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Ever since Gnome 2.4 was released, I have found more and more gnome zealots who MUST absolutely advocate GNOME at every possible moment. Here is a guide to some of their claims, and what they really mean.

Unlike KDE, Gnome is free
Translation : GPL is freerer than LGPL. LGPL allows corporations like Novell and Sun to have propeitry forks and lock away their changes from the user. Now that Novell has taken over Ximian you can expect Gnome to get put under corpirate lock. With KDE you have the choice, you either PAY UP or pay with your source code.

Nautilus is much better than konqueror.
Wrong, if your using nautilus for anything more than a simple finder clone you can forget it. No split screen, no ioslaves and forget about being able to have a decent file dialog, not to forget that it is as unstable as hell and is STILL slow on >3 Ghz machines.

Gnome is easier to use
Yep, nothing like using gconf-editor to edit all except the most trivial of settings. Want tear off menus? Want a useable file dialog? You won't find it here.

Gnome has eye candy
Yes, my pirated Win32 fonts with the patent infringing font renderer. Bit stream vera sans looks like Tahoma put through a shreadder! Of course I still reboot into windows to print using "Comic Sans MS.

Gnome has a new web browser
Yawb! Along with Galeon, mozilla, thunderbird, konqueror, atlantis, lynx, netscape and w3m. Yes I need another browser! Not to mention that its got a religiously offensive name and it dosen't allow bookmark folders. It also crashes like a crazy! Apple chose khtml for a REASON! its stable and light!

Gnome is themeable
Yep, choose from High, low and medium contrast, default, and clean ice. Wan't to change the colour scheme? USE GCONF NOOB, plus if you complain about it we will tell you to fuck off and go back to Windows or KDE.

Gnome has multimedia framework
Its a kludge of esd combined with broken xine libraries. No wonder it crashes all the time and dosen't work on 95% of video files

Gnome allows mac like operation.
x86 compatible 1 button mice are almost impossible to find, and it dosen't copy the whole macbar concept. Not to even mention their auto apply implementation is broken and dangerous! Plus if they did actually come anywhere close to copying the Mac the C&D letters would come flying up their asses.

Gnome is GNU software.
gnu/Yay, gnu/gnome gnu/for gnu/my gnu/debian gnu/linux gnu/500mhz /gnu/celeron gnu/packard gnu/bell gnu/box.

Inspired by the gentoo translate-o-matic.

Yep, got me there. I didn't consider a product maybe 0.1% of people used.

KDE was 1996 and GNOME was 1997.

Some people disagree with you.

Or, if you want to start counting from project announcements and beta releases, we should be able to go back to 1993ish for Windows 95.

I first used a taskbar with CDE, well before 1995.

Well, it must have been some custom-made release of CDE, because CDE doesn't have a Windows 95-like taskbar - now or in 1995.

It has a panel you can use to quick launch applications and switch between virtual desktops, but this is not a taskbar like Windows 95's. It sort of equates to the Start Menu.

Your vision of Linux history is tainted because you only saw a small part of it.

Ah, no. My version of Linux history is relevant because I saw most of it but only commented on the part of it 99.9% of people would have experienced. If you consider CDE in 1995 to be a major part of Linux history, you obviously kept to different circles than me.

Even so, Windows 95 was (and remains) a better GUI than CDE.

Hmmm, technophobes won't use the command line no matter what. Many novices do not have geek friends to show them how to use the command line. So apt-get and emerge are out of the question for mainstream acceptance.

kpackage works fine most of the time but if you get into trouble, then you will definitely need to go to the command line.

I attempted to use kpackage to install the stable version of mono on debian. It failed and mozilla was thoroughly hosed after that. I had to use dpkg to fix it. It was easier than hacking the registry but harder than shopping on Amazon.

Yes - in fact more versions with prettier cards. Already installed with stock RH9, I'm sure with most other distros that carry KDE as well. KDE Games

If all of this leaves you and your Mac cold, I'm sorry. Debian does have a Mac port, but I'm unfamiliar with it. Knoppix is on the way for you if it's not already here.

Free software for everyone!

If you run linux, Kstars is an excellent and free choice. If you don't, there's a web based sky chart available from Sky and Telescope magazine's website.

A quick look back over the dot.kde.org archives should prove it.

