KDE Wins 3 awards

Linux Journal has just posted who won its awards this time - and KDE got 3 of them: Konqueror, KDE-2, and KDevelop. Congratulations to the KDE team and to all their supporters.

Comments

KDE2 award

[Lappie]

Congrats. Just installed an old SuSE that already included KDE2 and it works like a breeze

Re:KDE2 award

[jvollmer]

The K stands for Kool!

Re:KDE2 award

[kazzuya]

Congratulations for your first post.
And it wasn't even intentional !
I mean you actually read the post, went on to install your Linux and came back to give us the feedback.

Well done !

kde is doing great....

[gee308]

I rcently came back to using X from the command line(although its stil my favorite work place). The last time I had used kde was the kde 1.x days. Now I am using kde 2.2.1 and let me tell you, it is a thousand times better. Konqueror already beats the crap out of Netscape, I don't even see how people can call Netscape an alternative now. I also jsut bought a MAC to try out the "other" *BSD and to me, kde2 is still better than all the "eye candy" at OS X.
There are a few small bugs I do notice sometime.
Try to view a table with a left align in konqeuror and see the result. This 1 line of code will be messed up:
messed up column

definitely getting there

[ccf]

I still have yet to adopt either gnome or kde as my religion, I've been playing more sort of wait-and-see. At home I use gnome, at work I've been using kde. I'm not someone who likes to take a lot of time configuring desktops, I tend to just use the default. But I definitely like kde (this is under mandrake 8.0)--one thing I love is mouse-to-focus, click-to-top. It seems the most intuitive to me. In gnome I have mouse to focus, but I have to click on the title bar (often buried) to get top. I probably could configure it somewhere but I haven't taken the time to bother. The other thing I like is how kde reacts when I select a link--the little menu of choices is definitely what I was wanting without knowing I wanted it. I also like Konqueror a lot. Javascript doesn't always work quite right, but as with just about every browser to some degree. Nice work kde.

Eye candy or efficiency?

[teflonrabbit]

KDE has come a long ways since its inception and I applaud the developers that have worked so hard to bring it up to this point. It offers a nice UI that's intuitive for users of either macOS or windows to get used to. And it's pretty.

Things that don't get much press, though, are the fast and efficient windowmanagers that, IMO, are able to accomplish a lot more. What about fvwm2, a completely customizable and scriptable windowmanager. Or ion, recently published on slashdot. The folks that worked on windowmaker also have done a great job.

All in all, I think that the developers working on KDE have done a stunning job, but it's equally amazing that new linux users aren't exposed as much to the "choice" that makes the linux operating system what it is. I switch windowmanagers every so often, and each of gets things done in its own unique way. I think the cake goes to fvwm for its efficiency, though. Too bad it doesn't get press because it's not as "pretty" as other wms out there.

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[motherhead]

both, when i am in geek mode i prefer nothing but shell, when i have to administrate - gnome or fvwm or the others are usually just fine and cool etc.. etc...

but when i am in office/show off mode KDE rocks hardest, it is all there, it all works terrific and the gui is an amazing flow of Mac/Win/solaris/NeXT/SGI (all of which i am familier with so it's nice and familier and never really confusing). Star and K office rock hard enough for me really. I have the MS crap on my G4 and 2K boxes so i know the differences and i really don't ever feel underpowered on my Laptop running Mandrake 8.0.

Then when people look over my shoulder and see me working with/on KDE they are always impressed and suddenly the Linux questions come and i am an evangelist. It's better when they come to you for the gospel.

Ximian Gnome is pretty, and mostly stable and fast and so on. but i always feel like i am locked in a room when i use it. I do think that it is another great productivity/showoff Gui but it dosent have the charm and magic of KDE.

but hell that is what large hardrives are for, choice and impulsive morons like me.

congrats to KDE by the way.

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[big_hairy_mama]

Talk about charm, go get the Liquid theme and watch all the pretty widgets and translucent menus. It's a hell of a lot better looking than WinXP's new blue and red color scheme, that's for sure. KDE is just so pretty, the widgets are responsive, and (I don't know why or how) applications written in QT just always seem to be designed better than those in GTK.

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[elflord]

There's no comparison between KDE and fvwm. KDE is an application development framework, and a suite of applications, one of which is a window manager, built on that framework. fvwm is a window manager. KDE is a much bigger, and much more significant project, which is why it gets more press.

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[Genom]

Now if they would just release a stable set of Perl/Qt bindings, we'd be all set! (Yes, I know there are a set of Perl/Qt bindings available, but they're far from stable, and won't compile on my Debian system =( )

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[ghack]

KDE is more efficient-for new users. I mean, technically, you dont need an X server at all to be efficient. If you were a window or mac convert to Linux or BSD it would be more efficient to have a familiar interface..

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[ShavenYak]

I use KDE as my desktop, but I run Evolution (or sometimes Mozilla) for mail. Why? Kmail still can't store sent mail in an IMAP folder (I think it's on the agenda for KDE3).

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[JabberWokky]

Expect a massive number of bindings with KDE 3.0. There is now an automated system to export the Qt and KDE API to C bindings, not just for direct use, but rather to use to create bindings for other languages that are written in C. I know there was a flurry of languages that "worked" right after the announcement (i.e., individual test efforts), mostly lesser used languages like Ruby and Eiffel (Sp?).

--
Evan

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[Cro Magnon]

I have a love/hate relationship with KDE2. Love the look, hate the speed (or lack of it).

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[Tassach]

KMail can't do IMAP at all, AFIK (at least in KDE 2.1.1) which sucks since my mailserver uses IMAP. Your choices are pop3 or local mbox, period. I've been using staroffice for mail even though it's bloated and has a few warts (like not being able to do simap).

Re:Eye candy or efficiency?

[be-fan]

Actually, I have found that the opposite is usually true. As wrong as you're not running GNOME session (which slows GNOME applications immensely) GTK+ apps are very responsive. ROX-Filer, for example, comes close to Windows Explorer. Balsa is much smoother than KMail, especially when it comes to resizing (almost all KDE apps rubber-band, few GTK+ apps aside from Galeon do so). Anjuta performs better than KDevelop, etc, etc. Sadly, though, Windows beats all of them. Even on my lowly 300MHz PII, I can resize IE quickly without bad rubberbanding. Konqi rubber-bands like hell, and Galeon acts like its possessed by the devil.

Re:Yee-Haaa!

[Jagasian]

Thats easy... The "K" stands for Kool as in "cool". (note this isn't a joke)

True

[PigeonGB]

Perhaps if a general software award coming from PC Magazine or something like that, without some kind of supplemental title, like Best Open-Source Program instead of Best Program, then perhaps it will get some notice outside of Slashdottish communities.
Still, it is cool that they have these awards. It gives respect to those within the community who make great software.

Konqueror

[Kargan]

I can see why Konqueror won the award; I like it, too. It really makes for a nice alternative to Netscape. I eventually docked a friggin KillZilla icon on my WindowMaker desktop, for cripes sake!

Too bad the total multimedia support isn't there for it yet, or I'd like it even more.

Re:Konqueror

[tzanger]

Too bad the total multimedia support isn't there for it yet, or I'd like it even more.

I agree; Although this isn't a konq problem, kmid (the embeddable midi player) won't work with anything other than /dev/sequencer. That means I can't get my SoftOSS synth to work with it, although kmidi works just fine with SoftOSS. It's a real bitch because I'd like to get sound working with wholenote.com.

Flash is a bitch too; I've got the netscape plugin but half the sites STILL do the double-popup begging you to buy Flash. I know that Flash is working becuase other websites work perfectly fine with it. Good site: Steltor.com. Bad sites: sissyfight.com, macromedia.com, most others. I'm stumped. Hell even the Crossover plugin doesn't seem to help here.

I'd love to get a Voloview plugin working, but the Windows version requires IE5.5 and Crossover isn't that good yet. :-)

IE-like browser?

[PigeonGB]

While Konqueror is ok, I had a bad experience with it my first time.
Turns out I just didn't have my fonts setup in Mandrake or something silly like that.
Now, I personally like Internet Explorer, and if they could make a browser that more closely resembles the feel of it (pressing enter when filling a form, CTRL+Enter to put www. and .com around what I typed in the address section, etc) I would be all set.
Can't wait to reinstall and try Mandrake and Konqueror again though.

Re:IE-like browser?

[phutureboy]

Your problem is that Mandrake blows. I was a diehard 'drake advocate until recently, when their quality started going downhill.

For now I am using Red Hat, with the stock KDE 2.2 install. Although Red Hat doesn't include gazillions of applications like Mandrake does, it's much more stable and polished. Still, it's not really a desktop distro. I'm keeping a close eye on Xandros, which will be based on KDE, Debian and Corel Linux.

