page (http://kde.org/support/) from kde.org. It lists many ways to contribute to KDE, including giving donations, contributing artwork, promoting KDE, finding and reporting bugs, documenting and translating programs, and more. That doesn't involve anything overly-technical for your average user; it mostly only takes some time and dedication.

Mine is Dont have selection boxes with just yes no and canel on them, make them more informative such as is in linux, ie Save File and Discard, Don't Close and Save.

...which was, I think, recommended by Apple before being popular on other systems. (See "Buttons for addressing the alert".)

Of course, "on Linux" in this context really means "in GNOME" or "in KDE" or ..... The GNOME Human Interface Guidelines make the same suggestion about button labels, which I think they took from the OS X HIG. The KDE HIG also suggests buttons with verbs. I don't know what other DEs or toolkits recommend (if anything) or support.

Then again, even one of Microsoft's HIGs suggests that, albeit not as strongly (look for "Dialog Box Commands"). For that matter, so does the Vista HIG (look for "Use positive commit buttons").

Check out the tutorial. It shows how to convert an existing app (in this case an animation player)into a KPart, then shows that KPart embedded in Konquerer, complete with menu options and toolbar buttons, without changing any Konqueror code. Now, Konqueror is highly KPart aware, and will use any components that it possibly can. Whether or not this will work with $RANDOM_KDE_APP will depend partly on the app itself, and how hard it tries to find components, and partly on the KPart and how hard it tries to publish its available functionality. But the framework is there, and it works today.

How it is installed will depend mostly on your distro and package manager. Each KPart is responsible for defining its own user interface (menu items, toolbar buttins, etc.) and publishing that interface to container apps via a .desktop file, so how a KPart is used will depend on what specific KPart you are talking about.

Also, it seems that Kopete already has a translator plugin, that is accessible from the Tools menu.

The main idea behind components is reusability. Often, an application wants to use a functionality that another application provides. Of course, the way to do that is simply to create a shared library that both applications use. But without a standard framework for this, it means both applications are very much coupled to the library's API and will need to be changed if the applications decide to use another library instead. Furthermore, integrating the shared functionality has to be done manually by every application.

A framework for components enables an application to use a component it never heard of - and wasn't specifically adapted for - because both the application and the component comply to the framework and know what to expect from each other. An existing component can be replaced with a new implementation of the same functionality, without changing a single line of code in the application, because the interface remains the same.

The framework presented here concerns elaborate graphical components, such as an image viewer, a text editor, a mail composer, and so on. Simpler graphical components are usually widgets; I refine this distinction in the next section. Nongraphical components, such as a parser or a string manipulation class, are usually libraries with a specific Application Programming Interface (API).

Similar frameworks for graphical components exist for a different environment, such as IBM and Apple's OpenDoc, Microsoft's OLE, Gnome's Bonobo, and KDE's previous OpenParts.

If other OS's would just adopt a similar system, or better yet adopt a standard for all of them, we could remove so much duplication of effort and users would get to choose the best of breed for anything they wanted.

I also fear that the code base for OpenOffice.org is too heavy and difficult to work with. I foresee a long time when almost nothing will happen while they rewrite the core. This is exactly what happened to Netscape and for the same reason: The code base was so convoluted that it wasn't possible to work with.

Seriously, I think that KOffice is the future of free office suites. It is developing incredibly fast and they have far more apps in the suite already. I read an article at the KDE news site that some students had implemented pretty advanced stuff in just some short Google Summer of Code projects, and I don't believe that could happen for OpenOffice. When they release 2.0, it will run on Windows AND OS X and from then on it's just a matter of more features. Mark my words... You read it here first.

This kind of application deployment is under development for KDE:
http://dot.kde.org/1126867980/

"If you are bit security concerned, you may want to know what klik does to your system. Here's the pitch:

        * Its .cmg files are self-contained AppDirs (applications directories), compressed into a cramfs or zisofs file system.
        * To run the contained app, klik mounts the bundle file underneath /tmp/app/1/ and runs it from there; if mounted, the bundle looks like it is a subdirectory expanded into the real directory structure of the host.

It's very much similar to how applications on Mac OS X works.... "

In my experience, with enough RAM anything over 1Ghz is more than enough to run KDE comfortably. And now, we even know KDE's memory requirements are not so high as many claimed them to be:

http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/

If you have to teach people something, you have already failed. Users Don't Read the Manual. So if your interface expects them to do so, your interface is probably flawed.

