KDE 2.2.2

loopkin writes: "Seems that the last KDE 2 is out. KDE 2.2.2 is faster and more stable and secure than 2.2.1, as stated in the Changelog. You will appreciate the trick that makes the icons load 5% faster in particular. Announcement is here. Please use mirrors for download, but original FTP is here. Note as well that maybe for the first time, there are _official_ RH packages for a _stable_ release (7.2)."

Comments

Question

[Griim]

I do have Xwindows installed on my box, but I only run it on occasion. When I do, I usually run it with WindowMaker to avoid the overhead of larger things like KDE/Gnome. This is just an old p90 w/ 40 megs of RAM, would it be able to hack KDE? I keep hearing all these great things about it, what are it's limits? Anyone running it on a similar setup?

Re:Question

[hattig]

No, it won't hack KDE.

My PII 266 with 64MB RAM (laptop) cannot hack KDE. It could if I had more memory in it though - 128MB is the minimum for KDE in my experience. I just need to find a cheap source of proprietary laptop memory...

Honestly, WindowMaker is great - keep using it.

Re:Question

[mirko]

Though I am running Linux on a PentiumIII laptop, I also avoid KDE for the following reasons:

• Some cryptic error messages boxes which remind me of Windows'GPF...
  
• My laptop boot Linux in 30 seconds, then it needs 45 seconds to load KDE2.
  

I am now using WindowMaker too and seeing it up and running in 3 seconds (including the numerous applets I use) is really damn satisfying.

There are many good ideas behind KDE, for example it has been the best one when it came to deal accurately with furious trackpad moves while scratching over MP*s.

But I reckon it doesn't fit on a laptop which is supposed to be switched on and off quite often, hence losing some precious productive time waiting for a GUI to be up and ready.

I know I may not have understodd with question but just consider that KDE may also be problematic on "recent" hardware.

Re:Question

[michael]

It would be very slow. KDE on a Pentium-233 with 64Mb of RAM is sluggish but usable. Move up to a Celeron-333 and 128Mb of RAM and it's perfectly usable. But moving down to a P-90 and 40Mb.... I don't know. You might find it pretty painful to use.

Re:Question

[AdamInParadise]

Well it runs perfectly on my PII 266 laptop, with 64M. I guess that "snappiness" is a higly subjective experience.

Re:Question

[hattig]

It might be the speed of the hard drive, and dealing with swap. If your swap drive is fast enough, then it will feel faster. However, i am using the original 4GB drive that came with the laptop (HP Omnibook 4100) so I expect that it isn't the best drive for performance...

However, I cannot deal with the 10 seconds it takes to change applications on the laptop. It might be a Mandrake 8.1 thing though, or maybe a kernel upgrade might help (better VM), or maybe I shouldn't run KDE (although I like Konqueror, Kate, and KMail, so I may as well run it all as all the libraries will be in memory anyway!).

It isn't the speed of the processor that is the problem though - it is snappy when you are using a single app that is in memory. I suspect that if the guy's PC was upgraded to 128MB of memory from 40MB, then it would be reasonably usable with a bare theme...

Re:Question

[zulux]

You'r a smart guy - run down to a local Goodwill/Salvation Army and get a newer computer. Even if it's just a Pentium 200, the savings in your time would justify it's $50 cost in a few months. Quite frankly, KDE on a p90 would suck, I'd stick to emacs myslef.

Re:Question

[Griim]

Umm...savings?

You mean, to run down there, look through their stuff, determine what's not broken/breaking, get it home, rebuild the thing so it meets my specific needs, unplug my current one (which is also acting as my firewall/router/gateway/webserver, hook it all up, cross my fingers and hope it boots the first time...just to try KDE, and move up 100 MHz?

I know you meant well, but I just wanted to maybe try a new window manager...

Re:Question

[zulux]

A Followup to explain myself:

A lot of older technology is just fune - a car form the 1970's can keep up with trafic, and an kitchen stove from 1960's may even be better than a modern one. But a refrigerator from the 1970's is almost twice as inefficent as a moden one, and the price a new one will be quickly recuouped through electrical bill savings. Computers are a technology that isn't stagnating, and an increase of speed saves you time. Time, truly, is one of the most important tings to save; it's you life.

Re:Question

[grytpype]

You have the right idea for sure... just run WindowMaker, and if you want to run an occasional KDE or Gnome app, just run it. Forget about that "desktop" idiom B.S., that's just an over-the-hill paradigm that isn't worth the extra overhead to run.

I mean, I just got a 1.2 GHz Athlon box, and I have no intention of giving up my nice, barebones WM desktop. It's perfect.

Re:Question

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I have KDE2.2.1 running on an old Toshiba 4015 with 96 Meg-O-RAM. Really it does run fine. A bit sluggish, admittidly. But I'm using MDK's RPM's. It'd probably run better with an -O3...

Re:Question

[Funky Jester]

I occasionally run KDE on my P200MMX, and it seems to run pretty decently. I do have 256 mb of RAM in the thing, though. I found that when I had 48 mb of RAM in the machine, it ran really, really slow, but now it's actually pretty decent.
So make sure you have a lot of RAM.

Oh yeah, I'm also running it entirely over the network using an X-server on my P200 winNT machine (yes, I'm still using all old tech :P)

Re:Question

[aquarian]

An even newer Pentium II/III system would be cheaper- by the time you put enough RAM in it to run KDE. RAM for Pentium I is really expensive- about $1/MB. To run KDE well, plus an app or two, you need 128MB. In fact the processor speed makes little difference, but the RAM sure will. That's really the problem with an older system. It probably doesn't have enough RAM, and it's not worth it to upgrade.

Re:Question

[be-fan]

64MB with KDE-2? So I take it that you're dead. Because that's the only way anybody could consider KDE-2 running on 64MB of RAM to be snappy. And I bet you thing the lines at the DMV run at lightning speed too?

Re:Question

[fault0]

I've done it before, more than a year ago, and it felt snappy. And it was a 48mb machine (PowerComputing PowerTower Pro 200, which was a PowerPC 603e Macintosh clone). Note that it was KDE 1.9.x, which was KDE 2.0-alpha and beta. Not only that, but the computer had slow ram, and a pretty slow hd. Also, X wasn't accelerated. Even so, KDE felt more snappy than GNOME with Enlightenment.

It took forever to compile (about 2 days), but it worked. Unfortunatly, it broke within a few days :/, and so I used Blackbox for about a year, until I got a new box.

Re:Question

[5foot2]

Dude your comp is older than dirt. If you ever want to use the current kde stuff, and enjoy it. You'll need more horsepower.

Oh and I see no reason to not spend the $50, setup the new comp to just try KDE. There is no reason to pull down your current setup, it can still act as a firewall/gateway/router/webserver/pr0n_archive with the new comp in play.

Re:Question

[Adam Wiggins]

If you think that, then you haven't really used KDE. As a person who didn't even start using X until a few years ago (console mode gave me everything I wanted), I know exactly where you are coming from.

Let me tell you a few of the features in KDE that make me vastly more productive, and which I feel crippled without.

• Alt-F2 to run programs.
• Alt-F2, then type in a URL (eg, slashdot.org) to launch Konquerer, instead of the slow process of clicking on the icon, then clicking in the URL bar, then typing the URL and pressing enter.
• Alt-F2, then type "gg:linux" to do a Google search, "dict:pedantic" to look something up in the dictionary, or "fm:tclink" to look up an entry on Freshmeat.
• Klipper, for cut-n-paste history. I mean really, how does anyone live without this?
• KPrint/KUPS, which makes printer setup a SNAP - something UNIX has needed for a very long time. I just _love_ the ability to print from any application directly to a PDF.
• The ability to drag URLs to my desktop, for "quick access" bookmarks.
• A dock panel that I can configure by dragging icons around instead of editing configuration files or using some sort of external GUI config tool.
• Easy to configure keyboard shortcuts for everything. X Windows (much like the Macintosh) has always been over-reliant on the mouse. KDE can be driven 100% from the keyboard, like Windows - but even better, because you can make hotkeys for actions like Windows minimize. (I use Alt-F1.)
• File browser - not something I really use, but many people love it. I like to use it for browsing pictures on my digital camera because of the image preview.
• KMix, which makes it really easy to adjust sound volume at any time.
• Konsole, which has the ability to open multiple terminals inside one window. Switch between them with Alt-LeftArrow and Alt-RightArrow.
• The KDE control panel. Just look at it, it's great. What other control panel lets you configure your kernel compilation parameters?
• Apps, apps, apps! KOffice is very cool all around (though KPresenter is the only thing that is yet equivilent in features to other office suites). Konquerer for web browsing, KYahoo for chatting, Kreate for burning CDs, KMail for reading mail, Node for reading news, KScheduler for tracking appointments and sending automated reminders, Personal Time Tracker for keeping track of those consulting hours, the list goes on...apps are what the desktop is all about, and KDE has them in spades.

