Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the excellent-smithers dept.
kdgarris writes: "The KDE team has released the second beta for the KDE 2.0 desktop environment. Check out the announcement here." The new-and-improved list is pretty lengthy and very impressive. Worth a look see.
I don't have Kleopatra (yet) but I run the 06082000 build and it just keeps getting better. A lot of more evident bugs that were in Konfucious are gone now and the whole lot is really coming together. My only concern is the state of Konqueror which still seems too flakey for any real browsing, still looks more of a proof of concept thing. Koffice is usable now as is and I can recommend Kword to anyone frustrated with the hopeless UI of MS Word. I never used FrameMaker but this frame concept has much more appeal to me than the blooming MS Word templates that never work properly for anything beyond a two page letter.
I have a big beef with KDE though. No not the licensing silly! It's the fact that they ditched Corba as their component architecture. Why? It's not slow at all if you use in-process servers it's elegant in most languages and wiht the addition of POA it's extremely flexible. The argument that CORBA is to difficult to master for Joe sixpack developer doesn't hold anymore since the Henning Vinoski book's out. My biggest concern is that with OMG adopting the Corba Component Model all DCOPs and Bonobos will effectively become proprietary solutions. CCM will provide good intergration with JavaBeans which I'm sure all Java affectionados will appreciate too. Why oh why did they have to rid of CORBA?!
Re:It's getting nice
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
Here's a quote from David Faure concerning this:
-- snip --- I think www.kde.org/technology.html (mosfet's) speaks quite well about this. If not, my take on it is:
- stability (that's the main one. If you used pre-canossa KOffice, you know what a real stability problem with embedding is). - wrong approach - starting servers for embedded components, leads to servers left running after you exit the main app (ok, that's a bug, but it shows wrong design IMHO. What should be one application was a set of distributed ones, hence this kind of problems). - memory usage and slow performances - but people associate this with MICO more than with CORBA in general. Well, we'll never really know, but in any case we had to do something about this. - the interoperability we were supposed to benefit from it was null. gnome uses an orbit-specific authentication mechanism which made interoperability as difficult as it is now, and nobody ever had any interest in making the CORBA things in gnome and KDE work together anyway.
In short, I always say: we had all the disadvantages of distributed computing (stability, reliability, performance issues) for something that is not distributed, in 99% of the cases - a desktop is local, most of the time.
But it was fun, writing sources that nobody could read afterwards:/. CORBA programming is like perl. Write once, read never;-)
No, not better than any distributed system. DCOM probably has lower performance over a network, but locally, it uses COM, and has a great deal more performance. So what happens is, that local performance performs like it should, at a slight expense at network performance and flexibility. I think this is a better trade off for something being integrated into a desktop environment, because the vast majority of apps will run locally. X had this same problem. It had great network performance, but crappy local performance. Fortunately the fixed most of it in 4.0, but there is no reason to start the problem again with a object model. MICO may be rock solid, and not that bad, but only in network mode. In local mode, MICO, and CORBA in general blows.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
There is no official standar yet. Submissions are still being accepted. But I think it will come together very quickly. You may read this for a starter.
Last time I tried KWord, there was no obvious way of putting equations in the text. It was possible, though barely, to put an 'equation frame' in, but it could not automatically scale with the size of the equation and nor could it move with the text. I gave up after that. John
It define a model to create server-side components. It is closely related to the Enterprise JavaBean component model. It add multi-language support and other stuff to the EJB model. Yes, so what it's doing is the equivalent of MTS in the Windows world - providing a container for shareable components which expose interfaces. There's nothing to stop someone from creating another layer to sit on top of this in the way that ActiveX components have visual stuff on top of COM layers. So, yeah, I agree with your last line...However it could be used for the underlying processing a visual component need and something else would be responsible for the actuel rendering. Bottom line is that Gnome or KDE, it's all coming together very nicely for Unix in general and Linux in particular.
Why on earth would anyone in the internet age make the bold statement that "the vast majority of apps will run locally"? In this day why in the hell is it anyone's business to make assumptions about whether the components of an app reside? I was under the impression that a lot of software system development effort went in to making that sort of second-guessing the runtime environment unnecessary. But here we have a system that builds on a proprietary framework on the basis of such guessing. We should be opening systems and removing assumptions NOT enshrining them YET AGAIN.
yeah, but mico takes fucking centuries to compile. Nah, gimme something more light weight please.
I remember when Gnome it it's early days used mico for an ORB. It was indeed rock solid, but took milennia to build. SUre, I could install RPM's, but I like source better. Always have.
I'll have to concur with the assessment of Konquerer...for the moment.
It IS still a bit flaky. However, it is mostly useable, it seems to render pages as fast or faster than the last Mozilla that I tried, and it's pretty darn amazing for something that seemed to sort of appear out of nowhere (at least, to those of us not involved in development) and rapidly reach the point where it is about as usable as the several-year-old Mozilla project. At this rate, I'll hopefully be able to switch entirely from netscape/communicator to Konquerer/KMail Real Soon Now.
Oh, and slightly off-topic: ..difficult to master for Joe sixpack developer..
ARGH! To the hell of his choice with "Joe Sixpack"! I certainly wouldn't want to use any software developed by this mythical figure, who, it is said, still hasn't figured out things like the "any" key, how to accomplish anything that isn't an icon on his Windows 98SE 'desktop', how to program his VCR, or even what he's voting for!
I'll take software developed by "Dexter Tapedglasses" over "Joe Sixpack" any day! Joe Sixpack is dead!
Stability is not MICO's fault. It's the general problem of stability/reliability in a distributed system. You have to add tons of handle-the-worst-case-of-network-failure exception handling to your code, which makes it bloaty and unreadable. And well, who needs that on the desktop? (it's still K Desktop Environment and not K Distributed Environment:-) A good paper about the reliability issues can be found here: http://www.sun.com/tech/techrep/1994/smli_tr-94-29 .pdf
I also like source but most things I build once and then it is quite awhile before I build them again. Now I mean if you are compling KDE or Gnome every day this could be a problem but how many of us do that? I would rather build something that will be rock solid and have it take awhile than give up anything for a faster build time.
--
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics.
Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
The problem was not actually that CORBA was unreliable --despite the KDE people repeating this over and over-- but that they chose to use CORBA as a transparent layer for inter process communications: they assumed that CORBA invocations had to be equal to function invocations, and that failures would never happen and that they should not happen.
Their code was not prepared to deal with failures across CORBA invocations (for example, invoking a CORBA method on a dead server and handling the fact that the server died).
Basically, it required each CORBA invocation to be handled by try {} catch blocks, but my guess is that they assumed they did not have to use that.
Another option I heard later from someone who claimed originated from Torben --which was even more sad-- was that they wanted to "check" for the service before invoking the method to avoid a crash (or my guess is to avoid the try{} catch blocks).
The problem is, that is something takes near hours to compile, and just to function as an ORB for something like Gnome, isn't it a litte over-featured then?
As great as it is, mico is not the tool to use as an ORB for something like a desktop environment. A lighter ORB will suffice too.
The CORBA Component Model is NOT there to create Visual Components.
It define a model to create server-side components. It is closely related to the Enterprise JavaBean component model. It add multi-language support and other stuff to the EJB model.
The CCM Core is EJB 1.1. Then you have the extension which provides additional stuff.
So the CCM would not help KDE in providing component that going to be displayed. It could be used only for non-visual component.
However it could be used for the underlying processing a visual component need and something else would be responsible for the actuel rendering.
I don't buy it. I do CORBA programming for living (and we use MICO actually) and it's ROCK SOLID. It's better than some commercial vendors so if they endured stability problems it's most unlikely that MICO is at fault.
Memory usage and performance are not any worse than any other distributed computing environment which will always have inherent marshalling overhead.
Perhaps DCOP is a better solution. I don't know DCOP. But OMG is busting its gut to add decent component model to CORBA and if KDE or another desktop environment utilised it I'm sure it would be a good test for the OMG spec. Also KDE would be completely interoperable with CORBA components that may be developed in future.
Thanks for clarifying that. I imagine though that most component models (including COM) don't specify how rendering of components get done. That would make them totally inflexible. Of course they would have to write a layer on the top of CCM but I imagine the same applies to DCOP.
yes I'd definitely agree with this. The amount of exception handling code you have to do is boggling in CORBA. But it's still better than the DCOM's HRESULT value;). But what about the fact that everyone and their uncle announcing the advent of Application Service Providers? Surely if KDE was transparently distributed by nature it would make it a big player in this world woudn't it?
Re:It's getting nice
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
you took nine months to compile, and it's not likely you were worth the wait either
I have a big beef with KDE though. No not the licensing silly! It's the fact that they ditched Corba as their component architecture. Why? It's not slow at all if you use in-process servers it's elegant in most languages and wiht the addition of POA it's extremely flexible.
All well and good to stand on the soapbox and declare this, but the KDE folks stepped up to the plate, tried CORBA, and came off bitterly disappointed. CORBA is a design-by-committee standard with a hugely heavyweight protocol (you ever seen how BIG an IOR is?), and layer after layer of API.
My biggest concern is that with OMG adopting the Corba Component Model all DCOPs and Bonobos will effectively become proprietary solutions. CCM will provide good intergration with JavaBeans which I'm sure all Java affectionados will appreciate too.
That's like saying OSF adopted Motif. OMG did not adopt CORBA, they invented it. We didn't exactly see Motif proliferate as an open and nonproprietary solution either (though it was a breath of fresh air at the time). Maybe this or that encrustation of yet another boondoggle might someday make us all hold hands in a fully interconnected world, but in the meantime, I defy you to show me just two free and open ORBs that can interoperate at a complex level. Let's try an important one, how about the Security service?
Why oh why did they have to rid of CORBA?!
Because they tried it, and the same armchair designers whinged about the overhead.
-- I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Re:The joys of a desktop-free desktop
by
barryvoeten
·
· Score: 1
So, just go ahead and do your thing. No one forces you to K, do khey?
I've got this from a weird German BSD book: KDE started off as the "Cool Desktop Environment", but CDE was already a short for the Common Desktop Environment, included with Solaris. In the tradition of weird Unix names (GNU = "Gnu is Not Unix", PINE = "Pine Is Not Elm") they decided in favor of the name "K Desktop Environment".
Re:But what about the license???
by
be-fan
·
· Score: 2
That is stupid. Derived works are the WHOLE POINT OF A LIBRARY THAT YOU CHARGE FOR. Since nobody uses a widget set simply for the hell of it, derrived works is the only way for Troll Tech to make money. As of now, if you want to use Qt for a professional app, you have to pay. Troll tech can't do that if Qt is GPL'd. Also, even in that case, wouldn't LGPL be more appropriate? GPL'd QT would suck, since that would mean ALL Qt apps would have to be GPL'd. The whole concept is stupid. You're saying that if GPL'd code uses other code, that code atuomatically becomes GPL? Does that mean any BSD code put into Linux automatically becomes GPL? Why not just have a GPLizer program, that automatically incorporates code into GPL'd programs, thus GPL'ing the code!
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Just a nitpick, X has no DnD implementation. XDND has nothing to do with X itself, i.e. it is not an X extension or anything, it just has a name that sounds like it. XDND is however, used by both gnome and KDE, and if they agree on the type encodings, they should interoperate almost seamlessly (except the drop target probably won't know how to tell the drag "server" that it received the object)
-- I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Re:Going out on a limb here...
by
be-fan
·
· Score: 2
That's bullshit. Why was this moderated up? GNOME and KDE don't help windows users move. In fact, up till recently, GNOME used E as the WM. What GNOME and KDE do, is provide a set of services to graphical applications using the GTK+ and Qt widget sets (respectivaly). (Stuff that should be in the OS proper, but that's a different matter:) Hell, you can use TWM and get as advanced as you want, but without stuff like KDE, no DCOP for you! Also, I get the hint that you think that stuff like integration, and consistancy are for newbies. Not true. They are for smart people who want to get work done without having to spend time learning a new interface.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Maybe you would prefer that all the apps started with the letters MS?
