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Just fine? KDE 4.5 and 4.6 (upcoming) crash on log in with nvidias drivers ver 260.xx.xx (on openSUSE 11.3 32bit?). Many other applications and applets also crash, particularly on 4.6 where krunner, amarok and search and launch activity are amongst the affected ones. This is one of the currently most reported bugs at the moment with a current dup count of 58! As if all this wasn't enough in 4.6 the window manager also almost immediately freezes until desktop effects are automatically disabled.

So basically when you try KDE 4.6 on openSUSE 11.3 with updated nvidia drivers what happens is. You can't login due to desktop crash. If you fix that by removing the offending applets from the config files. On login Krunner crashes and keeps re-spawning and crashing. If you manage to kill it then desktop freezes and if all goes well effects are disabled. And if you get past then you can use it... without krunner, effects, and some of its best applications.

Given how sucky SUSE is a distro that is to be expected. I guess its suckiness is on purpose as part of the Novell / MIcrosoft partnership.

Just fine? KDE 4.5 and 4.6 (upcoming) crash on log in with nvidias drivers ver 260.xx.xx (on openSUSE 11.3 32bit?). Many other applications and applets also crash, particularly on 4.6 where krunner, amarok and search and launch activity are amongst the affected ones. This is one of the currently most reported bugs at the moment with a current dup count of 58! As if all this wasn't enough in 4.6 the window manager also almost immediately freezes until desktop effects are automatically disabled.

So basically when you try KDE 4.6 on openSUSE 11.3 with updated nvidia drivers what happens is. You can't login due to desktop crash. If you fix that by removing the offending applets from the config files. On login Krunner crashes and keeps re-spawning and crashing. If you manage to kill it then desktop freezes and if all goes well effects are disabled. And if you get past then you can use it... without krunner, effects, and some of its best applications.

Just fine? KDE 4.5 and 4.6 (upcoming) crash on log in with nvidias drivers ver 260.xx.xx (on openSUSE 11.3 32bit?). Many other applications and applets also crash, particularly on 4.6 where krunner, amarok and search and launch activity are amongst the affected ones. This is one of the currently most reported bugs at the moment with a current dup count of 58! As if all this wasn't enough in 4.6 the window manager also almost immediately freezes until desktop effects are automatically disabled.

So basically when you try KDE 4.6 on openSUSE 11.3 with updated nvidia drivers what happens is. You can't login due to desktop crash. If you fix that by removing the offending applets from the config files. On login Krunner crashes and keeps re-spawning and crashing. If you manage to kill it then desktop freezes and if all goes well effects are disabled. And if you get past then you can use it... without krunner, effects, and some of its best applications.

From the "Initiative" link at the top of TFA select "FAQ".
Since you couldn't be bothered to look at the site hosting TFA I'll post the relevant part of the FAQ to make it easy for you.

Yup, I couldn't be bothered to navigate the site maze hosting TFA. Doesn't make it wrong. Busy people have short attention spans. (And don't give me that "but you're on Slashdot, surely you don't have anything better to do" look! Stop! It burnnnnnns!)

See, if the interview STARTED with a recap of these three points, I would have read on and see how it could possibly be a good thing for me.

And you didn't have to repost the fluff paragraphs beyond point no. 3 either. If I were too busy I would think it's all TL;DR. If I want to know more, I'll click links, I'll even google it on my phone--but you gotta make me WANT to.

From the "Initiative" link at the top of TFA select "FAQ".
Since you couldn't be bothered to look at the site hosting TFA I'll post the relevant part of the FAQ to make it easy for you.

Reasons for KDE on Windows ... tell me who except über geeks need KDE on Windows?

We need KDE on Windows for three reasons:

1. Most businesses can't just switch to Linux. I've heard more than enough stories of workers being stuck with Windows as they're of course not allowed or able (because of special apps) to convert their boxes to Linux. KDE might provide them with a comfortable working environment to which they are used.

2. Most businesses won't suddenly switch. Clear step-by-step migration paths (Windows + Office + Explorer -> Windows + OpenOffice + Konqueror -> Linux + OpenOffice + Konqueror) make it easier for the IT deciders to enter this process. (Something along the lines of "If the users do not like Konqueror, they can still use Explorer.") Yes, I know that Konqueror is not a good example, as many Windows users have just learned Firefox and will most probably not look into learning yet another browser.

