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• Between the KDE Two Conference material and KDE 2.0 Technology Overview, it appears that there is a proliferation of messaging systems.

  It is evident that the C++-based CORBA options are pretty slow, and thereby not acceptable for mass use; barring that, has there been any consideration of using a messaging system that is in use elsewhere, so as to both have evidence that it works, as well as a reduction in the proliferation of new APIs?

  What comes to mind are:

  • Lightweight Distributed Objects (LDO), submitted as an IETF draft, and
  • HTTP-SOAP, also an IETF draft
• Has any consideration been made of using some of the configuration libraries and data formats already available, such as:
  • ACAP, which has an IETF draft
  • libPropList which is used by GnuStep and OpenStep as well as by WindowMaker.
  • Ted Tso's .ini file reader?

It is such a shame when new formats have to be designed and managed, when debugged code already exists to implement these sorts of things.

• Between the KDE Two Conference material and KDE 2.0 Technology Overview, it appears that there is a proliferation of messaging systems.

  It is evident that the C++-based CORBA options are pretty slow, and thereby not acceptable for mass use; barring that, has there been any consideration of using a messaging system that is in use elsewhere, so as to both have evidence that it works, as well as a reduction in the proliferation of new APIs?

  What comes to mind are:

  • Lightweight Distributed Objects (LDO), submitted as an IETF draft, and
  • HTTP-SOAP, also an IETF draft
• Has any consideration been made of using some of the configuration libraries and data formats already available, such as:
  • ACAP, which has an IETF draft
  • libPropList which is used by GnuStep and OpenStep as well as by WindowMaker.
  • Ted Tso's .ini file reader?

It is such a shame when new formats have to be designed and managed, when debugged code already exists to implement these sorts of things.

"kdelibs is frozen. This means that you should not introduce any changes to the API of kdelibs.

kdebase and koffice is feature frozen. This means that you should try to concentrate on bugfixing and getting the basic functionality to work correctly.

On 15 dec we will release. Make sure the important things work by then. It's up to you to decide what is important. "

quote from KDE news

Koffice looking good how about porting the functions to a GTK front end ? (GTK is nier the QT because I like to give windows(the microkernel one) a chance to use my apps QT makes you pay to use under windows

full respect to the KDE team !

regards

john




a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)

Yes you are wrong. Or at least you don't get the full picture. DCOP isn't a stupid IPC like X atoms or other old stuff. DCOP works with your server in hong kong, since it uses TCP/IP when talking to remote computers. It is object oriented, has an IDL compiler like CORBA (but much simpler to use since the IDL is generated from standard header files), and most importantly DCOP is very very lightweight. All KDE apps benefit from being able to use DCOP, whereas in the old days of using CORBA they couldn't afford the memory and speed issues. Please read http://www.kde.org/technology.html Or even best : try the current KDE and compare with the previous CORBA-based one. Facts speak for themselves.

Basically, it's full GPL for the apps, and LGPL for the libraries, presumably to allow non-GPL code to link to, and thus run on KDE.

I had one rather emotional associate who ranted that that was a fatal flaw, and that KDE would become a dinosaur, until I pointed out that the licensing was much more friendly to port a KDE version of Command and Conquer, or FF8.

Yes, I still do buy *some* software... but almost none for business anymore.

--
Evan

Here is a page of kde2 screenshots. They talk about the html widget having a lot of work done on it. It's dated August 1st, so I think this article is incorrect.

I think Konqueror's main benefits can be enumerated succinctly: desktop environment integration and extensibility. Destop environment integration means that Konqueror will be (and, to a certain extent, is) the main tool in KDE for viewing folders, as well as being a Web browser. Bringing the Web and FTP to the same interface as files (see this screenshot) is, IMHO, a Good Thing(tm). Extensibility means that, empowered by KDE's Ope nParts, Konqueror will be able to show anything that you have a KDE application for, much like OLE/COM (AFAIK). This will also be a Good Thing(tm). Netscape has more difficulty viewing stuff on my hard drive (admittedly they aren't working closely with the KDE team, or that might improve) and its plugins can't have standalone incarnations. Oh, and Netscape uses Motif! So it doesn't fit in with my nice KDE themes! :^(

