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I agree that Konqueror is the next best browser, second to IE. That fact that Konqueror is free and free makes it better than IE in the end.

I know you don't need to run KDE to use Konqueror, but let Konqueror be evidence of KDE's success.
KDE Konqueror

on such a project
again dot.kde.org http://dot.kde.org/979768484/979777064/979778240/9 79781930/979783107/979801945/

Also, if you read through the thread on news.kde.org you'll see that TheKompany will not be open sourcing the groupware server. This is is the way they intend to make money.

look at this link:http://dot.kde.org/979768484/
a lot of talk about licensing issues and a apparent feud between the kompany and magellan developers
Must sys that it still looks nice tho

As for the GUI, what do you think Gnome and KDE have been doing?

Back under your bridge, troll...

Well, you can always use MS Outlook :-( I've been looking for the same, with the addition of supporting HTML mail, and it seems like PMail for GNOME has all these features. If you are a KDE user, I think newer versions of KMail might do the trick. StarOffice's email client also supports these features, but I found it to be awful. Mahogany may also be a consideration. If you enjoy a text-based program, I highly recommend mutt - awesome and highly configurable - I pass HTML mail through lynx or w3m to read it. I'll probably try out PMail for my wife soon.

See:

• The Slashdot story
• The Doy Story

--
Evan

Why is everyone so convinced that Linux has to be prettied up, promoted, and made palatable to the masses?

Because the masses have money. Companies like money. Companies that see the prospect of money in Linux on the desktop are more likely to publish Linux ports of their video games, write Linux drivers for their hardware, and offer Linux-compatible ISP services and online media.

I like Linux game, Linux drivers, and Linux compatibility. Any more questions?

There are many more reasons why even the most hardcore, non-gaming, free-software-only Linux user still benefits by "Linux for the masses", though. You may complain that Red Hat is aiming for a Linux distribution a 3 year old can use... but they're not taking away our Perl interpreters and ssh daemons to do it, and eventually that 3 year old may grow up and spend a little time playing around with the compiler himself.

The other thing that's "vital for desktop acceptance" is an office suite of the caliber of MS Office 2000, which isn't going to happen unless they decide to port it.

Of course it isn't. Free software developers could never produce any sort of useful desktop software on their own, certainly not any office programs. That stuff is just too complicated for a bunch of hackers. Why, where would they even start?

I think the headline was misleading. The poster probably meant configuration stuff, such as XF86Config, modules.conf, bashrc, etc. (Oh maybe THAT was why the directory is called /etc!!!)

He's asking about GUI stuff (GNOME/KDE) because where he comes from these things are configured in the graphical environment -- he might have heard about all those advancements in the user interface Linux had lately and thought it had already got to this stage.
--

Of course, once you work your way through this stuff, and you aren't satisfied, then the Open Source answer would be to write one yourself ;-)

Everyone seems to just jump right in and complain about how hard it is to get help for Linux in general, but the article specifically asks about GNOME and KDE. I don't know how well Windows users are catered to, but there is the GNOME User's Guide, as well as one for the K Desktop Environment. I hope these help.

furthermore, there are lots of nifty features, such as the ability to define domain-based javascript policies, spoof your user-agent string (again, domain-based), and similar functionality for cookies. oh, and it supports netscape plugins if you have lesstif/motif. what more could one want?

i suggest that you say hello to http://www.kde.org/anoncvs.html

zot!

tmk

This is really cool! I've always had a hard time deciding what desktop I liked best, because half of the applications I wanted was Gnome apps and the other half was KDE apps - those times may well be gone now (if I were to choose to use KDE2).

Remember Miguel De Icaza recently talked about getting more "reuseablility/code-reuse" under Unix (I know that is badly written, but you know what I mean!) - well it seems that the KDE-Team was listening.