They are not trying to guess what the users might do, they are doing some serious research on it. As a result, they have come up with some great improvements such as kickoff. And their new HIG

It is not about the computer deciding what is best, quite the opposite, on usability you are supposed to empower the user. The link is from what will become their next HIG. It is pretty safe to say that KDE has allways done well in this particular area.

http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Appeal

If you use Ruby, check out http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Korundum

http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Appeal

If you use Ruby, check out http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Korundum

You can't possibly believe that a newer version will ever have lower memory requirements.

Of course you can. Don't you think that KDE 3.5.4 uses less memory than KDE 3.0.0?

Xpdf may be fugly as hell (it's a motif/lesstif app), but there really isn't any replacement for it yet.

And the LaTeX class called Beamer produces the really beautiful pdf slide files for kpdf to display.

For version 0.5.1 (might be old by now) of kpdf, the thumbnails in the side pane do page numbering as you want. I'm not sure about the rotation because I have not needed to do that in years, but that would be a useful feature. It's on the wish list and you can fall back to Kghostview if you run into something that really needs rotating. It should show up under View->View Mode of Konqueror as an option when you look at pdf files.

Kpdf also has browser like navigation buttons that are very helpful in large documents. For an example of aids to navigation and not needing to rotate see the very useful Idaho National Laboratory Ge(Li) Gamma Sectrum Catalog (warning, this is an 89MB file). This document makes me think rotate has been done automatically, which would explain my never needing to do it. For an example of text searching where you thought there was not text because the file is obviously an image of an ancient, manually typed manuscript, see here. Those features, combined with Konqueror's ability to split tabs, have made it so I have not printed someone else's pdf in two years.

KDE just keep rocking.

You could always vote for this bug

It's very pretty. Nice use of images ..... especially the Noble gases. Even pictures of the scientists after which some of the *cough* harder-to-obtain elements were named! I'm going to order one of the 68x134 ones if they can be shipped to the UK.

If you like this, you'll probably also like Kalzium.

Respect it, yes. Abide by it, yes. Agree with it, no. And I think that's the point.

This is why I have ranted for years about why you should always use LGPL when writing library code to ensure that it is truly free for anyone to use for any purpose as long as the library itself remains open. No one is arguing that software vendors should be allowed to close other people's code. But the GPL -is- viral. It does require that everything that uses GPL-licensed code be under a similarly open license. If we're talking about an entire GPL application, that's reasonable. For something that can reasonably be reused like a library routine, it borders on psychological abuse, much like holding a piece of candy in front of a diabetic child....

A classic example of why LGPL is a better license than the GPL is KHTML. Yeah, some of their developers have grumbled about Apple gutting the heck out of it and creating WebKit, but on the flip side, there are a number of really good web browsers (Safari, the current OmniWeb, Swift, GTK+ WebCore, Nokia's osb-browser, the Unity library, etc.) that either would not exist or would not be nearly as standards-compliant were it not for that effort.

Safari is closed source, and I strongly suspect it would not exist (or at least would not be based on KHTML) if KHTML had been licensed under the GPL instead of the LGPL. However, because KHTML is LGPL, it still forced the KHTML portions to remain open so that everyone benefits from improvements to the code base. All of this is possible solely because the KDE folks were sufficiently forward thinking to realize that libraries should be licensed in a way that doesn't preclude their use in closed source.

I'd love to see see more people consider this when they choose to use the GPL. IMHO, the LGPL is a much more sensible license that keeps open code open, but allows its use in close cooperation with closed components. This promotes cooperation between the open source/free software world and the corporate world and results in significant corporate contributions of additional open code. The GPL's us-vs-them mentality stifles cooperation and results in corporations keeping GPL-licensed technology at arms length. While it should be the developer's choice, and while others should respect their choice, it benefits free and open source developers everywhere to encourage developers to choose the LGPL where possible instead of the unnecessarily restrictive GPL. Why build walls when you can build bridges?

My suggestion is to d/l edubuntu Live CD (x86, PPC, AMD64 versions available). I did this just this weekend and began showing my 6 year old around the system. There are a number of excellent applications for education (most above the level of the average elementary student, no doubt) and educational games. One is the LOGO programming language/environment, which is designed to teach programming to children. Also, in the GCompris educational packages is a "boat race" game that is a programming teaching aid (forward x, left degrees). Recommended.

Now are you still so upset? Do you STILL think Suse is letting KDE support fall by the wayside and not paying any attention to its users' needs/wants?