3. Having FOSS applications available on the Windows platform is crucial for attracting users. Not many people go into the store and buy a SuSE box, but many people get single FOSS apps like OOo or Firefox because they read about it in some magazine, or some friend recommended it to them.

KDE on windows attracts developer

A few years ago (leading up to Akademy 2007 IIRC) we had a huge discussion on the planet about the merits of making KDE applications available on Windows. The core of my argument for doing that then was, and still is, that its really in the interest of KDE to do this because it attracts developers who would otherwise not contribute.

Take Amarok for instance. The core developers spend very little time on making Amarok run on windows (I think the total amount of work I have done on this amounts to one time changing the order of some things in a CMake file as someone reported that it otherwise broke the build on Windows.) So all in all, this is not something that takes much time away from developing Amarok itself. On the other hand, the original implementation of the Last.fm service was written by a developer whose original intention was to make Amarok work better on Windows. Once he had gotten as far as he could at the time, he started, still using Windows, to hack on other stuff that benefits all users of Amarok. He did not use linux at all, and only contributed because it was possible to run and work on Amarok using Windows.

So I really think it is wrong to look at this as a zero sum game as time spent making stuff run on windows is not automatically time taken away from developing the core application. Quite contrary, making the application usable on other platforms will also attract developers who would not otherwise have worked on it. Of course there is a tipping point for this as the applications have to be working well and have a significant user base on Windows before any significant amount of developers shows up, but as my example about Amarok illustrates, people are already taking notice.

And then there is the whole issue about philosophy. To me, Free Software is about just that, freedom. I think it would be against the spirit of that to artificially limit the platforms that our software runs on. that is for all the "other" guys to do, I think we are better than that! :-)

Morty wrote - Not the desktop ... The power of KDE are its library and the applications made with it, and those are also interresting for the Windows platform.

And for KDE as a whole, any developers brought in and bugs fixed by the Windows port are a net win for KDE.

majorTomBelgium wrote about amarok, dolphin, ...

really, having all the nice kde programs available on windows is v

ehm....why?!

Because a lot of the KDE applications are great and if one does not like dual booting you can enjoy them on Windows as well?

I really like Kate for writing code and Okular is a nice Adobe Reader alternative. I haven't tried many LaTeX GUIs but I feel really productive in Kile. Now I can enjoy those applications on Windows as well.

BTW if you do install KDE on Windows, make sure you read the fine tuning step in their wiki for a getting a more native look and feel.

Some googling turned up some resources and eventually I realized there actually were links on the article page to a main KDE Windows Initiative page...

But none of those have any explanation of what it does, how it works inside Windows, or why you would want it.

That is, unfortunately, my experience with KDE generally. They have no concept, ability, or desire to explain to us, the Great Unwashed, how, what, or why.

It is not enough to have a technically superior product, folks -- you also have to "sell" it to your customers!

Some googling turned up some resources and eventually I realized there actually were links on the article page to a main KDE Windows Initiative page...

But none of those have any explanation of what it does, how it works inside Windows, or why you would want it.

That is, unfortunately, my experience with KDE generally. They have no concept, ability, or desire to explain to us, the Great Unwashed, how, what, or why.

It is not enough to have a technically superior product, folks -- you also have to "sell" it to your customers!

The KDE devs did try to get Akonadi recognized as a standard so resources (like an address book) would be recognized in Gnome applications as well. FreeDesktop.org did not accept it as a standard.

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-pim&m=118583299200650&w=2

No, they didn't. There isn't such a proposal anywhere on the XDG lists.

Based on that thread, it looks like they talked about it themselves and then decided it won't be accepted without even actually trying, or that there would be too much hassle.

[goes off, roots around]
I see this handy feature:
http://rekonq.kde.org/node/43
Can you unload what you just loaded, too?

There are cross platform desktop standards at FreeDesktop.org

For instance, the naming conventions for icons in KDE 3 and Gnome were different, so you couldn't share an icon set. A FreeDesktop.org standard was set, and they both use it now. There are standards for menu entries, etc.

The KDE devs did try to get Akonadi recognized as a standard so resources (like an address book) would be recognized in Gnome applications as well. FreeDesktop.org did not accept it as a standard.