Re:IE-like browser?

[ShavenYak]

Hmmph. I'm running Mdk8.1 on my desktop, and haven't had the first bit of trouble with it.

I looked at the Xandros page, though, and it looks promising. I don't treat my distribution like a religion - I'll move the minute I see something I like better.

Re:IE-like browser?

[StillaCoward]

I'm keeping my eye intently on Xandros. I'm wondering what they are going to do with the Corel file manager.

I find it funny that after all this time, KDE still doesn't have a file manager on par with what Corel came out with for QT 1. I mean, Konqueror is nice, but it really has 0 functionality improvements over the Corel file manager, and is dreadfully slow compared to Corel's product.

I can understand disliking Corel's approach to the OSS community, but if their product is superior, why let pride get in the way of adopting it?

KDevelop is nice

[p0werup]

Installed KDevelop yesterday and created a small application in a matter of 2 hours. Its very nice if you already know C++ and have some experience from win32 api for instance. What I like about KDE is that all the K* applications use a similar interface and communicates to the user in a similar way. Gnome is just total chaos sometimes.

Re:KDevelop is nice

[Alrocket]

Agreed on the 2 points.

I've used kdevelop for some string-parsing stuff, and the walk-through debugging facilities are just superb - dare I say it's a bit like using the Visual C++ IDE on Linux ;)

Al.

Re:KDevelop is nice

[jonathan_ingram]

yes... like GNOME 2's new file open dialog, which is an exact copy of the Windows 2000 one... or their object model, which is an exact copy of DCOM...

(if you want something not like Windows, then ignore both KDE and Gnome, and use Windowmaker, or XFCE, or Ion, or FVWM)

Re:KDevelop is nice

[Bilestoad]

Yes, and Star Office is a big fat copy of MS Office, and the GIMP is a big fat copy of Photoshop. People like stuff that works; what's your point?

Re:KDevelop is nice

[fault0]

1). the kde2 file dialog was never appalling. it's more of a clone of the macos8.1-file dialog, which is/was VERY usable

Re:KDevelop is nice

[jonathan_ingram]

QT's file dialog is a Windows copy, but KDEs isn't -- in fact it's the most usable file dialog I've ever used.

Re:KDevelop is nice

[flink]

like GNOME 2's new file open dialog, which is an exact copy of the Windows 2000 one

That's too bad. I hate the w2k file open dialog. I don't want to wade through a million folders in order to get to the files in a crowded directory. I wish windows would go back to the old 3.1 scheme of folder tree on the left and files on the right.

KDevelop - blind advocacy.

[WasterDave]

I use KDevelop loads. It kicks arse.

Dave

Much deserved

[phutureboy]

KDE 2.2 is slick as all hell. Still a few minor hiccups every now and then (many of which would probably be fixed if I upgraded to 2.2.1) but overall it's the most solid and robust *nix desktop environment I've ever used. (I've used OS X, but am not really impressed with it).

While everyone was busy harping about Mozilla, Konqueror grew up. It's now tantalizingly close to being an IE-killer. I shit you not. It's a very pleasant browsing experience, standards compliant, and to top it all off it's a great file manager as well.

KOffice is a great start at an integrated office suite. It's at the 'basic' stage right now. It reminds me of Clarisworks for the Mac, in that it's all integrated together and, while it doesn't support some of the fancier features, it can handle 90% of what most people want to do.

I'm really looking forward to KDE 3.0.

Go KDE.

Re:Much deserved

[aussersterne]

While everyone was busy harping about Mozilla, Konqueror grew up. It's now tantalizingly close to being an IE-killer. I shit you not. It's a very pleasant browsing experience, standards compliant, and to top it all off it's a great file manager as well.

No doubt! A year or so ago, each time I booted in to Linux I would find myself missing Internet Explorer and thinking that if Linux only ran IE everything would be great.

Those days are over... the tables have turned. Now when I'm in Windows 2000, I find myself dying for the features of Konqueror, and even just for the Konqueror web browser component. Konqueror is my favorite browser right now among all browsers, for any platform, hands down.

Re:Much deserved

[CyberDruid]

I have no intention of starting a browser war here. Konqueror is an OK browser.

I never understood what the /. fetish with Mozilla is about, though. To me it just looks ugly and far behind the competition in features, not really a small footprint or lightning fast rendering either. Are there any hidden features that I have missed? Guile-scriptability?

Neverthless, let us get real here. Nothing compares to Opera. This is a browser that kicked IE's ass so badly already a few years ago, that those who knew about it changed their windows-browser, even with the hassle involved (had to find serialz for it back then ;). It is the _only_ non-Open Source app that I am currently running (I don't even have a working win-partition anymore). It has a slick download manager, stunning support for keyboard-browsing, plenty of configurability, built-in google bar (of sorts) and most important of all, the browser windows are displayed as children within the same MDI-app. I currently have 10 browser children open, just because it is so convenient. In spite of my Opera zeal, it would seem that Konqueror would be comparable if only it had the MDI-feature. How come no Open Source team takes that path?

Re:Much deserved

[Ed Avis]

When I glanced at the headline, I thought it said 'KDE 3 Wins awards'. I know KDE development is fast, but still it was a bit surprising...

Re:Much deserved

[big_hairy_mama]

I have to kind of disagree with you about the greatness of MDI apps. Sure, it keeps the taskbar un-polluted, but I can't think of many other reasons to use it. First and formost, I love to be able to Alt-Tab and find the window I want. And when I do want to use the task bar to select a window by its title (say when I'm on another virtual desktop and need to switch to a browser on another), MDI prevents me from doing that.

Personally, I would rather open new windows when I want, and then the rest of the time use Konqueror's split-windows or Mozilla's tabs. These interfaces are IMHO much more innovative than MDI. Mozilla's tabs are a near-total substitute for MDI, and Konqueror's frames are even cooler.

In Konqueror, right-click on the status bar and choose "split vertically" or "split horizontally". Voila, you have two windows. Granted, you can't get 10 windows this way, but 10 MDI windows are just too much for me to deal with. The best part about this, though, is dragging and dropping files. In Windows Explorer or other FM's, you have to open two windows and try to size them so that they don't overlap each other, and then tediously drag the files around. In the Konq, I can open up three different frames and D&D files around till the cows come home.

Re:Much deserved

[DGolden]

Interesting you should mention the scriptability aspect of Mozilla. No, it's not Guile-scriptable - but it is ECMAScriptable. In fact you can completely change the whole UI via ECMAScript (part of the reason the UI is slow f*cking slow is because it's written thusly - the other reason being they use the same thread to draw the (complex) UI as the page.)

This is actually pretty cool - witness ActiveState's Perl/Python IDE that is entirely based on the Mozilla XUL UI engine...

Really, mozilla has become yet-another-VM, like a JVM, but for ECMAScript.

Re:Much deserved

[CyberDruid]

I am not a great fan of MDI in general, but it really works in a browser. If the windows had polluted my taskbar instead, I would have a much harder time navigating. Different pages are not, philosophically, different apps and thus should be grouped somewhere else and in a more specialized way than on my taskbar. More importantly, the resources used are much more conservative. This was the reason why Opera beat IE hands down on Win. The windows in a non-MDI app, for some reason, hogs more of my resources. I have not made the same tests on Linux, but my guess is that the memory consumption of ten mozilla windows running amok on my desktop would not be pretty.

I do realize the benefits of Konqueror as a file manager, but what is a browser doing managing files in the first place?

Re:Much deserved

[scrytch]

and most important of all, the browser windows are displayed as children within the same MDI-app. I currently have 10 browser children open, just because it is so convenient. In spite of my Opera zeal, it would seem that Konqueror would be comparable if only it had the MDI-feature. How come no Open Source team takes that path?

Possibly because it's only a niche market who considers that hideous interface a feature. Even Microsoft hates it. If Opera disabled this "feature", I might consider using it, but probably wouldn't anyway, as it really doesn't offer me much of anything IE with the appropriate extensions does not (though I could do with GetRight fixing some of their annoying bugs)

Re:Much deserved

[spencerogden]

You can configure whether apps "stack" in the task bar this way. Personnally I would like to switch it on and off for individual apps.

Re:Much deserved

[dead_penguin]

My "headlines parser" did the same thing. You know it's time for coffee when...

Re:Much deserved

[be-fan]

Since when? Compare Mozilla to IE, and you find that IE wins on both speed AND stability. And if you're talking about desktop OSs in general, Windows 2000's GUI is not only faster than any Linux GUI (except maybe Blackbox, but Win 3.1 is faster than Win2K as well!) but for the a workstation user (who reboots every week or so for some reason or another) its just as stable too.

Re:Much deserved

[Karellen]

Are there any hidden features that I have missed?