As it says (here: story at dot.kde.org):

This is only a first step. Other possibilities include providing transparent access to OpenOffice components within KOffice, and embedding other Bonobo components, such as the various Nautilus components, inside, say, Konqueror... The goal is to provide the most powerful desktop for users by allowing them to pick and choose whatever software they like while still in the familiar and comfortable KDE environment. KDE is close to closing the schism within the Linux desktop environments by being the first project to allow users to utilize all the software written for different user interfaces within the KDE environment with unparalleled integration.

Also, people writing standalone applications that do not utilize any desktop technology can easily integrate with our environment in ways previously impossible.

What is cool too, is the this comment:

"It is important to note, that we did not have to modify a single line of source code in KDE or konqueror to get this running."

Greetings Joergen

Binaries are susceptible to all sorts of little inconsistencies between installations that source can pave over. The result is a flood of "I get this this error on Storm Linux with XFree86 and GTK whatever." mails. Also, releasing source-only creates a small barrier to entry that restricts distribution to people who understand what "pre-alpha" means.

Screenshots, on the other hand, seem like they're always a good thing.

Thanks

Pictures, commentes on dot.kde.org.

The new 2.0.1 version looks real nice. The jittery display while loading Slashdot is gone, it now understand E*Trade's protocol-less relative URLs, and no longer gets confused by localhost:10000. Give it a try.

Oh, and for those who wonder: yes, it does Java, Javascript and NS compatible plugins. And it handles those mazes of nested tables from hell perfectly well, unlike netscape.

check here (for KDE). I am yet to find evidence of this functionality in GNOME, but some user said it might be coming soon, which would be good as long as it's customizable. I think that users should have as many options as possible (with minimal performance drag) and all should be customizable.

-----
# cd /

Have a look at kdenonbeta/kappdock in the KDE 2.1 (HEAD) CVS.

It lets you dock any application in a seperate dockbar. It's a panel applet, but you can just hide the panel and it's still visible. It lets you dock all those old applications like XBiff, Xload just like you could in KDE 1.1.2, as well as windowmaker applets. Don't know about GNOME.

Very similar is the kdockbar panel extension added recently to the KDE 2.1 (HEAD) CVS. kdebase/kicker/extensions/dockbar. Some info can be found
here

These might be good starting places for what you want to do.

I tried to install KDE 2 on Mandrake 7.1 from downloaded RPMs (took me a couple of days), and soon found myself in RPM hell. With my slow modem connection, I decided to save myself more work and ordered the Mandrake 7.2 CDs. Came up beautifully! Konqueror works great, though KOffice still has some stability problems.

My gripe: I just went to look at the KDE 2.0.1 upgrade, and found I wouldd have to download everything again! I don't know if it's possible, but it would have been nice to just be able to grab the changes. At this rate, I'm going to wait for KDE 2.1 -- should be just around the corner.

You make a good point, but these screenshots weren't meant to accompany a press release. This functionality was added in the last week and the pictures were generated in the course of discussion between developers. (See this thread.) I doubt if they were intended to be seen by such a large audience.

I noticed this post on dot.kde.org some time last week, and I still haven't come up with a reason to have my icons overlapping. It's cluttered, even if they can blend.

However, an icon that blends with the background would be cool. AFAIK, this isn't really possible as long as you're using the X root window for the background, though.

Why has this post been marked as a troll?

It seems any post criticising Linux is marked troll.

Why - it's completely true. Linux is not even the best free Unix clone, never mind the best OS.

What Linux does have is:

a good name
a great publicity team
a cute penguin

Hell if FreeBSD was called Linux, it would do well too.

Why don't these morons who don't know shit about kernels or operating systems, but who just instinctively censor the anti-Linux posts keep their mod points to themselves.

The point about professionals is very true: a controlled program is the way it should be.

This isn't a troll - it's the truth - why the hell should companies like Adobe and Corel invest their money in Linux when they have three hundred different versions of Linux already - for example, Photopaint doesn't install with Mandrake 7.2.