Re:Helix Gnome will-be/is better than KDE2-release
by
be-fan
·
· Score: 2
Naw, GNOME is mostly fat, no meat whatsoever:) Look, I'm not a Linux newbie, but I simply like KDE better. I'm a speed freak, and KDE tends to be faster and take less memory. Also, I refuse to use a DE that has been tarnished by the bloated piece of shit that is CORBA.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Helix Gnome will-be/is better than KDE2-release
by
be-fan
·
· Score: 2
I know this is a troll, but just so nobody gets misinformation. KParts is a lot more like COM than Bonobo. Bonobo is based on CORBA, which is quite different from COM. Back during the object model wars of '94 (its true, you guys think object models are new, but Linux is hideously late to this game) there were two competitors, SOM and COM. SOM was CORBA complient and support inheritance, while COM was a very different MS design, and supported aggregation. I prefer COM, because it is more light weight. CORBA, however is not. Don't you dare mention CORBA and COM in the same sentance 'kay?
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
actually I would lean entirely in the other direction from your statement. I've always hated "cute" names like "WinAmp" that tell me very little about what programs do.
I would submit, that your dislike of "arbitrary acronyms" is more of a personal preference. Acronyms are never arbitrary, and in a command line environment, knowing that the command the function are actually related is sort of nice.
Case in point: I never liked "workman".. it was a functional cd player, but it's alot easier to remember "xmms" because it MEANS something.
In the end, It's just personal preference....and yours and mine obviously differ. Oh well. Not a big deal either way I guess.
This is so Kick ass. I'm a little angry that people don't give Konqueror more credit. It is truly one of KDE's crown jewels. Imagine the past: Here I am with my beautiful, reasonably fast Linux desktop, but right in the middle is the slow and bloated web browser from Motif hell. I've gotten so used to fast, light, nice looking browsers (IE on Windows, Netposetive on BeOS) that using Netscape positivly pained me.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:The joys of a desktop-free desktop
by
hardaker
·
· Score: 1
You can create a desktop folder and drag that onto the panel to have it create a new menu for it. Then create desktop application icons in the folder and away ya go.
-- The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
Re:What's all the whinging for?
by
nafmo
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, I use grdb, but it only gives you that much of the GNOME looks (colors and fonts). The widgets still does not look as the ones I have set up in GNOME.
But I guess that's life...
Re:Gnome + KDE = ??
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
Well, you can already add Kde apps to the Gnome menus (helix has a script that does this automatically - duplicates the kde menu structure) and you can add Gnome apps to Kde menus and the panel.
But the theme engines and several other look and feel modifiers are very different, so I don't see how it's possible apply one to the other without writing a translation program yourself that goes far beyond a script. You can already, to a limited degree, apply Kde colors and some other look and feel paramaters to ALL apps on a Kde desktop, even older motif based apps, but this is not quite the same thing as "themes".
You might like the Kde 2.0 look and feel much better than the older one. The rendering engine is much better for things like smooth gradations and fine details, and the default widgets are very nice - you can customize them as well as the taskbar look and feel for each app a lot.
Personally I like the new Kde-Qt layouts - the proportions and weights of things visually, much better than Gnome-Gtk which has a topheavy look with far too much padding and wasted space. Even with a very large screen Gnome-Gtk doesn't look well proportioned, but you need a very large screen resolution for it all to fit in. Kde works ok with just a 640x480 resolution and works great with 800x600 or better.
Please note that at this point the Gnome panel is much more complete, though. The Kde panel, "Kicker" is under heavy development right now. It should be feature complete by the next release in July, so that you can more easily add apps, applets, drawers and launchers, etc. Right now it is very basic and I don't suggest trying to customize it very much at this time.
You can already run Gnome apps and Kde apps together with almost any window manager and use similar themes if you want to. In such cases the overall look and feel depends much more on the window manager than on Gnome or Kde.
at what point does all this 'K' naming staff...
by
porky_pig_jr
·
· Score: 1
Q: At what point does all this 'K' naming staff stop being cute? A: when it's no longer cute but 'Kute'.
Re:Library upgrades
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
There are really only two Qt versions that you need to run the full gamut of Qt and Kde apps - a 1.4x version like 1.44 and the current 2.1 release. That's it.
It is also fairly easy to run Kde 2 and Qt 2 apps from a Kde 1 desktop from any xterm like rxvt. There are instructions on how to do this at the Kde site. The libs have different names so they can be run simultaneous, so long as the local environment is set for the app using the library which is different from what the desktop is using overall. A good use of this trick is to run KOffice applications from Kde1, or to try the new browser, Konqueror.
If you are already using kde 1.2, you will be able to install Kde 2.0 final (in September) right over it keeping the same desktop settings as you are used to. What needs to be translated will be translated to the new format.
Welcome to the Bleeding Edge of Software Development! New Feartures in "Bleeding Edge App4 V2.20.0.1"
Breaks all existing programs. Breaks all existing configuration files. Get to spend quality time (ie: tech support) with users. Corrupts old data files. Need to compile 16 megs of *NEW* libaries to work..
Seriously though, this isn't meant as a flame, but why do you *HAVE* to upgrade *RIGHT NOW*? If KDE (whatever version you are using) works for you, why not stick with it? Wait till KDE 2.0 gets tested and debugged by more users, and wait till you almost have to upgrade. (this advice is only toward desktops, other software may differ)
Or just wait till you upgrade you distro in 2-12 months, it should have the lastest and greatest KDE version precompiled for ya. If you don't feel like compiling hunderards of megs of sources, don't, wait till you need or want a really cool fearture, then do it then.
--
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
-- "Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach 18" Einstein
What's all the whinging for?
by
trellick
·
· Score: 4
Grow up. Stop all this 'Gnome is waay better that KDE doode' and vice-versa crap.
That's the point of open-source you get a CHOICE, you try it, you like it, you use it. You don't like it, then you don't use it. [and it doesn't cost the earth!]
And for those people who carp out about "well I don't need that I'm better of with a chisel, a rock, my vt100 terminal and a 1200/75 modem!", well fine!.....
BUT do you really thing the legions of windoze users are going to be tempted to move across to something that doesn't look purty and do what they could do??
Half of them spontaneously combust at the sight of a command line! [Trust me on this one;) ]
Personally, I take me hat off to both the KDE/GNOME boys and girls and thank them profusely for BOTH doing something different and moving their products [and Linux] onto the desktop of more and more users.
Roll on September and KDE 2.0 final!
Re:What's all the whinging for?
by
nafmo
·
· Score: 1
Well, IMHO, the most irritating "feature" of the GNOME Vs. KDE war is that they aren't very well at working together. Personally, I run GNOME. I want any Qt/KDE apps I like to use (there are a few), to look like my GNOME apps, but I can't do that. A pity.
(But then again, I can't get the Motif or Xt or whatever programs to look like my GNOME programs either, so...)
Re:What's all the whinging for?
by
mikpos
·
· Score: 1
There hasn't been a single "Gnome is better than KDE" or vice versa post yet. Are you on crack or something? Or maybe just, dare I say it, karma whoring?
Re:What's all the whinging for?
by
LocalYokel
·
· Score: 2
Oh, but GNOME is sooooo much better than KDE.
Anyway, I see that the KDE/GNOME flame wars have gone to the next level. First there were the spacehogging arguments over GNOME vs. KDE. Now come the complaints about how these flames suck. Maybe I should do some complaining, too... Why can't we just discuss the subject at hand? I last remember it being about KDE 2.0 -- thanks everyone.
Re:What's all the whinging for?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
In the spirit of things.... grdb is based on krdb (as nicely mentioned on grdb's home page) This is not one-upmanship. Just credit where credit is due (the original poster seemed to imply that this was a Gnome only feature...)
Re:What's all the whinging for?
by
limpdawg
·
· Score: 1
actually grdb at http://bucket.pp.ualr.edu/~bit/grdb.html will allow you to take the colors and fonts from your gtk themes and apply them thru X app-defaults to Xt, motif, and tcltk applications.
--
Nascantur in Admiratione. (Let them be born in Wonder)
Re:What's all the whinging for?
by
pupaton
·
· Score: 1
Found an app that trys to do just that. Try's to make Motif/Lesstif, Xaw, and TK apps take on some of the appearance of your GTK theme. It also seems to work a bit on Licq which uses QT... it's the only program I have that uses Qt currently, so it may just be a fluke though.
But can it be set up to do it the "old" way? This is one of those interface questions that has no definitive answer. Some people will want it one way, some will want it the other. And some will go "where the hell has my app gone? I only switched desktops, and its task bar icon vanished!".
Looking Forward to Konq
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
The marketspeak about Konqueror is playing some mighty big name games these days: HTML 4.0, CSS2... These two standards alone have the capability to revolutionize the web.
Client-side HTML includes using <OBJECT> support? CSS2 positioning (absolute/relative/fixed)? If support for these is anywhere near usable, this web browser might be the FIRST leap to the semantic web which structured document writers have pined after for years, even beating Mozilla to the punch. (Mozilla's support for modular HTML using <OBJECT>, CSS2's "before:" or "after:" pseudoclass embedding, or XLink inclusion are still either nonexistant or relegated to the farthest corners of Mozilla, earmarked for Milestone 127 at best.)
Does anyone have any information about standards-compliance in this browser? Do the pretty toys like CSS2's "shadow" property work? Proper PNG translucency? How about XML namespace selection within CSS2 stylesheets?
Somebody with experience, please let us know. I'm looking to KDE to lead the way!
You might be interested in this page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~dbaron/css/test /results It shows a comparison between several browsers, including Konqueror, regarding CSS, CSS2, etc...
Unfortunately it still shows the results for an old version of khtml. I once checked the version now released as beta2, and it scores somewhere between -7 and -15 points (which is where IE5 for windows is located:-) Especially all the crashes reported there have now been fixed.
Let me try to answer your questions about the current status of khtml (the html rendering engine of konqueror):
You can use aswell as to include html subpages. Or do you mean including the html directly? This is nowhere defined in the HTML standards AFAIK.
CSS positioning is supported except for fixed, but I'm confident we'll have that working by the time we release KDE2.
CSS2 support is however far from being complete.:before and:after pseudoclasses are still not supported, neither is the text-shadow property. But to be honest, there isn't a single browser out having support for text-shadow, the same is true for a lot of other CSS2 properties.
PNG alpha channels are not supported, but that is a limitation of X11 rather than konqueror. One could in principle work around that, but the price to pay for it is quite heavy, since one has to get the pixmap below the image from the server, blend the image on top and send the result back to the server. This would slow down rendering more than I am willing to compromise on for such a feature.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by XML namespace selection in CSS2 sheets. Anyway, khtml unfortunately still doesn't have support for XML (xhtml is supported however), just because the developers we have are booked out with other things.
You might be interested in this page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~dbaron/css/test /results It shows a comparison between several browsers, including Konqueror, regarding CSS, CSS2, etc...
KDE is shaping up to be quite cool, and blessdly, you no longer have to run GNOME (which is quite a bit slower than KDE) to have a sweet looking desktop. KDE2's imaging and use of high color icons is really nice. However, it is still badly designed, as are all Linux DEs. To put it bluntly, KDE and GNOME simply are not compatible. If you want to run apps from both, (which is necessary if, like me, you like running GNOME but developed in KDevelop) then you have to have both installed. This gets worse, because during the KDE1/KDE2, GNOME1/GNOME2, you'll have to have all four installed to maintain decent compatibility. With just KDE and GNOME loaded, I get 40Meg resident memory use (according to KTop) on my 128 meg system. This is simply unacceptable. Even NT doesn't use that much memory from standstill (more like 30 megs or so) not to mention BeOS (some obscenely small number. Actually, BeOS is the only system that doesn't feel noticable faster in most apps after the upgrade from 64MB to 128MB.) Of course, I'm all for freedom of choice. Can you have your cake and eat it too? Of course! What about a DE that supplied low level stuff, like printing, object model, communication, API, stuff like that, and have a window manager take care of interface aspects and widget sets. This idea takes advantage of the fact that (from the big picture) all GUI software does the same things, and all widget sets provide the same services. So applications are written to the standard API, and whatever WM is loaded, interprets these requests. This would lead to even more customizability for the user (not the programmer, but who cares about he programmer?) All widgets are asked for the same services. So you could have a WM that implments the most efficiant GUI possible, while another one that implements a Windows-like GUI. In both cases, you'd have color dialoges that return an RGB value, so who cares how the dialogue acts. It could implment a standard color wheel, or it could ask the user for an RGB value, or it could randomly pick a number, the interface is the same. Not only would this desktop be more customizable, it would be faster, more stable, and less bloated, because it would have less code than two DEs and more people could be used hacking the core code. I mean you guys are all C programmers right? Ever heard of interface seperate from implementation? The idea at work here folks. Do you care about Bonobo and KParts? Sure. Do you have some insane attachment to one over the other? If so, get help.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Wouldn't it be nice if this stuff were enapsulated through something like COM? DirectX has 7 very different versions, yet I only have one library, because incompatiblilites can be addressed at a very granular level. (IE. If only a few functions are different, but renders the entire library incompatible, through COM, you can reimplment only those functions in a new interface, and transparently call the old ones.)