One thing that it does have over Konqueror is cross-platormness.

Moz runs on Linux, Win32, OS/2, BeOS, AIX, HPUX, SunOS, MacOS 9, MaxOS X and probably a few more I've forgotten.

Konqueror runs on any system that can run KDE, which I figure is fairly broad, but almost certainly not as broad as Moz.

And if you took all the stuff in libs that Konqueror uses from KDE, that comes to quite a fair amount. Yes, you've already loaded a lot of it for your other apps under KDE, so on KDE it's not a big hit. But in terms of total code used by the app, it's a fair amount.

K.

Re:Much deserved

[drsquare]

Hideous? It's one of the features that makes Opera better than all other browsers. Are you seriously saying you open a completely new window on the main taskbar for every single browsing window you open? That must be absolute agony to work with. The only browser that comes close to this functionality is Galeon, and that's slow as fuck.

Re:Much deserved

[be-fan]

You're preaching to the choir. I'm posting this from Mandrake 8.1 (which DOES, by default renice X to -1) with the preempt patches on an XFS kernel. Trust me, its still slower than Windows (at least KDE 2.2.1 and GNOME 1.4 are).

Cool.

[CrayBeast]

Now if only they could convince them to remove some of the sluggishness from it.

Not that I'm criticising it, mind you, but some of those windowing apps are very processor intensive.

i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

kde *is* getting better, but compared to winxp's interface? forget arguments about the underlying os (it's stable, ok!) or fisher price looks (you *can* turn them off!), just the physical organisation of the various functions.

when i first installed kde2 it took me about five minutes to work out how to change the screen resolution and then i had to reset kde before it took effect. and don't get me started on the default setup's choice of font in konqueror.

the only thing that kde could win on is virtual desktops, but now that winxp can be patched to support these, it's getting left behind.

but like i said, it's getting better. at least linux developers are finally getting over those fucking 'where do you want to go tommorow?' cracks and are starting to create good looking AND useable windows managers.

still, well done to the kde team and best of luck for v3.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[Seli]

when i first installed kde2 it took me about five minutes to work out how to change the screen resolution and then i had to reset kde before it took effect. and don't get me started on the default setup's choice of font in konqueror.

Actually, these are X related problems, and KDE can't do much about it I'm afraid :(.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

Actually, these are X related problems

having to restart before the screen resolution changes i can accept, the font in konqueror i'll give a maybe, but you're telling me that they couldn't have put the resolution setting in a more intuitive place (like maybe with the rest of the desktop settings)?

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[jonathan_ingram]

Yes, he is telling you that they couldn't put it in the same place as the rest of the desktop settings --- because it isn't a desktop setting.

The resolution is not under control of KDE, but under the control of the particular X server you are using. They could perhaps write a configuration module for XFree86, as this is just about the only one used on free operating systems... but until now KDE have resisted writing modules for distro specific components: they consider it the job of the distribution to sort that out.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

i had no intention of sounding at all troll-like, apologies if i did so. the last thing i want is start an uber-subthread over what is (i think you'll agree) a rather minor point.

i appreciate the difference between kde and x. however, the resolution setting can be changed from within kde; my point is that the link to this option is in a somewhat unusual place and that the problem could be solved merely by replacing the location of the link within the menu tree.

the whole point of a desktop environment is to simplify using the computer for the users benefit, not so that they have to browse through a vast array of options just to find a simple setting.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[Nailer]

That's true, and all your points (especially the lack of a good X setup apps - Ximian might fill this in with its own tool if only it would work). Fonts, media playing, network display, and software installation are also areas where Linux desktops currently are behind, but they're also being addressed (KFontinst, MPlayer, DXPC, and Red Carpet). However, there's many points where KDE is ahead of Windows.

* Behaviour of Windows drag and drop depends on whether the destinatio nand source are on the same partition, a new partition, or a shell folder, and what type of application is being dragged. KDE simply asks me when i drop it - copy, move, or link?

* The ability to support document previews is getting even better. XP, for example, don't support previewing Acrobat files (obviously, NIH). Note sure about Word files in XP, but KDE could easily preview Staroffice or KOffice files in Konq too.

* Drag a file to the desktop and it has the brains to suggest I'd like to make that file my wallpaper. This allows me to easily change my desktop, for example, from a pictire of Christina Ricci, to er...another picture of Christina Ricci. How good is that?

* Linux web browsers often have some very useful features their windows counterparts don't - eg, the ability to turn off annoying popups without disabling javascript, stop animation on a page, and handle privacy and cookies in a much more customizable way than IE can.

* Xkill shits all over the windows task manager - so does ksysguard. :D

So yeah, there's good and bad points about both (the point my seemingly inflammatory sig tries to make).

However, in the space of a year, Linux desktops improve faster than their Windows equivalents, and are already ahead in some areas. If this continues (and it seems it will), in 2 years time KDE will blow Windows away. in almost every aspect.

Mike

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[dimator]

KDE simply asks me when i drop it - copy, move, or link

FYI - the windows world also shows this popup with a right-click drag/drop.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[Taurine]

Could you point out where the 'unusual place' this setting is made on the KDE desktop? I have never found it. Are you sure you are not using a distribution-specific configuration tool rather than something that is part of KDE? It sounds like you mean SAX (found on SuSe) or similar, which is probably on a different menu from all the KDE stuff. If it is in there (I would expect it to be in the Control Centre), where is it? I would very much like to try it out.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

it was a default install of mandrake 8, and i'm not trying to be funny, but i honestly can't remember where the setting is. i'd have to go to my home pc and look to tell you.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[Salamander]

Behaviour of Windows drag and drop depends on whether the destinatio nand source are on the same partition, a new partition, or a shell folder, and what type of application is being dragged. KDE simply asks me when i drop it - copy, move, or link?

That's because drop targets (I always forget which one's the "client" and which one's the "server" in MS terminology) have been given the flexibility to decide what the default behavior would be. Flexibility is usually considered a good thing, even if some programmers abuse it. In any case, and as another poster already pointed out, you can always right-drag to get a context menu similar to what KDE has. Again, you have flexibility - to accept the default action or choose which action you want. Personally I always right-drag but that might not suit everyone; it would be distinctly annoying to have to go through yet another dialog every time you use drag and drop, when you know that you want the default.

Drag a file to the desktop and it has the brains to suggest I'd like to make that file my wallpaper.

That would be a terrible idea, as a default. If I drag a document to the desktop, I expect an icon on the desktop, not a whole new background...regardless of document type. I think most users probably share that expectation, and would be pretty pissed off to get the behavior you describe.

Linux web browsers often have some very useful features their windows counterparts don't

Obviously, by "windows counterparts" you mean IE. There are other browsers that run on Windows that are just as featureful in the ways you mention as anything that runs on Linux.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[Redline]

when i first installed kde2 it took me about five minutes to work out how to change the screen resolution and then i had to reset kde before it took effect. and don't get me started on the default setup's choice of font in konqueror.

When I first installed WinXP it took me five minutes to work out how to change the hideous "Luna" interface and then I still had to look at window shadows. And don't get me started on the default Start Menu layout.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[Taurine]

Thanks for the reply, I didn't mean to suggest you were making it up (although I can see it came across that way). You've inadvertantly hit the nail on the head here. Things like screen resolution, the set up of multi-monitor and 3D hardware acceleration are in the control of X itself, and though it wouldn't be such a mammoth task for KDE to include a configuration tool to look after this stuff (though they couldn't get around the restarting of X which underlies KDE), they are reluctant to do it, because it is seen as a job for the distributions.

Unfortunately you end up where some distributions make it easy and others don't, and also that the style and positioning of the control for that sort of thing is bolted on in a way that doesn't exactly shout 'integration'.

Personally I think that KDE and GNOME really should tackle things like X configuration, after all, the latest version of KDE does include kernel configuration. Am I being cynical by pointing out that many KDE and GNOME people are employed by distributions who differentiate their product based on the lack of these tools on other distributions?

I might just get off my arse and write a KDE X configuration tool.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[drinkypoo]

* Behaviour of Windows drag and drop depends on whether the destinatio nand source are on the same partition, a new partition, or a shell folder, and what type of application is being dragged. KDE simply asks me when i drop it - copy, move, or link?

If you want that behavior under windows, all you have to do is always drag files with the RMB. They do point out the right-drag feature in the windows tour.

* The ability to support document previews is getting even better. XP, for example, don't support previewing Acrobat files (obviously, NIH). Note sure about Word files in XP, but KDE could easily preview Staroffice or KOffice files in Konq too.

This does suck. Eventually I'm sure even microsoft will want to fix this one, but not yet, I guess. Bastards. Then again, with how long it takes acrobat to load a PDF, I'm not sure I want previews.