I spent many years using WMs such as CDE, Afterstep (1.0 is the only good version, IMO), WindowMaker, BlackBox, and so forth. I have also used GNOME quite a bit, as well as MacOS, various flavors of Windows, and so on. None of them made me want to give up my console (though in some cases I had to because I was doing web design or something). But with KDE, I don't miss the console at all.

Re:Question

[Mullen]

But a refrigerator from the 1970's is almost twice as inefficent as a moden one, and the price a new one will be quickly recuouped through electrical bill savings

In many cases, the local eletric company will give you a steep discount with leading brand name if you tell them you have an old refrigerator. Same goes for low flow toliets. If you have the old 9 gallon toliets, the local water company will almost pay for new low-flows.

Just a small side note.

Thanks

[miracle69]

A hearty Thank-You to the programmers of KDE for their time and effort.

Objprelink?

[LinuxGeek8]

How is Objprelink doing?
I heard building with objprelink enabled can cause khtml and kjs to crash more often. So it trades speed for stability.
Is it still the case?

Re:Objprelink?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do mean of course:

"So it trades stability for speed."

Don't you? Otherwise you are saying that objprelink makes KDE slower but more stable.

Re:Objprelink?

[LinuxGeek8]

Yes, that's what I meant :)
I was doubting about it whilt typing it. Guess I did get it wrong then. hmm.

Re:Objprelink?

[biftek]

I compiled it all with objprelink a few months ago, and it all worked nicely, and seemed to improve in speed (but that's always subjective and hard to tell).

However I tried compiling again a week ago, and everything segfaulted. Reason being that I had apt-get updated to more recent g++ libc etc from woody.

However someone did mention that recent binutils includes something which attempts to do similar, but in a more "proper" way, so supposedly there isn't really a need for objprelink...

Anyone who knows more than me want to comment about it?

Re:Objprelink?

[bero-rh]

prelink works better (if your ld.so and binutils support it), and fixes the whole problem rather than just adding a workaround for the specific case of KDE.

Re:Objprelink?

[swright]

Hi bero, I'm having a play with prelink, but having a few troubles - is there a web site or FAQ for it anywhere, I'm sure others will be having similar troubles

(it cant prelink some stuff.../usr/sbin/prelink: /lib/i686/libc.so.6: Could not parse `lookup 0x40000000 0x00007114 -> 0x40000000 0x00132b14 /0 _nl_current_LC_CTYPE')

Thanks

Re:Objprelink?

[AirLace]

No, actually you were not wrong; the AC was. According to the OED, the verb "to trade" has equally used interchangeable meanings of "to sell" or "to buy" in this context, and the preposition "for" also has no specific connotations of recievership or otherwise. Thus the phrase "it trades speed for stability" is in fact utterly ambiguous, but also not wrong. Take peoples' advice regarding grammar, but always make sure that you come to your own conclusions before apologising for nothing.

Meanwhile, I will return to uploading my KDE 2.2.2 packages into Debian unstable. It should be apt-gettable within a couple of hours, as the KDE folks were good enough to allow time for packaging before announcing the release. We're not to be upstaged by these RedHat packages :-)

Re:Objprelink?

[Seli]

I hope you don't use the rpm, but compile the sources. The rpm (prelink-0.1.3) is awfully old and buggy. And you of course need recent binutils and patched glibc.

Re:Objprelink?

[swright]

damn. exactly why I wanted a web site and/or background info.

I installed the RPM - havent really noticed much difference (and upgraded to KDE2.2.2 a few hours after so no fair comparison anyway)...

In fairness, I wasnt even going to install it until I saw it was bero who posted the link (he packages KDE for RedHat doesnt he?). A sobering thought when I realised I was taking some random RPM off the net and installing it as root...

Re:A feature to make many switch.

[brunes69]

The crossov rplugin has nothing t all to do with KDe... it's a Netscape/Mozilla plugin. It does work in Konqueror, but the KDe team had nothing to do with it.

You're thinking about reaktivate, which is the KPart in KDE-CVS which does essentially the same as the crossove plugin (runs windows AcitveX controls ), but with one big difference - its free, as in beer and speech. It's nowhere near ready for primetime yet though (I don't even think its planned for release with KDE 3.

Upgrade requirements?

[imrdkl]

I've just started using KDE, I think it's 2.1 (default with RH 7.1). If I build and install the latest, are all KDE tools and toys rebuilt at the same time? What, if any, dependencies are there? If all tools are not replaced, will the older ones be compatible?

I guess I could answer all this on the release notes/install docs, but if it's really easy, maybe more of us amatuers would try the upgrade.

Re:Upgrade requirements?

[PhoboS]

Just get the latest kde rpms from the rawhide dir on the RedHat ftp. When attempting to install those you will be told which other packages to upgrade, and you can get those as well from there.

Re:Upgrade requirements?

[Anonymous Coward]

er, make sure you remove your 2.1 install FIRST ('rpm -qa | grep kde' to find them, then: 'rpm -e --nodeps rpmname.rpm' to remove each one)

The reason for this is that RedHat likes to put stuff in weird places - if you compile/install a straight KDE over the top you'll end up with a dodgy mismatch of components from each version - and itll be unstablle.

(this is what happened to me anyways...)

Are 5% speedup noticable ?

[willamowius]

My general rule of thumb ist that a speedup below 30% for GUI applications isn't noticed by the user.

Did anyone try KDE 2.2.2, yet ?

Re:Are 5% speedup noticable ?

[Nicolas MONNET]

" My general rule of thumb ist that a speedup below 30% for GUI applications isn't noticed by the user. "

Are you sure? What about a 200% speedup that happens 5% of the time ... on average it's much less than 30% speedup ...

Re:Are 5% speedup noticable ?

[loopkin]

i did... the 5% speedup is only for the icons. as a whole, the 2.2.2 is much faster than 2.2.1, and it is noticeable (using RH 7.2 packages - i don't know if they were objprelink-build - Bero, if you read me, how did u build those packages ?)

Re:Are 5% speedup noticable ?

[bero-rh]

(using RH 7.2 packages - i don't know if they were objprelink-build - Bero, if you read me, how did u build those packages ?)

They aren't built with objprelink because I consider objprelink a crude hack.

prelink is a much nicer solution (it does prelinking for the whole system, not just the KDE libraries), and you can't use both at the same time.

No unusual tweaks applied to the packages... But they were built with a newer compiler (gcc 2.96-100), maybe Jakub added some optimizations on the compiler side, as well.

Re:Are 5% speedup noticable ?

[taniwha]

I'd agree - any years ago when people were just starting to build 2d graphics accelerators I was architecting them for one of the Mac companies ... one of the things that became obvious pretty soon was that subjective and objective performance is very different - objective stuff like mega-pixels/sec is great for marketing people to argue about but subjective stuff is in many ways more important.

I became convinced that subjective speed sort of lived on an S-shaped curve - on the left the curve is flat, things are terrilbly slow and making stuff faster doesn't much reduce the user's frustration level, at some point you hit the middle of the curve, this seems to be a log-based region - you need to make the accelerator roughly 10x faster for the user to experience a perceptualy better increase in performance (this is the area where you can compete for accelerator performance in the marketplace), eventually you hit another flat region where the user experience is 'fast enough' and they don't much care or notice if they are faster (this is the region where marketting people argue about pixel-rates or triangles/sec etc).

Things are a little different for the 3d world - the top-end flat region exists for any particular game - for example it doesn't do quake much good to do 100fps if the display hardware can only do 85 or 75. On the other hand you can trade off frame rate for quality (but remember there's a relatively fixed number of pixels on the screen you only have to get them right to do a 'perfect' rendering.

Good grief!

[ebcdic]

"You will appreciate the trick that makes the icons load 5% faster in particular" - how can it possibly be so slow that you can notice a 5% improvement in icon loading speed??? What's it doing, hiring graphic designers to draw them?

Re:Good grief!

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't found a description of the trick to appreciate yet - I was expecting some cunning algorithm or something that would be interesting to read about...

Re:Good grief!

[DGolden]

It's not particularly interesting - they've just centralised the icon database into a server, so that all the applications don't perform the same searches of (possibly very long and crowded on the system of someone who likes eye-candy) icon directories - now the server only has to walk the search path once, and applications ask it for the icons.

Re:Good grief!

[floodle]

Hmmm. I upgraded KDE from 2.2.1 to 2.2.2 on my system (Mandrake 8.1 x86) and now all of my KDE-related icons will not display at all. Icons for gnome apps are fine, but there is not a KDE one to be found. Any ideas?

Re:Good grief!

[Seli]

No. Actually the 5% speedup is caused by explicitly telling the Qt load routine the image type (i.e. png or xpm), so it doesn't have to find out itself. The icon server is under development.

Re:Good grief!

[DGolden]

Oh. I thought they'd finished the icon server.

Re:Good grief!

[dfaure]

Simply skipping the "guessing the image format" code of QImage::QImage(), passing the name of the image format, since we know it from the icon's filename extension.
Nothing spectacular, sorry.