This doesn't happen with Windows - with it, when you release a new program, you're pretty damn sure Microsoft have taken the trouble to make sure it works with all the software.

A controlled OS made by professionals is better for everyone - just try telling me that Linux is a good as Windows or OS X.

Although the established parts of Linux are often well written (the kernel, things like mail utilities), the newer stuff, like KDE, is cobbled together by a bunch of amateurs, many of whom are writing their first programs as KDE (e.g., see proof here).

PS. I'm sure that someone will mark this as troll as well, but it's not.

The fact is that Linux is a massive black hole of resources and effort - people trying to cobble layers of stuff onto decades of cruft - whereas a proper OS like Solaris, Windows or OSX is actually
managed - people say Windows sucks and Linux rules, but it's just a lie - you can't even configure the thing without using a hundred different text files, each with different formats; even projects like linuxconf have to be maintained separately because of the *massive* existing fragmentation.

Linux is already more fragmented than anything - how else can each different distribution be configured differently, therefore presenting a nightmare for developers.

Linux doesn't stand a chance while we have a hundred different, poorly tested, distributions deterring developers.

Those who say that Windows only succeeds through its publicity department are lying - the fact is that Linux has much better publicity than Windows - how else could people seriously promote it as a usable GUI when I can't even do something as simple as copying something from the best web browser, Mozilla, to the best interface, KDE, because of their using different toolkits.

I mean 'cmon people. If Windows' success is really due to MS' publicity, then Linux's publicity department must be run by an army of Goebells clones.

Obviously it depends on your personal preferences, but you could try:

the FSF: donate here
KDE: contacts here

other projects as you use them; e.g., netbsd, openbsd, Apache, XFree86.

Or just donate computers to Africa or somewhere.

Do you see the difference between these two organizations? KDE has, as far as I can tell, always focused on taking over as the one standard desktop. Why? Why are they so non-inclusive?

I have a friend who commented that application developemnt was more difficult and took longer in Linux than it did in Windows. Currently GNOME makes this much easier and KDE has a long way to go in bringing rapid-development technologies (in Windows: COM, DCOM, OLE, ActiveX) into their desktop. I think that if KDE is to be successful, it will need to come up with its own way of doing this.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of those rare individuals who challenge the impossible, we now know that we can do it. Alex Chiu knows this, and Alex Chiu is a shining example of the American capitalist motto, YOU CAN DO IT!©

Just because you elitist, long haired socialist hippie open-source freaks think nothing can be accomplished unless it is free doesn't mean you can poop on the efforts of those gifted imagineers that dare to dream the impossible. I don't know what they teach you in those dens of homosexual debauchery known as British boarding schools, but here in the free world, A.K.A. US to the motherfuckin' A, they teach us three things:

1. You have the right to own a gun
2. You have the right to shoot anyone who says otherwise
3. The only good software is software YOU PAY FOR
4. YOU CAN DO IT!©

KOffice.

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."

Well, I had some of the same reactions. Yesterday I installed NS6. I didn't like the profiles. I didn't like the way it didn't quite install correctly. I didn't like the countless references back to NS, AOL, and the time wasted in general when you accidently clicked on something you didn't mean to click on. The fact that it locked up(the app, not the machine) didn't help either.

My frustration comes from not having a feature-rich, yet fast, simple, and non-intrusive web browser. I'd tried all the IE's, Netscapes... Lynx, Opera...

But yesterday night I installed KDE(I've been biased toward Gnome for the last year), and I was quite impressed with the Browser and with KDE in general! In fact, it's the closest thing to the browser I've been looking for! Cosmetically, it doesn't look like a rocket ship. It is rather plain. What do we get for it looking plain? It loads quickly . It reacts. It's reads HTML well, from what I've seen. Isn't that what we've been looking for? Here's a screenshot from the KDE screenshots pages.