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Going out on a limb here...
by
brank
·
· Score: 1
You just don't like me, do you?:-)
I've used TWM with GNOME, and believe me, you cannnot get "as advanced as you want". GMC doesn't take kindly to being used with TWM, which does things like put title bars on every single icon. You have to use a GNOME-compliant WM or else things won't work so well. GNOME will give you warning messages and stuff, and it'll act wierd.
And those widgets should not be in the "OS proper," by which I take it you mean the kernel (You couldn't possibly mean a distro, because they are already in those). The expandibility of Linux through shared libraries the user can choose not to install is one of its advantages over Windows. If you plan to only use Win32 applications, you can't choose not to install the Win16 stuff.
I don't think that integration is for newbies, I just think that GNOME imitates Windows too closely (though it's not nearly as bad as KDE.)
Integration is fine, just give me options along with it. When ever I use GNOME, I am frustrated by all of the little things it does, the clumsy applets, etc (that's a personal opinion about how the applets work, not a comment about any of their technial attributes. But E's pager has the GNOME one beat.) As for consitency, it's fine. I like to have a consistent interface for apps. I the one used by GTK apps is actually pretty good, even though a few elements of it are frustrating.
E was never used as the WM for GNOME. GNOME let you pick a WM; E was the default. But E confused too many GNOME users because of the duplicated functionality (E's menus for instance, which I like, and GNOME's task bar, which I don't like)
You can get work done in GNOME. But my personal preference is to not get work done in GNOME, because when I try, I get frustrated by it.
Most of this applies to KDE: I don't like the browser and I don't like KDE's task bar. Yes, these things are very customizable, they're just not customizable to become what I want.
E does provide KDE hint support (which I have turned off) and GNOME hint support (which you can't turn off and I wouldn't if I could.)
The truth is, the UIs of KDE and GNOME were designed to mimick Windows. Read the websites. They were created to provide standard GUIs for Unix, and their interfaces were designed so people used to Windows would be comfortable with them. (CDE also mimicks Windows, remember? It was designed so that Unix and Motif could catch up to Win3.x)
I don't like having to learn a new interface any more than you do. The first time I used the GIMP I was totally lost (I had never used Photoshop or anything). But I also don't like the UI choices the GNOME and KDE teams made, and I don't like the UIs. They are simply too different to be customized into the type of UI I want. I don't like them. But that doesn't change the fact that they were designed to act like Windows. My opinion didn't create that fact. I'm sorry if you think it did.
Not just Corel, but Redhat 6.1 too. I tried the last KDE 2 Beta RPM's, and it screwed up the X login manager, so i couldn't actually login properly through X. It worked if i droped to an xinit console and started KDE manually, but it's not something i want to do all the time.
So, anyone managed to get RH & KDE 2 playing nicely?
Is the most difficult part of using and enjoying linux/GNU software.
All these alphas, betas, snapshots, etc make the stable versions of software look increasingly more like stale versions than anything else.
You know it doesn't work properly, you know it will crash, you know some features are missing, you know you will need to refurbish half your system to sort dependencies... You know all that and still you use it and can't wait for the next unstable/beta whatever to come out and see what has changed.
It's life on the fast lane... Well, sort of anyway;D
Well done KDE team! (Must... resist... download...)
Blasphemy! You're not a real hacker are you? I like running the latest and the greatest (especially in the case of KDE 2, where it is faster than 1.x). To tell the truth, I am guilty of living VERY bleeding edge. I'm running Mandrake 7.1, kernel 2.4-test, XFree86 4.0, nVidia BetaGL, and I'm dabbling with KDE 2-beta1.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I have noticed this *cough***cough*. Any programs we use in a "critical envoirment" (buzzword number 1021) I ussually try to test first on a older less productive machine to make sure that most of the "pitfalls" can be avoided...
--
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Have you noticed that these standard desktops for X look a lot like Windows? KDE was designed to provide a free version of CDE (they must have gotten lost along the way), and CDE was designed so that Unix with Motif could catch up to Win3.1. This standard desktop idea is not new. I didn't intend to insult GNOME or KDE (I said that GNOME was fine. I just don't like it.)
The goals of these two projects are very similar goals: (I'm quoting now) "fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Window95/NT."
Other people have said that I'm against consitancy; I'm not. I just don't want the consistency that these two offer. The GTK-type interfaces used by GNOME are something I like, but they're probably the only part of GNOME's interface that I really like using. All I meant was that these projects are trying to provide standarized desktops, and one of their goals is to look like Windows to help users switch. That's one of their main goals, actually: user friendlyness, especially for users new to Linux. Look at some of the stuff RMS has written about GNOME.
Fool. Either way, it means nothing if you aren't familiar with the program. Take xfm. X Friggin' Media? X Floppy Mangler? Xenophobic fruity man? Or pam, Pretty Anoying mercenary, probably angry mutent, possibly attacking molars? Or how about xmms. Xtremely mobile mutent snails? Xtremely mad magic sicophants? The point is that xfm means just as little as Konqueror, but Konqueror sounds nicer.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:Going out on a limb here...
by
brank
·
· Score: 1
Those of you who love KDE and GNOME: this comment wasn't meant to deride them or their users. But the fact is, when these two projects set out to build a standard GUI, they decided to imitate Windows. That's a big part of it. GNOME is great, like I said, I use it. I just don't happen to like the task bar, and gmc is sort of borderline in my opinion.
My ideal X setup, the one I use most often, is E 1600x1200x32 with a modified Brushed Metal theme. (It looks less Windowish). I can use the apps I like without the task bar that I don't like. I actually like the GNOME consistent interface overall (a few frustrating things, but every UI has those), whatever this comment may have lead you to believe.
So before you get the wrong idea, remember that I was trying to answer a question, not argue against GNOME and KDE. Sorry if it looked like I was coming out against a standardized desktop; all I'm saying is that they do serve a purpose (remember that this guy wanted that purpose explained) they do provide a standardized UI (like most of GNOME's app's UI, don't care for KDE's), and they do act like Windows.
Hey, I have a questions. Say you have 4 virutal desktops in KDE and run an xterm in each virutal terminal right? All xterms show up down on the task bar, is there a way to "isolate" what you see, depending on which virutal desktop you are in for the momemet?
Say you run Netscape in vd 2 and xterm in vd 3. The task bar will show both Netscape and xterm. Is there a way to say, when you switch to vd 2 it only shows Netscape in the task bar, and when you switch to vd 3 it only shows xterm in the task bar?
That is the only thing I can't stand about KDE, everything else though is the flavors.
KDE is sweet, they did (and are still doing) a hell of a job.
--
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Taskbar? I don't have room for a taskbar on my tiny monitor, so I turned it off and got used to using Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Esc, or the middle mouse button to switch between what I have running. Once you get used to it, it works pretty well.
What I want to know is: what determines the icon used in the task switching window (from pressing Alt-Tab)? All of my xterms have the default icon along with various gnome programs. But on the panel, they have different icons. Is there a way to force the panel icon to always be the icon for the application?
Actually, KDE 2 does that. There are only buttons on the taskbar for your current virtual desktop. =)
--
-- Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
Re:At least KDE and GNOME adhere to the same stand
by
Stonehead
·
· Score: 1
I run KDE 1.90 binaries dated 5-5-2000 (even before Beta 1). The idea is that you install both QT 1.44 for the old KDE1 stuff and QT 2 for KDE2. You can best set up KDE2 as a new window manager if you're using [xgk]dm. On my P2-233, only starting up is a bit slower. After that, I find KDE2 a bit faster than KDE1. Not at all a "memory hog" and it doesn't crash either - except when I run Konqueror, which is still heavily beta. The beta versions of KOffice and KDevelop are great, though. I can't wait for the release!
Redhat binaries - KDE2.0B2
by
cerebrum
·
· Score: 1
Does anyone know where I could find redhat binaries packaged up? B
Re:Redhat binaries - KDE2.0B2
by
dan+the+person
·
· Score: 1
Now you did read the link this article is about didn't you:) In that case you don't need me to tell you that binaries are available on the kde ftp site (and mirrors), and that more specifically the redhat binary rpms are at ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/distribution/2. 0Beta2/rpm/RedHat-6.2/
Re:Redhat binaries - KDE2.0B2
by
jpowers
·
· Score: 1
It usually takes a little while for these things. Since RedHat doesn't concentrate on KDE, they won't be in a hurry. SuSE will probably have a package first, but they don't always play nice with each other's installs.
True. I never much liked linux naming conventions, which tended to favor arbitrary sounding acronyms over attractive names. For example, WinAmp vs. xmms, or Windows Explorer vs. kfm. I'm glad to see KDE at least moving towards names like Konqueror rather than kwb or some such. Plus, with competing widget sets, it's convenient to know right off the bat which goes with what.
the above post to all stories about software releases, when there is a religious war involved?
seriously. All you would have to do is substitute GNOME/KDE for the titles of the other projects, and you are set! The rest can stay the same!
(Guess you'd have to remove the last line)
-- The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
Re:Red Hat Linux packages available
by
bero-rh
·
· Score: 2
No need, just --force installation. The beta packages go to/opt/kde2, the only "conflicting" files are config stuff.
-- This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Re:Red Hat Linux packages available
by
bero-rh
·
· Score: 2
Sure - it's running on Red Hat Linux after all.;) Oh, and besides the line is so bad that even all the traffic it can stand won't kill the server.;)
-- This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Going out on a limb here...
by
CountZer0
·
· Score: 1
I never have quite understood exactly what the whole point to KDE and GNOME is to begin with.
Personally, I use Enlightenment as my Window Manager, and applications to get my work done.
Where do GNOME and KDE fit into this?
Not trying to flame here, but I run Linux exclusively on both my home workstations and my work workstation, (as well as my servers) and I get everything done just fine without either of these "entities" (What are they? programs? environments?)
Take a look at my screenshots at http://www.cyberdeck.org/screenshots and you will see that I seem to be able to get by just nicely without GNOME or KDE... What am I missing out on?
-CZ
Re:Going out on a limb here...
by
gabrielm
·
· Score: 1
i just mainly use gnome to launch apps, I only use about 10 of them daily so it's nice to have a little icon to click on rather than tediously going thru menus to launch an app. also the gnome applets rock and I think are much better than the E epplets only cause the epplets are so tiny and the font is hard to read. E's pager though, blows away gnome's.
-- i thought I had no sig?
Re:Going out on a limb here...
by
brank
·
· Score: 2
GNOME and KDE are intended for Windows users just making the switch. They mimick the Windows interface as closely as possible to easy the transition. Those that don't need that kind of this can move on to more advance wms, like Enlightenment, that can look radically different. I, too, use E and I am very happy with it.
Ulitmatly, these enviroments will help convert a lot of people. Some of them will stay there, but the ones who want to learn more about their computers will move on to other things. Not to say that GNOME isn't an advance UI. It is a very good setup, and I use it third most often after E and TWM. You can be an advanced user and use GNOME. But many will move on to something more flexible. E's menus are certainly easier to customize.
Graceful solution, yes. Implementation (wait till the end).
What is needed is a pseudo-root user. A user who internally looks like root, but can only access files in a restricted part of the disk (say within a particular tree of folders [and no symLinks outside it!]. If dynamic partitioning becomes feasible, then I suppose that you could set them up in a separated partition, but ideally this wouldn't be needed.)
Then any software to be tested could be installed by pRoot, and wouldn't know that it wasn't seeing everything. This would require sufficient spare disk space to have copies of the kernel, drivers, necessary & useful utilities, etc., but would allow one to install and test software in reasonably complete security.