The rest of the fixes are much more important IMHO, dunno why everyone's picking on that one.

Re:A feature to make many switch.

[sconest]

It's CodeWeavers , not CodeWarrior .
But both make great products.

This is excellent news

[r.suzuka]

I will be honest, perhaps up until this release, KDE was simply too slow for me to use. My computer is a Pentium 200 MMX laptop with 144 MB of RAM. I recently installed serveral different types of Linux (including Red Hat, Debian and others) and unfortunately I discovered that the Window managers I wished to use were all too slow.

In fact, I am currently running Windows 2000 on this laptop, not because of desire but because I have not yet found a Linux GUI that will run fast enough and offer the features that I desire.

Can anyone tell me of a distribution that will quickly incorporate this new version of KDE? I want to try it in the very near future, but to tell you the truth, I am not skilled enough to install it myself yet. However, I wish to learn. Thank you for your recommendation.

R. Suzuka

Re:This is excellent news

[Anonymous Coward]

Install RedHat 7.2, then download the RPMs for KDE2.2.2, and then do "rpm -U filename.rpm" to upgrade to KDE 2.2.2.

Or install Debian, and do an apt-get.

Or install FreeBSD and install it from the ports, where it should appear within the next 3 or 4 days.

Re:This is excellent news

[debrain]

Consider a distribution optimized for a modern processor, such as Mandrake. Or consider using a BSD ports collection to compile it optimized for your machine (The LinuxFromScratch.org page has some good tips on optimized compiling).

I recommend getting and installing OpenBSD or NetBSD for the educational experience, but as for a desktop it's fairly obtuse. But for a learning experience, it's a fabulous way to find out what exactly your OS is doing, particularly if you are uncomfortable with it. FreeBSD is a larger target and frankly is just plain faster than most of the BSD's, but a more cluttered install (but still generally simpler/cleaner than the SystemV systems' design).

For KDE, if you do get a BSD (or Gentoo Linux) you can download and compile everything pretty much transparently, plus you can optimize quite a bit by appealing to a modern processor's optimizations. You, if so inclined, can even get the Intel compiler (which optimizes quite well for Athlon's too, I might add), which has numerous significant gains over GCC, but it does break hefty things like glibc and the kernel. (but so does optimizing glibc and the kernel with gcc).

Re:This is excellent news

[DarrylM]

I'd recommend installing the KDE RPMs, if you are using distro that supports RPMs. Basically, as root, RPMs can be installed by using

rpm -ivh [filename]

Then download and compile the kdelibs source, using ./configure with the --disable-debug option. Read the README file that come with the source for a better description of how to compile.

Among other things, this recompiles the aRts sounds server library, which was terribly slow and made sounds skip a lot (for me) in the RPM version of 2.2.1. Now I can play mp3s without skipping! Konqueror now also seems to run as fast as IE5.5 does on my Windows partition.

Be prepared, though, for the compile - on my 233MMX, it took roughly 6 hours.

Re:This is excellent news

[be-fan]

I doubt KDE 2.2.2 will be *that* much better than 2.2.1. Certainly not enough to bridge the gap between KDE and Win2K in terms of performance. Linux, however, does have faster things to offer than KDE. Right now, I'm running IceWM with mostly GTK+ (and the occasional GNOME) applications. GTK+/GNOME seems to be a whole lot faster (on my machine anyway, 300MHz 256MB GeForce2 MX) and more responsive (especially in load time and resizing) than Qt/KDE-2. For example, starting a new Galeon window takes much less time than starting a new Konqueror window. Also, I can resize Sylpheed and AbiWord and Gnumeric without excessive rubber-banding, while KMail, KWord, and KSpread are significantly "springier." None of it is quite Win2K yet, but its almost there. Maybe it's even better on a faster machine.

If you chose to go the Linux/GNOME route, here are several hints:

1) Stay away from GNOME like the plague. Apps that use gnome-libs (like Galeon or Eye of GNOME) are for the most part fine, but actually running gnome-session (with the toolbar and control panel and whatnot) and Sawfish slows everything down enormously. Instead, use a fast window manager (IceWM, Blackbox, Window Maker, or even XFce) and GNOME apps.

2) Choose the GTK+ apps over the gtk+gnome apps. GTK+ apps tend to be more mature and snappier than their gnome counterparts. Specifically, Sylpheed is (IMO) a better mail client than Balsa, and GQView works better than Eye of GNOME. Also, ROX-Filer is the fastest Linux GUI application I have ever seen and you should try it out instead of going with the usual gmc.

3) You really have to tweek your system. Linux doesn't come nearly as well optimized as Windows out of box. Mainly, it boils down to making fonts look nice, making sure that X runs at a priority of -10, and setting up the Linux kernel to use preemption and low-latency patches. I've decided to write a HOWTO for this, it should be up here in a few days.

4) Use a good distro. I like Mandrake 8.x because it lets you install the XFS filesystem from the beginning, its i586 optimized, and its good about keeping packages up to date. Also, its urpmi tool mitigates many (but not all!) of the advantages Debian/APT has over the RPM-based distros. No matter what the distro, go minimalist. Install only the software you need and don't choose the bloated default installs. Also make sure you trim your startup so stuff that you don't need (like sendmail) doesn't get run when you start the computer.

Re:This is excellent news

[aquarian]

It's true that the lightweight window managers w/ Gnome apps are faster. However, on a reasonably modern machine, I have no complaints with the speed of KDE. It might not be quite as snappy as Windows, but that's really splitting hairs, and I so prefer KDE in every other way.

I'm with you all the way on Mandrake, it's the best. However, I'm leery of that i586 optimization. That means Pentium I, and on everything else, it would probably run slower than plain-old i386. Since most of us are running Pentium II/III systems now, what's the point?

About tweaking- the biggest difference will come from the really basic stuff, like making sure your hard drive has 32-bit access and DMA turned on, and that you're using a late version of XFree86, with the right video settings. A lot of distributions still flub this stuff on installation, and you have to fix it later. Mandrake 8.1 has given me no problems of this sort yet, though previous versions did. A couple of Redhat installs I did recently resulted in horribly slow systems. But rather than spend an hour messing with them, I just reinstalled- with Mandrake!

The only Linux I've seen that's 686(?) optimized is one called Gentoo, which has its own, offbeat packaging system. If processor optimization really means anything, it's high time Mandrake got on the PII/III bandwagon.

Re:This is excellent news

[be-fan]

A couple of points:

Actually, i586 optimization tends to run just as fast i686 optimization for most things. i386 optimization is just slightly slower. None of it matters much anyway, since GCC really doesn't optimize very well for x86 anyway (not even GCC 3.x so far, unfortunately)

Second, 32bit access and DMA are really important. Still, there are lots of things one can do to make everything smoother. The preemption patches (with the low-latency patches to break up some long spinlocks) do wonders for response under load. Before using the patches, the mouse cursor would skip in X whenever the disk got accessed, or whenever Galeon rendered a page. Now, I can run a compile in the background and flail the cursor like mad without having it skip. Also, custom compiling your kernel with only the needed options will gain you a couple of points.

As for Gentoo, its a very nice system. However, compiling programs all the time becomes a pain. If only they updated their binary packages more often. They're also the only Linux distro that has guys with any asthetic. Check out the graphics on www.gentoo.org and compare them to the cheesy purple icons in Mandrake...

Re:This is excellent news

[be-fan]

1) The phony link was /. screwing with my post. The real link is home.mindspring.com/~heliosc/linux_setup.html.

2) I never said anything about GNOME being quicker. GNOME (Nautilus, Evolution, and all that) is hideously slow. gnome-session slows everything down infinately. However, the applications themselves (run on something like IceWM) are fast. Glimmer, for example, is much faster than Kate. Sodipodi is faster than Kontour. AbiWord dialogues respond instantly while KWord dialogues take their sweet time.

3) I also said you should avoid GNOME apps if there are GTK+ counterparts available. Sylpheed, for example, blows KMail out of the water in terms of speed. Skipstone has an edge on Konqueror, and ROX-Filer makes everything else bow down and cringe.

4) GTK+ *is* faster than Qt. Try resizing any KDE program. You'll see a grey boarder before the app resizes its view and draws them in. Most GTK+ apps flicker when being resized, but redraw with much less drama.

Re:This is excellent news

[fault0]

I've not noticed any of this on my computer, Qt and GTK seem to be the same speed, and GNOME and KDE compare pretty much in speed (except that Nautilus is slower than Konqi).

But then again, I have a modern computer (1.2ghz Athlon-C).

Realistically, KDE 3 and GNOME 2 will be slower than KDE 2.x and GNOME 1.x. Sorry, but this is simply evolution as CPU speed ramps up. However, I have noticed that Win2k is speedier on my box than either GNOME or KDE. However, Win2k is old. WinXP is not noticebly faster than either of the current versions of KDE or GNOME.