I think Konqueror's main benefits can be enumerated succinctly: desktop environment integration and extensibility. Destop environment integration means that Konqueror will be (and, to a certain extent, is) the main tool in KDE for viewing folders, as well as being a Web browser. Bringing the Web and FTP to the same interface as files (see this screenshot) is, IMHO, a Good Thing(tm). Extensibility means that, empowered by KDE's Ope nParts, Konqueror will be able to show anything that you have a KDE application for, much like OLE/COM (AFAIK). This will also be a Good Thing(tm). Netscape has more difficulty viewing stuff on my hard drive (admittedly they aren't working closely with the KDE team, or that might improve) and its plugins can't have standalone incarnations. Oh, and Netscape uses Motif! So it doesn't fit in with my nice KDE themes! :^(

Back up in the URL, and try these links:

khtml web page
Front page to screenshots
Another screen shot

~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"

This is good news for KOffice

A solid, stable, pretty, glitzy GUI is needed first.
As many have mentioned before, see KDE or WindowMaker or Enlightenment w/ Gnome

The OS needs to be usable to a new user - on the same level as Windows.
Again, see above comment, and Corel Linux
Linux needs to be easy to install, easy to uninstall, able to sense hardware without the user needing to open the PC to read numbers off of chips.
Yet again, see Corel Linux
Linux needs to support the latest and greatest hardware, like USB (USB2), firewire, parallel port scanners, WinModems...
Again, see.... er.. wait. Damn, we don't have these. Linux needs to have GAMES!
See Linux Game Tome and Linux Games and Loki Games
End see

Corba plug ins let you view all sorts of images, PDFs, Postscipt files, as well as browse your local filesystem.

And yes, I know that it's for KDE, but KDE will run with both E and Gnome pretty compatibly.

As for the larger premise: My personal "killer app" that is keeping me in Windows is the lack of multi-head support for ATI cards. I use two to handle multimedia in and out on two monitors. I'm hoping that XFree 4.0 will allow me to use it (at that point, I'll also have to get my USB HP 895Cse printer working).

My point is that everybody has a whole different set of priorities. Not being able to see some websites is merely annoying to me. Having to reboot two or three times a day -- that's forgivable only when I trade it off for two monitors and multimedia i/o.

--
Evan E.

Erm...it's Open Source. I'm afraid that means that you'll have to encourage speakers of Hebrew and Arabic to contribute some time and effort.

Anyway, you're wrong cos I just looked up KDE. See this page and you'll notice Hebrew listed...maybe you can tell me it's not adequate yet, but then offer some support!

dylan_-


--

A screenshot of a well-known applet in kicker (formerly known as kpanel) can be found here.
The new hicolor-icons are not in CVS-HEAD yet though. So if you don't like the icon above, be aware of the fact that it is still one of the old locolor-icon for people with 8-bit-graphics-adapters.
If you haven't seen the new icons yet, have a look here (PNG) or here (JPG)!
(This one is a screenshot of KDE 1.1.2)

Have a nice day,

ac

A screenshot of a well-known applet in kicker (formerly known as kpanel) can be found here.
The new hicolor-icons are not in CVS-HEAD yet though. So if you don't like the icon above, be aware of the fact that it is still one of the old locolor-icon for people with 8-bit-graphics-adapters.
If you haven't seen the new icons yet, have a look here (PNG) or here (JPG)!
(This one is a screenshot of KDE 1.1.2)

Have a nice day,

ac

A screenshot of a well-known applet in kicker (formerly known as kpanel) can be found here.
The new hicolor-icons are not in CVS-HEAD yet though. So if you don't like the icon above, be aware of the fact that it is still one of the old locolor-icon for people with 8-bit-graphics-adapters.
If you haven't seen the new icons yet, have a look here (PNG) or here (JPG)!

Have a nice day,

ac

A screenshot of a well-known applet in kicker (formerly known as kpanel) can be found here.
The new hicolor-icons are not in CVS-HEAD yet though. So if you don't like the icon above, be aware of the fact that it is still one of the old locolor-icon for people with 8-bit-graphics-adapters.
If you haven't seen the new icons yet, have a look here (PNG) or here (JPG)!

Have a nice day,

ac

The way kppp tested whether the kernel supports PPP, unwittingly took advantage of a security hole that was fixed in the kernel versions 2.2.13 and 2.3.x. See Bug 2164 on the KDE web site. Nothing serious.
According to the bug report, you can simply ignore the error message or remove the test for the ppp0 device from the kppp source code.

I've not done IE under unix (of any sort) recently, so can't update you on that.