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-pim&m=118583299200650&w=2

As I'm reading this thread I'd suggest this link instead:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=128812911619277&w=2

Never ask a question inspired by itworld that can be answered by simply going straight to the source.

Here is some more background on the split

http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=128782551919625&w=2

What a stupid headline. Page views, clicks, etc. Yeah I know.

Absolutely. The guy just says that is the end of KDE because, originally, it meant "desktop environment", and now there is software for non desktops, such as tablets or phones.

Well dude, it's been a year since that changed. Now KDE is the name of the community. And that community started developing a DE, but now develops a lot more.

Some changes in the KOffice situation required a rename, but renaming KDE just because that people is doing software for more platforms is absurd.

I used to love KDE. In fact I've used it for something like ten years and even put up with the beta-level KDE4.0 in the foolish belief that it was worthwhile. But the sheer arrogance of the developers and their constant issuing of useless code has finally driven me away. Case in point, kaddressbook. Most recent version delivered to Mandriva lost all contacts set up in previous versions (you could get them back, but only after digging around to find out how) and not only deleted mailing lists but pretended to allow the creation of them while actually losing them as soon as they were saved. And apparently it's all the fault of the distros for not realising KDE were releasing non-functioning code and putting it out, not the fault of KDE for releasing crap. And they intend to keep it up. To quote http://userbase.kde.org/KAddressBook_4.4 "KAddressBook is a work-in-progress. That doesn't mean that it's unstable but it does mean that it's not complete. The layout you see in this version is very different from the older version, and it's quite possible that the next version will be different again, as we see more features being available to us again." With that sort of attitude, I suppose it's hardly surprising they've decided that everybody has to use over-blown useless crap like Nepomuk and Akonadi that just takes up huge amounts of system resource for little (if any) benefit. Having dumped KDE for IceWM, I now have a far more reliable, faster computer that's unencumbered by useless bloat. And about the only thing I actually MISS from KDE is the newsticker. But there are Firefox plugins that do the job, even if not quite as well, so it's a price worth paying to be shot of these "It's up to us whether we break your computer and if you don't like it, blame yourself or your distro" pillocks.

There is at least some attempt to make C# bindings for Qt, and IIRC there are java bindings too.

Reality is that KDE4 didn't really become usable until v4.4 and has really come into it's own with 4.5.

Funny, because 4.0 was released as being usable. Then when 4.1 came out they said "4.0 wasn't usable, now it's great with 4.1". Then 4.2 came out, and the official line was "4.0 and 4.1 weren't usable, now it's great with 4.2". This has continued for every single point release of the 4 series so far, and each time they've hyped up the current release so that people who have tried it have been on the whole rather disappointed. Making the mature and familiar 3.5 releases impossible to use before the 4 series became (becomes) usable was a major mistake, because people have got used to Gnome during the wait.

Agreed. Now 4.0 through 4.3 was the development releases? That's a solid two years of development, that people now in all seriousness say it should tell you how far away 4.0 was from being ready for the public. Seriously, read the fscking release anonuncement. There's not one word in it that could reasonably suggest it's not a normal end user release. Yes, it's a big x.0 release but normal end user software does have x.0 releases, they don't start at version x.4. All the "we told you so" comments are referring to the little (*) written in 2pt white-on-white font that nobody caught.

I think you would be interested about the next idea as well as you use KDE without panels as I am too and I simply love it and I love that idea!

http://forum.kde.org/brainstorm.php#idea91258_page1

Maybe is an issue with proprietary nvidia drivers?

The desktop is rock solid now.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201620
is the bug for your taste. Filed on July 27, 2009 and until now without activities from the side of KDE, but close to 20 duplicates, because everyone is running into it all the time.

because KDE 4.X was _not_ designed to work over VNC: http://forum.kde.org/brainstorm.php#idea90400

This post is full of FUD.

Nope. There's also more supporting details I neglected to mention.

At the point when the feature freeze came along before the release of KOffice version 2.3, Nokia wanted to continue developing some features.

The most significant of which being a major restructuring of the code that touched large parts of the codebase for the benefit of Nokia's mobile app, yes. I even read the "testing done" bit on the review request and it didn't even mention any testing of the actual KOffice apps, just of Nokia's FreOffice.