* Drag a file to the desktop and it has the brains to suggest I'd like to make that file my wallpaper. This allows me to easily change my desktop, for example, from a pictire of Christina Ricci, to er...another picture of Christina Ricci. How good is that?

Basically every image viewer application for windows these days has a feature to install a picture as the background. Also, the desktop is used differently. It would be nice if you could select all in an image and drag it to the desktop and have it become an image, though.

* Linux web browsers often have some very useful features their windows counterparts don't - eg, the ability to turn off annoying popups without disabling javascript, stop animation on a page, and handle privacy and cookies in a much more customizable way than IE can.

IE is fast, looks good, refreshes pages quickly, and supports ActiveX which is required for more and more websites that I'm interested in these days. Too bad its javascript implementation sucks. There are slightly new cookie settings in XP; What I Want in IE is the ability to change the referer string without a hex editor.

The Windows desktop may not do everything that linux desktops do, but it's certainly more mature. The underpinnings, unfortunately, seem to have some serious issues; I end up with processes I can't kill on my XP box, and ever since I moved from ME to XP I can only burn CDs at 8x rather than the 12x I could manage before, or else I get copious underruns. This is an all-SCSI system using an adaptec 29160N, seagate and quantum Ultra160 disks, a 40x toshiba scsi cdrom, and a Plexwriter 12/10/32S.

All in all, I think if you want to talk about how great linux is compared to windows, you have to focus on reliability and performance, places where it's definitely a winner (Especially with the new preempting patch.) I guess we'll see which of the X replacements ends up as the big winner, or if X can somehow not suck. (I'm referring to configuration, memory footprint, and speed issues here.)

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[dash2]

KDE simply asks me when i drop it - copy, move, or link FYI - the windows world also shows this popup with a right-click drag/drop.

You and others are slightly missing the point. KDE can open, save, cut,copy and paste files directly to and from ftp urls, samba shares etc. No more hassle with special ftp upload programs! This is an area where KDE is ahead of windows, and it's really useful: for example, I can edit text files on my server directly, just by clicking on them - they autodownload and open in my favourite editor, then autoupload when I click Save.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[ajs]

Why would you suffer for making coherent, rational points? I think your focus is skewed (as most Windows users' foci have been), but you make some good points.

Linux (and all of its ancestors great and mini) has a set of core features that Windows needs, but will almost certainly never get. These features (a command line that's actually useful; functional concurrent multi-user support; etc) lend power to the snappy higher levels that are put on top of them. Yes, KDE is still klunkier than Windows (as is Gnome, which is what I use). But, KDE provides access to all of the underlying power of Linux.

Try to get a Windows user to understand the concept of the init run-levels, and they'll be lost. This is pure, unadulterated power over your environment in ways that a GUI doesn't address. Now try to explain what "iptables-save | ssh -l jonesy host2 sudo iptables-restore" would do! Good luck ;-)

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[louzerr]

But windows still has the same bugs it's had for years!

The fragmented CPM (er, DOS) filesystem is aweful! I do keep in mind that NTFS 5 finally lets you mount drives to a folder, but you still end up dealing with drives, and not the filesystem

But my worst complaint is the poor threading of explorer. If I toss a CD in, and double-click the My Computer, I get a blank window until explorer can read the CD and figure out it's name and icon. If the CD's corrupt, explorer will hang, and your system will crash. Hey Redmond! Thread the damn thing!!! Why can't it listen for the 'Esc' key? Why can't it simply display the default icon and say '(loading...)' or something? Good God! Java-Swing is more graceful than that!!! Same with networked printers - explorer will hang until it can pop open a print dialog. I actually had explorer go tits up over this little issue! And it's rediculous. Microsoft never seems to fix bad code, only add more bad code on top of it.

KDE is constantly improving, adding those features that back in the days of slackware and the 1.2 kernel, we were saying 'why doesn't it do this . . .' and now it does, thanks to KDE. And best of all - the Konqueror browser does not have some virus-prone scripting language to help websites destroy your system - security is still just as tight as it ever was, while windows keeps adding more hooks that open up new holes.

The linux desktop is not quite ready for the average end-user, but KDE has pushed the limits to where we can see that day on the horizon

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[STSeer]

You and others are slightly missing the point. KDE can open, save, cut,copy and paste files directly to and from ftp urls, samba shares etc. No more hassle with special ftp upload programs! This is an area where KDE is ahead of windows

Nope, not missing anything, windows can do that too.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

thanks, coward, that's the one. tucked neatly out of the way, isn't it?

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

in winxp a left-click drag *always* copies the file

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[wobblie]

No, KDE is far less annoying to use than Windows in any of its incarnations. I personally am very annoyed by many things about windows - apps stealing the focus from what you are doing, splash screens, focus policy, excessive popup confirmation dialogs, general inconfigurability, the list goes on. All these things add up to an unpleasant experience.

KDE2 does not suck.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

they're in entirely logical places though, control panel>>display and control panel>>taskbar and startmenu.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[Nailer]

Let me try to address all your points as I think they are all invalid:

Cool, let me respond.

Er, as mentioned in the other reply, you can do this in Windows as well (right click, ctrl-click, etc). In fact Windows is more flexible because you can do it either way.

I'm well aware of this, but the default is not a sensible one and uses a set of very abitrary rules which confuse new users more than they help them. I've known about the right click ability for some time - but I knew because someone told me, not because Windows was intuitive

COULD?

My point isn't could, but IS right not for Acrobat, which is bloody handy, and that KDE will likely have the ability to preview more documents sooner than Windows will.

No, most of the time I want the file on my desktop, not to be the wallpaper.

You're not aware of the action I'm describing./ Fair enough. It doesn't suggest the file ONLY be my wallpaper, it just adds that to the move / copy / link menu. The user isn't forced to do anything they don't want to and the process is no more convoluted than moving of copying the file. if you want to change wallpaper easily though, its much fatser than changing display properties. Another good sensible default.

Even better is make a shortcut in your SendTo and make a SendTo wallpaper. That way again, Windows is better because you can do it any way you want.

Good point, but that certainly doesn't mean Windows is more flexible - it can't do it the way mentioned above, and the SendTo again must be created by the user - and will apply to all files, rather than just wallpaper.

Mozilla, Opera and other browsers have Windows versions.

True, but Mozilla is flaming pile of shit :). I'm not sure if Opera and KMeleon allow control over popups without disabling Javascript. Though Opera is certainly a fine browser.

Don't see this at all. Task manager seems to work fine, what do you mean?

Ctrl alt escape, click the window, it dissappears instantly and the process ids dead. This compares to Ctrl-Alt-Delte where I end the process. Windows decides to take a very long time (fifteen second wait) to check that the process isn't actually responding. Thisis on the Win2KSP2 machine beside me. My experiences with the XP beta have been similar. Regarding being unable to kill Netscape necause you can't see the window, all I can say is the problem has never happened to me in the year I used Netscape on Linux, but I don't use Netscape on Linux anymore either. Still, because of the Ctrl - Alt - Del pauses, opening Ksysguard and killing it should take around the same time as Task Manager does in Unix.

if you're going to criticize at least make valid points.

I think I have. If you're going to respond, please use `I think you're incorrect' rather than `you are not correct'. its much more polite.

Windows isn't all bad.

Of course it isn't, I've said the exact same thing in the post you're replying to and make the exact point in my sig. Thanks for..er...telling me again.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[posmon]

my experience of slashdot is that you do tend to suffer for making pro ms comments. luckily, i seem to have escaped with the witty comments of only a single troll.

i do recognise the fact that linux's command line kicks the shit out of xp's 'dos' mode; my argument was over the desktop environment.

i'll have a guess at what your command does, but not knowing what 'iptables' is for (don't laugh, does your average linux admin know what regsvr32 does?), i'll probably be close but not spot on.

it exports your iptables configuration (i assume that's similar to the lmhosts file in windows), pipes it into a secure shell over to host two, where it uses superuser priviliges to apply the configuration to the remote machine.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[damiam]

Support for dynamic resizing has been added in XFree86 4.1, and KDE could theoretically add support for this as a config option.

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[STSeer]

no, just using IE's built in Folder View for FTP sites, it's been there for a few versions now

Re:i'm going to suffer for this but...

[ajs]

You're correct. And iptables is the packet filtering configuration (aka firewalling rules).

But the effect of the command itself was not the most interesting part. It's the fact that no two of those programs (well, except for the iptables-save and -restore) were designed to work with eachother. They simply do, because the system is designed to work that way. The power in that command -- the part that your average Windows user cannot grasp -- is the power to fully administer the state of a remote system without ever establishing an interactive session on it.