BTW, what ever gave you the idea that Gnome is a **default** in the new versions? In SLED maybe, but certainly not in OpenSuse. (Unless you consider a default radio button next to Gnome, with KDE presented equally large as an option right next to it, to be forcing a "default" on you). Be happy that Suse is developing both DE's and pushing both of them. While I prefer KDE personally, I don't want to see Gnome die just because I like KDE better. As far as I'm concerned, Linux (and Suse in particular) is great because of the wide breadth of tools available, regardless of the toolkit their written in or the DE that the user runs. I will always use the best programs for the job, regardless of toolset, and to be honest Suse does the best job of making both toolkits work seamlessly for me. Lack of good Qt support was actually one of my main reasons for leaving Ubuntu.

Now are you still so upset? Do you STILL think Suse is letting KDE support fall by the wayside and not paying any attention to its users' needs/wants?

BTW, what ever gave you the idea that Gnome is a **default** in the new versions? In SLED maybe, but certainly not in OpenSuse. (Unless you consider a default radio button next to Gnome, with KDE presented equally large as an option right next to it, to be forcing a "default" on you). Be happy that Suse is developing both DE's and pushing both of them. While I prefer KDE personally, I don't want to see Gnome die just because I like KDE better. As far as I'm concerned, Linux (and Suse in particular) is great because of the wide breadth of tools available, regardless of the toolkit their written in or the DE that the user runs. I will always use the best programs for the job, regardless of toolset, and to be honest Suse does the best job of making both toolkits work seamlessly for me. Lack of good Qt support was actually one of my main reasons for leaving Ubuntu.

Actually, Konqueror is probably the most common container for KitchenSync ...

Of course I can back it up. Other people can, too. Anyone who knows C++ can look at the code to either projects, and can make the judgement for themselves. If they have any background with developing large scale C++ applications, their analysis will mirror mine.

I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to do the research for yourself. I've provided the links to the source repositories below, for your convenience. Keep in mind that they're both the development branches, so the code itself for both may not be perfect. The clarity of the developmental KHTML code compared to the equivalent developmental Gecko code shows how much better the KDE development process is.

Here is the KHTML source code: http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdelibs/khtml/
Here is the Gecko source code: http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/

And I'm not sure why you see fit to engage in personal attacks against me, just because I have proven that your browser of choice (obviously Firefox) is technically inferior to Konqueror. I do ask that you investigate this matter for yourself. Peruse the source code for each project. You will clearly see that the KHTML code is of a far higher quality than that of Gecko.

There are ways to change the Firefox No/Yes button thing. One way is here, and I think there's a way to do it in about:config

One major change is that KDE is switches to a new build system

If you can't find a way to sync your iPod with your Linux machine you haven't really been looking!

When will we get to mod articles "-1, Troll"?

..in various posts, let me summarize how the article's implication of poor ipod support is total bullshit and ipod works with linux just fine (in fact, better than with windows).

libipod ( http://libipod.sourceforge.net/ ) is the library that interacts with the database on the ipod that stores your music.

Several music players on linux like amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ ), rhythmbox ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ ), gtkpod ( http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html ),( http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/juk.html ) etc have plugins/embeddings that can interact with the library seamlessly

Ipods are detected just fine by the USB mass storage driver with no probems in any modern linux distro.

Itunes can be run thru wine (though I've never tried it), and Sharpmusique
( http://nanocrew.net/software/sharpmusique/ ) can connect with itunes, buy music, download and strip off the DRM so that the files can be played anywhere.

CD-ripping and transfer to ipod can be done seamlessly in amarok (if you have lame etc installed). It's easier than in windoze thru third party rippers and itunes where there are all sorts of restrictions and issues.

Both "pc-compatible" (fat filesystem) as well as "mac-compatible" (HFS filesystem) will work equally well on any linux box coz linux has drivers for both filesystems.

Last but not least, there is ipodlinux ( http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page ), where you can install linux firmware in your ipod itself. Advantage is that you can play videos in your nano, music management is thru filesystem rather than database so just treat it as a mass storage device in any OS, and a host of other linux stuff will work on it, and you can play any music format that can be played on linux, not just mp3's (ogm,wma etc). You can even play quake on it if you want.

My nano ran just fine with my Mandrake box with no probs. Anecdotally, I had more problems with it on windoze (usb connection to it acted wierdly, though the usb bus was fine; I didn't care enough to analyze what was up).

..in various posts, let me summarize how the article's implication of poor ipod support is total bullshit and ipod works with linux just fine (in fact, better than with windows).

libipod ( http://libipod.sourceforge.net/ ) is the library that interacts with the database on the ipod that stores your music.

