KDE 2.2.1 Up

Igloo Boy writes: "The most excellent KDE developers have made KDE 2.2.1 available for download. Please check the mirrors before you flood ftp.kde.org. I will now crawl back into my igloo and warm up next to my Athlon. It gets really hot from all this compiling." Or you could just call out those 3 little letters that make ya feel so good ... a-p-t. I'm installing now. Hope you guys fixed all the bugs I reported!

Comments

Training and Planning are the keys.

[foo fighter]

Linux is soooo ready for the desktop. I know this comes up every time KDE or Gnome are brought up, but it actually pains me to keep hearing ignorant arguments.

The Windows 98SE desktop (and 2000, XP, etc.) in its default installation is not office desktop ready. There are several confusing or worthless icons that need to be cleaned up, display properties to adjust, shortcuts to create, etc. I've spent at least 40 hours honing my company's system images to get them 'just right'.

I haven't used Gnome at work, and so can't comment on it. But I've set up KDE systems and it didn't take me near 40 hours to set up 'just right'.

And guess what I found out? When I put new employees/users through their mandatory IT training they picked up on KDE at least as fast as with Windows. Most of these users have had very little computer experience.

I wish I had better documented this when I started. But the users were able to use their word processor and spreadsheet, surf the web, check and send e-mail, print, use network storage and printers, and not fuck up their workstation at least as well on KDE 2.2 as on Windows 98SE.

The key here, and the key that seems to be missing in all other discussions on this topic, is that the users were trained to use KDE. I don't know of any organization with a moderately organized IT system that doesn't have a training department or IT training of some sort.

I've found it's easier to teach users Linux than Windows, so here's what all you code monkeys and sys admins need to do: teach the teachers linux. They'll see that it's easier to use and to teach and will back you up when you go to the CTO/CIO.

KDE is great. It is ready for the desktop. Get your training department's shit together and teach users how to use linux. Plan and test the desktop and start menu so your people can use it. No one can figure out how to use a computer by just sitting in front of one, they need to be taught. It's easier to teach if you're the one who's set the system up.

Honing our Windows images has dramatically cut Help Desk calls. I'm sure the Help Desk techs will be showering me with even more free lunches and drinks on them when Linux spreads throughout our organization.

Get to it!