Actually, my estimate was extremely conservative to start with. A better estimate would be that KDE already has it in KDE 3.2 Beta 1, so they'll likely have it in non-beta in a month or two.

As for when "Longhorn" comes out, I think it'll probably be sooner than everyone expects, but be extremely buggy, or nowhere as feature complete as they claim, as they rush to re-label WinXP and add a little glitz to the UI. Alternatively, it may never be released as such as they use "Longhorn" as a code word for "we're just floating this feature idea to see if anyone likes it and we may never implement it".

Just in time to be 4-5 years behind KDE, which will likely have this within 6 to 12 months.

KDE Conquers the Vectors with KSVG

LoB

Try Here

Use Konstruct to easily install KDE (including betas).

Ok, so what USEFUL application would you like to see as part of the KDE system that doesn't currently exist? Something scientific? A KDE photo editor like Gimp or Photoshop?

Secondly, if there's an itch that's bothering you, then scratch it. There's no barrier to entry. The code's all right there. KDevelop would even help you if you understand the programming language necessary. If you can't write it, but feel like you NEED it, pay someone to write it for you. Just realize that whining on /. isn't going to fix the problem.

Or, failing all that, go to KDE bugs page and fill out a request for your USEFUL feature. Maybe someone on the development teams will decide that you're correct and implement the feature.

nukem996 points out "The counter-terrorism unit on TV series '24' went KDE this season, too."

dot.kde.org's news entry claims

"Interestingly they used a 3-year-old KDE 1.x desktop. These older icons are made available under a public domain licence."

There is no such thing as "a public domain license". Putting a copyrighted work in the public domain means forgoing all copyright power for that work. Licenses, by contrast, tell you what you what the terms are for activities regulated by copyright law. Licensed works are still under copyright.

When I read the KDE art site pointed to by dot.kde.org's article, I can't find the phrase "public domain". There is language that suggests the copyright holders tried to do something similar ("The images inside this directory are COMPLETELY FREE for commercial and non-commercial use." emphasis theirs). To be clear, when you mean the work is in the public domain, say the work is in the public domain. The Creative Commons makes doing this easy now (if you're talking about US copyright law).

nukem996 points out "The counter-terrorism unit on TV series '24' went KDE this season, too."

dot.kde.org's news entry claims

"Interestingly they used a 3-year-old KDE 1.x desktop. These older icons are made available under a public domain licence."

There is no such thing as "a public domain license". Putting a copyrighted work in the public domain means forgoing all copyright power for that work. Licenses, by contrast, tell you what you what the terms are for activities regulated by copyright law. Licensed works are still under copyright.

When I read the KDE art site pointed to by dot.kde.org's article, I can't find the phrase "public domain". There is language that suggests the copyright holders tried to do something similar ("The images inside this directory are COMPLETELY FREE for commercial and non-commercial use." emphasis theirs). To be clear, when you mean the work is in the public domain, say the work is in the public domain. The Creative Commons makes doing this easy now (if you're talking about US copyright law).

nukem996 points out "The counter-terrorism unit on TV series '24' went KDE this season, too."

dot.kde.org's news entry claims

"Interestingly they used a 3-year-old KDE 1.x desktop. These older icons are made available under a public domain licence."

There is no such thing as "a public domain license". Putting a copyrighted work in the public domain means forgoing all copyright power for that work. Licenses, by contrast, tell you what you what the terms are for activities regulated by copyright law. Licensed works are still under copyright.

When I read the KDE art site pointed to by dot.kde.org's article, I can't find the phrase "public domain". There is language that suggests the copyright holders tried to do something similar ("The images inside this directory are COMPLETELY FREE for commercial and non-commercial use." emphasis theirs). To be clear, when you mean the work is in the public domain, say the work is in the public domain. The Creative Commons makes doing this easy now (if you're talking about US copyright law).

This is wishful thinking at best and outright deceptive at worst. The only versions of Qt that you can legally develop with without paying for are licensed with either the GPL or QPL. Both the GPL and QPL require that your application be Open Source. If your application is closed source, then it cannot use a GPLed or QPLed Qt and thus, you must pay for the developer license.