Windows takes the approch that many graphics oriented systems take (e.g. MacOS, even version 10, which is UNIX-based): it provides you a way to do the things that the people who designed the system felt would be most useful. UNIX takes the approach that the designers know what sorts of individual actions may be required, but often not the end-goals of any combination of them.

Is KDE (or Gnome for that matter) "ready for prime time"? Depends on what you need. It's not as polished as Windows or MacOS. However, building on top of what UNIX and/or Linux has to offer leads to a system that is overall more powerful and more flexible. That lack of polish seems a lot less important when you find that, at 6AM you can log into your desktop from work, print a report on your boss' desk and still have time for breakfast because you didn't have to wait for a graphical program to come up over a remote connection....

False

[randal_hicks]

Awards like this mean plenty to everyone within the industry...Developer, User, or somewhere inbetween: We all benefit by recognizing excellence. What we have here is not necessarily Yet Another Award, but a standard for others in the Linux Community to measure up to. Just because it doesn't come from a Ziff Davis publication does not lessen its value -- besides, it's not like this 'zine hasn't been around enough to have established credibility...

Configurable box?

[yatest5]

>> I really believed that is even yet possible with Linux until I configured my
girlfriends Box.

Wow - this guy's girlfriend has a configurable box? Today blonde and trim, tomorrow brunette and bushy! Is there anything these open source guys *can't do*???

Kblah..

[sewagemaster]

i just installed kdevelop for the first time yesterday and i was was pretty impressed. on the down side it only supported C/C++... even in the syntax highlighting part - when it shouldnt be too hard to have it for other languages as well... but ok it's 'an ide for c/c++ development' whatever... i'm so sure you're all thinking 'real coders use VI' ;-)

konqueror's just awesome. it does crash from time to time, but i'm happy with the features, especially with being able to just enable cookies for just a few sites in particular - like slashdot so i dont have to relogin everytime i come here, load my prefs just to filter out all my jon katz posts...
mozilla has that too, but it loads too slowly.. but konqueror's loading faster.. could this have anything to do with it being "integrated" with the kde desktop? man.. this thing is sounding like IE with windows... they're saying about implementing activeX in this thing in future releases... oh boy... next thing, "KDE updates" anyone?

Koffice is nice... one great thing they can have is to include a pdf writer into it... ps2pdf isnt good enough... fonts arent always supported properly..

i just switched from 2.1.1 to 2.2.1 or whatever it is (the one available in debian testing to one in debian stable) last night. very pleased. but so much slower. this thing does eat up a lot of RAM - eventhough i've got plenty of it.. but still...

kde-look.org's got some great themes for 2.2.1 (despite recent random postings of ugly themes and porn...)

check out the QNX theme. looks great.. but it's not just bells and whistles we're about right?

Re:Kblah..

[alistair]

> i'm so sure you're all thinking 'real coders use VI' ;-)

Actually, many of us are thinking 'real coders use EMACS, I'm sure there's nothing controversial there....

Re:Kblah..

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

>Actually, many of us are thinking real coders use EMACS

And real programmers don't eat quiche. They smear it over their nubile young bodies because the heatings broken again in finsbury square.
Don't they.

Re:Kblah..

[fault0]

kdevelop3 (a.k.a. Gideon), will support many many languages. it's sweet. too bad it's in a pretty alpha-ish condition right now (last time I tried it at least).

Would be nice

[datazone]

It would be nice if the editor showed which products he compared, and why the others did not get the award. and as far as the "Office Application
" section goes, was he only comparing word processors? what about gnumeric? gnumeric 0.75 is at a point right now where its so sweet, it makes your teeth hurt. and did he even try galeon. as far as the browsing experience goes, its my opinion that galeon is much better designed to be a web browser.

go on, hide behind your cloak of anonimity...

[posmon]

works with older men?

i can only assume that you found that out by proxy, as your comment is hardly typical of the 'mature user'. have you ever heard the saying "bsd is for those who love unix, linux is for those who hate microsoft".

how configurable an os is is not necessarily a meaure of worth, in fact if something is 'highly configurable' then it usually means you have to fuck around with it for hours to get it how you like it.

but nobody in their right mind would install an os simple for the sake of using that os. the whole point is what applications will run, and i need to run windows apps. and don't fucking come back at me with staroffice. sure it can import msoffice documents. but not pixel perfect like i need them.

/me is dragged kicking and screaming from the zoo for blatantly ignoring the 'do not feed the trolls' sign.

Re:go on, hide behind your cloak of anonimity...

[posmon]

a retort that is surely worthy of a +5 funny, at least?

err... ok then, maybe not.

Re:go on, hide behind your cloak of anonimity...

[posmon]

hey, i thought those comments were funny; otherwise i wouldn't have posted them.

still, i can accept the fact that senses of humour differ from person to person. something that someone with severe personality issues probably wouldn't be able to.

Re:go on, hide behind your cloak of anonimity...

[archen]

" how configurable an os is is not necessarily a meaure of worth, in fact if something is 'highly configurable' then it usually means you have to fuck around with it for hours to get it how you like it."

And if it doesn't do what I want it to do, and it isn't configurable, I have to fuck around with it for hours trying to figure out a work around. It's give and take. Linux people are more apt to take things into their own hands, so I'd think that commensurability would be more appropriate

Re:enlightenment

[Metrol]

... i didn't try it that long.

Sooo, you just decided to pop onto this thread and state a comment about a product you didn't like, but didn't take the time to look at even it's most basic features? Well by gosh, on behalf of everyone reading this thread I would like to say thank you for your insightful, and interesting bit of literary magic you have graced us all with.

Gosh, I can only hope we get to hear about more things you haven't used, and your opinions on them really soon.

Good! They deserve it!

[Savage-Rabbit]

This would be even more significant if the award had come from an indipendent party. That would have been a kick in Microsofts ass since KDE is everyting the Microsoft desktop should be but isn't because Microsoft is afraid the average user is too stupid to figure out how to use many Virtual Desktops on a single monitor.

Re:KDE is just a Windowsalike

[Karn]

What's funny is some of the KDE/Kmail advocates were ragging on Evolution yesterday because it looks like Outlook, yet KDE itself looks like the spitting image of Windows..

K as in Kaiser

[bockman]

Probably not ... but I bet some of them think of it this way ;^)

KDE is getting faster with every release!

[Per Wigren]

To all of you that always say "they only care about bloat and not about speed" and "They should stop implementing features and focus on speed":

They ARE focusing on speed! 2.1 is MUCH faster than 2.0. 2.2 is MUCH faster than 2.1 and 2.2.1 is quite a bit faster than 2.2!

There are lot of speed-enhancing features in KDE3, for example an iconserver that serves icons to the apps. Right now all apps have to scan a lot of very big directories every time they start and load all the icons from the filesystem. With the iconserver that only has to be done once, when starting up the desktop.

More features doesn't necessarily mean less speed!

Re:KDE is just a Windowsalike

[lambent]

How does it look like the spitting image of Windows? Mine looks completely different, to me.

Re:KDE is just a Windowsalike

[loopkin]

i disagree some 150%
you want KDE look (and feel) like Mac ? enable Desktop menu, and remove taskbar.
you want KDE look (and feel) almost like WindowMaker/Afterstep ? enable WindowMaker Applets extension, and remove taskbar

the only thing you can't disable is the KParts/DCOP underlying system (well.. i think you can't). but i thought the aim of Linux on Desktop (which is the purpose of KDE), was to provide a component model implementation in order to allow high level interaction between applications (which is all the GNOME/KDE/GNUStep-WindowMaker projects do... using different languages, APIs, and having different set of features).
sure, if you want less features and les memory usage, you can stick to old and light AfterStep or FVWM (though IceWM and others appear to be better)
as for the binary size for KDE or problems of slow launching or whatever, one of the biggest problems of QT/KDE for the time being is that they are written in C++, and gcc is far from good at compiling C++ (which gave all the fuss about 2.96 and 3.x versions). usually distros don't even build kde using objprelink. wait a bit that all those things improve (and they are close to), and i think u'll see a great improvment in KDE performances.

Much slower than 1.x

[Organism]

For all KDE's improvements on functionality and eye candy, I could use 1.x quite easily on a 166 mhz machine, but 2.2.x is unusably slow. Runs a treat on my 350 though :)

More features can mean less speed if poorly implemented - Mozilla's going bloat. I really hope KDE stays reasonably lean.

Re:Much slower than 1.x

[Per Wigren]

Much slower than 1.x

Yes it is! And Windows 3.11 is faster than Windows 95... IMHO the added functionality in KDE2/3 vs KDE1 is worth it the extra RAM-requirement! KDE 2.2.1 is not much slower than KDE 1.1.2 if you have enough RAM, but it has lots and lots and lots of new functionality (especially for developers)!! RAM is dirt cheap these days!