As good citizens in the community this is being done in a work branch in SVN.

Which, as best I can tell, has become effectively the "real" trunk, with the actual official SVN trunk being relegated to backported bugfixes and few developers even testing it except when they encounter a bug in the work branch they need to test.

Far more of the mailing list discussion (and the vast majority of review requests) seems to be about FreOffice than the desktop UI, the apparent consensus amongst developers is that mobile is the future, and KOffice is having huge issues actually getting a release out because most of the developers are working to Nokia's release schedule and goals.

This said, It's not impossible that team B (being almost all of the previous KOffice community) will continue to work from the work branch as the new trunk

Which is what they were effectively doing already, except that bugfixes got merged into the 2.3 development branch and pulled from there rather than vice-versa. They'd already largely abandoned the "official" KOffice development and release process in favour of what Nokia wanted - I suppose at least this way they might actually make the change official.

Inge Wallin
KOffice developer

You also appear to do a fair of PR and announcements - and even the odd conference session and demo - for Nokia's FreOffice...

Please thank the KDE guys who came up with KHTML which then was forked by Apple and others into WebKit.

It's not like Apple all by itself created the WebKit, so give credit to the KDE guys every time you use a browser in your phone.

That's a very cryptic mailing list message - presumably deliberately so - but this reply appears to be fairly accurate about the missing details. Basically, Nokia wanted to use the core of KOffice in the office application on their Meego mobile platform, so they created their own fork that massively restructured KOffice and changed its APIs. Apparently they then tried to use their fork to ram in patches that the KOffice developers had rejected. Some of the other developers weren't happy about this state of affairs, but Nokia have so much pull inside the KDE community that they basically have to be accomodated.

That's a very cryptic mailing list message - presumably deliberately so - but this reply appears to be fairly accurate about the missing details. Basically, Nokia wanted to use the core of KOffice in the office application on their Meego mobile platform, so they created their own fork that massively restructured KOffice and changed its APIs. Apparently they then tried to use their fork to ram in patches that the KOffice developers had rejected. Some of the other developers weren't happy about this state of affairs, but Nokia have so much pull inside the KDE community that they basically have to be accomodated.

That's a very cryptic mailing list message - presumably deliberately so - but this reply appears to be fairly accurate about the missing details. Basically, Nokia wanted to use the core of KOffice in the office application on their Meego mobile platform, so they created their own fork that massively restructured KOffice and changed its APIs. Apparently they then tried to use their fork to ram in patches that the KOffice developers had rejected. Some of the other developers weren't happy about this state of affairs, but Nokia have so much pull inside the KDE community that they basically have to be accomodated.

http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=128782551919625&w=2

"Dear fellow members of the community,

As you might be aware, after months of discussions, it has been concluded that
the best solution is to split the community.

However, the split is going to happen at application level. The maintainer of
each application will be asked to consult his fellow developers to decide in
which group, A or B, the application will lived. The other group is free to
fork the application under a different name. It is also possible for the
developers to change the application name and ask that the current name is not
used by any of the group. This can be used as an opportunity for a fresh
start.

Currently, to the best of my knowledge the groups are composed of the
following applications:

Group A: KWord
Group B: KPresenter, Krita, Karbon, Kexi

Since the license give the right for a fork, I can already mention that Group
B will come with a fork of KWord, under a name that has yet to be decided.
Group A is free to fork any application of Group B under a different name.

Maintainers have until Sunday October 31th to decide with which group to go.
Applications that have not choosen a group will have to be renamed by each
group.

The KDE e.V. board will be asked to decide what happen to the KOffice name,
the KOffice website, the KOffice mailing list, KOffice.org, KOffice wiki and
the KOffice bugzilla product. The recommendation from members of the CWG is to
retire the name KOffice altogether, which will allow both side to start on a
fresh start and leave the past behind. Then the application maintainers and
developers of each group will have one week to find a new name for their
suite, and move to another place in the KDE subversion tree and to rename or
remove the applications that are in the other group.

In the meantime, I am suspending the KOffice release process, meaning that I
will release Beta 3, but that the date for the following release is undefined.
The reason is that I do not feel confident that the splitting will happen in
time before the RC1, and I do not think it is a good idea to ship a RC release
that will get different applications than the final release. If the splitting
takes more time, I will proceed with one more beta. I also advise each group
to ensure that they have a release coordinator.