I wrote the following back in the KDE 2.0 days and it still holds true today:

KDE Licensing Issues

You didn't actually mention where you'd like to see KDE applications involve. Nevermind :)

Still, if you have feature requests, why not post them to KDE's bugzilla? I've got several features included in KDE 3.2 this way. If your feature is stupid, or not something the developers of that particular app think should be implemented, you'll be left wanting; otherwise, given time, developers will usually get around to implementing it.

It's actually really quite important that users do this, otherwise KDE will only develop in the direction that the developers and distributors want to take it.

No, I mean, when you put --with-alsa flag when you compile KDE-Multimedia, it would throw a compilation error. Not using it with ALSA per se. Of course, you can use OSS-compatibility layer of ALSA and compile KMidi with OSS instead... BUT, that causes the other packages of KDE-Multimedia not ALSA-enabled too. Of course if you munge the configuration file, you can get around this, but what a pain!

See this bug report for details. It's been an outstanding bug like more than 1 year! Yet virtually nobody appreciate this issue!

This was a bummer because in some sound cards, ALSA driver is far superior (e.g. in SB Live or Audigy) both in terms of performance and features.

Now that KMidi is gone for good in KDE 3.2 beta and hopefully someone would incorporate newer ALSA into Timidity backend.

http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-3.2beta1 .php

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8333

In any KDE program, click Help on the menu bar, then select About KDE at the bottom. You will see four tabs, each with Information on how you can help improve KDE.

In fact, you can help right now KDE 3.2 Beta. has just been released. Try it out, report any bugs or problems to help improve KDE, so KDE 3.2 will be a success when its released around Christmas.

In any KDE program, click Help on the menu bar, then select About KDE at the bottom. You will see four tabs, each with Information on how you can help improve KDE.

In fact, you can help right now KDE 3.2 Beta. has just been released. Try it out, report any bugs or problems to help improve KDE, so KDE 3.2 will be a success when its released around Christmas.

Well then, go and help the KDE People with KDE 3.2 Alpha, Its a lot more useable than previous versions, but they do need to iron out the bugs, so give some feedback.

As for useable setup, Mandrake 9.2 and ArkLinux are the Easiest to use, with Debian as the worst.

One can create photo galleries, use advanced groupware applications, browse anything on your computer, be it a camera or a network share from the same interface, have a music player that fits in appearance with the rest of the GUI, and oh yeah, works on everything, from a Sun Ultra 2, to a PC, to a Mac G3. Yeah, there are a few niche applications where a mac may be good in, but for The Rest of Us, Linux is where it's at.

One can create photo galleries, use advanced groupware applications, browse anything on your computer, be it a camera or a network share from the same interface, have a music player that fits in appearance with the rest of the GUI, and oh yeah, works on everything, from a Sun Ultra 2, to a PC, to a Mac G3. Yeah, there are a few niche applications where a mac may be good in, but for The Rest of Us, Linux is where it's at.

So? I've run current versions of FreeBSD and Linux on a 7 year old laptop. I'm sorry if your favorite vendor doesn't care about backwards compatibility. Though on a side note, said 6 year old G3 will run the latest version of YDL just fine, thus allowing you to use a much nicer operating environmentthan OS X has ever been.

(I would also link to a gnome shot, but www.gnome.org is so fucking lame I can't get anything.)

I dunno, but having a built-in Caching nameserver seems pretty useful to me. Makes web browsing faster, more convenient. One click install seems to be pretty much a linux only sort of thing, too. More directly related to the speed issue, the ability to compile everything from source means that you can do a shitload of optimizations to your system, and it'll probably run a lot faster. Plus, if you have a lot of network shares, Samba is faster, and a helluva lot nicer than windows for SMB shares. Plus, Linux has a Far nicer looking, more powerful windowing system than windows, to boot.

So.. I just have to ask: Where's Linux headed next?

Well, right now they're readying for the release of the 2.6.0 kernel, which they were saying in July would be ready in "less than" 7 months and will start showing up in boxed products shortly after that (probably whenever 2.6.2 comes). The new kernel brings, among other things, an O(1) scheduler, improved responsiveness for user actions, and vastly improved support for linux in embedded devices. One can also expect ReiserFS to begin to gain wider acceptance in this period. After that it looks like the schedule seems mostly to be to improve support for enterprise-class ("big iron") environments.