Re:This is excellent news

[fault0]

I think optimizations and such matter on old CPUs, but not on modern ones.

I'm using Debian GNU/Linux, which is optimizated for absolutly nothing (other than using objprelink in their KDE packages). Also, I am using a drive and chipset that is really buggy with DMA, so I leave it off (IBM DeskStar with a VIA KT133A). Both KDE and GNOME run pretty zippy on my box (1.2ghz athlon).

Re:This is excellent news

[be-fan]

Actually, KDE 3.x will be faster than 2.x, according to the developers anyway. Also, its not GNOME vs KDE here. I am talking GTK+ vs KDE. If you don't run an actual GNOME desktop, GNOME apps whip KDE apps speedwise. Just go download Sylpheed and compare it to KMail. If you can't tell the difference, then you have infinate amounts of patience.

There should be no corrolation between age and CPU usage, only between features and CPU usage. Win2K might be older, but it has just as many features while being faster. That implies that the free software community cannot outcode Microsoft (which, I think, I something that they would rather not imply). Also, WinXP, while having more features than Win2K, is *faster* than Win2K. Why is it that the "evolution" of Microsoft software includes increases in speed while the "evolution" of GNOME and KDE don't?

Re:This is excellent news

[fault0]

> Actually, KDE 3.x will be faster than 2.x, according to the developers anyway.

That was said between KDE 1.x and KDE 2.x too. It may have been true initially, but probably will not be true later on. I don't think KDE 3.3 will be faster than KDE 2.3.

> Also, its not GNOME vs KDE here. I am talking GTK+ vs KDE. If you don't run an actual GNOME desktop, GNOME apps whip KDE apps speedwise. Just go download Sylpheed and compare it to KMail. If you can't tell the difference, then you have infinate amounts of patience.

I've used both, they seem pretty similiar in speed. However, KDE apps do seem to start slower when not in the KDE environment. However, I notice no speed difference in the actually performance of the programs.

> There should be no corrolation between age and CPU usage, only between features and CPU usage. Win2K might be older, but it has just as many features while being faster.

Yes, because it has tighter integration with the core of the OS. You really can't beat that easily.

> That implies that the free software community cannot outcode Microsoft (which, I think, I something that they would rather not imply). Also, WinXP, while having more features than Win2K, is *faster* [cnet.com] than Win2K.

WinXP has *some* things that are faster than Win2k, but there are plenty of reviews out there that say that WinXP is actually slower than Win2k. I've noticed this myself. To be fair to WinXP, it adds things like being skinnable, which makes it naturally slower than Win2k.

> Why is it that the "evolution" of Microsoft software includes increases in speed while the "evolution" of GNOME and KDE don't?

Nope.. evolution of all software almost always goes down in speed. this is offset by faster computers. win3.1 > win95 > win98 > win2k > winXP in speed. Whatever Microsoft has in store for the future will be slower than winXP.

Re:This is excellent news

[be-fan]

Yes, because it has tighter integration with the core of the OS. You really can't beat that easily.
>>>>>>>>>
Then how do you explain the fact that ROX is as fast as Explorer? XFree 4.x is *not* slower than Windows/GDI. In fact, for many things, like image blitting, its as fast as DirectX. Also, the integration thing is overblown. Most Windows apps run quickly, and you can't tell me that they all have tight integration with the core OS! Its just that Linux desktops have too many performance sapping paradigms. Take, for example, XUL. Parsing a text file to display a GUI? Are you insane! Then the use of CORBA instead of something nice and fast like COM. There are lots of KDE/GNOME features that make computer nerds cream, but do nothing except sap the performance of users' machines.

WinXP has *some* things that are faster than Win2k, but there are plenty of reviews out there that say that WinXP is actually slower than Win2k. I've noticed this myself. To be fair to WinXP, it adds things like being skinnable, which makes it naturally slower than Win2k.
>>>>>>>>>>>
I don't think so. Most of the reviews I've seen that say XP is slower are pased on the Release Candidates. XP sped up a *lot* between the those and the gold release.

That was said between KDE 1.x and KDE 2.x too. It may have been true initially, but probably will not be true later on. I don't think KDE 3.3 will be faster than KDE 2.3.
>>>>>>>>>
But KDE 2.2.x is *faster* than KDE 2.0.x! That's the KDE develoment model. Big features, then incremental quality improvements.

Nope.. evolution of all software almost always goes down in speed. this is offset by faster computers. win3.1 > win95 > win98 > win2k > winXP in speed. Whatever Microsoft has in store for the future will be slower than winXP.
>>>>>>>>>
Its really not like that all the time. There are tons of programs that don't keep getting slower. Photoshop, for example, has been pretty much the same since 4.x. 3D Studio keeps getting faster. KDE 2.2.x keeps getting faster. It does slow down over time, but the stuff you see in the Linux world is *much* more dramatic than the same in the Windows world.

Re:This is excellent news

[MisterPo]

I am in a similar situation to yourself.
Currently, on my travels, I have a Dell P2-300 with 128Mb. I found that Win2000 run better, was more stable and was *smaller*?!?! than most distros. I resorted to using Windowmaker, I could not stand the slowness of KDE and Gnome.

That was until I used Mandrake 8.0. Now its quite good in fact and even my GF likes it :) I believe that this distro is optimised for i686 architecture....

Its strange but as Linux distro matures it seems to be developing a bloat that seems to associated with M$ stuff......

Regards,

Po

Re:This is excellent news

[Progoth]

1) The phony link was /. screwing with my post. The real link is home.mindspring.com/~heliosc/linux_setup.html.

no, it was you not knowing basic html. if you want to link to an external site, you have to prefix your address with http://

Re:This is excellent news

[Progoth]

I don't think so. Most of the reviews I've seen that say XP is slower are pased on the Release Candidates. XP sped up a *lot* between the those and the gold release.

I take it you haven't actually used xp....it absolutely killed the performance of my computer. my computer's a 1.4ghz athlon with 640mb of ram, geforce2, everything ata100, all newest drivers installed.

Re:This is excellent news

[fault0]

> How you explain the fact that ROX is as fast as Explorer?

Because it does much less than Explorer does, and can do. Remember that the internal infrastructure can slow down things, at the expense of getting more stuff done (or being extensible, which ROX isn't).

> XFree 4.x is *not* slower than Windows/GDI. In fact, for many things, like image blitting, its as fast as DirectX.

Yes, that's true. Then again, I never said it wasn't.

>Also, the integration thing is overblown. Most Windows apps run quickly, and you can't tell me that they all have tight integration with the core OS!

Ah, yes, but the underlying libs that "most Windows apps" depend on do. Much of the win32 api is kept in kernel space rather than user space. This is similiar to classic MacOS as well, with all Mac toolbox functions kept in the core OS. In the case of winXX, this includes GDI, parts of COM,

> Its just that Linux desktops have too many performance sapping paradigms. Take, for example, XUL.

Mozilla is quite a bit faster on Windows than Linux. It's as fast as explorer in turbo mode, for example.

> Parsing a text file to display a GUI? Are you insane!

This is done in a variety of environments. It's nothing new. KDE does it with XML-GUI. Gnome does it with libglade. Windows does it with .rc files. I beleive MacOSX also does it in special files in bundles.

> Then the use of CORBA instead of something nice and fast like COM.

Again, power versus speed.

> There are lots of KDE/GNOME features that make computer nerds cream, but do nothing except sap the performance of users' machines.

Both run quite zippy enough here.

> I don't think so. Most of the reviews I've seen that say XP is slower are pased on the Release Candidates. XP sped up a *lot* between the those and the gold release.

Out of personal information, I can tell you that XP in fact, IS much slower than win2k on the same machine. It is certainly in mine!

> But KDE 2.2.x is *faster* than KDE 2.0.x! That's the KDE develoment model. Big features, then incremental quality improvements.

Yes, but that is minor versions. If you take major versions into account, you see that this is not the case. For example, KDE 2.x's speed Its really not like that all the time. There are tons of programs that don't keep getting slower. Photoshop, for example, has been pretty much the same since 4.x.

Almost everyone I know that uses Photoshop can tell you that Photoshop was much faster in certain tasks than Photoshop 5.x and 6.x. That's why there are still many Photoshop 4.x users left.

> 3D Studio keeps getting faster. KDE 2.2.x keeps getting faster. It does slow down over time, but the stuff you see in the Linux world is *much* more dramatic than the same in the Windows world.

Yes, but say a new version of 3d studio came out with 25% new features. It'd be certainly slower. However, people would move on to faster comps.

Re:This is excellent news

[be-fan]

Because it does much less than Explorer does, and can do. Remember that the internal infrastructure can slow down things, at the expense of getting more stuff done (or being extensible, which ROX isn't).
>>>>>>>
Not explorer circa WinNT 4.0. Besides, there are tons of GTK+ apps that have comparable features to Windows ones and are just as fast. (Sylpheed and GIMP come to mind).