I will urge readers of this letter to:
1) refrain discussion around the splitting outside the mailing list, or to do
so in private conversation
2) acknowledge, that at this point there is no sense in trying to place the
blame anywhere, we just have to accept the fact
3) remain civilised and polite in this difficult moment

--
Cyrille Berger Skott"

While we're bashing iTunes, has anyone got a decent Windows alternative?

I've tried:

http://www.musikcube.com/ - Not updated since 2006, worked well on xp, crashes on vista + 7

http://amarok.kde.org/ - I use this on my laptop, but it's not windows compatible.

http://www.atunes.org/?page_id=6 - I currently use this, but it resets the repository occasionally, and I would be interested in other options.

Wow, what a troll... you still did not explain anything at all.

What requires more memory? How is that even supposed to be possible at all considering that the very same software stack runs just fine on smartphones whose hardware specs are even lower than of netbooks?

How is supposedly to be technically possible at all that a non-compositing window manager (KWin 3.x) faster than the same window manager that is able to leverage the power of GPUs (KWin 4.x)? The consequence is that the CPU load is lower!
And KWin's main developer is improving KWin's performance even more: http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2010/10/optimization-in-kwin-4-6/

You could argue that KDE should drop deprecated stuff from the Platform libraries but in order for this to happen, a Platform 5.0 has to be made first! In this case demanding to "fix their code" on one hand and OTOH demanding to not think about 5.0 is a huge contradiction -- one only someone who's either a troll or a clueless person could demand.
And what you completely ignore is that KDE is actually working on further modularizing the Platform via profiles. This work is really happening and not some mind game for some hypothetical event in the future. Platform 4.5 already contains some groundwork.
In the end you may opt-in to use those compile-time profiles but KDE won't support them for their desktop releases because they'll break ABI stability on that platform and features will be sacrificed for them (those which are not needed on smartphones).
As for the desktop platform, KDE is reducing the number of dependencies there as well if those don't lead to binary incompatibility but this is (except a single item on the following list) already done: http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Mobile/PlatformModifications
Completely dropping deprecated features, btw, only leads to lower disk space consumption and not necessarily lower RAM consumption because application developers are already free to not load those libraries into memory in the first place (IIRC Kontact 1.x and Konqueror are the last two applications that use KHTML by default and Kontact 2.0 is about to be released and Konqueror can use WebKit instead of KHTML -- distributions start to replace Konqueror with the WebKit-based Rekonq anyway...)
And who in the realm of desktop computing actually cares about those few MBs of RAM anyway? My low-end desktop PC has 768MB RAM. The fact alone that I prefer GNOME's nm-applet over KDE's Network Management Plasma applet causes my system to have ridiculous GNOME dependencies (like gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor) to be loaded into RAM and it doesn't even matter. 768MB RAM is more than enough to load both KDE's as well as GNOME's base libraries into memory without causing performance lags! Upgrade you PC to have more than 128MB RAM if you feel "bloat".

Whatever your PC's specs are, my point stands: Either you are clueless because you demand contradicting features and omit KDE's actual work. Or you are just a troll.

PS: Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Awards 2010 tie GNOME's and KDE's desktop environments at #1 which wonderfully shows that your claim about "core dev team and a few fanboys" is utterly wrong. As many like KDE's desktop as GNOME's desktop. All other desktops don't have a approval rating of more than 3%.
If your claims were true, LXDE or so would've been far ahead of KDE's desktop...

The one positive thing about Qt is that there's at least a remote chance of it becoming genuinely free software... someday... If this merger means more code falling under this condition - good.

Sure, I'll explain, my point of view - surely you are aware of the relation between opinions and assholes :) so these are just my personal opinions.

I personally like that the package names also include the category, as the amount of applications included with KDE can be quite overwhelming, and the names are not always very descriptive - the fact that the package names are longer is a non-issue with bash autocompletion. Anyway, that whole thing is a matter of preference and really doesn't matter at all. Some Arch devs are also KDE devs (see here for example), but it's very rare for derivatives of Arch to modify the packages, they are pretty much plain vanilla.