But a comment on the browser scene: netscrape, sure, is underfeatured and over-bloated. IE is evil, of course. Mozilla isn't remotely ready for "public consumption".
My recommendations on the unix browser scene boil doing to either Opera (as & when they get their act together) or Konqueror - part of the KDE. I'm using the latter now as one of my mainstays for non-javascript browsing - even slashdot comes out OK in it, and it's stable enough (1.1.2). Oh, and it also renders PNGs correctly in a webpage.

Sure, but that still leaves the question why they didn't include Qt2.

Qt2 is under the QPL (see www.troll.no), which is a DFSG-free / Open Source license. Qt is best known for being the library upon which KDE is built, but it is a useful library for GUI development in and of itself.

What - TELNET in?!?
Just download KReset and you have a nice push-button interface for resetting stuck display servers. You can even STORE your ROOT login password in the application so grandmama can fix her display without calling you at 3am.

This would be MUCK more useful than say KTop, a graphical interface to the awkward and very DOS-like "top" command. I was very saddened when I discovered there was no homepage for Ktop... [sniff!].

KIDDING folks.. put down the knife Pitr.. :)

I forgot one important fact in all this. The old saying, "Show me the code." The fact is, Torben Weis took the time to implement a working version of canossa to demonstrate. If anyone has ideas about how to implement something better or whatever, they're welcome. But nothing gets the point across as having code to show your view and that it works.

The original post about this is available at here. And just what David Faure predicted has come true.

We need to look at the present and immediate future more than the distant future. I know many of the Slashdot readers would love to see a KDE2 come out that is terribly slow and crashes as much as something from MS. But that is not what will happen.

Currently, this is the best method for applications to be extremely fast and usable. It does still leave the door open for CORBA. But for native KDE code, it saves a lot of headache. Users do not care if five years from now some app will be fast, but until then live with its slowness. KOffice has been the chief user of OP (the part Canossa replaces) and has been pretty unstable for about a year now. Fixes occur here and there but it just has been unmaintainable. In three days, a couple guys have made Canossa and it's much more stable with it. Development now has a chance to improve real features of the apps.

Where do you want to go today? A mythical utopia, or what works now and works well. And I'll say again, CORBA isn't dropped completely, it is still in there. Despite all the ranting about these sort of subject, the ultimate factor to keep in mind is the users. We must provide products that get the task done in the best manor available.

CORBA may catch up someday, and we can adapt with it. Do you think KDE2 will be the end of any further changes? Heck, with KDE3, KDE4, etc it's probable the code we've written will be gone and redone faster/better/cleaner. Development can and does move with the times. These decisions do come with plenty of thought, the mail lists are publicly readable at http://lists.kde.org.

Shouldn't this be telling us that there's a need, in the open source world, for a standard model of this kind? In-process CORBA seems to have been found wanting by these projects, as discussed elsewhere in this thread and also, for example, in this kde-core-devel message.

Perhaps there's something to be learned from Microsoft here - MS started out with COM as a strictly local component architecture (and took a lot of PR heat from the OMG at the time because of not being distributed), but, has it ended up with a model that's more suitable for local component work?

People have talked about the potential benefits of being able to develop for both KDE and Gnome - a way to help this happen would be for them both to be using the same underlying component model.

Something like this would have benefits way beyond KDE & Gnome. Very few open source projects use CORBA as a central architectural model. Berlin is one exception - it would be interesting to hear what its developers see as the pros and cons of CORBA in that context. But the lack of a standard component model elsewhere limits interoperability throughout the open source universe.

Perhaps the open source community would have better luck than the OMG in coming up with a smaller, tighter common spec for local components than CORBA. It doesn't mean the whole of CORBA has to be thrown out - XPCOM still uses IDL, for example.

As one small example of the benefits of a common local component model, imagine if Mozilla, KDE & Gnome could share low-level components! Surely there's some potential for reuse between those projects (even if only at the level of the component model itself)? Also, developers could work on more than one of these projects, without having to deal with a different API in each case.

Of course, these kind of benefits would all be possible with CORBA. I don't have direct knowledge of the reasons these projects have rejected CORBA in this context, but I'm assuming their reasons were good, and extrapolating from that to the question asked in the subject:

Does Open Source need a COM-like standard???

.. read this .

You're right on that one. That's why there's a link to it at developer.kde.org.

My favourite is the AutoCAD tooltip...

GNOME and KDE will run on it just fine.

In fact, the FreeBSD ports collection has both ports and binary packages for KDE 1.1.2, and binary GNOME packages as well.