Re:Much slower than 1.x

[be-fan]

Actually, I have enough RAM, and KDE-2 is MUCH, MUCH, slower than 1.1.2. The stupid linker issues are part of it, but the apps don't seem to be written for performance either. (On a tangent, I think all those desktop environment coders should be forced to memorize the ROX source before touching the keyboard!) Although, you're analogy is wrong. Win2K is to Win9x as KDE 2.2.1 is to KDE 1.1.2 is a better comparison. In that case, you're analogy is wrong since Win2K is significantly faster than Win9x, even though it has tons more features. Hell, XP is faster than 2K (if you turn off Luna), especially for app-start up times (which are going in the opposite direction from those in KDE!)

PDF Writer?

[Moritz Moeller - Her]

> Koffice is nice... one great thing they can have is to include a pdf writer into it...
> ps2pdf isnt good enough... fonts arent always supported properly..

Well, try to print a file, every KDE-2.2.1 application has the option to print to PDF (and Postscript) by default. This is caused by the great kdeprinting system, which RULES in combination with cups.

If the quality of ps2pdf bothers you, thius is part of ghostscript. If you still use a 5.x version, I urge you to upgradde to GPL ghostscript 6.5.2 or AFPL ghostscript 7.03. PDF support has been greatly improved.

Re:PDF Writer?

[_ganja_]

The KDE print system requires and underlying print systems such as CUPS for example to work well. In fact CUPS is the recommended sub-system to use with KDE print.

So, to say it's better doesn't make a lot of sense.

But does it have to start that slow?

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

I usually use KDE (in case I dont use the prompt), but everytime I start it, I think of switching to GNOME because it takes that long for KDE to start. :-(

Re:But does it have to start that slow?

[bero-rh]

This is related to the fact that the dynamic linker is slow when it comes down to resolving loads of C++ symnbols.
It's a deficiency recent versions binutils fix - try the (WARNING: not yet 100% stable) stuff from rawhide.

Hey, that wasn't a troll...

[CrayBeast]

I truely believe that KDE has legitimate performance issues. I use it myself, but I've found that on the same hardware, a window manager like fvwm performs considerably better than the window manager from KDE does. And as far as web browsers go, Galeon is far, far less sluggish than Konqueror is.

I really hope that in future versions of KDE that they start tackling the performance issue in preference to creeping featurism.Konqueror is great, but until it doesn't make my 128Mb PIII-750 machine thrash when de-iconifying a window, I'm going to be using Galeon.

Re:Hey, that wasn't a troll...

[fault0]

What version of KDE are you using?
objprelinked or not?
using kdeinit (running it from the native interface?)
was kdelibs/Qt compiled without debug support?
dma on hd enabled?

When these are done, indeed, Konqueror is as snappy than either Windows Explorer or Galeon on my Athlon 800 with 256mb ram.

khtml's network performance, imho, has been taken over by gecko, but the adding of http pipelining in kde 3.0 should turn the tables again.

Re:Hey, that wasn't a troll...

[iomud]

There are some library memory leakage issues but I think it's a high priority on the bug fix list. I still like a tailored xftconfig though for konq, makes for excellent looking web sites.

XPs interface is horrible

[HanzoSan]

Windows98 has a better interface than XP as does Windows2000. Turn all the new features off and what you have IS windows2000.

I prefer the interface of KDE by far, I mean WinXP copied KDEs ideas, the taskbar grouping, they stole that, As far as the Icon goes, thats KDEs main weakness.

Gnomes Icons totally destroy KDEs, as does MacOSX and WindowsXP.

KDE needs to copy gnome and go for SVG based Icons.
Good icons is very important when it comes to having a nice looking desktop, good fonts is also important, XP has better fonts. KDE already has the best functionality of any interface i know of besides perhaps OSX. What KDE needs right now, is to improve certain things, the icons in KDE are crap and i hear they are planning to copy Xps icon style, thats fine for windows users who go to linux, but XPs icons are horrible compared to Gnome, Nautilus, MacOSX etc, SVG is definately the way to go for Icons.

Fonts will take time to improve but they are getting to be at XP quality, I think we will see high quality fonts before the end of the year, The Icons in KDE hopefully will be fixed sometime in 2002 if they switch to SVG but if not, then their icons will be as crappy as Windows icons, which is fine for Windows users who havent seen anything better but not for me.

KDR looks very nice however it still looks very plain, it needs a theme, KDE has Luna, Mac has Aqua, even Nautilus has its look, KDE however looks too plain, as if it was just thrown together, i mean theres no theme, its bland, like windows2000, while this is fine for most users, its not going to give KDE the impression that its on the level of XP because XP will have a taskbar which is beveled, has a nice color and shadows, while KDE just has plain style.

Nautilus and Gnome have figured this out and currently looks way better than XP, but KDE and this isnt in terms of functionality, but in terms of how pretty it looks, it doesnt look as fancy as it could look.

I also dont like the fact they took out the little icon effect where you click on it and it swirled,why? these little unique effects were what made kde KDE!

Put it back, the highlighting is nice, windows doesnt do it but still this isnt unique to kde.

If you get what I'm saying, KDE needs more unique features and looks to seperate itself from being too generic.

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[Rogerborg]

Why is it that you say WinXP "stole" from KDE, but KDE should "copy" from GNOME and XP? Curious choice of language. What did KDE lose when WinXP adopted the KDE taskbar grouping?

Oops, I'm trolling, right? Ah, the hell with it, it's only karma. Mod me, I am still full of love for KDE. ;-p

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[Rob Kaper]

Actually, KDE didn't implement task bar grouping until the functionality was seen in Windows XP screenshots.

It just happens to be that KDE released it earlier than Microsoft, having a major release every 4 to 5 months instead of every two years. (or, in case you live on the bleeding edge and use CVS, stuff is released instantly)

Still waiting for Microsoft to implement magnetic borders (as seen in WinAmp, XMMS; or all applications if you use KWin as window manager).

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[_ganja_]

SVG icons are a supported format for QT 3 which will of course be the toolkit for KDE 3. Expect support early next year. I have no idea what tackat is planning on the icon front and while I'm on the subject, tackat is almost the only person working on icons and 99.9% of the icons in KDE are his, its not too shabby for one guys work! I personally like the icons in KDE but you opinion is is respected.

Sounds like you have some good ideas, if you feel like helping out please do.

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[tswinzig]

I prefer the interface of KDE by far, I mean WinXP copied KDEs ideas, the taskbar grouping, they stole that

Yeah, hmmm... I wonder where KDE got that idea from... seems familiar!

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[DCMonkey]

Actually KDE added this feature after Whistler (codename for WinXP) preview releases started showing up with said feature. As for what inspired MS, the BEOS taskbar is a possible source, but the two do behave differently. BeOS always groups; WinXP only groups when it needs the room.

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[oGMo]

Because when KDE copies, everyone benefits. It's Free Software. When Microsoft steals, Microsoft benefits. Simple as that.

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[Khalid]

This guy is probably doing what he can, and I owe him a big thanks ! but KDE definitly needs another set if icons, another style. KDE icons are probably it's the weakest point, this is too bad, as this is not a really difficult area, why won't KDE supporting compagnies like Suse or Mandrake hire a real graphic artist to create good looking, profesional icons !

Re:XPs interface is horrible

[be-fan]

Umm, BeOS had taskbar grouping long before either KDE or XP. And I don't think it was an original idea even then! Plus, I turn it off whenever possible. It is absolutely horrible to have to click twice to get that por... I mean to get to the window you want.

Hrm

[autopr0n]

When I first saw this, I thought it read "KDE 3 wins awards." And I'm like "KDE 3? kick ass..." Then I read it again and was a little dissapointed.

Damn you slashdot *shakes fist*!

Re:Hrm

[L-Wave]

funny, I did the same thing too.. *shakes fist at slashdot too*

KDE did copy windows, but windows copied KDE

[HanzoSan]

KDE created the grouped tasks feature that Microsoft stole in XP. I remember using this in KDE before XP even exsisted.

And KDE did use features from OSX, then again Microsoft copied OSX too, Face it everyone copies everyone, Microsoft stole from Apple who stole from Xerox. Fact is, Good features get copied.

Uh because you harddrive and CPU is slow

[HanzoSan]

The Start speed usually depends on the speed of your harddrive mostly, Get a faster one, KDE starts up a hell of a lot faster than WindowsXP, Sure KDE is slower than blackbox and Gnome at starting up, but as long as its faster than XP (its competition) then why are we worrying about this?

Powerful programs take longer to start up, the more powerful KDE becomes the longer it will take to start up, Upgrade your harddrive.

Re:Uh because you harddrive and CPU is slow

[aoty]

Sure KDE is slower than blackbox and Gnome at starting up, but as long as its faster than XP (its competition) then why are we worrying about this?