But as for why I prefer Arch over Ubuntu (in non-KDE issues), I'll first comment on your post you referred to. I have no comment on multilib support, as I've yet to see any compelling reason to move to 64bit, but I'll take your word for it (I'm by no means suggesting Arch is perfect). As for AUR, perhaps my needs are very generic, but I find pretty much all of the packages I need are either in core, extra or community (and the custom repos for LinHES/Chakra) - when I need a package from AUR, I just download the tarball and check/modify the files and then build the package. I don't find it that much more complicated, and as stated, I really don't end up doing it often. I'll certainly grant Ubuntu offers many more packages, but for me, the default Arch selection seems sufficient. On the occasion that I do use AUR, I very seldom run into packages that extract a DEB/RPM and relink them, but partially this is understandable, at least when it comes to commercial programs, as they tend to release packages only for those formats. I agree that such methods are very much bandaid, and should be avoided.

Without caching, I still find pacman to be much faster than apt, but as it uses a flat-files-in-directories -approach, the performance depends greatly on the underlying filesystem. Although I generally don't like ReiserFSv3 that much, it's great with lots of small files, so when running Arch it's wise to have at least /var/lib/pacman in ReiserFSv3. Personally I also like the fact that all of the operations are done with a single program, but this is simply a matter of preference. When it comes to conflicts, -f is your friend, if you are sure the change is safe. If you haven't updated in a while it's not uncommon for some files to conflict, personally I find it amusing to tell pacman to "-Sfu" (if only you there were a -t option as well).

ABS is another aspect I really appreciate, I don't rebuild standard packages often, but when I do it's very handy should I want to for example apply a certain patch. And generally, I really like the rolling release approach, as well as the rc.conf and other minimalistic config files. When using a more desktop oriented distribution I find it harder to figure out which configuration file affects which, although certainly this is a matter of getting accustomed as well. It's a tinkerers distribution, and I like to tinker - would I run it on my work computer, probably not (and unfortunately as of now I'm forced to use Windows at work), but it's a hobby. Specifically, regarding KDE/Chakra, I appreciate that it's pretty much plain vanilla, so I can customize it from there.

But as stated these are my personal opinions/preferences, if you like (K)Ubuntu more, more power to you. And sorry for the typos, grammar and general lack of coherence, English is not my first language and I've just woken up/haven't had enough coffee yet.

No, I think people = people. Some people can't let KDE 4.0 go, even though they're perfectly capable of shutting up about practically all competing desktops. And on the contrary to what you claim, its unfinished status was in fact known, and the lack of features wasn't celebrated as a breakthrough in usability, which it was in Gnome 2.0.

It was made clear, and it was well known to everyone who considered installing it, that KDE4 wasn't ready for prime time at release. Yet you think it's in any way credible that you just happened to stumble over kde.org and saw the release announcement even though you were living in a bubble at the time and hadn't heard the rumours that it might not be quite the finished article just yet.

Oh, and hey:

KDE Project Ships Fourth Major Version of cutting edge Free Software Desktop

With the fourth major version, the KDE Community marks the beginning of the KDE 4 era.

[...]
For those interested in getting packages to test and contribute, several distributions have notified us that they will have KDE 4.0 packages available at or soon after the release. The complete and current list can be found on the KDE 4.0 Info Page, where you can also find links to the source code, information about compiling, security and other issues.

"Cutting edge." "Marks the beginning." "Packages to test and contribute." Not: what you said.

I can understand that you're angry if you installed it and noticed an immediate drop in productivity, since what it actually did, then, was to expose you as an imbecile.

I run a little program on my Kubuntu laptop called Basket. It is no more than a container for every kind of information imaginable - text, images, links, you name it - but it has been incredible in helping me organize things. I tried everything from pen-and-paper to Lotus Organizer, and at one point started to build my own application just for keeping a diary and similar stuff. But Basket simply has it all.
In fact, it comes with a set of files that you can import and implement David Allen's Getting Things Done (see note above).
Highly recommended. And I have no affiliations with the developers.

http://userbase.kde.org/Kontact

They they should make some explicit, legally binding agreement like the agreement between KDE and Trolltech that guaranteed Qt would be released under a BSD-type license if Trolltech (or someone who bought Trolltech) ever turned Qt proprietary. This protects against situations like bankruptcy, which might now allow Gabe to do whatever he wants.