The KDE news page also announced the availability of KDE 1.1.2 packages for NetBSD (as well as for Solaris - interestingly enough, the announcement said that Solaris x86 was available, and that SPARC would be available shortly; x86 first?).

The OpenBSD ports status page mentions KDE; I don't see any mention of GNOME other than the libghttp GNOME HTTP client library

Think past the Linux box

KDE seems to run fine on my FreeBSD partition; I installed the 1.1.2 binary package a few days ago. Solaris binary packages also exist; people probably run versions from source built on other OSes as well.

Note that the KDE home page says:

KDE is a powerful graphical desktop environment for Unix workstations. It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of the Unix operating system.

Note the lack of a certain word beginning with capital "L" in that; they're not targeting Linux, they're targeting UNIX-flavored OSes, including but not limited to Linux.

The GNOME site doesn't say "not for Linux only" on the home page, but the "What is GNOME" part of the GNOME FAQ says nothing about it being targeted only for Linux, and the "What are the system requirements for GNOME" part says

Currently, you need a machine with Unix or a Unix-like operating system installed, with the X Window System (X11R5 or later).

Again, note the use of the U word rather than the L word.

You're probably unlikely to get as much enthusiasm from free software developers for CDE as there is for KDE and GNOME until there's a free CDE implementation (speech, not just beer) - there's LessTif, but it's just a Motif implementation, not a full CDE implementation.

The KDE FAQ does not use the same phrasing, it says in 2.6 that KDE uses the Qt C++ crossplatform toolkit, which comes with its own license.

Now the software being written for GNU/Linux is taking off in every direction imaginable.

...including being run on other UNIX-flavored OSes (and, in many cases, developed by people working on a variety of UNIX-flavored OSes, including but not limited to Linux).

Note that the first place the word "Linux" appears on the KDE home page is when it says

KDE wins "LinuxWorld's Editor Choice" award in "Desktop Environment" category

Earlier on that page, it says

KDE is a powerful graphical desktop environment for Unix workstations. It combines ease of use, contemporary functionality and outstanding graphical design with the technological superiority of the Unix operating system.

Note that "Unix" appears twice in that quote, and "Linux" appears zero times; they should arguably replace "Unix operating system" with "Unix-flavored operating systems", or something such as that, given that there is no single collection of software that is the "Unix operating system", i.e. in that context, "Unix operating system" includes Linux, just as much as it includes {Free,Net,Open}BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, etc..

Soon the differences between Unix and GNU/Linux will dwarf the similarities for many.

I'm still waiting.... (When I log into a Linux box here, it feels pretty much like any of the other UNIX boxes; it's not exactly the same as any of the others, but Solaris and Digital UNIX aren't exactly the same, either.)

Personally, I can't wait until Berlin is ready for some serious action.

Hmm. Let's take a look at the Berlin Consortium Home Page:

Our long term goal is to produce the most powerful and flexible GUI possible, and to release it on as many hardware platforms and OSs as can be found.

Nothing on the home page says "this is a windowing system for Linux"; the developers may be working on Linux, but they pretty clearly state that it isn't their intent to make this something just for Linux.

Thanks!

(the start of the thread is here)

BTW, do you know when they actually started using CORBA?

Thanks again :)

The current style guide is in gnome-libs/devel-docs/suggestions.txt.

presumably meaning in the GNOME source tree.

There's also a page on the KDE developer's site with links to KDE style guide information.

(I think the IBM CUA spec may have influenced Motif and its style guide; given that GTK+'s look and feel somewhat resembles that of Motif, and that Qt offers a Motif L&F as one of its options, and that I think it may also have influenced Windows' style and style guide, which has, in turn, influenced the styles of various UNIX GUI projects, it may be that the CUA has already contributed....)

I don't know to what extent the GUA guides owe a debt to the Mac human interface guidelines. Then again, I just threw that last sentence in to provide an excuse for a link to another on-line style guide....

Check out The Thread and the rest of Food For Thoght

Check out The Thread and the rest of Food For Thoght

For your information, the latest version of rxvt, 2.6.0 or above, can do transparency. It beats Eterm, since it does not require any special program to set the root window - ie it works with KDE's kbgndwm or xloadimage or whatever. See www.rxvt.org for a latest version.

There are patches to KDE's wallpaper setter floating around which make it work with Eterm. Search the archive of the KDE user mailing list (on the web at www.kde.org)

Thirdly, the konsole program in KDE 2.0 supports transparency - so if you download the CVS versions, have fun.

