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KDE 2.0 Final Released
Well, as the title says - KDE 2.0 final is out! You can download it here or here or you can look at the mirrors (mirrors please!) Note: RH 6.2, FreeBSD and Solaris packages will be available soon. While you're downloading it, you may want to look at Kivio (a nice diagramming and flowcharting tool for Linux/KDE), or look for some applications for your KDE2 here. I've been using lately KDE 2.0 for a while and I must say - great work KDE team.
I photographed it ;)
ftp://derkarl.org/pub/incoming/kde2_out.jpg
Come and join our release-party on
#kde on irc.kde.org / irc.openprojects.net
Imagine, releasing their 7.0 a week before KDE2 final. He he. You realize what the problem is, don't you? All the desktop users who aren't UNIX gurus (you know, the guys still running the stock kernel) will be using RC1 (or whatever KDE2 Suse comes with) for the rest of their lives. I don't care what all the blowhard UNIX gurus say, KDE is too hard to install. Helix has the right idea with Helix GNOME and its about time that KDE (and the rest of Linux) gets with the program. Believe it or not, Storm and Corel are doing a great thing by mixing the GUI and apt-get, but
A) It still isn't pervasive enough, and
B) It still isn't automatic enough.
Windows Update is a very cool thing for the mass of users. The system takes care of itself, not the user. That's the way it should be.
PS> It's incredible how nearsighted the bulk of the Linux community is. They look at Windows and think, "oh, its ridiculously easy." That's just not true. No computers are yet to the ease of use of every other damn consumer product. Take, for example, resolution and refresh rate. You do realize, don't you, that 90% of home users without at least an intermediate computer knowledge (or a sysadmin) are sitting there running there 19" moniter at 640x480 @60hz. The computer should detect he monitor type, and configure itself. Then you have networking. What the hell is an IP? Your telco's equiptment (assuming DSL) should automatically configure your modem and your computer for you. Think of the present day cars. They do so much behind the scenes so the user doesn't have to bother with it. For example, our car automatically runs the AC fan on a hot day to evaporate the condensed water. Without features like that you end up with thousands of people with corroded radiators.
Sorry for the OT, but I had to vent. Moderate away!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
While checking out the 2.x screenshots I couldn't help but notice that the 3rd one down has a topless woman. I don't have any problems with it, but it does beg the "subliminal message" selling point: "if you like topless women, you'll love KDE!"
Regarding speed -- try rebuilding Qt without exception handling. I got a huge performance improvement with no apparent drawbacks. In any case, KDE speed has improved significantly since the early betas, which may be be what you're judging it by.
This isn't just the continuation of some flamewar. The FSF believes that it would be a licensing violation for KDE developers to link and GNU-developed software to a QPL'ed version of Qt. They asked that anyone trying to link GPL'ed code with Qt get a special exception in writing from the copyleft holder (this came up with the apt libraries and Corel Linux, for instance). Now that Qt is dual-licensed, it might not be an issue. But the team is just trying to steer clear of legal difficulties, so we shouldn't mix that up with pure flaming.
first, I CVS co'd off the KDE_2_0_BRANCH. Check out qt-copy,kdesupport,kdelibs, and kdebase at a minimum. Do try out other packages, though...
In qt-copy, edit the /configs/your-architecture file to include the -fno-exceptions option in teh CXXFLAGS variable. Optionally, change the compiler to pg++/pgcc if you have them. If you're feeling lucky, kick the -O2 up to -O3 or even -O6. Then define -mpentiumpro (for portable objects) or -march=pentiumpro (for Pentiumpro+ only objects). Then configure and build the sucker.
Before building kde, define in the shell:
CXXFLAGS="-fno-exceptions [-O6][-march=pentiumpro | -mpentiumpro]"
and
CXX=pg++
CC=pgcc
if you have them. Do NOT define -fno-exceptions, as this may jack up khtml, and each module already correctly determines it's prefrence on this option. Then build as per normal instructions.
This gave me a %100 startup speed improvement (mostly due to turning of exceptions where not needed). It also gave me a noticable runtime speed boost and improved app 'feel'.
Major distro packagers, if you're out there, PLEASE DO THIS! It's unfair to give KDE a reputation for slowness just because you chose to use poor compiler options!