KDE 4.x already available on Windows, and probably on OS X as well (never tried). The first ports of Konqueror were pretty weak, but these days it works nicely enough. I wouldn't call it a must-have program on Windows, but if you like the KDE apps (ark, kate, and amorak are some others that I like) then you can get them from http://windows.kde.org/ (it includes a package manager for updating, which is really nice). It looks like the current version is KDE 4.4.0.

It must be noted that the WebKit support in Konqueror is very limited in many ways, and this may matter more to many people than a JavaScript speedboost. It does NOT, for example, allow you to run Java applets. http://websvn.kde.org/*checkout*/trunk/KDE/kdelibs/kdewebkit/ISSUES

My personal opinion is that all other written-for-WebKit browsers are better choices compared to Konqueror+kpart for those who want a browser with WebKit rendering at this point.

And if you do, why not just use Sqllite?

http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/PIM/Akonadi#Why_not_use_sqlite.3F

http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/PIM/Akonadi#Where_does_Akonadi_store_my_data.3F

    Where does Akonadi store my data?

Akonadi merely acts as a cache for your data, the actual content stays where it has always been, .ics/.vcf/MBOX files, local maildirs, IMAP- and groupware servers. There is only a limited amount of data stored exclusively in Akonadi:

        * Data not supported by the corresponding backends, such as email flags in case of maildir/mbox. This is comparable to KMail's binary index files stored alongside these files in pre-Akonadi times.
        * Internal meta-data used by application or resources, such as information about the last synchronization with a backend or translated folder names.
        * Data that has been changed while the corresponding backend has been offline and has not yet been uploaded.

KDE Code quality is high and they have a KDE review board

Lately it seems that KDE is doing a Miguel de Icaza: devoted imitation of Microsoft. For instance, the "KDE Registry:" akonadi. Terribly fragile, but it's supposed to keep all of our data without a mechanism for backups.

KDE is doing a Miguel de Icaza lately and imitating Microsoft's "total integration," including their own version of the Registry: akonadi. Which may be nice, but it's also terribly fragile for something that's supposed to hold all of your data. See, for instance, bug 244250.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=244250

You could simply use it as a desktop. Linux has grown leaps and leaps and leaps forward and in many ways ahead of the Mac as a desktop, so read on.

KDE SC 4.5 (about to be released in a few days/weeks) is leaps ahead of the Mac OS X 10.5 GUI. The only catch is that it is not minimalistic. If you want minimalism you have to pick Gnome with Gnome DO and set it to act like a docky. Put a Mac OS X wallpaper in place and install a Mac OS X theme. However KDE has focussed on more minimalism since KDE4 without sacrificing features.

There is a KDE application for video editing that is unparalleled: Kdenlive: http://www.kdenlive.org/
It slaughters Sony Vegas in functionality and is free of charge too. It may not be stable enough yet (version 0.7) so it might be a little bit of a bumpy ride at first.

There is also a kick-ass music management application: AmaroK: http://amarok.kde.org/
It is compatible with iPods that are not of the latest generation (USB encryption crap)

KDE SC's default webbrowser is Konqueror, which, since KDE SC 4.5 also has WebKit support.
Google's Chrome is now also runnable on Linux.
If you don't like the Google privacy stuff than search for the Iron browser (they took the Chrome's source code and stripped it from any call home functionality)

For managing photo's, use DigiKam: http://www.digikam.org/

Personal information management: KDE PIM

For personal finance: http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/index-home.html

Office work isn't Linux' best aspect, so you could install OpenOffice.org. It is however the best Office Suit available for the PPC. It doesn't look all that good if your distro of choice hasn't supplied their own KDE4 integration into it.

Now there are a lot of distributions, so what should you pick?
The best and most stable KDE4 distro I have ever tried is Fedora. The default download option is with Gnone so search for a PPC KDE version. Because Fedora core is not using anything that is even remotely patented, you have to go to the RPMFusion website to add Adobe's Flash, MP3 and QuickTime codecs and whatnot: http://rpmfusion.org/RPM%20Fusion

You can see pick your download here: http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/12/
The Problem I am seeing here is that the current version of Fedora is 13 and the latest PPC64 builds are for Fedora 12. This leads to a little outdated software (1 year).