Ah, yes, but the underlying libs that "most Windows apps" depend on do. Much of the win32 api is kept in kernel space rather than user space. This is similiar to classic MacOS as well, with all Mac toolbox functions kept in the core OS. In the case of winXX, this includes GDI, parts of COM,
>>>>>>>>>>
A) Running in kernel space does not automatically make something faster. The reason that graphics in the kernel are often faster isn't because its in userspace (because a totally-userspace GUI would be the fastest of all, since kernel calls are slower than regular function calls) but because userspace GUIs usually have to run in a seperate address space to protect window manager data. When global data (such as a window list) isn't involved (which is most things in a UI), kernel space is no benifet. For most applications, running in kernel space really doesn't gain much of a speed benifet. Besides, the components that DO run in kernel space are often seperate processes (in Windows NT) and they have the IPC overhead. For example, to create a new process, the kernel is called to do some initialization, then a notification message is sent to the Win32 server. Win2K really has some performance-sapping uglyness in the design, and "tight integration" is not a design feature.

B) Most of Windows' libraries do *not* run in kernel space. Please read an OS book that covers Windows NT. Most of Windows is in a series of userspace DLLs. The only major part of Windows that runs in kernel space that doesn't do so on a UNIX system is the GDI. And since X is just as fast as the GDI, there goes that excuse.

Mozilla is quite a bit faster on Windows than Linux. It's as fast as explorer in turbo mode, for example.
>>>>>>>
Except its not. I've just downloaded it on a 750MHz Duron and its MUCH less zippy than IE.

This is done in a variety of environments. It's nothing new. KDE does it with XML-GUI. Gnome does it with libglade. Windows does it with .rc files. I beleive MacOSX also does it in special files in bundles.
>>>>>>>.
Windows .rc files are not straight text. They're binary packaged. Besides, .rc files don't store packaged GUIs, they simply store resources like bitmaps and icons.

Again, power versus speed.
>>>>>>>
But useless power is of no worth. CORBA might be powerful, but almost nobody can take advantage of it (when was the last time a desktop user needed to access remote objects?) COM, on the other hand, isn't as good for remote usage, but for local usage (the "common case") its faster. Also, power isn't always needed. Read some of Tannebaum's work. He points out that at some point, somebody has to say "no" to features. They should ask the question "would anything bad happen if we left this out?" Besides, features do not have an inverse relationship with speed. Case in point: the Linux kernel. Its got tons of features (its threading model, in particular, is really cool) but its really fast.

Both run quite zippy enough here.
>>>>>>>
Not over here. Of course, everyone has a different sense of "zippy." Some people consider GNOME zippy. Then there are normal people. Of course, it boils down to the fact that Windows 2000 is faster than either of them. That's the embarrasing part. These desktop environments are like American cars. Full of useless features and get their asses whooped by European models that are faster (and have nifty features too!)

Out of personal information, I can tell you that XP in fact, IS much slower than win2k on the same machine. It is certainly in mine!
>>>>>>>
Turn of Luna, since that skin really makes the comparison unfair. Its like using GTK+ (or Qt) with a pixmap theme!

Yes, but that is minor versions. If you take major versions into account, you see that this is not the case.
>>>>>>>
You were argueing that the early 3.x releases might be faster than 2.x, but later ones won't be. I was pointing out that later versions of the 2.x series were faster than the original.

Almost everyone I know that uses Photoshop can tell you that Photoshop was much faster in certain tasks than Photoshop 5.x and 6.x. That's why there are still many Photoshop 4.x users left.
>>>>>>>>
Use it here everyday. Some new (and useful!) features are slower, but the core stuff is still the same.

> 3D Studio keeps getting faster. KDE 2.2.x keeps getting faster. It does slow down over time, but the stuff you see in the Linux world is *much* more dramatic than the same in the Windows world.

Yes, but say a new version of 3d studio came out with 25% new features. It'd be certainly slower. However, people would move on to faster comps.
>>>>>>>>
First, new features do not `*necessarily* make something slower. Its just an excuse made by lazy programmers. You add a whole bunch of tools to an image editor, it shouldn't get any slower. Sure, if you add a fundemental new abstraction, things slow down, but can you honestly say that KDE or GNOME have so many new cool things to warrent their speed hits compared to Windows 2000?

SuSE RPM's

[pwagland]

SuSE has already had these RPMs out for a couple of days. This has KDE 2.2.2 for SuSE the various SuSE versions on the various platforms.

Please note that these are not officially

They also have a similar service for Gnome.

As always, use the mirrors Luke...

Re:SuSE RPM's

[bero-rh]

If this is true, it means they either broke the kde-packager agreement or packaged a CVS version and called it 2.2.2. They weren't supposed to release 2.2.2 binary packages before the official release, neither was anyone else.

Re:SuSE RPM's

[pwagland]

Appologies for the confusion, it turns out that while it has been two sleeps, it has only been one day since I installed them.

I do not know exactly when the packages turned up, but I installed them Wed Nov 21 00:59:53 CET 2001.

My best guess on the SuSE packages is that they arrived on the 21st, i.e. the same day that KDE announced it, but, one day before slashdot announced it.

Mind you, on a related note. Know how I discovered that XFree4.2.0 has been frozen? Because 4.2.0 drivers for my ATI card have been released. Now, I just need to wait for 4.2.0... :-)

Re:SuSE RPM's

[seann]

yeah... I noticed that too.
I was flipping out looking for 4.2.0, but then I realized they must of just made it early of some cvs code (freeze, guesses).
Really shitty since my GL doesn't work in 4.1.0 but does it 4.0.3

You must not have read his comment

[DAldredge]

He just wants to try KDE...He does NOT want to change his OS!!!

getting better and better

[iplayfast]

6 months ago I was telling people that linux desktop was about equivilent to win95, now I'd say win98. (as far as the applications available). I was using Mandrake 7.8 and upgraded through the web to 8.0 then 8.1. I bought Mandrake 8.1 last night, and it's so much better then the downloaded version. (I can use my network printer on mandrake, but can't on win98!)

If I didn't program for windows everyday, I'd take the linux challenge (use only linux for a month), and it would be no problem at all.

Re:getting better and better

[seann]

theres always vmware if you do crappy programming and not anything that involves serious evilness and counting eggs.

Re:(OT)Re:What is thanksgiving day?

[tercero]

that 'I all' should be an 'If all' Sorry.

Icons...

[gowen]

5% quicker. Ooh. The image preview mode must now be up to about one tenth of the speed of xv's visual schnauzer... Slim, well designed and 10 years old. Konqueror can't touch it for speed.

Re:Icons...

[fault0]

Uhh, the new Icon server has nothing to do with Konqueror's thumbnail slave, which, as of 2.2.x IS as fast as Xv's, and handles many more graphics file types, as well as other file formats such as text.

Re:Icons...

[gowen]

which, as of 2.2.x IS as fast as Xv's

Really? Cool. Thats a really excellent reason to upgrade.

handles many more graphics file types

pr0n is JPG.

Re:Icons...

[JabberWokky]

Well, gowen, if you're just interested in going though pictures for sexual pleasure, might I suggest you keep an eye out for the next version of Pixie, titled Pixie Plus. Mosfet claims it to be faster than anything else out there... and he's made such claims before in other areas and delivered on them. YMMV, but I'm planning on keeping a close eye on it. From the webpage: "Pixie is designed to allow you to efficently browse, manage, and view large numbers of images as well as do basic editing such as adjust contrast/brightness, scale, and apply effects. For Windows users, you can think of it as a combination of ACDSee(TM) and Paint Shop Pro(TM)."

Having a large collection of cast photos and such from various theater groups and reenactment groups, running through large directories of images looking for the select few to use for PR or web pages is a pain. A super responsive image viewer turns it into a minor pain.

--
Evan

Re:Icons...

[SlickMickTrick]

You want really fast image preview, the new Pixie Plus is meant to be the fast one. The author (Mosfet) claims several hundered images in a directory can be previewed in about 1 second. www.mosfet.org/pixie.

Re:Offtopic?

[Griim]

hey, it's not like it's been modded up, if you're just here for the relevant posts, set your threshold higher than one, you won't even know that I'm here.

RedHat 7.1?

[TilJ]

Are there any plans for an official RedHat 7.1 KDE RPM set? I'm currently running with the Red Hat Inc. KDE 2.2 set, and I'd rather not completely upgrade to 7.2 (I've done spot-updates of some of the system).

If not, what dependencies would have to be fulfilled to run the 7.2 RPMS on a 7.1 system?

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[loopkin]

Well, actually, it won't even run on RH7.2 without upgrading to xml2 and xslt from Rawhide...

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[bero-rh]

The correct libxslt and libxml2 packages are part of the release on ftp.kde.org.

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[bero-rh]

Spontaneously, I don't see any extra requirements you'd need to update on 7.1, aside from those provided on ftp.kde.org (libxml2, libxslt, qt).