On the side of things more directly related to the user, GNOME is readying for their 2.4 release, which they expect by spring. 2.4 promises an unprecidented degree of polish, and may well prove to be the release that finally reaches the point "normal people" can deal with it-- if for no other reason than that it will FINALLY offer a clear, sane, graphical way for X users to *change their fricking screen resolution*. 2.4 will probably also be the version that Sun uses once they start shipping GNOME as the default desktop environment for Solaris.

On the other side of the user-interface fence, the competing KDE project will be releasing version 3.2 in december. Among other things will include inproved font support and a bundled groupware suite. After that it appears that among their plans is work on abstracting their theme display stuff by moving toward SVG-based graphics, which among other things will improve accessability by improving the support for those who need high-contrast or large-type displays.

Sounds pretty busy to me. That answer your question?

So.. I just have to ask: Where's Linux headed next?

Well, right now they're readying for the release of the 2.6.0 kernel, which they were saying in July would be ready in "less than" 7 months and will start showing up in boxed products shortly after that (probably whenever 2.6.2 comes). The new kernel brings, among other things, an O(1) scheduler, improved responsiveness for user actions, and vastly improved support for linux in embedded devices. One can also expect ReiserFS to begin to gain wider acceptance in this period. After that it looks like the schedule seems mostly to be to improve support for enterprise-class ("big iron") environments.

On the side of things more directly related to the user, GNOME is readying for their 2.4 release, which they expect by spring. 2.4 promises an unprecidented degree of polish, and may well prove to be the release that finally reaches the point "normal people" can deal with it-- if for no other reason than that it will FINALLY offer a clear, sane, graphical way for X users to *change their fricking screen resolution*. 2.4 will probably also be the version that Sun uses once they start shipping GNOME as the default desktop environment for Solaris.

On the other side of the user-interface fence, the competing KDE project will be releasing version 3.2 in december. Among other things will include inproved font support and a bundled groupware suite. After that it appears that among their plans is work on abstracting their theme display stuff by moving toward SVG-based graphics, which among other things will improve accessability by improving the support for those who need high-contrast or large-type displays.

Sounds pretty busy to me. That answer your question?

> The licensing of QT sucks ass, and when Microsoft buys Troll Tech, KDE will be stolen from...

If Microsoft buys TrollTech and they change the license, the last GPL'd version of Qt will automatically become BSD-licensed.

--
Evan

Don't vote for gnome. Vote for kde instead. I don't want to see smelly feet at Comdex. I want Komdex instead!

The patch was announced by the KDE team on August 18th

Debian had a patch available on August 21st

Mandrake had a patch out on September 9th

RedHat had an update available on December 4th

I was unable to find this particular bug in the security archives of Gentoo, SUSE or Slackware (either they were not vulnerable, or never patched). I was unable to locate any security info on TurboLinux' or Connectiva's sites.

On Microsoft's site, I was unable to locate any security bulletins older than one year.

Doesn't it ever get just a tiny bit boring trolling for Microsoft?

Can one ever get tired of reporting the truth? I don't see how.

KDE do *NOT* release binaries.

Have you looked at the KDE.org website lately to see what they release?

KDE can be obtained in source and numerous binary formats from http://download.kde.org and can also be obtained on CD-ROM or with any of the major GNU/Linux - UNIX systems shipping today.

Lets put it this way - a patch was released that allowed any user to fix their system, in 90 minutes, by KDE.

Or more specifically, computer professionals with experience compiling applications. A relatively small minority of those who use computers.

How the *fuck* can you try to spin that Microsofts way?

No spin involved at all.

I can recompile an entire Linux system, but why the fuck should I have to? And how the fuck do you expect my mother to do this?

Kolab is going to be a possible replacement. Though, it's still very young and has to prove itself via a couple of case studies before it can actually be a real replacement. I'm looking forward to the day where Kolab and Kontact can actually fully replace the Exchange/Outlook functionality.

Kolab is going to be a possible replacement. Though, it's still very young and has to prove itself via a couple of case studies before it can actually be a real replacement. I'm looking forward to the day where Kolab and Kontact can actually fully replace the Exchange/Outlook functionality.

Kolab is going to be a possible replacement. Though, it's still very young and has to prove itself via a couple of case studies before it can actually be a real replacement. I'm looking forward to the day where Kolab and Kontact can actually fully replace the Exchange/Outlook functionality.