Find project you like or use and start contributing. Or ask them if they need any help.

Most of the big ones do have "help us here" pages, such as KDE:
http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute

And another KDE page for those just starting out:
http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Junior_Jobs

So either the OP needs those links, or he is looking for smaller projects to help with. Here, let me suggest some small-project tools that I use that could use the help:
Anki, flash card application: http://ichi2.net/anki/index.html
Zim, desktop wiki: http://zim-wiki.org/
Gmail Conversation View for Thunderbird: http://github.com/protz/GMail-Conversation-View/issues
Vimperator/Muttator: http://vimperator.org/
Redshift, change screen colour per time of day: http://jonls.dk/redshift/

Find project you like or use and start contributing. Or ask them if they need any help.

Most of the big ones do have "help us here" pages, such as KDE:
http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute

And another KDE page for those just starting out:
http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Junior_Jobs

So either the OP needs those links, or he is looking for smaller projects to help with. Here, let me suggest some small-project tools that I use that could use the help:
Anki, flash card application: http://ichi2.net/anki/index.html
Zim, desktop wiki: http://zim-wiki.org/
Gmail Conversation View for Thunderbird: http://github.com/protz/GMail-Conversation-View/issues
Vimperator/Muttator: http://vimperator.org/
Redshift, change screen colour per time of day: http://jonls.dk/redshift/

And why Microsoft decided to make the thumb buttons on their mice act like "back" and "forward" by default. Would you believe this is still not implemented in Konqueror? (Bug filed March 2006.) Although perhaps, if the article is right, the small button should be "reload" instead of "forward".

Control. Fanboys may defend Apple's control for various reasons, mostly using cognitive dissonance

FYI, when you get called a troll, it's for bullshit like this.

You feel that? Thats called irony. When the biggest Mac troll on slashdot tries to call someone a troll for bullshit. Now the next time you want to call someone a troll you need to take a good, long look in the mirror first.

They want to stop the hackintosh, they want to prevent more clones and they want to control what the end users experiences.

As for "controlling what the end user experiences". That's overstating things quite much. They don't want to control what the user experiences, with the fundamental exception that they want to exclude a set of very rational things. Primarily, buggy software, spyware, and ports which fail to make good use of the platform. They don't want control over my experience other than to help see to it that I don't have to deal with such crap. And when us "fanboys" say (as you said in your post) "it's for your own good and other such excuses", what we're saying is that "it makes the product better". That's why we willingly choose Apple products, so we don't have to deal with a bunch of crap. It's also a huge part of why Apple products do so well even when surrounded by competition whose primary advantage is less "control".

As for Mac and control, it's always been about control. Control over hardware and software. This is why its products like the iPod/iTouch/iPhone are encrypted, for control. People found they could start to alter the software on these devices like either use different software to load music on to these devices (like Amarok could before they encrypted the hardware) or even install their own firmware on the devices these people paid for and are normally under the idea (like anything else they buy) that they can do with it as they can. Apple saw that people were doing what they wanted with something they bought (that just happened to have the Apple logo) and they shit a brick. Now all of these devices are encrypted on the hardware level. It wasn't 'for your protection' as it was only being used by a very small minority.

And as for your claim that by being locked down it 'makes a product better', how? iPhones still crash (done it myself as have my friends), it's lock down nature hasn't help it's security, and all of it's 'attempts to make it a better product' by judging if an app should be allow has resulted in either plain old censorship to all out privacy issues from something 'approved'. This hasn't been able to make 'a better product' even after 3 years, and the issues are just growing. Restrictions like this have been tried before by different peoples of power through out history and every time its shown to be a bad thing for the same reason: when someone has power they are more then interested in using/abusing it. And no, Steve Job's isn't going to be the first person in the entire history of humanity to not succumb to the temptation.

This wont happen overnight, not even the RDF turned to eleven could pull that one off. It will happen over time in baby steps and be hailed by the fanboys.

It (although not the "it" you've been going on about) will be hailed because it will make our lives better. The "it" won't be locking down the Mac, or replacing Mac OS X with iOS, but "it" will be things like abstracting the filesystem

or digiKam: http://www.digikam.org/ http://windows.kde.org/