A Solution! The only way that occurs to me to do this is via VMWare. I believe that VMWare currently comes with SuSE installed in a disk image. You can install something else, say Windows, if you want. But you could also install your favorite version of Linux there, and then do any tests that you wanted. This isn't free, and the screen mapping is a nuisance (colors are really strange if you don't let VMWare have control of the entire screen). But it should work!
This is a bit less graceful than ideal, but it should be plenty good to test things out.
--
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Have you ever heard of a thing known as "kernel" and that is needed by Lilo, Grub, Loadlin or whatever to boot a computer ? Btw, do you know what Linux really is ? A kernel. Just a kernel. What we call Linux is in fact the Linux kernel, plus the GNU tools, plus everything that you you want and can run on it, like KDE for example.
A word of advice: if you have enough room on your harddrive, let KDE and GNOME together. They can cohabit peacefully, and this way, if you want to use a KApplication under GNOME, or vice-versa, you can, because you have all required library. Better to have something we don't need than to need something we don't have.
> derrived works is the only way for Troll Tech to make money
Commercial licenses for closed source software (which uses the library) are how Troll Tech makes money. Not from derivations of the library.
> As of now, if you want to use Qt for a rofessional app, you have to pay. Troll tech can't do that if Qt is GPL'd.
Wrong. A GPL'd library would cover all GPL'd uses. You'd still have to pay for an exception to the GPL (like Reserfs, as I mentioned) if you wanted to develop a proprietary, closed source application and distribute it to someone else (internal apps could probably get away without paying).
> Also, even in that case, wouldn't LGPL be more appropriate?
That would cause the very problem you were just arguing against! That *would* allow commercial proprietary software to be built on Qt without paying the Trolls.
> GPL'd QT would suck, since that would mean ALL Qt apps would have to be GPL'd.
OK, I'll grant that. Simple solution: Make Qt Free Edition dual licensed by the GPL *and* QPL. That would keep the BSD *and* GPL folks happy. And still charge for the commercial version. What more could you want?
> Why not just have a GPLizer program, that automatically incorporates code into GPL'd programs, thus GPL'ing the code!
Heh, not a bad idea. The GPL is, after all, the only good software license.:-)
Commercial licenses for closed source software (which uses the library) are how Troll Tech makes money. Not from derivations of the library. >>>>>> Qt is a class library. People use it be deriving from it. Under legal pressure, your QMyapp:public QApplication could be considered a derived work.
Wrong. A GPL'd library would cover all GPL'd uses. You'd still have to pay for an exception to the GPL (like Reserfs, as I mentioned) if you wanted to develop a proprietary, closed source application and distribute it to someone else (internal apps could probably get away without paying). >>>>>>> Doesn't the GPL say that you cannot charge for the right to use to code? Isn't it impossible for Linus to use the GPL, except when it involves Microsoft? Isn't the QPL essentially the GPL with that exception?
That would cause the very problem you were just arguing against! That *would* allow commercial proprietary software to be built on Qt without paying the Trolls. >>>>>>>>> I'm pretty sure that LGPL is there for a reason. If the libraries were GPL'ed, then anything linking to them would would automatically become GPL. Hence to problem I mention lower. So if GPL won't work, and LGPL won't work, what's the problem with QPL?
>GPL'd QT would suck, since that would mean ALL Qt apps would have to be GPL'd.
OK, I'll grant that. Simple solution: Make Qt Free Edition dual licensed by the GPL *and* QPL. That would keep the BSD *and* GPL folks happy. And still charge for the commercial version. What more could you want? >>>>>>>>>> How 'bout it stays the way it is and the GPL folk shut up? They are the ones using QPL code inside GPL code. How, in anyway, does it involved the TrollTech people? Shouldn't KDE change its license to somethign other than the GPL?
Heh, not a bad idea. The GPL is, after all, the only good software license.:-) >>>>> I prefer BSD, but license wars are stupid. It should the entirely the author's choice, and all people who complain are just bitching.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> Doesn't the GPL say that you cannot charge for the right to use to code?
No. You can charge as much as you want. But when someone pays you for the rights to the code (you giving it to them), you can't restrict their rights to do the same.
> I'm pretty sure that LGPL is there for a reason. If the libraries were GPL'ed, then anything linking to them would would automatically become GPL. Hence to problem I mention lower. So if GPL won't work, and LGPL won't work, what's the problem with QPL?
Because QPL+GPL is illegal and will eventually result in the disastrous end to KDE.:-) Other than that, you're right, and that's why I suggested dual or triple licensing. Since the Trolls wrote ALL the code to Qt, they can release it under as many license terms as they want, and everyone would be happy.
And I repeat -- TrollTech should WANT to keep KDE legal. It's the biggest and most popular app that uses Qt, and it does a lot of free advertising for them. They'd have everything to gain and not much to lose!
you're on the right track, but what I'm doing is slashdot-name-squatting till the reak karmageddon comes along and has to buy it from me.
Red Hat Linux packages available
by
bero-rh
·
· Score: 3
Red Hat Linux (tested on 6.2) packages for beta 2 for x86, alpha and sparc are now available at http://www.bero.org/kde/.
-- This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Re:Red Hat Linux packages available
by
kdgarris
·
· Score: 1
Thank you! I had to uninstall 1.1.2 because of conflicts between the standard Red Hat packages and the new Beta 2 packages; it will be nice to use both on the same machine and switch between them.
First, I always upgrade KDE in the hopes that the new version will suck less than the current one. On occasion , that's been the case. Second, I already have some apps, like licq, waiting for the new Qt to be upgraded so I can install a recent (and more functional) version. So when a stable KDE comes out for the new Qt, I'll upgrade.
Else you use native widget set, and then (if this is a cross platform thing) you have functions that merely call other functions. In extenso, you have much overhead.
Else you use widget emulation, like in KDE with Qt, without uneeded overhead, but without widget set.
Else you force everyone to use the same desktop, so that only one library is needed, as with Windows.
Sorry if none of these solutions are optimal. I think GUI emulation (like done by Qt) is the best, but it's only my very humble and personal opinion.
I don't really like having many different versions of libraries (Qt 1.4, 1.41, 2.0, 2.1-beta, 2.1-thursday, etc.) on my machine, plus, RPM makes this quite difficult even if I wanted to.
Well that's your choice, but that doesn't mean the system is broken. You can have multiple versions of libraries on your system for the very reason you mentioned, so you don't break old apps.
RPM lets you have multiple versions of libraries on your system, although it does not allow multiple *devel* RPMS for the most part. If you want to upgrade, just rpm -e the old devel headers and the apps that are being upgraded (leaving the libraries that old apps you're keeping depend on), and then rpm --install <new libraries> [that's install, not -U or --upgrade] and all should be fine.
It's all this Linuxification on the net and in the press that makes all newbies ask questions about "linuxprograms" like bash and emacs and kde in linux-newsgroups, when they could get better help in more general unix-newsgroups. It also makes BSD-newbies miss a lot of help since they probably skip a lot of linux talk when searching for information. When will companies, press (and sometimes/.) remove the keyword "linux" when it has nothing to do with it?
Why they had to get rid of CORBA
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
Read the devel lists. They had stability and speed problems with CORBA. KDE took an age to compile and was far larger. 'Standards' are not an excuse for code bloat and complications.
Re:It's perfectly legal...
by
Arandir
·
· Score: 2
Those people who have had their GPLd code used in KDE have already been notified. None of them have yet protested. But even this is a non-issue. The GPL operates under copyright law, and not contract law. It cannot take away legal rights that the user already possesses. And since copyright law is completely silent on references, dynamic linkage to and from the GPL is permitted.
Maybe GPLv3 will remove that clause about copyright law and it will become a contract like the EULA, but for now it's legal to reference non-GPLd libraries and incorporate their interfaces in the binary.
"...the ONLY real solution to this mess is for the Trolls to release Qt under the GPL
Yes, it would solve the problem, but it is not the Trolls problem. You don't demand that a third party correct the actions of a first party. They weren't the ones writing or using GPLd code.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:At least KDE and GNOME adhere to the same stand
by
Arandir
·
· Score: 2
The QPL is perfectly sensible for making modifications. It only makes forking difficult.
I mean, come on! You would actually submit a Qt bug fix as a 2Meg tarball of the complete sources instead of a 100Byte patch? I bet the gtk people just love your submissions:-)
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You know, that post you're responding to just MIGHT have been humor... apparently four moderators thought that way, at least. -- No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
You know, I've been around the block with software for a lot of years now. I have a lot of respect for KDE and the team. But what is the macho BS of not bothering to include simple installation instructions with the binary distribution? I am sitting experimenting with the rpms to find an order where they load without errors. But after loading the kdesupport, kdeutil and qt stuff, none of the rest of them seem to have their dependencies satisfied. Accuse me of being a wimp if you wish but why isn't there a manifest or document saying what the dependencies are, their order and where to find them if they aren't part of the distribution? It seems like common sense and courtesy to me.
Before I believe we are remotely ready for prime time I believe some simple housekeeping and moderate reasonableness of installation is called for. Put everthing needed in a distribution or say clearly where the needed pieces are found. Don't lead would be users and testers in the lurch.
If someone has the information I need then please send it to me.
thanks.
Re:serious question...
by
Peter+Putzer
·
· Score: 1
You could say it's simply the spelling in another language. Kopernikus and Kleopatra are correct spellings for those names in German...
:-)
--
--
KDE programmer and computer science student in Klagenfurt, Austria.
Marshalling in freeform ASCII (with an extremely verbose markup syntax) easily admits a lot of brain-damaged tools, but "elegant" it ain't. There's no provision for:
interface versioning (change your contract and your clients are both surprised and screwed)
asynchronous methods (all responses for one connection have to be returned in order, and a big pile of TCP sockets gets real expensive in a server)
bignums (these bozos don't even realize 64-bit machines will be important!)
object references (why does i4 get a type when "reference to remote object" doesn't?)
metadata (what, did they forget to write a DTD to describe methods and their arguments? How the fsck do you use it without knowing that?)
XML-RPC is a feeble effort to keep us sitting in the back of the DCOM bus.
Re:serious question...
by
Peter+Putzer
·
· Score: 1
Only partially correct.
It started off as the Kool Desktop Environment, which obviously is a pun on CDE. Since Kool is rather uncool;) nowadays it's just "K Desktop Environment", although I'd prefer a recursive acronym "KDE Desktop Environment". Ah well, I guess it's just like eight megs and continually swapping... you just take what you like *g*
--
--
KDE programmer and computer science student in Klagenfurt, Austria.
Don't be silly - COM was invented by Microsoft and is therefore the tool of the devil.
Admittedly it's the best solution out there and, let's face it, it shits all over EJB and the CCM in the middle tier environment too, but it came from Redmond and so will not be accepted as having any technical merit whatsoever by the Slashdot herd. -- Cheers
Yeah, but are there that many other ports of the X libraries needed to actually compile X software to run natively (versus to run software on other machine but just displaying them on Windows)?
Re:At least KDE and GNOME adhere to the same stand
by
Glytch
·
· Score: 1
>You can best set up KDE2 as a new window manager >if you're using [xgk]dm.
It's already started. They're both a a pain in the ass to set up. Why bother? Any X window manager gets me the Xterms I need to do my job and run Netscape.
Everything else is a waste, and trying to make it look and act like Win95 is dumb. "Oh, let's give the game/application as little hardware resources as we can! Let's force it to run in a little window and translate everything through our useless libs!"
They need to go back to runtime environments for games. Look at that little BeOS thing you can download. I'd give up 100MB on my PC to be able to run a game under that environment, the video is phenominal. Then you have GNU/linux or some other unix to do real work and not have to compete with an OS/GUI (Win) that tries to do everything and is good at nothing.
-jpowers
--
-jpowers
don't like the desktop - use the apps!
by
buti
·
· Score: 1
personally, i don't think i'll ever want to use kde as my desktop. i think i just don't like all these buttons on a desktop, it just seems to angular (?) for me.
anyway there are some good apps for kde. i would even say that the kde team provides the best apps for x. (ok.. gnome is ok, too). well. there are tons of very useful apps in kde and i'll check them out asap:)
jbarnett wanted to know: Seriously though, this isn't meant as a flame, but why do you *HAVE* to upgrade *RIGHT NOW*? If KDE (whatever version you are using) works for you, why not stick with it? Wait till KDE 2.0 gets tested and debugged by more users, and wait till you almost have to upgrade. (this advice is only toward desktops, other software may differ)
Just a wild guess here, but -- maybe to test the silly thing? Remember, this is open-source software. We don't pay for it in cash, and not everyone can add code, but we can all add eyeball time. Which is the coin of the open-source world.