But 7.1 was LOOONG ago, so don't expect me to remember everything about it. ;)

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[loopkin]

when did you add them ? for instance i can't find them (yet= Thu Nov 22 17:06:20 CET 2001) on ftp://sunsite.dk/mirrors/kde/stable/2.2.2/RedHat/7 .2/
thanx anyway :-))

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[bero-rh]

I added them 3 days ago, some time yesterday morning. Guess mirrors need some time to sync.

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[robkore]

Um, I am not seeing them on ftp.kde.org. (If one ends a sentence with a IP address or URL, does one still put a period? Seems, wrong to me...) Could you provide the entire path for us retards? Thanks.

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[e5z8652]

One does not normally append a period to a URL or command. Someone might type it.

Jargon 4.3.1

You'll find RH here, but you'll probably want to use a mirror. When I checked the URL I was user 349 out of only 350 anonymous users allowed. The path should be the same or similar on the mirrors.

ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/2.2.2/RedHat/7.2/

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[bero-rh]

Oops, master.kde.org and ftp.kde.org are no longer the same. ;) Didn't notice.

master.kde.org has the correct packages, but isn't accessible to the public, so you'll have to wait until mirrors pick them up (ftp.kde.org has already started doing so).

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[Khalid]

Will KDE appear on Redhat Network one day ? what is this Redhat Network thing for ? I have never found anything interesting there, just some minor bug fixes, no real upgrades !! I don't fire up2date anymore !

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[TilJ]

You don't have an updated system, you say?

And you're announcing that fact on *SlashDot*?

Wow. ;-)

The whole point is errata, bug fixes and security updates. Upgrades come every months in the form of a new version of RedHat (says the guy running 7.1 instead of 7.2. Heh.)

Re:RedHat 7.1?

[bero-rh]

Will KDE appear on Redhat Network one day?

Yes, after QA has checked the new version doesn't break anything (which can take some time).

I have never found anything interesting there

You call fixes for root exploits not interesting?
What was your IP again? ;)

some minor bug fixes, no real upgrades

That's what it's there for.
It fixes security bugs and other problems without changing the core system.

The best bugfix :

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

kfind: several bugfixes, including "don't crash the system anymore".

You must not have read *HIS* comment

[srichman]

No where in the comment you replied to does the submitter suggest an OS change. ????

Too Bad...

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I love KDE, dont get me wrong.

Too bad (as of 10:40am EST) NONE of the mirrors have the source...

And ftp.kde.org is full. :-(

Re:Too Bad...

[loopkin]

???????????
for instance:
ftp://ftp.fh-heilbronn.de/pub/mirrors/kde/stable /2 .2.2/
it has all the distros, and
ftp://sunsite.dk/mirrors/kde/stable/2.2.2/
even has the source !!!

Re:Too Bad...

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Geeze...

You're right. Sorry, folks...

Re:Too Bad...

[dark_panda]

ftp://mirror.chpc.utah.edu has it, too, and I'm getting wicked speeds from Toronto.

J

Fantastic!

[deepstephen]

kio-smb: don't leave smbclients using 100% cpu hanging around.

This has been really annoying me. I'm the sole Linux user in an office full of Windows 2000 boxes, and it's been pretty tough to evangelise Linux's interoperability with Windows while I have to keep killing zombie smbclient processes any time I use SMB.

I haven't had a chance to download it yet (deadline tomorrow, y'see) but this, along with the other speedups and so on, could finally mean it's feasible to start winning people over to KDE.

Good work KDE fellas. You are all very lovely indeed.

Re:Fantastic!

[Cardinal Biggles]

Yeah.

Shame it asks me for userid/password *every* time I try to open a file or directory...

Re:Fantastic!

[dark_panda]

Setting your username, password and workgroup in the Windows Share section of KControl seems to help, at least if you only have one username, password and workgroup to use.

J

Re:Fantastic!

[deepstephen]

You MUST be kidding if you think any win 2k user is going to swap over to KDE.

Well, I used to be a Win2K user, and I switched to KDE. So why's it unreasonable to suggest that any of my co-workers might do the same? In my experience the opposite is true: KDE is maturing enough to the point where it's become a viable alternative to Windows. I've used KDE for about 6 months now, and I'd never go back.

There is absolutely no reason for the change. Besides, all KDE is doing is trying to emulate the windows desktop

That's the whole point! It's just another reason why it's easy to change! If you've used Windows, you'll be able to use KDE. Simple as that. Sure, you need to know a little bit of voodoo to get things set up, but my co-workers are all technically capable Java developers, and I don't think this is really beyond them.

This isn't blind Linux zealotry, it's been my experience that KDE kicks Windows' ass.

Re:Fantastic!

[10Ghz]

"You MUST be kidding if you think any win 2k user is going to swap over to KDE. Please get a clue/life. There is absolutely no reason for the change. Besides, all KDE is doing is trying to emulate the windows desktop"

I can think of several reasons:

1. It runs on Linux ;)

2. It's more stable (yes it is)

3. It has more features.

4. It looks better

5. It's more customizable

6. It progresses alot faster than Win-GUI

Emulate the Win-desktop? How come? only similarities I see are... Well, the "start-button" in bottom-left corner. Oh, and I close a windows by clicking "x". That's just about it. Sure there are other more general similarities, but how different can the basic-design of GUI be? they all basically do the same thing: windows in desktop.

If KDE emulates Win-desktop, then so does Gnome, but I never hear anyone say that for some reason.

Re:Fantastic!

[erotus]

"As much as the Linux zealots would like to deny it, Win2K/XP have eliminated virtualy all of the old arguments for using Linux over windows."

If you are talking desktop use, then you may have a good point. If you are talking server use, then it's still linux all the way. I have no problems with windows on the desktop, but I hate it as a server OS. Many have said linux is a server OS posing as a desktop OS. Well, the inverse could also be true - Windows is a desktop OS trying to pose as a server OS.

Personally, I find Mac OSX to be the holy grail of "desktop" operating systems. A consistant GUI coupled with BSD unix. Let me tell you, it's heaven.

Anyhow, I am straying from my point. There is still one thing that win2k/XP lack and that is a good CLI. When I need/want to use the command line, DOS just doesnt cut the mustard. Bash, CSH, or TCSH do. If you could overlay the windows GUI on top of UNIX and have access to the shell, then I'd be a happy camper.

I've heard cygwin allows one to compile unix apps for windows, but I have no experience with it. If this is indeed the case, I'll give it a shot. But, again, for server usage, nothing will beat a *nix box. Use the right tool for the right job.

Re:Fantastic!

[10Ghz]

Reality check, Win2K is plenty stable for general workstation use, my 2K box crashes maybe once every few months. And even then it's usualy because I did something stupid.

W2K and XP are more stable than earlier Windozes. But it doesn't change the fact that Linux + KDE are still more stable

Perhaps the OS itself has more features...

Thank you for acknowledging Linux'es superior features when compared to Windows. But I was talking about the desktop.

4. It looks better

XP kinda killed that argument

How come? With XP I can choose from ugly-as-hell candyland-look... Or the classic-look that looks just like every other MS-OS there is.

5. It's more customizable

Once again most people just don't care...

Hey, I care! I don't care what OTHER people think, I just care what I think.

Re:Fantastic!

[Puk]

Definitely check out cygwin. It comes with an implementation of bash which works pretty well. I haven't really checked as to whether it has other shells, or whether they will compile with cygwin, but I wouldn't be suprised. The installation is pretty flexible and painless, it it gives you a whole slew of useful unix (including perl, grep, awk, etc.) utils pretty seamlessly under windows. A lot of stuff that doesn't come with it is available separately.

Also, if you want a dos-style CLI with a lot of the more useful features of unix ones, check out 4NT (and related) from jpsoft. I've been using it on and off for years, and I love it. It hurts to use the built-in MS CLI now.

-Puk

Tell that to KDE

[srichman]

The crossov rplugin has nothing t all to do with KDe... it's a Netscape/Mozilla plugin. It does work in Konqueror, but the KDe team had nothing to do with it.

I tend to agree with you (particularly since I was using it under 2.2.1), but maybe you should tell this to the KDE team.

From the 2.2.2 announcement under the "new features" section:

• added support for CodeWeavers' CrossOver plug-in

Yes he did

[DAldredge]

He mentioned EMACS ;->

Re:Yes he did

[srichman]

HA! I stand corrected.

Gain in time

[roguerez]

You're right, there is no.

Now we agree on that, would you send the P4-2000 system to me? Not that it has a use, but I'll take care of it for you.. :)

No speed difference

[srichman]

I just installed 2.2.2, and there is no real noticeable speed difference in my opinion. Icons 5% faster? Maybe, but if KDE 2.2.1 was too slow to be usable on your system, KDE 2.2.2 will be as well.

Re:No speed difference

[glwtta]

simple solution - buy a faster system.

1.2GHz + .5GB RAM = KDE Fast!
(Nautilus still slow though...)