HTH
George Russell (russell@kde.org)

Get KDE 1.1.2 for any flavor of glibc PowerPC Linux at ftp://ftp. de.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/1.1.2/distribution/rpm/p pc/binaries/.

It's a 15 meg download, and like the 1.1.2 source distro all of the major PowerPC patches have been merged into the KDE main source tree so KDE 1.1.2 should work good / reilably for you.

Thank Franzo. He really got a jump on this release -- even before the RedHat binaries.

PS: I am also getting KDE 1.1.2 for PowerPC Linux now. :)

Ohh yea. I think I remember something like that. Bear with me, nope, can't find it on the KDE application web pages site. Lemme go seacrh for it on freshmeat . . . ok, not their either, not to worry cuase altavista search on the way, and what are they chances anyone else made a 'k' instead of 'c' typo. Ok, is this a bike or something, and what the hell is a kruiser club. Ok, making it KDE keyword manditory, and I got it.

HERE IT IS, IF YOU ARE INTRESTED LIKE ME http://devel-home.kde.org/~kruiser/in dex.html

Given the level of activity on both KOffice and the GNOME Workshop, I don't think that there's any question that office applications suites can certainly attract free software developers.

The question remains, will StarOffice under Sun's "Community" license attract developers? I'm doubtful -- how may outside developers actually work on projects that Sun has already applied this license to? AFAIK, it's even less than the number of non-Netscape programmers working on Mozilla.

So I don't see this as a "test" of the open source concept. Put StarOffice under GPL/LGPL, or even the MPL, and this might qualify as a test. But right now, this looks more like "free beer" than "free speech." Not that free beer isn't nice, but it's not the same...

"Cleverness kills wisdom"
-- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World

The Qt free edition licence

The KDE Free Qt Foundation

But Qt isn't free, is it?
Why not code a L/GPL'ed Qt clone?

The Qt free edition licence

The KDE Free Qt Foundation

But Qt isn't free, is it?
Why not code a L/GPL'ed Qt clone?

UNIX is a server OS which is making inroads into the desktop marketplace. Windows/Mac OS are desktop operating systems making inroads into the server marketplace.

Windows and a few tag-along friends have been at a decided advantage where bridging the server/desktop gap is concerend. "Any moron can administer" (desktop) equals "cheap sysadmin." "Stable" (server) equals "fewer reboots in the typing pool."

Linux has helped further UNIX's position by adding "cheap" and "popular" to the list of features. Now it's time to really hammer on creating a solid target application environment and, most of all, to focus on ease of use.

There are already countless Linux distributions competing to create the easiest-to-install distribution. The key players know they need to get people up and running painlessly.

But KDE and to a lesser extent, Gnome, represent the next critical step. Fewer of the important players seem to realize (or know what to do about the fact) that ease of use and a consistent desktop are what are going to make or break the huge desktop market for them.

Linux-Mandrake seems to realize this, with their support of David Faure, and FreeBSD seems to be considering methods for a sneak-attack. (There are more KDE threads there.)

Linux or not, whoever can make themselves synonymous with KDE when KOffice and KDE 2.0 go public will have the desktop market locked. Execs will be tripping over each other to be the first to suggest the "stable" "cheap" "popular" and "EASY" OS for every last PC in the place.

Who's it going to be? Will they turn RH into a tiny, forgotten memory? ...will they still remember Linux?

Check out www.kde.org when the site comes back up.

According to a post from 22 july, the estimated release date was about 4 weeks from then - unless it gets pushed back again.

Also, according to third-hand reports I've heard, they've decided to release it as 1.2, not 1.1.2. Those reports could be wrong (actually, I hope they are - 1.1.2 isn't radically different from 1.1.1), but who knows.

Not to take away anything from any of the other free software projects...but these guys truly amaze me; they are taking on Microsoft, not with words, but with deeds.

--

Not to take away anything from any of the other free software projects...but these guys truly amaze me; they are taking on Microsoft, not with words, but with deeds.

--

Not to take away anything from any of the other free software projects...but these guys truly amaze me; they are taking on Microsoft, not with words, but with deeds.

--

Not to take away anything from any of the other free software projects...but these guys truly amaze me; they are taking on Microsoft, not with words, but with deeds.

--

Not to take away anything from any of the other free software projects...but these guys truly amaze me; they are taking on Microsoft, not with words, but with deeds.

--

www.at.kde.org/kde2shots.html

kde2shots