You do intend to pay your dues, don't you?
-- Lacking <sarcasm> tags,/. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
I think that K and Gnome should work more on compatibility between the two systems. Things like enabling gnome applets to dock into the Kpanels or K programs to dock into the gnome bar. Or even ability to apply gnome themes to KDE or vice versa.
It's an incredible waste of resources to have two. Separate companies develop two pieces of software that are incorporating similar features. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should only have one WindowManager (or desktop), but I feel that whatever one we choose to use should be able to use technology of the others.
I like gnome a lot (mostly for the look and feel of it) but I also like KDE cause it's faster. Why choose when you can have both?
Yeah, can anyone help me with a Linux problem I have? I tried GNOME and liked it better, so I wanted to remove KDE. I got rid of all the packages starting with "k", and now LILO crashes.
j/k
--
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
YOUR TROLL SCORE IS
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4
4
You trolling skills are very rough and need to be honed. You lose major points by falling into the trap of many new trollers, you are way too obvious. Lets do some in depth analysis on your troll:
Wow. Yet another program whose job it is to devour my entire screen so I can run half-baked programs that duplicate everything I already have. No thanks
You troll entry point here is all wrong. If you start your troll routine on an agressive it sets off a red flag for the judges.I realize your adrenaline is runnig high but you need to start off a little slower to be an effictive troll
Give me a break. KDE and GNOME are worthless. I can run any program I want without a huge "panel", without a start button, and without a bloated gui. The insistence of the KDE and GNOME teams upon you only using their software is sickining. Why shouldn't I use software that hasn't been "blessed" by KDE with a spot on the K menu, or on the panel?
Okay now your deep into your troll here but your form is all wrong. Instead of going with the angry self-rightous tone maybe you should try the "I'm a confused newbie" tone, or my favorite, the "I'm a seasoned computer proffesional" tone. The angry troll rarely works well
Thanks, but I think I'll stick to xterm. It has a better interface anyway
Your troll dismount is sloppy and not well thought out. You really need a lot of work here.
We use standard CORBA profiles, so yes, we can talk to other ORBs, but we do it in a secure fashion.
The side effect you observe means that we wont trust anyone that wants to talk to us. Just those that have permission to talk to us.
Miguel.
Re:KDE and recent debian-nonfree flamebait
by
AArthur
·
· Score: 1
Right now Qt is license under the QPL and KDE is licensed under many different license (see the indivual programs). The core KDE libraries are lgpl, but many of the programs are GPL, BSD or Artistic.
The problem is the conflict between the GPL and the QPL that is keeping KDE out of Debian for now -- the QPL add a restriction (forcing it to be distributed) to a program, that the GPL forbids.
I can give a short summary about the current status of khtml.
Html4: about 95% implemented.
CSS1: about 80%-90% implemented. Only very few properties are still missing.
CSS2: about 40%. Together khtml's CSS support is not far away from what IE5 on windows offers.
DOM Level 1: Almost complete. The HTML part is completely implemented, a few thigs specific to XML are still missing.
DOM Level2: The CSS part, traversal and ranges are implemented. Still missing are the events. This means about 70% is implemented.
Support for java applets is mostly complete.
Netscape plugins (flash, real player, etc) work.
Javascript: The core (ecma-262 version3) ist almost complete, but the DOM bindings still need some work.
khtml has support for bidirectional scripts (hebrew and arabic).
it is pretty fast:-)
khtml is still a bit buggy on some pages, but we expect to get that fixed until the release of KDE2. As long as you don't need too much javascript it is already very useable and many people are using konqueror as their main browser.
> KDE started off as the "Cool Desktop Environment"
I doubt the veracity of the book story. I suspect "Kalle's Desktop Environment", but the KDE maintainers have insisted that the "K" doesn't stand for anything at all, and that it was sort of a germanized spoof name of CDE (diesen krazy deutschlanderen, jah?).
-- I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Well, why not join the KDE and help the marketing effort then? See, that's the thing with open source projects, if there is something you don't like you can help to change it.
--
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
Re:serious question...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
what does kde have to do with the simpsons?
Re:serious question...
by
Junks+Jerzey
·
· Score: 2
at what point does all this "K" naming stuff stop being cute, and start being annoying? I'm starting to dislike all these "Krappy" names.
Amen to that. The misplaced Ks sound very B-movie cheesy: Komputronix, Mortal Kombat, The Komplete Guide to Hi-larious Practikal Jokes.
KDE 1.0 apps work with Qt-1.4x and KDE 2.0 apps work with Qt-2.1x. During linkage, each app *knows* which library it wants, so you only need two libraries. One for the old apps and one for the new.
I don't know who told you that you needed twenty different versions, but they're wrong.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
GNOME and KDE are intended for Windows users just making the switch.
Wrongo! The purpose of GNOME and KDE is to provide a desktop for X. You might not need or want a desktop, but that's no call to denigrate everyone who does. GNOME and KDE are attempting something never before achieved in X or Unix, and that is consistancy. Just because Windows and Mac also attempts this does not mean that consistancy is wrong.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Ok, if he is testing it (beta) he knows that there WILL be problems. All software has bugs, and even more in beta, so he should realize, "hey things might be fscked up when I am testing this" and just accpect that fact that it isn't going to be a "smooth ride".
Yea, it is BETA, things do break and sometimes breaking older programs is better than having a lot of cruft in the code. This is all part of "on the bleeding edge" and more generally life, just deal with it, that is part of testing it.
If he is complaining that it breaks on his productive workstation when upgrading, my advice to him was not to upgrade his produtive workstation till things "settled down" a bit.
I do test betas when I get a chance, but I don't go slapping beta grade software all the productive workstations here, I wait till it is "safe" to upgrade before I have to start tell people "Yea, I know that developers version really screwed up your workstatoin when I install it on there, I will get a snap shot tonight and see if that fixes it. Oh sorry about you not being able to work today because you desktop was on the jitters."
--
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
While I agree it is somewhat inconvienent to have to continually installing a new version of QT, I suspect there are not many ways out of it. At some point they must require a switch over to the new QT, and its better to start now when they are still writting code, then have to completely rewrite later.
Plus, you can keep all your libraries by using:
rpm -ivh qtxxx.rpm
instead of
rpm -Uvh qtxxx.rpm
The first one just installs the libraries, the second will upgrade. Upgrading meaning get rid of the old versions, install just installs.
And the source is available, so it's kind of had for it to be proprietary, even if it's not quite the right way according to the OMG. There's no reason why it couldn't exist peacefully alongside something else, too.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You touched a nerve here actually. ORBit has some sort of client authentication built in which means it can't interoperate with any other ORB. That to me is defeating the whole purpose of CORBA. If you can't interoperate with other ORBs you might as well write your stuff in your own programming language and develop your own APIs. Besides Having read Bonobo intro it doesn't look as good as the old KParts (I hope the new DCOP based KParts are just as clean). Bonobo otoh is a COM ripoff - it uses CORBA only to do marshalling and IDL.
when will people stop being so close-minded? I'm point-picking the headline in the announcement, it says "for Linux". But KDE is a desktop for Unix-like environments, and there are plenty Unices out there...
It annoys me that, since new versions of any sort of Kfoo require the next version of Qt, that upgrades of KDE apps are all or nothing - ie. when the KDE 2.0 comes out, I'll upgrade Qt, break all KDE apps, and then start searching the web for the new versions of "non-included" apps like Knapster, Kicq, etc. I don't really like having many different versions of libraries (Qt 1.4, 1.41, 2.0, 2.1-beta, 2.1-thursday, etc.) on my machine, plus, RPM makes this quite difficult even if I wanted to. Does anyone have a graceful solution?
I do test betas when I get a chance, but I don't go slapping beta grade software all the productive workstations here, I wait till it is "safe" to upgrade before I have to start tell people "Yea, I know that developers version really screwed up your workstatoin when I install it on there, I will get a snap shot tonight and see if that fixes it. Oh sorry about you not being able to work today because you desktop was on the jitters."
It is not unknown for commercial companies to sell such "beta grade" software. More surprising is where they get repeat customers:)
Just wondering how many here know the meaning of KLEOpatra?
Don't be such a bigot
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
KDE runs on systems with X, not just Unix.
OS/2 has an up-to-date port of XFree86, but it is not unix. You can, however, run KDE to your heart's content.
So don't be so close-minded. You can't restrain KDE into your view of an "operating system", you worthless unix bigot.
But what about the license???
by
Micah
·
· Score: 1
OK I'll start by saying that I love KDE and use it on all my computers, home and work. The KDE team has done an excellent job technically.
But the simple fact remains that KDE is *ILLEGAL*. The GPL and QPL are not compatible. I'm really worried that someone who has contributed GPL code that was used in or by KDE will take up the case against it. Worst case (but certainly possible) scenario is that KDE could die a quick but painful death! I would NOT want that to happen.
Since they use code they didn't write, it seems like the ONLY real solution to this mess is for the Trolls to release Qt under the GPL. And it would make sense for them to do so. They might lose control over derivative works, but how many derivative works will there be, and how important could they be? I doubt Qt's derivatives will value nearly as much as having a secure future for KDE, the "flagship app" built on Qt.
And, like Reiserfs, they could still sell exceptions to the GPL. It seems to be a win win situation to me. And it's completely up to the Trolls. The KDE team dug themselves into this legal mess, and they can't get themselves out alone.
Naming conventions ( not so serious answer)
by
bockman
·
· Score: 1
Any programmer learns to use name convention to avoid collisions in the name space. If they just used 'term' instead of 'kterm', it woud have clashed with other desktop 'term' applications.
Someone could say that the 'k' prefix is too little ( clashes with kernel namespace ). In fact, GNOME people use the entire desktop name as prefix for the gnome-* applications [ except panel ! ]
No doubt, in this forum full of geniuses we could come with a better solution: My humble contribution : add an 'using' statement in the CLI shells [e.g "using kde: exec terminal"].
:-?
-- Ciao
----
FB
Re:Naming conventions ( not so serious answer)
by
Stary
·
· Score: 1
Uh, I hope that was even less serious than it seemed.
If your reasons were the ones actually used, there could only be one term app for KDE? imagine the same thing for Windows? WExplorer and WBrowser... hey netscape are automaticly out of the picture because the name is already taken!
If I make an application with three versions, must I name them KMyApp and WMyApp and MMyApp? Why not "MyApp For [KDE|Windows|MacOS]"? And hey the names are suddenly readable too!
-- Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
I am slightly pissed that they reffered to KParts as an object model. An object model is something along the lines of COM and SOM, and simply define a method for easily upgradable, shared objects. When he refers to the fact that KParts handles stuff like where toolbars should go, he gets it wrong. An object model does not handle those thins, that is the work of a embedding system (don't know the jargon for it), along the lines of OLE or OpenDOC. In these cases, OLE and OpenDOC are the embedding system, and they use the object model (COM and SOM respectivaly) to facilitate the embedding.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Slashdot Mirror
I have a big beef with KDE though. No not the licensing silly! It's the fact that they ditched Corba as their component architecture. Why? It's not slow at all if you use in-process servers it's elegant in most languages and wiht the addition of POA it's extremely flexible. The argument that CORBA is to difficult to master for Joe sixpack developer doesn't hold anymore since the Henning Vinoski book's out. My biggest concern is that with OMG adopting the Corba Component Model all DCOPs and Bonobos will effectively become proprietary solutions. CCM will provide good intergration with JavaBeans which I'm sure all Java affectionados will appreciate too. Why oh why did they have to rid of CORBA?!
So, just go ahead and do your thing. No one
forces you to K, do khey?
I've got this from a weird German BSD book: KDE started off as the "Cool Desktop Environment", but CDE was already a short for the Common Desktop Environment, included with Solaris. In the tradition of weird Unix names (GNU = "Gnu is Not Unix", PINE = "Pine Is Not Elm") they decided in favor of the name "K Desktop Environment".