Re:No speed difference

[be-fan]

But then Windows (which has just as many features BTW) will be faster too, so KDE will STILL be slow (comparatively). The "buy a faster system" arguement is total bullshit. If the applications are faster, you can do more complex things, no matter what kind of system you have. I buy a faster system to do more of the things I want to do, not feed some stupid desktop environment.

Re:No speed difference

[fault0]

> But then Windows (which has just as many features BTW) will be faster too, so KDE will STILL be slow (comparatively).

Yes, but that's because Microsoft can do optimizations in the core OS.

>The "buy a faster system" arguement is total bullshit.

In fact, this is a pretty sane argument. Don't bother to say something is slow unless you have modern hardware. It just makes people laugh at you. It's like all of the 386 users who bitched at win95 being slow on their boxes. comeon, it's the natural evolution of software.

>If the applications are faster, you can do more complex things, no matter what kind of system you have.

That logic is total bullshit. There is absolutely no coorelation between faster applications being able to do more complex things.

>I buy a faster system to do more of the things I want to do, not feed some stupid desktop environment.

Heh, people have been getting faster computers in order to run the "newest versions of software" forever.

Re:No speed difference

[be-fan]

Yes, but that's because Microsoft can do optimizations in the core OS.
>>>>>>>>>
And the KDE guys can't? They have the source to everything, it should be even easier!

In fact, this is a pretty sane argument. Don't bother to say something is slow unless you have modern hardware. It just makes people laugh at you. It's like all of the 386 users who bitched at win95 being slow on their boxes. comeon, it's the natural evolution of software.
>>>>>>
Except that Win95 was slower because it had tons of new features. Win2K matches KDE feature for feature, but KDE is slower, even though it is running on a better kernel/display layer (yes, XFree86 is faster than GDI these days, with good drivers). Are you telling me that there's nothing wrong with that?

That logic is total bullshit. There is absolutely no coorelation between faster applications being able to do more complex things.
>>>>>>>>
????? If my 3D modeler is faster, I can work on more complex models before the system becomes too slow to be comfortably usable. If my display layer is faster, I can make more complex graphics at an acceptable frame-rate. If my desktop is faster, I can have more windows open and switch between them quicker. Even if I upgrade to new hardware, the faster system will STILL be better.

Heh, people have been getting faster computers in order to run the "newest versions of software" forever.
>>>>>>>>
Under the Micro$haft regime. I thought OSS was supposed to be new and different! I honestly don't mind spending the cycles when I get features in return. But when I switched from Windows to Linux (which I did because I couldn't stand Windows anymore, even though it is a higher-quality OS) I lost features *and* speed. That leaves a sour taste in one's mouth.

Re:No speed difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember kids, its spelt D-E-S-K-T-O-P, but pronounced Operating System... isn't that the message you folks are conveying to us?

Re:No speed difference

[fault0]

> And the KDE guys can't? They have the source to everything, it should be even easier!

I think ideally they should. However, I don't think that'd go over too well with the 'oh wait, that's not UNIX-y" group. ;-)

> Except that Win95 was slower because it had tons of new features. Win2K matches KDE feature for feature, but KDE is slower, even though it is running on a better kernel/display layer (yes, XFree86 is faster than GDI these days, with good drivers). Are you telling me that there's nothing wrong with that?

And a better display layer is not all that counts. KDE is currently hampered in various things that are not KDE's fault. First, and most major, is probably g++.

> If my 3D modeler is faster, I can work on more complex models before the system becomes too slow to be comfortably usable. If my display layer is faster, I can make more complex graphics at an acceptable frame-rate. If my desktop is faster, I can have more windows open and switch between them quicker. Even if I upgrade to new hardware, the faster system will STILL be better.

Ok, that IS true. However one has to consider that most things that provide great amounts of features slows down performance. There are, of course ways to get around this problem, like Microsoft does with integration.

> Under the Micro$haft regime. I thought OSS was supposed to be new and different! I honestly don't mind spending the cycles when I get features in return. But when I switched from Windows to Linux (which I did because I couldn't stand Windows anymore, even though it is a higher-quality OS)

Under any regime, this is true. It has always been true. This has nothing to do whatsoever with OSS. Computers get defunct. Deal with it.

> I lost features *and* speed.

Modern KDE versions are quite comparable with Windows in terms of speed on modern machines.

Re:No speed difference

[be-fan]

Ok, that IS true. However one has to consider that most things that provide great amounts of features slows down performance. There are, of course ways to get around this problem, like Microsoft does with integration.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Are you trying to make the arguement that KDE has more features than Windows XP?

Modern KDE versions are quite comparable with Windows in terms of speed on modern machines
>>>>>>>>>
Nope. Sorry. I've run both on a 750MHz Duron, and Win2K is still faster. Not just things like startup costs, but resizing, menu drawing, sub-window popup, EVERYTHING.

Redhat Linux 7.2 is "stable"?????

[toolz]

Oink oink! Set spell checkers to stun, and note that any distro that needs hundreds of MB of updates within a week of release is *anything* but stable!

I thought 7.1 was funky, but 7.2 makes 7.1 feel like the Rock of Gibraltar!

Re:Redhat Linux 7.2 is "stable"?????

[bero-rh]

The reason you're perceiving 7.2 as less stable is that we're releasing more errata packages these days - which does not necessarily mean the initial packages were all that bad.
KDE 2.2-* (as shipped with 7.2) wasn't bad, and nevertheless we'll release the 2.2.2 packages in errata as soon as QA approved them.

Re:Redhat Linux 7.2 is "stable"?????

[macom]

This is from RH7.2 on a 233Mhz Thinkpad 600. Has been totally stable for me. I am running KDE, it is wonderful. I am thankful for all the hard work that has gone into all the applications that make up the distribution. I also think RH7.2 as a distribution is better than Win2K. At work it is a Win company, I usually do my work on this old laptop as it is better :)

macom

Re:Redhat Linux 7.2 is "stable"?????

[bero-rh]

Are you saying redhat-update will be able to update to 2.2.2

Yes, almost certainly.

no need for rawhide

Installing the packages currently in rawhide is a bad idea(tm) because they're linked against the newer libpng from rawhide.

If so, how long does the QA take?

This can take quite a while, because they're VERY busy with other things (ports to other architectures etc).

Simply use the packages from ftp.kde.org, they're the same thing.

Re:Redhat Linux 7.2 is "stable"?????

[toolz]

Don't get me wrong - I am a hard-nosed RHL 7.1 user myself, ironically writing from a Thinkpad 770 (P1, 233 MHz, 128 MB). And I have KDE 2.2.1 installed, and love it, and cant wait to upgrade to 2.2.2. And for the record - my other notebook is a Compaq Contura 4/25cx running RHL 4.2.

My issue with RHL 7.2 was simply that they ran a Beta program (Roswell 1 & 2) that was throwing up *serious* issues till the day RH released 7.2 (October 26) - a distro that was put together in early *September*. *Then* they began pushing out fixes for all the problems that were found in the Beta program. And before anyone jumps in with buzzwords like "QA testing", "release candidates", "field testing", "release cycles" - hey, all those things are aimed at finding and fixing problems *before* some innocent user installs the product and then finds he can't print, has remote-exploitable holes, etc. Sure, up2date fixes that, but if you *knew* of issues before releasing something (and they did - check bugzilla and the roswell archives), then releasing 7.2 was releasing an unstable distro.

My definition of "stable" is RHL 6.2. It wasn't glitchfree, but it saw release because it was stable, not because M$ was releasing XP.

Re:A feature to make many switch.

[HeUnique]

Well, Reaktivate was a sort of "proof of concept" that in can ActiveX apps can be run inside konqueror (not only Quicktime and other graphics viewers, but others like YahooVision activex and others)..

The chances of getting it into the main KDE tree are almost 0% - since it relies on wine (which itself is a moving target) and I really doubt that the authors (Niko [WildFox] and malte) want it inside the main KDE tree.

Re:Offtopic?

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Fair enough - it was before my morning coffee. Sorry about the trollish attitude.

Re:A feature to make many switch.

[brunes69]

Hrm... if you are right, and they are reading this, I hope they plan to package it as a seperate addon when KDE 3 comes out then. I realy watt to try reaktivate, but I can't bother going through the whole hassle of buildin KDE3 beta to do it. When it is released however, you can be damn sure I'll want it.

Reiserfs

[BlueUnderwear]

so that all the applications don't perform the same searches of (possibly very long and crowded on the system of someone who likes eye-candy) icon directories

... which would be a non-issue anyways if you use reiserfs...

Re:Icons load 5% faster

[maroberts]

I mean, 5%! I just can't get excited about 5%.
Depends on how often you get a 5% increase in your pay packet! :-)

Redhat 7.2 RPMS

[StarHeart]

You can't directly install the Redhat 7.2 KDE 2.2.2 rpms. Redhat 7.2 comes with libxsl 1.0.1 and KDE 2.2.2 requires libxsl 1.0.7. There has been no offical update of libxsl. But you an go get the libxsl 1.0.7 rpm from rawhide and it also requires a new libxml2 rpm from rawhide.