When comparing XP and KDE load times, sure, KDE comes out on top. But, KDE runs on top of other things, so that really isn't a fair comparison. If you compare the time from turning the power switch on until you have a workable desktop, XP wins handsdown on the same hardware. Granted, I never have to reboot my linux box... but that's a different subject altogether.

Stop complaining

[HanzoSan]

IF you dont want to use KDE, then use Enlightenment
no one forces you to use it

Double Edged Sword?

[CMBurns]

I think that KDE definitely deserves the awards, but OTOH I hope that this doesn't lead to a "we'll add even more cool features" mindset among the developers.

KDE is nowhere near Mozilla's release problems, but I fear that they could fall in the feature-pit, just as Mozilla.

Guys, add features thar are USEFUL TO MOST USERS, anything beyond that should be packaged as an add-on.

Resist the featuritis temptation, use the force!

OT: company LJ uses for hardware

[shani]

I followed the link to MonarchComputer.com site they used to build their "Ultimate Linux Box", and what did I see?

This site is best viewed in Internet Explorer 5.0 and above.

Yuck.

Adgreed

[Evil MarNuke]

Konqueror is very nice, I love it!!!

The only problem is flash broke when I fix OpenGL. The docs say don't use QT with OpenGL compiled, but the version I'm using isn't! Ugh!!

Other then that, I love it.

Well...

[Tharsis]

I haven't used Windows for a long time, and I'm liking it a lot!

KDE Release Schedule

[digitaltraveller]

Stay tuned. KDE 2.2.2 will be released on November 12th. It is a bugfix release for 2.2. KDE 3.0 Beta 1 should be out on December 3rd.

Re:KDE Release Schedule

[DeeKayWon]

Why wait that long? Do-it-yourself'ers can checkout the release from CVS right now. The release is monday because that gives the distros time to make RPMs. The KDE 2.2.2 release has been in CVS since Tuesday. Just do a cvs co -r KDE_2_2_2_RELEASE and compile. (Note: when I checked it out, I had to get the kde-common module and copy the admin directory to each module before running make -f Makefile.cvs)

Mandrake going down the drain

[simong]

Thank glub, I thought it was just me. I had to rebuild my laptop the other day and thought I'd upgrade to 'drake 8.1 while I was at it and spent a fruitless evening trying to install it from the CDs. Went back to 8.0 and everything is fine. Can't get KDE 2.2.1 to install from the 'net though (see, was a link to the subject).

Re:Mandrake going down the drain

[dash2]

I just last night installed Texstars KDE 2.2.1 for Mandrake 8.0: you can get it here

It uses objprelink and is damn fast. In particular networking is much faster (don't know if this is to do with objprelink): sending mails, getting web pages etc. all blaze.

And Texstar has put it all together nicely. All the rpms you need in one place (except netscape-plugins which you can get from the standard Mandrake 8.0 locations).

My particular itch was that Ctr+Backspace/Delete didn't delete whole words. This has now been fixed, and once I've got used to it, it'll increase my productivity a hella lot... Sometimes it's the little things that count.

Check it out.

SuSE got it too!

[Leimy]

I fell in love with SuSE 6.0 but haven't been very happy with it since. If I could only learn to get along with YAST! :) Maybe its time to try 7.3 for PPC! :)

Come on Guys!

[Garfunkel]

Why is this KDE centric?

A lot of things won awards. Yes KDE won 3, and good for them. But why does the story only include the KDE part. All the other awardees were surely deserving too.

So, I'm saying it. Caongratulations to ALL the entities who won awards from Linux Journal. You ALL deserve it. Keep up the good work!

Re:KDE is just a Windowsalike

[elflord]

Fine, but I don't want to use something that looks like Windows out of the box

Actually, it runs a "setup wizard" out of the box, and how it looks after that depends on your choices. My choices resulted in something that looked a lot like CDE.

and have to hack around for 30 mins trying to make it look like afterstep when I can just use afterstep itself!

Well of course. If you want to use afterstep, use afterstep. But don't pretend that KDE is like Windows.

A comparison of Linux IDEs

[Alrocket]

I like quiche.

IDE's can help find and resolve some problems a hell of a lot quicker than CLI tools. It can also generate quality code or program templates.

Before trolling again in such a cute manner, why don't you check out this and this.

Quick summary of the 2nd link:

How do some of the integrated development environments (IDEs) for Linux rate, especially when compared with old favorites like Emacs? And does Linux need IDEs at all? Sam Mikes dons his flameproof suit as he investigates this controversial topic, comparing Metrowerks's CodeWarrior, Cygnus's GNUPro Toolkit, and John Lindal's Code Crusader with XEmacs and Microsoft Visual Studio. (6,000 words)

rgds,
Al.

Re:A comparison of Linux IDEs

[Alrocket]

No, I mean "I like quiche". In case you are as dumb as you appear.

Real programmers don't eat quiche. Real programmers don't even know how to spell quiche; they eat Twinkies, Coke and palate-scorching Szechwan food.

Re:A comparison of Linux IDEs

[cduffy]

Plug enough extensions into Emacs, and it *is* an IDE -- it has all the same features, but gives us old-timers the warm-and-fuzzies. :)

Re:KDE is the environment of choice

[elflord]

Its ironic isn't it that people slag off Windows left right and center on here but bring out a WM on Linux that looks exactly like it

• KDE is not a window manager. It is (a) an application development framework, and (b) a suite of applications that uses that framework.
• Repeating these lies that KWM (not KDE, which, AGAIN, is not a Window Manager) "looks like Windows" won't make them come true. kwm is configurable and can be made to look like a whole bunch of different things. One of those things resembles Windows (but them, Windows doesn't have virtual desktops)

Hmmmm....

[rjamestaylor]

KDE gets awards...

Gnome gets RMS...

I think I'll still with KDE....

Re:Hmmmm....

[srvivn21]

Why "still with KDE" when you can "Stall(man) with Gnome"?

Okay. Bad joke. I couldn't resist.

Re:KDE is the environment of choice

[Junks Jerzey]

Repeating these lies that KWM (not KDE, which, AGAIN, is not a Window Manager) "looks like Windows" won't make them come true.

But it *does* look like Windows! Just looks at the screenshots of KDE 2.x at kde.org!

Re:Hah!

[GreatUnknown]

Lame? yes. Offtopic: no. Why do I get the impresstion that a certain moderator doesn't have a clue?

KDE2 -- It doesn't suck!

[hey!]

When I need to do something in a GUI, I make do with whatever I have to work with (notably Windows). But there is almost always under undercurrent of distraction. Even as dealing with the problems of a particular GUI become more reflex, often the GUI still gets in the way in thousands of tiny ways, drawing vital attention away from what you are doing. It saps small, but valuable quantities of productivity like unwanted friction in a machine.

This is why "eye-candy" is so contemptible. The last thing I need is already distracting software copping a "hey-look-at-me" attitude.

Recently, I installed Yellow Dog on a G4 tower we have at work, and installed KDE2 which came with it. I'd tried KDE1 and found it respectable, but after taking KDE2 for a spin I found something was missing in the eperience: the constant stream of petty irritations.

KDE2, amazingly, doesn't suck.

It looks good, but more importantly to me it is soothing to use. To be sure, there are still a few weak links in KDE2, particularly some of the bundled applications like KMail. But after so much continual improvement, it is as if KDE has reached a kind of usability boiling point. Below that point the improvements are marginal; at the boiling boint you have a kind of phase change in the user experience.

The Gnome people are improving their stuff rapidly too, so perhaps they'll reach that usability boiling point soon too. I hope so. I think in the end the competition between these groups (friendly or not) has really spurred improvements.

Re:KDE2 -- It doesn't suck!

[Westacular]

That's exactly the thoughts/feelings I had when I first used KDE 2.1 last January... it just works right and feels good. "Smooth" is definitely a good work to describe it.

KDE is great, but...

[42forty-two42]

On my video card and monitor, sometimes when I switch virtural consoles, X crashes; and X also sometimes crashes as it comes back up... I'd give details, but I can't remember them...

Re:KDE is the environment of choice

[elflord]

But it *does* look like Windows! Just looks at the screenshots of KDE 2.x at kde.org!

It's configurable. That means it can be made to look like windows. That's very different from saying it "does look like windows".