I've tried mozilla and found it to be inspiring, yet disturbingly buggy. Nobody ever said it wasn't buggy, but it was my light at the end of the tunnel, and still can be. But right now it takes between 60 and 120 Megs of memory while running. How much debug code is in there?? It is debug code.... right?

Well, we do have options. Some of them are GOOD options, depending on whether we're running KDE. It won't surprise me if at some point someone puts out a distribution of Mozilla that is stripped down, quicker, and to the point when it finally hits stable.

In any case, there's my .02 dollars.

rhadc

Well, I had some of the same reactions. Yesterday I installed NS6. I didn't like the profiles. I didn't like the way it didn't quite install correctly. I didn't like the countless references back to NS, AOL, and the time wasted in general when you accidently clicked on something you didn't mean to click on. The fact that it locked up(the app, not the machine) didn't help either.

My frustration comes from not having a feature-rich, yet fast, simple, and non-intrusive web browser. I'd tried all the IE's, Netscapes... Lynx, Opera...

But yesterday night I installed KDE(I've been biased toward Gnome for the last year), and I was quite impressed with the Browser and with KDE in general! In fact, it's the closest thing to the browser I've been looking for! Cosmetically, it doesn't look like a rocket ship. It is rather plain. What do we get for it looking plain? It loads quickly . It reacts. It's reads HTML well, from what I've seen. Isn't that what we've been looking for? Here's a screenshot from the KDE screenshots pages.

I've tried mozilla and found it to be inspiring, yet disturbingly buggy. Nobody ever said it wasn't buggy, but it was my light at the end of the tunnel, and still can be. But right now it takes between 60 and 120 Megs of memory while running. How much debug code is in there?? It is debug code.... right?

Well, we do have options. Some of them are GOOD options, depending on whether we're running KDE. It won't surprise me if at some point someone puts out a distribution of Mozilla that is stripped down, quicker, and to the point when it finally hits stable.

In any case, there's my .02 dollars.

rhadc

What exactly is the purpose of the KDE foundation?

The GNOME foundation is easy for me to understand, it is a means for companies with talented teams of developers to contribute to the GNOME project, similar to the way IBM works with Open Source developers on the Apache project and has many members on the Apache Foundation's steering comittee (if it's called that) and Netscape works with Mozilla and has a lot of it's developers guiding Mozilla's development. In fact the GNOME press release expressly states that it is modelled after the Apache Foundation

On the other hand, the KDE foundation makes very little sense to me. KDE is an Open Source project, not a commercial endeavour, so why does it need a huge multi-corporation PR-team? Interestingly the KDE press release goes out of its way to state that this is merely a marketing (i.e. propoganda) machine. I'm sorry but I'm a developer, and the idea of an Open Source project forming large ties with commercial entities for the express purpose of out-marketting another Open Source project feels awkward and doesn't sit right with me.

Am I the only one that is slightly disturbed by this?

Second Law of Blissful Ignorance

Now, it is true that this is not an elected governing board, but that response seems fairly disingenuous now. Plus "KDE League" is an extremely stupid name.

GNOME was started with the express purpose of replacing (killing) KDE, not very admirable goals to begin with. This has been backed up time and time again with the Stallman's attacks against KDE. How can we expect them to work with the entire Linux community's interests at heart when they have been motivated by these petty feuds in the past?

KDE2 still crashes every few hours and they're writing docu? A 50-item list of outstanding 'critical' and 'grave' bugs on their bug tracker? Puh-leeze. Listen, folks, this is the third or fourth recent high-profile Open Source 'major production release' to dump more core than Exxon. (Others, of course, include 'Whoops! I did it again' RH7, XFree86 4.0.x (which *still* crashes when I run Netscape), Netscape 6.0, etc.) How can we possibly bash Microsoft if our junk crashes faster? I'd rather see more working groups take their cue from Linus: If you're behind schedule, simply delay the release. Better yet, make more frequent, incremental changes. DON'T rush your bells and whistles to market until you're sure that the bells tinkle and the whistles, erm, whistle.