That is stupid. Derived works are the WHOLE POINT OF A LIBRARY THAT YOU CHARGE FOR. Since nobody uses a widget set simply for the hell of it, derrived works is the only way for Troll Tech to make money. As of now, if you want to use Qt for a professional app, you have to pay. Troll tech can't do that if Qt is GPL'd. Also, even in that case, wouldn't LGPL be more appropriate? GPL'd QT would suck, since that would mean ALL Qt apps would have to be GPL'd. The whole concept is stupid. You're saying that if GPL'd code uses other code, that code atuomatically becomes GPL? Does that mean any BSD code put into Linux automatically becomes GPL? Why not just have a GPLizer program, that automatically incorporates code into GPL'd programs, thus GPL'ing the code!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> KDE Drag and drop --> X Drag and Drop
Just a nitpick, X has no DnD implementation. XDND has nothing to do with X itself, i.e. it is not an X extension or anything, it just has a name that sounds like it. XDND is however, used by both gnome and KDE, and if they agree on the type encodings, they should interoperate almost seamlessly (except the drop target probably won't know how to tell the drag "server" that it received the object)
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
That's bullshit. Why was this moderated up? GNOME and KDE don't help windows users move. In fact, up till recently, GNOME used E as the WM. What GNOME and KDE do, is provide a set of services to graphical applications using the GTK+ and Qt widget sets (respectivaly). (Stuff that should be in the OS proper, but that's a different matter :) Hell, you can use TWM and get as advanced as you want, but without stuff like KDE, no DCOP for you! Also, I get the hint that you think that stuff like integration, and consistancy are for newbies. Not true. They are for smart people who want to get work done without having to spend time learning a new interface.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Maybe you would prefer that all the apps started with the letters MS?
Naw, GNOME is mostly fat, no meat whatsoever :) Look, I'm not a Linux newbie, but I simply like KDE better. I'm a speed freak, and KDE tends to be faster and take less memory. Also, I refuse to use a DE that has been tarnished by the bloated piece of shit that is CORBA.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I know this is a troll, but just so nobody gets misinformation. KParts is a lot more like COM than Bonobo. Bonobo is based on CORBA, which is quite different from COM. Back during the object model wars of '94 (its true, you guys think object models are new, but Linux is hideously late to this game) there were two competitors, SOM and COM. SOM was CORBA complient and support inheritance, while COM was a very different MS design, and supported aggregation. I prefer COM, because it is more light weight. CORBA, however is not. Don't you dare mention CORBA and COM in the same sentance 'kay?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I would submit, that your dislike of "arbitrary acronyms" is more of a personal preference. Acronyms are never arbitrary, and in a command line environment, knowing that the command the function are actually related is sort of nice.
Case in point: I never liked "workman" .. it was a functional cd player, but it's alot easier to remember "xmms" because it MEANS something.
In the end, It's just personal preference....and yours and mine obviously differ. Oh well. Not a big deal either way I guess.
Werd.
This is so Kick ass. I'm a little angry that people don't give Konqueror more credit. It is truly one of KDE's crown jewels. Imagine the past: Here I am with my beautiful, reasonably fast Linux desktop, but right in the middle is the slow and bloated web browser from Motif hell. I've gotten so used to fast, light, nice looking browsers (IE on Windows, Netposetive on BeOS) that using Netscape positivly pained me.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
You can create a desktop folder and drag that onto the panel to have it create a new menu for it. Then create desktop application icons in the folder and away ya go.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
But I guess that's life...
Well, you can already add Kde apps to the Gnome menus (helix has a script that does this automatically - duplicates the kde menu structure) and you can add Gnome apps to Kde menus and the panel.
But the theme engines and several other look and feel modifiers are very different, so I don't see how it's possible apply one to the other without writing a translation program yourself that goes far beyond a script. You can already, to a limited degree, apply Kde colors and some other look and feel paramaters to ALL apps on a Kde desktop, even older motif based apps, but this is not quite the same thing as "themes".
You might like the Kde 2.0 look and feel much better than the older one. The rendering engine is much better for things like smooth gradations and fine details, and the default widgets are very nice - you can customize them as well as the taskbar look and feel for each app a lot.
Personally I like the new Kde-Qt layouts - the proportions and weights of things visually, much better than Gnome-Gtk which has a topheavy look with far too much padding and wasted space. Even with a very large screen Gnome-Gtk doesn't look well proportioned, but you need a very large screen resolution for it all to fit in. Kde works ok with just a 640x480 resolution and works great with 800x600 or better.
Please note that at this point the Gnome panel is much more complete, though. The Kde panel, "Kicker" is under heavy development right now. It should be feature complete by the next release in July, so that you can more easily add apps, applets, drawers and launchers, etc. Right now it is very basic and I don't suggest trying to customize it very much at this time.
You can already run Gnome apps and Kde apps together with almost any window manager and use similar themes if you want to. In such cases the overall look and feel depends much more on the window manager than on Gnome or Kde.
Q: At what point does all this 'K' naming staff stop being cute? A: when it's no longer cute but 'Kute'.
There are really only two Qt versions that you need to run the full gamut of Qt and Kde apps - a 1.4x version like 1.44 and the current 2.1 release. That's it.
It is also fairly easy to run Kde 2 and Qt 2 apps from a Kde 1 desktop from any xterm like rxvt. There are instructions on how to do this at the Kde site. The libs have different names so they can be run simultaneous, so long as the local environment is set for the app using the library which is different from what the desktop is using overall. A good use of this trick is to run KOffice applications from Kde1, or to try the new browser, Konqueror.
If you are already using kde 1.2, you will be able to install Kde 2.0 final (in September) right over it keeping the same desktop settings as you are used to. What needs to be translated will be translated to the new format.
Welcome to the Bleeding Edge of Software Development! New Feartures in "Bleeding Edge App4 V2.20.0.1"
Breaks all existing programs.
Breaks all existing configuration files.
Get to spend quality time (ie: tech support) with users.
Corrupts old data files.
Need to compile 16 megs of *NEW* libaries to work..
Seriously though, this isn't meant as a flame, but why do you *HAVE* to upgrade *RIGHT NOW*? If KDE (whatever version you are using) works for you, why not stick with it? Wait till KDE 2.0 gets tested and debugged by more users, and wait till you almost have to upgrade. (this advice is only toward desktops, other software may differ)
Or just wait till you upgrade you distro in 2-12 months, it should have the lastest and greatest KDE version precompiled for ya. If you don't feel like compiling hunderards of megs of sources, don't, wait till you need or want a really cool fearture, then do it then.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Some egyptian bitch innit?
"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach 18" Einstein
Grow up. Stop all this 'Gnome is waay better that KDE doode' and vice-versa crap.
;) ]
That's the point of open-source you get a CHOICE, you try it, you like it, you use it. You don't like it, then you don't use it. [and it doesn't cost the earth!]
And for those people who carp out about "well I don't need that I'm better of with a chisel, a rock, my vt100 terminal and a 1200/75 modem!", well fine!.....
BUT do you really thing the legions of windoze users are going to be tempted to move across to something that doesn't look purty and do what they could do??
Half of them spontaneously combust at the sight of a command line! [Trust me on this one
Personally, I take me hat off to both the KDE/GNOME boys and girls and thank them profusely for BOTH doing something different and moving their products [and Linux] onto the desktop of more and more users.
Roll on September and KDE 2.0 final!
Hey! Pine officially stands for Program for Internet News and Email! :) (But we all know what it really stands for.)
My journal has hot
Thad
Thad
The marketspeak about Konqueror is playing some mighty big name games these days: HTML 4.0, CSS2... These two standards alone have the capability to revolutionize the web.
Client-side HTML includes using <OBJECT> support? CSS2 positioning (absolute/relative/fixed)? If support for these is anywhere near usable, this web browser might be the FIRST leap to the semantic web which structured document writers have pined after for years, even beating Mozilla to the punch. (Mozilla's support for modular HTML using <OBJECT>, CSS2's "before:" or "after:" pseudoclass embedding, or XLink inclusion are still either nonexistant or relegated to the farthest corners of Mozilla, earmarked for Milestone 127 at best.)
Does anyone have any information about standards-compliance in this browser? Do the pretty toys like CSS2's "shadow" property work? Proper PNG translucency? How about XML namespace selection within CSS2 stylesheets?
Somebody with experience, please let us know. I'm looking to KDE to lead the way!
KDE is shaping up to be quite cool, and blessdly, you no longer have to run GNOME (which is quite a bit slower than KDE) to have a sweet looking desktop. KDE2's imaging and use of high color icons is really nice. However, it is still badly designed, as are all Linux DEs. To put it bluntly, KDE and GNOME simply are not compatible. If you want to run apps from both, (which is necessary if, like me, you like running GNOME but developed in KDevelop) then you have to have both installed. This gets worse, because during the KDE1/KDE2, GNOME1/GNOME2, you'll have to have all four installed to maintain decent compatibility. With just KDE and GNOME loaded, I get 40Meg resident memory use (according to KTop) on my 128 meg system. This is simply unacceptable. Even NT doesn't use that much memory from standstill (more like 30 megs or so) not to mention BeOS (some obscenely small number. Actually, BeOS is the only system that doesn't feel noticable faster in most apps after the upgrade from 64MB to 128MB.) Of course, I'm all for freedom of choice. Can you have your cake and eat it too? Of course! What about a DE that supplied low level stuff, like printing, object model, communication, API, stuff like that, and have a window manager take care of interface aspects and widget sets. This idea takes advantage of the fact that (from the big picture) all GUI software does the same things, and all widget sets provide the same services. So applications are written to the standard API, and whatever WM is loaded, interprets these requests. This would lead to even more customizability for the user (not the programmer, but who cares about he programmer?) All widgets are asked for the same services. So you could have a WM that implments the most efficiant GUI possible, while another one that implements a Windows-like GUI. In both cases, you'd have color dialoges that return an RGB value, so who cares how the dialogue acts. It could implment a standard color wheel, or it could ask the user for an RGB value, or it could randomly pick a number, the interface is the same. Not only would this desktop be more customizable, it would be faster, more stable, and less bloated, because it would have less code than two DEs and more people could be used hacking the core code. I mean you guys are all C programmers right? Ever heard of interface seperate from implementation? The idea at work here folks. Do you care about Bonobo and KParts? Sure. Do you have some insane attachment to one over the other? If so, get help.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Compatibility is a nifty thing to have.
.kdelnk files have been replaced with a .desktop file standard, being used by GNOME and KDE now.
That's why with KDE 2, KDE has dropped a bunch of KDE-specific things in favor of more general standards:
KDE Drag and drop --> X Drag and Drop
KDE Window manager hints --> NET WM-SPEC
KDE Session Management --> X Session Management
These three things can allow for many apps to work with KDE, and vice-versa, without even requiring the use of KDE libraries.
As far as GNOME-KDE compatibility, the
Wouldn't it be nice if this stuff were enapsulated through something like COM? DirectX has 7 very different versions, yet I only have one library, because incompatiblilites can be addressed at a very granular level. (IE. If only a few functions are different, but renders the entire library incompatible, through COM, you can reimplment only those functions in a new interface, and transparently call the old ones.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I've used TWM with GNOME, and believe me, you cannnot get "as advanced as you want". GMC doesn't take kindly to being used with TWM, which does things like put title bars on every single icon. You have to use a GNOME-compliant WM or else things won't work so well. GNOME will give you warning messages and stuff, and it'll act wierd.
And those widgets should not be in the "OS proper," by which I take it you mean the kernel (You couldn't possibly mean a distro, because they are already in those). The expandibility of Linux through shared libraries the user can choose not to install is one of its advantages over Windows. If you plan to only use Win32 applications, you can't choose not to install the Win16 stuff.
I don't think that integration is for newbies, I just think that GNOME imitates Windows too closely (though it's not nearly as bad as KDE.)
Integration is fine, just give me options along with it. When ever I use GNOME, I am frustrated by all of the little things it does, the clumsy applets, etc (that's a personal opinion about how the applets work, not a comment about any of their technial attributes. But E's pager has the GNOME one beat.) As for consitency, it's fine. I like to have a consistent interface for apps. I the one used by GTK apps is actually pretty good, even though a few elements of it are frustrating.
E was never used as the WM for GNOME. GNOME let you pick a WM; E was the default. But E confused too many GNOME users because of the duplicated functionality (E's menus for instance, which I like, and GNOME's task bar, which I don't like)
You can get work done in GNOME. But my personal preference is to not get work done in GNOME, because when I try, I get frustrated by it.