Several music players on linux like amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ ), rhythmbox ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ ), gtkpod ( http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html ),( http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/juk.html ) etc have plugins/embeddings that can interact with the library seamlessly

Ipods are detected just fine by the USB mass storage driver with no probems in any modern linux distro.

Itunes can be run thru wine (though I've never tried it), and Sharpmusique
( http://nanocrew.net/software/sharpmusique/ ) can connect with itunes, buy music, download and strip off the DRM so that the files can be played anywhere.

CD-ripping and transfer to ipod can be done seamlessly in amarok (if you have lame etc installed). It's easier than in windoze thru third party rippers and itunes where there are all sorts of restrictions and issues.

Both "pc-compatible" (fat filesystem) as well as "mac-compatible" (HFS filesystem) will work equally well on any linux box coz linux has drivers for both filesystems.

Last but not least, there is ipodlinux ( http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page ), where you can install linux firmware in your ipod itself. Advantage is that you can play videos in your nano, music management is thru filesystem rather than database so just treat it as a mass storage device in any OS, and a host of other linux stuff will work on it, and you can play any music format that can be played on linux, not just mp3's (ogm,wma etc). You can even play quake on it if you want.

My nano ran just fine with my Mandrake box with no probs. Anecdotally, I had more problems with it on windoze (usb connection to it acted wierdly, though the usb bus was fine; I didn't care enough to analyze what was up).

With Konstruct...
cd meta/kde
make install

" What the hell have we been doing for forty years?"

Either cloning Windows, or cloning Macs

Although not an iTunes killer, I have found a player that is substantially better than iTunes. It's called amaroK. The reason IMO that it's not an iTunes killer has nothing to do with its feature set, but merely with its available target install base. Without access to the Windows platform, the possible audience is substantially smaller. I'd strongly recommend that anyone interested in it check it out though; THIS is a truly great music player. It is to iTunes what iTunes was to winamp/xmms.

I gather there are OSX builds available, but no Windows builds. If you're running Ubuntu or Debian, apt-get install amarok & amarok-engines, and you're good to go on an older stable build.

There are some very compelling features available in the latest development builds, which are unfortunately not easy to set up if you're a novice. I recently detailed for my brother the steps I took to get the latest development build running (actually, from their SVN repo); if anyone is interested, please let me know, and I'll toss them here.

Also if you just want to check it out but are currently running Windows or don't want to try to install it, I gather there's a live CD of this too.

That's silly. Kid, you have to grow up one day and check that "real world" thing surrounding you.

Games and pornography serve the very same purpose: give our brain a break. There are really few option what usual work'a'droids like we all can do to break out of that damned circle of urban life: wake up, commute, breakfast, work, lunch, work, commute, diner, TV, sleep, wake up, etc. And if one has family, that basically means that one even has no week-ends to break out of that routine.

And there is nothing more to why games and pornography exist in particular and entertainment industry in general.

(N.B. Kids love to play in general since kids like to receive new experiences. And games are easiest way to get to wide range of experiences directly to our brain, no "real world" would ever deliver. No surprises here.)

P.S. On topic. No high-brow games? Guys, are you reading solely PRs from Electornic Arts, Microsoft & Sony??? There are lots of little (and little known about) freeware games around. Check out KDE games for one good example. Check what people do with PyGame package for example. Games now are very very very big business with very tight competition. There are no place left for entrepreneurs. That's why I'm directing you to independent community-developed games, most of them are freeware or even open source. No PRs though - games only. My last favorite one is VegaStrike: quite nice but taking time to learn space simulator (or Elite clone, whatever).

And of course, resizable dialog windows are possible in Qt since the dawn of time. Not only that, they work wonderfully.

Outlook? There's Evolution or kontact

Viruses? what's that?
Oh well, if you're worried about email viruses, you can always check out ClamAV

ActiveX controls that install software without you knowing is the last thing you have to worry about linux.

Popup blocker? It comes with Mozilla Firefox

Firewall? It's called Netfilter but if you find it too hard to configure, there are tools available, like Shorewall

And finally, there's a large choice of IM Clients on linux, like aMSN and Gaim that support animated emoticons and toaster popups (I haven't got the slightest idea about what the blue tray guy is)

Anyways, if you don't like any of these, you can always check out your distribution's package database for other other software.

Konqueror has way better CSS support than Firefox, but lack XSLT and Rich Text editing.

Opera have supported replaced content for a few years. Btw, supporting it leads to stupid bugs: http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=130689