There was a Gnome theme for KDE2 talked about on KDE Dot News about a week before KDE2's launch. You should be able to find out more details by searching the archives on that site.

Posted in Konqueror...

Is Unix ready for the desktop? KDE seems to think so. A four-year-old can use it, I imagine most corporate lusers won't really have a hard time with it. Or at least no harder of a time than they do with Windows.

KOffice is coming along nicely, and there's also StarOffice or OpenOffice or whatever it's called this week.

And it's a whole lot easier to keep people from playing silly games...administration is easier...Total Cost of Ownership is lower... one of our desktop Linux workstations at work has been up for 78 days now, while all the NT boxes around it are rebooted at least weekly...
---

KDE is GPLed, QT is GPLed, assumng the applications in question are all GPLed as well, (and as you can see here, KOffice in particular is GPLed for some parts and Artistic Licensed for others.) you should have no licensing problems. The GPL is very deliberately Free/Proprietary OS neutral, As Stallman considers OS restrictions to be no better than any other kind.

Konqueror 2.0, part of KDE 2.0, seems to be more stable than Netscape/Mozilla, IMHO. As well as all the (useful) features of Navigator/IE, it has per-site configuration of cookies, Java and JavaScript.

Gail wouldn't take kindly to such talk. She isn't topless, netpixie is correct.

3rd pic, seems a tad rude... but whats this ...She has a top on after all. (PIC 2 from left on top row, Fortunecity filter direct links to images. Click to enlarge.)

I agree that the top in question is very slight and may get you arrested in the land of the free, but thats beside the point.

Time to grow up and stop gaulking I'm afraid, even your mother had them.

Just wait until you see the picture of her arse (PIC 2 from left, bottom row. Click to enlarge.) the gnome boys have lined up for the login dialog on the next killer release...

While checking out the 2.x screenshots I couldn't help but notice that the 3rd one down has a topless woman. I don't have any problems with it, but it does beg the "subliminal message" selling point: "if you like topless women, you'll love KDE!"

http://www.kde.org/announceme nts /announce-2.0.html

http://www.kde.org/food/linux_is_ obs olete.html

It gives a good outline of the status of Open Source and small *nix comunity in the early 90s. It also shows Linus didn't become a bastard overnight :)

Please send bug reports on these, including sample code.

FWIW, all of Red Hat Linux 7, including Powertools and the Extra CDs for the European edition have been compiled with 2.96 using -O2 -mcpu=i686 -march=i386 without problems.

KDE 2.0 is completely c++, doesn't cause any problems with 2.96 -O2 -mcpu=i686 -march=i386.

I just checked the kde-devel list and found this, a comment from a source far more qualified to respond. Good luck.

I have no idea whether this answers your question, it is a brief comment about it in 4.24 of the KDE FAQ.

This improved performance on my machine by at least 30%. Credits go to fura (that's the nick used on dot.kde.org, anyway) for this information.

Most of the time you didn't install it correctly or the packager made a mistake.

I mean look at http://bugs.kde.org more than 10000 bugs. There are some developers busy just closing STUPID bugreports.

Concerning the stability: Konqueror crashes (once a day under hard testing -js, java, pushing buttons like crazy). That_'s it I haven't managed to crash anything else in a while.

Have you actually tried any of the mirrors? I got my RC from the swedish mirror at 270KByte/s just after this story was posted.
/per

Upgrading depends on what you've used before.
If you've used a previous 2.0 beta, you want to update because of tons of bugfixes.
If you've used 1.x, check the KDE-2 launchpad.

As for switching from Gnome to KDE 2.x or vice versa, my recommendation has always been to try out both and check which you like better.

Since you can run KDE applications inside gnome and vice versa, you may like Konqueror and a couple of other new tools even if you decide not to switch.