Most of this applies to KDE: I don't like the browser and I don't like KDE's task bar. Yes, these things are very customizable, they're just not customizable to become what I want.
E does provide KDE hint support (which I have turned off) and GNOME hint support (which you can't turn off and I wouldn't if I could.)
The truth is, the UIs of KDE and GNOME were designed to mimick Windows. Read the websites. They were created to provide standard GUIs for Unix, and their interfaces were designed so people used to Windows would be comfortable with them. (CDE also mimicks Windows, remember? It was designed so that Unix and Motif could catch up to Win3.x)
I don't like having to learn a new interface any more than you do. The first time I used the GIMP I was totally lost (I had never used Photoshop or anything). But I also don't like the UI choices the GNOME and KDE teams made, and I don't like the UIs. They are simply too different to be customized into the type of UI I want. I don't like them. But that doesn't change the fact that they were designed to act like Windows. My opinion didn't create that fact. I'm sorry if you think it did.
it's green.
Has anyone had any luck in updating Corel Linux with KDE 2.0?
Is the most difficult part of using and enjoying linux/GNU software.
;D
All these alphas, betas, snapshots, etc make the stable versions of software look increasingly more like stale versions than anything else.
You know it doesn't work properly, you know it will crash, you know some features are missing, you know you will need to refurbish half your system to sort dependencies... You know all that and still you use it and can't wait for the next unstable/beta whatever to come out and see what has changed.
It's life on the fast lane... Well, sort of anyway
Well done KDE team! (Must... resist... download...)
Blasphemy! You're not a real hacker are you? I like running the latest and the greatest (especially in the case of KDE 2, where it is faster than 1.x). To tell the truth, I am guilty of living VERY bleeding edge. I'm running Mandrake 7.1, kernel 2.4-test, XFree86 4.0, nVidia BetaGL, and I'm dabbling with KDE 2-beta1.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I have noticed this *cough***cough*. Any programs we use in a "critical envoirment" (buzzword number 1021) I ussually try to test first on a older less productive machine to make sure that most of the "pitfalls" can be avoided...
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Go Gfuck Gof, Gnome Gdoes Git Gto.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The goals of these two projects are very similar goals: (I'm quoting now) "fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Window95/NT."
Other people have said that I'm against consitancy; I'm not. I just don't want the consistency that these two offer. The GTK-type interfaces used by GNOME are something I like, but they're probably the only part of GNOME's interface that I really like using. All I meant was that these projects are trying to provide standarized desktops, and one of their goals is to look like Windows to help users switch. That's one of their main goals, actually: user friendlyness, especially for users new to Linux. Look at some of the stuff RMS has written about GNOME.
it's green.
Fool. Either way, it means nothing if you aren't familiar with the program. Take xfm. X Friggin' Media? X Floppy Mangler? Xenophobic fruity man? Or pam, Pretty Anoying mercenary, probably angry mutent, possibly attacking molars? Or how about xmms. Xtremely mobile mutent snails? Xtremely mad magic sicophants? The point is that xfm means just as little as Konqueror, but Konqueror sounds nicer.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
My ideal X setup, the one I use most often, is E 1600x1200x32 with a modified Brushed Metal theme. (It looks less Windowish). I can use the apps I like without the task bar that I don't like. I actually like the GNOME consistent interface overall (a few frustrating things, but every UI has those), whatever this comment may have lead you to believe.
So before you get the wrong idea, remember that I was trying to answer a question, not argue against GNOME and KDE. Sorry if it looked like I was coming out against a standardized desktop; all I'm saying is that they do serve a purpose (remember that this guy wanted that purpose explained) they do provide a standardized UI (like most of GNOME's app's UI, don't care for KDE's), and they do act like Windows.
it's green.
Hey, I have a questions. Say you have 4 virutal desktops in KDE and run an xterm in each virutal terminal right? All xterms show up down on the task bar, is there a way to "isolate" what you see, depending on which virutal desktop you are in for the momemet?
Say you run Netscape in vd 2 and xterm in vd 3. The task bar will show both Netscape and xterm. Is there a way to say, when you switch to vd 2 it only shows Netscape in the task bar, and when you switch to vd 3 it only shows xterm in the task bar?
That is the only thing I can't stand about KDE, everything else though is the flavors.
KDE is sweet, they did (and are still doing) a hell of a job.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
I run KDE 1.90 binaries dated 5-5-2000 (even before Beta 1). The idea is that you install both QT 1.44 for the old KDE1 stuff and QT 2 for KDE2. You can best set up KDE2 as a new window manager if you're using [xgk]dm. On my P2-233, only starting up is a bit slower. After that, I find KDE2 a bit faster than KDE1. Not at all a "memory hog" and it doesn't crash either - except when I run Konqueror, which is still heavily beta. The beta versions of KOffice and KDevelop are great, though. I can't wait for the release!
Does anyone know where I could find redhat binaries packaged up? B
True. I never much liked linux naming conventions, which tended to favor arbitrary sounding acronyms over attractive names. For example, WinAmp vs. xmms, or Windows Explorer vs. kfm. I'm glad to see KDE at least moving towards names like Konqueror rather than kwb or some such. Plus, with competing widget sets, it's convenient to know right off the bat which goes with what.
Well, there is a XFree/CygWin port in progress, so you might very well be able to do that soon.
Here is the url with the full details
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=96022787902749 &w=2
the above post to all stories about software releases, when there is a religious war involved?
seriously. All you would have to do is substitute GNOME/KDE for the titles of the other projects, and you are set! The rest can stay the same!
(Guess you'd have to remove the last line)
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
No need, just --force installation. /opt/kde2, the only "conflicting" files are config stuff.
The beta packages go to
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Sure - it's running on Red Hat Linux after all. ;) ;)
Oh, and besides the line is so bad that even all the traffic it can stand won't kill the server.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
I never have quite understood exactly what the whole point to KDE and GNOME is to begin with.
Personally, I use Enlightenment as my Window Manager, and applications to get my work done.
Where do GNOME and KDE fit into this?
Not trying to flame here, but I run Linux exclusively on both my home workstations and my work workstation, (as well as my servers) and I get everything done just fine without either of these "entities" (What are they? programs? environments?)
Take a look at my screenshots at http://www.cyberdeck.org/screenshots and you will see that I seem to be able to get by just nicely without GNOME or KDE... What am I missing out on?
-CZ
Graceful solution, yes.
Implementation (wait till the end).
What is needed is a pseudo-root user. A user who internally looks like root, but can only access files in a restricted part of the disk (say within a particular tree of folders [and no symLinks outside it!]. If dynamic partitioning becomes feasible, then I suppose that you could set them up in a separated partition, but ideally this wouldn't be needed.)
Then any software to be tested could be installed by pRoot, and wouldn't know that it wasn't seeing everything. This would require sufficient spare disk space to have copies of the kernel, drivers, necessary & useful utilities, etc., but would allow one to install and test software in reasonably complete security.
A Solution! The only way that occurs to me to do this is via VMWare. I believe that VMWare currently comes with SuSE installed in a disk image. You can install something else, say Windows, if you want. But you could also install your favorite version of Linux there, and then do any tests that you wanted. This isn't free, and the screen mapping is a nuisance (colors are really strange if you don't let VMWare have control of the entire screen). But it should work!
This is a bit less graceful than ideal, but it should be plenty good to test things out.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
KDE is being devloped in Deutchland where Kleopatra is spelled w/ a 'K' as are most of the things that in English start w/ a 'hard C'...
morturii
I don't think I implied that it was some sort of X extension...
:-)
That's just the name. XDND. I spelled out Drag and Drop, for those who don't instantly think Drag and Drop when they see DND.
Have you ever heard of a thing known as "kernel" and that is needed by Lilo, Grub, Loadlin or whatever to boot a computer ? Btw, do you know what Linux really is ? A kernel. Just a kernel. What we call Linux is in fact the Linux kernel, plus the GNU tools, plus everything that you you want and can run on it, like KDE for example.
A word of advice: if you have enough room on your harddrive, let KDE and GNOME together. They can cohabit peacefully, and this way, if you want to use a KApplication under GNOME, or vice-versa, you can, because you have all required library.
Better to have something we don't need than to need something we don't have.
sigmentation fault
> derrived works is the only way for Troll Tech to make money
:-)
Commercial licenses for closed source software (which uses the library) are how Troll Tech makes money. Not from derivations of the library.
> As of now, if you want to use Qt for a rofessional app, you have to pay. Troll tech can't do that if Qt is GPL'd.
Wrong. A GPL'd library would cover all GPL'd uses. You'd still have to pay for an exception to the GPL (like Reserfs, as I mentioned) if you wanted to develop a proprietary, closed source application and distribute it to someone else (internal apps could probably get away without paying).
> Also, even in that case, wouldn't LGPL be more appropriate?
That would cause the very problem you were just arguing against! That *would* allow commercial proprietary software to be built on Qt without paying the Trolls.
> GPL'd QT would suck, since that would mean ALL
Qt apps would have to be GPL'd.
OK, I'll grant that. Simple solution: Make Qt Free Edition dual licensed by the GPL *and* QPL. That would keep the BSD *and* GPL folks happy. And still charge for the commercial version. What more could you want?
> Why not just have a GPLizer program, that automatically incorporates code into GPL'd programs, thus GPL'ing the code!
Heh, not a bad idea. The GPL is, after all, the only good software license.
you're on the right track, but what I'm doing is slashdot-name-squatting till the reak karmageddon comes along and has to buy it from me.
Red Hat Linux (tested on 6.2) packages for beta 2
for x86, alpha and sparc are now available at http://www.bero.org/kde/.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
First, I always upgrade KDE in the hopes that the new version will suck less than the current one. On occasion , that's been the case. Second, I already have some apps, like licq, waiting for the new Qt to be upgraded so I can install a recent (and more functional) version. So when a stable KDE comes out for the new Qt, I'll upgrade.
Desktop inegration GOOD. Desktop dependance BAD. Me want solution.
Thad
Thad
Well that's your choice, but that doesn't mean the system is broken. You can have multiple versions of libraries on your system for the very reason you mentioned, so you don't break old apps.
RPM lets you have multiple versions of libraries on your system, although it does not allow multiple *devel* RPMS for the most part. If you want to upgrade, just rpm -e the old devel headers and the apps that are being upgraded (leaving the libraries that old apps you're keeping depend on), and then rpm --install <new libraries> [that's install, not -U or --upgrade] and all should be fine.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
It's all this Linuxification on the net and in the press that makes all newbies ask questions about "linuxprograms" like bash and emacs and kde in linux-newsgroups, when they could get better help in more general unix-newsgroups. /.) remove the keyword "linux" when it has nothing to do with it?
It also makes BSD-newbies miss a lot of help since they probably skip a lot of linux talk when searching for information.
When will companies, press (and sometimes
Read the devel lists. They had stability and speed problems with CORBA. KDE took an age to compile and was far larger. 'Standards' are not an excuse for code bloat and complications.
Those people who have had their GPLd code used in KDE have already been notified. None of them have yet protested. But even this is a non-issue. The GPL operates under copyright law, and not contract law. It cannot take away legal rights that the user already possesses. And since copyright law is completely silent on references, dynamic linkage to and from the GPL is permitted.
Maybe GPLv3 will remove that clause about copyright law and it will become a contract like the EULA, but for now it's legal to reference non-GPLd libraries and incorporate their interfaces in the binary.
"...the ONLY real solution to this mess is for the Trolls to release Qt under the GPL
Yes, it would solve the problem, but it is not the Trolls problem. You don't demand that a third party correct the actions of a first party. They weren't the ones writing or using GPLd code.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The QPL is perfectly sensible for making modifications. It only makes forking difficult.
:-)
I mean, come on! You would actually submit a Qt bug fix as a 2Meg tarball of the complete sources instead of a 100Byte patch? I bet the gtk people just love your submissions
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You know, that post you're responding to just MIGHT have been humor... apparently four moderators thought that way, at least.
--
No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I know what it makes me think of -- and I wonder whether the krazy KDE "koders" have a konvention to show a "krash" with a doby brick "ikon"...
Probably not, but then that's what humanity invented theme packages for.