Kopete >= 0.7.2 MSN plugin uses MSNP9 protocol and you're able to login. Kopete is not limited to MSN, there are plugins for Jabber, ICQ, Gadu, Samba, AOL, Yahoo, SMS and more.

Kopete CVS (kdenetwork module of KDE) is also the first open source client supporting MSN (>msnp9) display pictures (thanks to Olivier Goffart). You will enjoy this if you use KDE 3.2 alpha releases or build from cvs or... wait for KDE 3.2.

Total baloney. MS has not kickbanned anything, they just switched over to MSNp9, which any respectable client has been using forever.

Shameless plug, KDE/QT lovers should try out Kopete, a great alternative to GAIM.

What is up with her gnome desktop?. What kind of sick designer made that window border. Gnome needs to employ some REAL designers to design some decent themes and the file dialog too!

Read this, and see how good KDE looks with the new Crystal SVG theme thats coming out for KDE 3.2! Along with Keramik, its eyecandy without the fisher price look!

Mod me flamebait gnome zealots, but it dosen't change the *FACT* that KDE is the DE-FACTO Linux GUI!

kopete 0.7.2 works just fine.

[MSN]
UserAgent=0x0409 winnt 5.1 i386 MSNMSGR 5.0.0 MSMSGS

As usual, Windows users are SOL if you don't want to use the official client.

I still use ARC's Dance of the Planets, which I bought back in 1993. It's still very useful DOS software. But, I have to admit I don't use it that much, since I have to boot back into W95 to use it. Kstars doesn't help either ;)

Do you even know what vectors are? They are just lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, semi-circles, etc.. This is opposed to pixmaps. Very few KDE styles are pixmap based. There are some hybrids that use both (like keramik). Most are wholly vector based, like the popular plastik theme.

Most Qt/KDE widget styles use the QPainter API for this. On X11, these functions mostly just call the related Xlib functions (s/draw/XDraw) If you want to see the source code to the styles included in KDE, see here and here

KDE's kwin window manager also uses vectors to draw most of it's decorations.

Do you even know what vectors are? They are just lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, semi-circles, etc.. This is opposed to pixmaps. Very few KDE styles are pixmap based. There are some hybrids that use both (like keramik). Most are wholly vector based, like the popular plastik theme.

Most Qt/KDE widget styles use the QPainter API for this. On X11, these functions mostly just call the related Xlib functions (s/draw/XDraw) If you want to see the source code to the styles included in KDE, see here and here

KDE's kwin window manager also uses vectors to draw most of it's decorations.

Currently on their examples page, they have a pretty complex map generated in SVG:
Our speed testcase. 1.8 MB. The fastest rendering time was around 6 seconds on a 1,4 GHz Athlon. WITH progressive rendering. (At the bottom of the page)

Rendering so much XML data that quickly is commendable, but to push the envelope it really needs to go into hardware - maybe this would make a nice addition to the Graphics cards of the future?

Also the other anonymous poster who replied to you is correct - they WILL find ways to optimise the rendering, and then we will all benefit.

Some free, Free and not so free applications:

Webbrowser Mozilla Firebird (Win / linux)
Email Eudora (win) Evolution (linux)
Office suite OpenOffice.org 1.1 (win / linux)
SSH client putty (win) openssh (linux)
Videoplayer VLC (win / linux) or BSPlayer (win) and Xine (linux)
Editor Textpad (windows) Kate (linux)
Chat Jabber PSI (win / linux)
Firewall Kerio (win)
Anti virus F-Secure (not free) (win)

- Ost

I'm not sure the above is just a troll, but Jobs' influence has dramtically changed the landscape of computing as we know it. Those fruity iMacs you mention not only changed the way we "look" at computers, but also consumables as well. After the iMac's debut, you couldn't swing a dead cat around your head without hitting something with translucent, colored plastic (sorry cat lovers).

What about OS X? How many web sites not only outright copy the look of Apple's own site? Or products that mimic the Aqua goodness? Maybe sites like Macromedia or desktop environments like KDE.

Big deal, right? What else has he done?

His Macintosh gave us a GUI, mouse and pointers. His NeXT machine gave us the World Wide Web. His iMac gave us a simple network appliance. His OS X now gives us a UNIX environment grandparents, moms and teenagers can use.

Quite a set of lifetime achievements.