Re:KDE is just a Windowsalike

[Etriaph]

I'm pretty sure the first time I boot up GNOME all the widgets are gray. And one thing that you're confusing is window managers and desktop environments. You have to remember that all Afterstep does for you is provide a way to organize the applications you have running. KDE is much more than that. KDE has a panel that allows you to launch applications, but you are more than free not to use it. KDE is bundled with several advanced applications such as KDevelop, Konqueror, KMail, KWord, KOrganizer, Noatun and in KDE3 Quanta+ will be included. When you use Afterstep you get some menus and a dock. That's great if you're just going to IRC or GIMP about or maybe do a bit of coding. But if you "happen" to want to read HTML encoded email, or you want to browse the web with a fast browser whose libs are already in memory, or if you want to use applications that are capable of interprocess communication via dcop, or even if you just want to IRC and GIMP KDE provides it all to you.

It always bugs the hell out of me when people compare window managers to desktop environments. Then next thing you'll be doing is telling me that your boat is better than my car.

pathetic---junk software is what KDE is

[Anonymous Coward]

Konqueror has crashed so many times I don't use it anymore. And when it crashes, it brings down all of KDE eventually.

I simply refuse to run poorly designed software! Why should I, because it's trendy?
Do it right--from the start--PLEASE.

Unix was supposed to have saved us from these sorts of Microsoftisms.

Re:pathetic---junk software is what KDE is

[jonathan_ingram]

The only time I've had Konqueror crash (post KDE 2.0, which was a little fragile), I've been using the precompiled versions in Mandrake 8.0 or 8.1. I don't know what they've done to their distro, but they've really let their quality control recede recently.

When I've compiled KDE myself, everything has worked perfectly.

No it isn't

[Cro Magnon]

KDE 1.X was plenty fast, but butt-ugly.
KDE 2.0 was extremly slow, and much less stable than 1.X
KDE 2.1 was stable and not as slow as 2.0, but still way too slow.
KDE 2.2 looks the best of whole lot, but it's just as slow as 2.1.

Re:KDE is the environment of choice

[Junks Jerzey]

It's configurable. That means it can be made to look like windows. That's very different from saying it "does look like windows".

I don't mean the "skin" so much as I mean the choice of UI gadgets and the way they are arranged. Although some graphics are obviously Microsoft-influenced, like a picture of a wizard in a dialog that is certainly something attempting to be like Microsoft's "Wizards" feature (something I thought that was generally ill-thought of by usability experts, so I'm surprised to see it reproduced).

Flash support - Javascript?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Flash is a bitch too; I've got the netscape plugin but half the sites STILL do the double-popup begging you to buy Flash.

I'm not CERTAIN, but I think this may be due to the one place where Konqueror occasionally lets me down, and that's Javascript/ECMAscript support. I think that the sites that complain that you don't have Flash are using a javascript call to check which plugins you've got, and either that bit of javascript is bombing out or giving the "wrong" answers.

I haven't actually confirmed this, but it's the only reason I can think of. Javascript support IS improving, and I hear the KDE3 will have a new, rewritten javascript engine, but at the moment it's still the one place where I occasionally run into limitations.

(e.g. I can't play videos off of atomfilms.com any more, because the "play" button is linked to a javascript function to start up the play window, and it doesn't run...)

I just compiled 2.2.1...

[SaDan]

...and it works great.

Congrats to the KDE team for putting together such a wonderful package of applications!

I've got it running on a Slackware 8 box with QT 2.3.2. Great stuff, no problems at all with the install.

Not to start a GNOME vs KDE flame war...

[wrinkledshirt]

...but it's high time someone started a GNOME vs KDE flame war. ;)

Seriously, where's the beef, Miguel? What've your boys been up to?

1- Office Suite? Still waiting.

2- Flagship Browser? Still waiting.

3- Dedicated components architecture fully integrated with the environment and gone through several debugging stages? Still waiting.

4- Some sort of IDE tool above and beyond Glade? Still waiting.

5- Database application? Still waiting.

Meanwhile, KDE's been addressing all of these, three of them to the extent of winning awards.

Granted, KDE's not my tool of choice for a couple of the above (currently prefer Mozilla & wouldn't use Rekall over PostgreSQL anyway), and the promise of .NET compatibility intrigues me (sorry anti-MS folks, but it does), but it's been REALLY quiet on the Ximian front.

Anything we should know about?

Re:Not to start a GNOME vs KDE flame war...

[Garfunkel]

*cough* Evolution *cough*

Re:Not to start a GNOME vs KDE flame war...

[fault0]

*cough* kmail+kab+kpilot+korganizer *cough*
or *cough* Aethera *cough*
-me

Re:Not to start a GNOME vs KDE flame war...

[fault0]

*cough* if I wanted to use Outlook, i'd use Outlook *cough*

Re:Not to start a GNOME vs KDE flame war...

[damiam]

Okay, I'll bite. :-)

• Office Suite - I greatly prefer GNOME Office(Abiword+Gnumeric+Sodipodi+Gimp) to Koffice. Admittedly, Achtung does have a ways to go compared to KPresenter. However, you can always use OpenOffice, which is sponsored by pro-GNOME Sun and is supposed to be converted to GTK in the (far) future.

• Flagship browser - Galeon is fast, stable, and has some really cool features, such as smart bookmarks and MyPortal.

• Component architecture - Bonobo is heavily used in Evolution, Gnumeric, and Nautilus and it works just as well as KParts.

• IDE tool beyond Glade - Glade isn't an IDE tool, it's a GUI design tool, and it rocks at what it does. If you want an IDE, use Glimmer, Anjuta, or gIDE.

• Database application - You're right, GNOME does lack a good database app, but, as you admit, so does KDE.

Meanwhile, Evolution whoops Kmail's ass, and Nautilus with embedded Galeon and a few more speed enhancements will leave Konqueror sitting in the dust.

Re:Yee-Haaa!

[friedmud]

Wow - nice link!

I have never read that before. It is an interesting read while you are using KDE. You sit there and read "and have a clock in the bottom right with the date next to it" and you look down in the bottom right of your screen and there it is - very eerie that this guy new how he wanted all of this stuff all the way back in 96 and now look at what KDE has become.

This project is a complete success. I applaud all those who work on it - and give me a nice stable cohesive environment to work in every day.

Thanks!

Derek

Re:KDE is just a Windowsalike

[iomud]

yet KDE itself looks like the spitting image of Windows..

And windows who stole from apple... etc etc just dont bring it up next time. We can trace these things back to the origins of computing and find that in the end, none of it matters, but it sure makes for an insightful comment on slashdot.

Glad

[commonchaos]

I'm personaly glad, I have been impressed with KDE... I like the clean interface... heck it looks almost as good as XP...

Re:KDE is the environment of choice

[elflord]

I don't mean the "skin" so much as I mean the choice of UI gadgets and the way they are arranged.

I haven't seen anyone succesfully demonstrate that kwin is any more like Windows than it is like (for example) CDE. Desktop icons and bars are not unique to Windows, and weren't invented by Microsoft.

Re:KDE is the environment of choice

[fault0]

actually, it's more of a combination of windows, beos, macos, and even nextstep.

if you actually USED it, you'd realize this.

taskbar grouping

[posmon]

actually, the first place i remember seeing a taskbar was back in '88(?) in riscos on the acorn archimedes series of computers.

taskbar grouping (of a kind) was also sort of implemented in that you usually had just the one icon on the taskbar for each application, irrespective of how many documents/windows it had open

it also had some lovely features, such as the ability to give a window the input focus or move it around whilst keeping it's z position in the window 'stack'; something i really miss in windows even now.

Re:KDE is the environment of choice

[be-fan]

is typing "cd , tar -xvf "
really such an effort?
>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;
No, but

rm -rf etc/X11/applnk/Internet/sylpheed.desktop
rm -rf /usr/bin/sylpheed
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/ABOUT-NLS
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/COPYING
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/ChangeLog
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/ChangeLog.jp
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/INSTALL
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/INSTALL.jp
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/README
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/README.jp
rm -rf /usr/share/doc/sylpheed-0.6.5/TODO.jp
...
is more work that
urpme sylpheed

My thoughts on KDE

[PlaysWithMatches]

Nobody cares, but here goes. :)

KDE, in its current state, is really a remarkable piece of software. The fact that all this was built by our community in such a relatively short span of time is nothing short of incredible. It took Microsoft much longer to stea-- I mean, innovate, Windows. And here we have KDE, which can meet and exceeds many aspects of Microsoft's cash cow.

That said, KDE does have some flaws, obviously. There are lots of little areas that need work, but they are getting improved at a very pleasing rate. Inconsistences in the interface are disappearing, the overall look and feel of KDE is very solid, and some really awesome features have been added. Not to mention Konqueror, which deserves special mention on its own - a speedy, standards-compliant browser developed in such short time, and comparable to anything Opera/Mozilla/whoever can dish out.

KDE isn't perfect, but it's a true testament to what the OSS community can achieve. *raises his RC Cola can* Here's to the continued success and innovation of KDE, GNOME, and all the other projects that have given us so much in such a small amount of time.