You know, I've been around the block with software for a lot of years now. I have a lot of respect for KDE and the team. But what is the macho BS of not bothering to include simple installation instructions with the binary distribution? I am sitting experimenting with the rpms to find an order where they load without errors. But after loading the kdesupport, kdeutil and qt stuff, none of the rest of them seem to have their dependencies satisfied. Accuse me of being a wimp if you wish but why isn't there a manifest or document saying what the dependencies are, their order and where to find them if they aren't part of the distribution? It seems like common sense and courtesy to me.
Before I believe we are remotely ready for prime time I believe some simple housekeeping and moderate reasonableness of installation is called for. Put everthing needed in a distribution or say clearly where the needed pieces are found. Don't lead would be users and testers in the lurch.
If someone has the information I need then please send it to me.
thanks.
You could say it's simply the spelling in another language. Kopernikus and Kleopatra are correct spellings for those names in German...
:-)
-- KDE programmer and computer science student in Klagenfurt, Austria.
XML-RPC is a feeble effort to keep us sitting in the back of the DCOM bus.
Only partially correct.
;) nowadays it's just "K Desktop Environment", although I'd prefer a recursive acronym "KDE Desktop Environment". Ah well, I guess it's just like eight megs and continually swapping... you just take what you like *g*
It started off as the Kool Desktop Environment, which obviously is a pun on CDE. Since Kool is rather uncool
-- KDE programmer and computer science student in Klagenfurt, Austria.
Admittedly it's the best solution out there and, let's face it, it shits all over EJB and the CCM in the middle tier environment too, but it came from Redmond and so will not be accepted as having any technical merit whatsoever by the Slashdot herd.
--
Cheers
Cheers
Jon
In fact, there are many many pre-existing X servers for Windows.
Yeah, but are there that many other ports of the X libraries needed to actually compile X software to run natively (versus to run software on other machine but just displaying them on Windows)?
>You can best set up KDE2 as a new window manager
:)
>if you're using [xgk]dm.
Make that [xgkw]dm.
You can get wdm here.
It's already started. They're both a a pain in the ass to set up. Why bother? Any X window manager gets me the Xterms I need to do my job and run Netscape.
Everything else is a waste, and trying to make it look and act like Win95 is dumb. "Oh, let's give the game/application as little hardware resources as we can! Let's force it to run in a little window and translate everything through our useless libs!"
They need to go back to runtime environments for games. Look at that little BeOS thing you can download. I'd give up 100MB on my PC to be able to run a game under that environment, the video is phenominal. Then you have GNU/linux or some other unix to do real work and not have to compete with an OS/GUI (Win) that tries to do everything and is good at nothing.
-jpowers
-jpowers
personally, i don't think i'll ever want to use kde as my desktop. i think i just don't like all these buttons on a desktop, it just seems to angular (?) for me.
:)
anyway there are some good apps for kde. i would even say that the kde team provides the best apps for x. (ok.. gnome is ok, too).
well. there are tons of very useful apps in kde and i'll check them out asap
- whatever -
buti
neither do i
jbarnett wanted to know:
Seriously though, this isn't meant as a flame, but why do you *HAVE* to upgrade *RIGHT NOW*? If KDE (whatever version you are using) works for you, why not stick with it? Wait till KDE 2.0 gets tested and debugged by more users, and wait till you almost have to upgrade. (this advice is only toward desktops, other software may differ)
Just a wild guess here, but -- maybe to test the silly thing? Remember, this is open-source software. We don't pay for it in cash, and not everyone can add code, but we can all add eyeball time. Which is the coin of the open-source world.
You do intend to pay your dues, don't you?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I believe that KDE dropped CORBA because it wasn't called KORBA!
I think that K and Gnome should work more on compatibility between the two systems. Things like enabling gnome applets to dock into the Kpanels or K programs to dock into the gnome bar. Or even ability to apply gnome themes to KDE or vice versa.
It's an incredible waste of resources to have two. Separate companies develop two pieces of software that are incorporating similar features. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should only have one WindowManager (or desktop), but I feel that whatever one we choose to use should be able to use technology of the others.
I like gnome a lot (mostly for the look and feel of it) but I also like KDE cause it's faster. Why choose when you can have both?
j/k
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
4
You trolling skills are very rough and need to be honed. You lose major points by falling into the trap of many new trollers, you are way too obvious. Lets do some in depth analysis on your troll:
Wow. Yet another program whose job it is to devour my entire screen so I can run half-baked programs that duplicate everything I already have. No thanks
You troll entry point here is all wrong. If you start your troll routine on an agressive it sets off a red flag for the judges.I realize your adrenaline is runnig high but you need to start off a little slower to be an effictive troll
Give me a break. KDE and GNOME are worthless. I can run any program I want without a huge "panel", without a start button, and without a bloated gui. The insistence of the KDE and GNOME teams upon you only using their software is sickining. Why shouldn't I use software that hasn't been "blessed" by KDE with a spot on the K menu, or on the panel?
Okay now your deep into your troll here but your form is all wrong. Instead of going with the angry self-rightous tone maybe you should try the "I'm a confused newbie" tone, or my favorite, the "I'm a seasoned computer proffesional" tone. The angry troll rarely works well
Thanks, but I think I'll stick to xterm. It has a better interface anyway
Your troll dismount is sloppy and not well thought out. You really need a lot of work here.
Troll summary: Score 4 out of 10
KDE is being devloped in Deutchland where Kleopatra is spelled w/ a 'K' as are most of the things that in English start w/ a 'hard C'...
Anyway she was Greek, where is the "C" in the Greek alphabet? "Kleopatra" is probably a more correct translation anyway.
CDE also ships w/ HPUX 9,10(.2) & 11. just a note
All major versions are of Qt are binary compatible, i.e. you can run apps linked to 1.40 with 1.44, 2.0 apps on 2.1 or 2.1.1
Obviously it doesn't work the other way, but since you can have both Qt 1.4x and Qt 2.x installed at the same time, it's not much of a problem...
-- KDE programmer and computer science student in Klagenfurt, Austria.
KDE is going to be the Killer Desktop Environment... But Gnome too, so... ;)
sigmentation fault
We use standard CORBA profiles, so yes, we can talk to other ORBs, but we do it in a secure fashion.
The side effect you observe means that we wont trust anyone that wants to talk to us. Just those that have permission to talk to us.
Miguel.
Right now Qt is license under the QPL and KDE is licensed under many different license (see the indivual programs). The core KDE libraries are lgpl, but many of the programs are GPL, BSD or Artistic.
The problem is the conflict between the GPL and the QPL that is keeping KDE out of Debian for now -- the QPL add a restriction (forcing it to be distributed) to a program, that the GPL forbids.
It doesn't stop beeing cute. It stops beeing kute ;-)
DI Robert Lichtenberger effad@gmx.at
With Mozilla M16 just out the door, does anybody know how far KHTML are in development?
According to the press release, it supports nearly everything you could ever imagine. But is it all implemented, or is it kind of a "wishlist"?
What isn't yet working?
Krusty the Klown?
--
--
E2 IN2 IE?
You need a clue man.
The interface repository only describes interfaces, it can not discover dynamically interfaces.
Once you have an interface resolved, then you can look up its type definition.
Miguel.
I'm surprised your computer stayed up long enough for you to be able to finish typing that in.
I guess you're not running Netscape then.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
It's *his* fault he's called kdgarris?
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
I'm starting to dislike all these "Krappy" names.
Anyone else feel the same way?
KDE is great, but, as somebody with a degree in advertising, I'd submit that too much of anything is always a bad thing.
________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"
KDE 1.0 apps work with Qt-1.4x and KDE 2.0 apps work with Qt-2.1x. During linkage, each app *knows* which library it wants, so you only need two libraries. One for the old apps and one for the new.
I don't know who told you that you needed twenty different versions, but they're wrong.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
GNOME and KDE are intended for Windows users just making the switch.
Wrongo! The purpose of GNOME and KDE is to provide a desktop for X. You might not need or want a desktop, but that's no call to denigrate everyone who does. GNOME and KDE are attempting something never before achieved in X or Unix, and that is consistancy. Just because Windows and Mac also attempts this does not mean that consistancy is wrong.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
My next Linux installation is pending, waiting for new HDD.
Hope it'll meet the new KDE soon. ;-)
No dummy its
KDE = Krappy Desktop Ez123
GNOME = GNOME
Don't use XFreeze.
------------------------
Is your sig file boring?
Ok, if he is testing it (beta) he knows that there WILL be problems. All software has bugs, and even more in beta, so he should realize, "hey things might be fscked up when I am testing this" and just accpect that fact that it isn't going to be a "smooth ride".
Yea, it is BETA, things do break and sometimes breaking older programs is better than having a lot of cruft in the code. This is all part of "on the bleeding edge" and more generally life, just deal with it, that is part of testing it.
If he is complaining that it breaks on his productive workstation when upgrading, my advice to him was not to upgrade his produtive workstation till things "settled down" a bit.
I do test betas when I get a chance, but I don't go slapping beta grade software all the productive workstations here, I wait till it is "safe" to upgrade before I have to start tell people "Yea, I know that developers version really screwed up your workstatoin when I install it on there, I will get a snap shot tonight and see if that fixes it. Oh sorry about you not being able to work today because you desktop was on the jitters."
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Plus, you can keep all your libraries by using:
rpm -ivh qtxxx.rpm
instead of
rpm -Uvh qtxxx.rpm
The first one just installs the libraries, the second will upgrade. Upgrading meaning get rid of the old versions, install just installs.
Does anyone know of a project to do for KDE what Helix has done for Gnome? The Helix updater makes updates painless.
And the source is available, so it's kind of had for it to be proprietary, even if it's not quite the right way according to the OMG. There's no reason why it couldn't exist peacefully alongside something else, too.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Regards, Tommy
It annoys me that, since new versions of any sort of Kfoo require the next version of Qt, that upgrades of KDE apps are all or nothing - ie. when the KDE 2.0 comes out, I'll upgrade Qt, break all KDE apps, and then start searching the web for the new versions of "non-included" apps like Knapster, Kicq, etc. I don't really like having many different versions of libraries (Qt 1.4, 1.41, 2.0, 2.1-beta, 2.1-thursday, etc.) on my machine, plus, RPM makes this quite difficult even if I wanted to. Does anyone have a graceful solution?
Just wondering how many here know the meaning of KLEOpatra?
KDE runs on systems with X, not just Unix.
OS/2 has an up-to-date port of XFree86, but it is not unix. You can, however, run KDE to your heart's content.
So don't be so close-minded. You can't restrain KDE into your view of an "operating system", you worthless unix bigot.
OK I'll start by saying that I love KDE and use it on all my computers, home and work. The KDE team has done an excellent job technically.
But the simple fact remains that KDE is *ILLEGAL*. The GPL and QPL are not compatible. I'm really worried that someone who has contributed GPL code that was used in or by KDE will take up the case against it. Worst case (but certainly possible) scenario is that KDE could die a quick but painful death! I would NOT want that to happen.
Since they use code they didn't write, it seems like the ONLY real solution to this mess is for the Trolls to release Qt under the GPL. And it would make sense for them to do so. They might lose control over derivative works, but how many derivative works will there be, and how important could they be? I doubt Qt's derivatives will value nearly as much as having a secure future for KDE, the "flagship app" built on Qt.
And, like Reiserfs, they could still sell exceptions to the GPL. It seems to be a win win situation to me. And it's completely up to the Trolls. The KDE team dug themselves into this legal mess, and they can't get themselves out alone.
Someone could say that the 'k' prefix is too little ( clashes with kernel namespace ). In fact, GNOME people use the entire desktop name as prefix for the gnome-* applications [ except panel ! ]
No doubt, in this forum full of geniuses we could come with a better solution:
My humble contribution : add an 'using' statement in the CLI shells [e.g "using kde: exec terminal"].
Ciao
----
FB
I am slightly pissed that they reffered to KParts as an object model. An object model is something along the lines of COM and SOM, and simply define a method for easily upgradable, shared objects. When he refers to the fact that KParts handles stuff like where toolbars should go, he gets it wrong. An object model does not handle those thins, that is the work of a embedding system (don't know the jargon for it), along the lines of OLE or OpenDOC. In these cases, OLE and OpenDOC are the embedding system, and they use the object model (COM and SOM respectivaly) to facilitate the embedding.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...