Re:Redhat 7.2 RPMS

[bero-rh]

I've also pit libxml2 and libxslt (correct versions)
on ftp.kde.org along with the kde core packages.
Not every mirror has picked up the change, though.

Re:Redhat 7.2 RPMS

[loopkin]

As bero pointed out in the other comment, there was a problem in the syncing process yesterday, and some packages (libxml2, libxslt, kdebindings*, kdepim*) were missing.
As a consequence:
<WARNING>
Everybody that installed RH7.2 KDE2.2.2 packages yesterday should update today, since now everything is correctly synced.
</WARNING>

My observations of KDE + drive performance.

[GISboy]

On a p3 550 system I built at work from the ground up I was suprised that I did not get written up for computer abuse because I had it booting, via LILO, Slackware 7.X, Redhat 7.X, Win98se, Win2K and even BeOs.

I was curious about the speed of a default Slack and Redhat install and while not scientific, it was very interesting, indeed.

If there was ever a reason not to use static libs (a la RH) this would be one point to hammer home.

I had KDE 2.X installed seperatly on both boxes (yes, I know it is "wasteful" of space, humor me) and proceeded to get some benchmark utilities off of freshmeat.net.
You see, what I had noticed was KDE 2.X was "snappy" on Slack and slightly "dogged" on Redhat... so it set me to wondering if it was just the RPM install vs compile on Slack.

Turned out that was part of the problem/question.
Memory performance was about +/- 10% with in each other, but hard drive performace was the "killer" of KDE's performance on RH.

This is what I found using hdparm (plus switches that escape me at this time) turned on/off between SL/RH:
MB/s on the same ATA66 drive and even another ATA66 drive just to be sure.
No hdparm init: RH=3.6Mbs, slack=8.6MB/s
hdparm init: RH=8.4MB/s, slack=8.9MB/s.

Hummm...I says. With hdparm init'ed on RH, KDE was quite snappy, despite the rare stumble and thrash of the drive.

Oh, and a word of warning aboud using hdparm (also in the readme) on older drives: not recommended unless it can do > PIO mode 2, IIRC.

So, yes, HD speed does affect KDE more than you would think. Something to be aware of.

Re:Offtopic?

[Griim]

No hard feelings, I can appreciate 'before-coffee' attitude. :)

I know this would have been more appropriate in a KDE forum/newsgroup/etc, but I do respect the opinion (and swiftness) of the Slashdot crowd.

my favorite new feature (Quicktime??)

[sewagemaster]

" - added support for CodeWeavers' CrossOver plug-in (provides support for QuickTime, etc.) screenshot"

Re:my favorite new feature (Quicktime??)

[Legion303]

I'm using the plugin just fine on KDE 2.2.1. What, exactly, was changed? The ChangeLog is sparse on actual details.

-Legion

Re:my favorite new feature (Quicktime??)

[fault0]

Some plugins do work in 2.2.1, but it was just not officially supported.

Mirror mirror on the wall

[Chris Colohan]

So when can we expect to see the RedHat packages on the US KDE mirrors? It is weird that they are announcing the new version before the mirrors get a chance to copy the files and reduce server load...

Chris

Not a KDE fan but I'm happy for them.

[snoozerdss]

I don't personally like kde, I never have. For me it's too bloated and slow(it takes forever to boot up) but on the other hand kde is making great strides in making Linux easier to use for the common desktop user, who by the way wouldn't notice how bloated and slow it is since they are comming from a windows workd ;) And by bloated and slow I mean compared to what I use, XFCE which is rock solid BTW. XFCE takes about 3 seconds to load from the commandline where as KDE takes anywhere from 15-20 seconds to load from the command line. Kmail is the same, it takes way to long to load for me, I just use netscape mail or Mozilla depending on what box I'm on. Like I said KDE is great, but it's not for me.

Re:Not a KDE fan but I'm happy for them.

[metis]

KDe could use some bottleneck cleaning, especially the nifty stuff like konqueror. But I really don't understand your gripe about load time. I load kde about once every three months, when I upgrade. It is very stable, and there is no reason to load and unload it. And Yes I do work with the command line all the time. I usualy have about eight konsole windows open simultanuously.

Re:Another acknowledgement

[yomegaman]

For the stuffing?

Re:A feature to make many switch.

[dinotrac]

The Crossover plugin is not part of KDE, but fixing the bugs in nspluginviewer that kept the Crossover plugin from working properly in earlier releases has everything to do with KDE.

Codeweavers donated some patches so that Crossover now works with Konqueror. A very nice thing. I love being able to watch the Quicktime movie teasers.

One more thing: I don't know if it's the Codeweavers patches or something else altogether, but the video segments on abcnews.com now work for me, too.

Looking very good here. Very good indeed.

RPMs, good

[magi]

Great to have those binaries for RedHat. I've been whining about them here after every recent KDE release, so perhaps someone at last did something. THANKS!

Now, if they don't work with RH7.1, I'll whine a bit more... (Naah, I'll just update my RH.)

I just hope they finally compiled it with that-one-option-which-makes-app-startup-half-time.

Slower than 2.2.0

[mnordstr]

I have RedHat 7.2 which comes with KDE 2.2.0. I used it and loved it. Today when I downloaded the RH72 RPMs for KDE 2.2.2 from ftp.kde.org and installed them, the system keeps slowing around all the time. The processor is not used, but some of the applications like Konqueror and Licq can hang for several seconds, minutes or even hang the entire desktop.

Anyone else notice something like this?

Re:Slower than 2.2.0

[phutureboy]

Yeah, I just installed the 2.2.2 RPMs, and now Konqueror is hanging up a lot. Even as I type this message it's taking like 1 sec per character, and dropping characters if I type fast.

This is on a 1.5 GHz system with 256M RAM. I think I'll go back to 2.2.0, unless anyone has any suggestions.

Re:Slower than 2.2.0

[dfaure]

Sounds like the QClipboard bugs (still partly unsolved) - try killing klipper.

Re:Slower than 2.2.0

[Laven]

I've been experiencing this behavior in 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 on my 1.2GHz and 768MB system...

Crossover (Quicktime, Shockwave,etc )works in Konq

[Nailer]

KDE 2.2.2's Konqueror fixes many well known bugs in Konqueror's Netscape plugin API, which now means that:

* Quicktime / QuicktimeVR
* Shockwave
* Ipix

And many more of the browser plugins supported by Codeweavers Crossover now work under Konqueror.

No big deal, that...

[javajerk]

You will appreciate the trick that makes the icons load 5% faster in particular.

I guess they just skipped loading the transparent pixels...

:o) Lars

Mandrake Packages

[redcliffe]

Anyone know where I can get upgrade packages for Mandrake? I have to use Mandrake for some of my machines, but always get sick of not being able to easily upgrade to new versions like I can in Debian. Thanks,

David

Re:Mandrake Packages

[dfaure]

You'll find Mandrake packages on ftp.kde.org and mirrors, with the other packages.

Re:Mandrake Packages

[loopkin]

If you want to update easily, install autoupdate:
see here
and add a file called kde.dld in /etc/autoupdate.d/ containing:

# configuration file for kde update
# please choose a mirror close to you
Host=ftp.kde.org
DldAll=0
FTPRetry=2
FTPWait=10
DldRecurse=0
Dir=/pub/kde/stable/2.2.2/RedHat/7.2/

or wait that the packages are available thru MandrakeUpdate.

Re:Mandrake Packages

[loopkin]

oops:
of course, modify Dir=/pub/kde/stable/2.2.2/RedHat/7.2/ for your Mandrake distro !!

also i wondered if urpmi couldn't be configured for the same task...

CrossOver still doesn't work for me

[Adnans]

QObject::connect: No such signal NSPluginInstance::destroyed()
QObject::connect: (sender name: 'unnamed')
QObject::connect: (receiver name: '_ptrpriv')
kio (KProtocolInfo): ERROR: Protocol '' not found
kio (KProtocolInfo): ERROR: Protocol '' not found

when visiting www.apple.com... sigh.... help?!

-adnans

Re:Icons load 5% faster

[dfaure]

Can't get excited ? Don't, that wasn't the purpose. I agree that the announcement here was a bit exxagerating about that change. But have a look at the icon loading code, and try to make it faster than that, then we'll talk.

How come everyone seems to think that developers make thing slow _on purpose_ ? When we find a way to make things faster, we do, even if the result is only a 5% difference. Small steps, but they accumulate. Would you prefer that we don't fix the things we find ?

David,
actually happy about his icon loading fix....
and disappointed everytime he reads Slashdot, by this habit of criticizing really _everything_.

PS: note that the announcement could have said "icon-loading speedup" and nothing else. You could at least appreciate that someone took the time to measure the actual speedup even if the result isn't huge.

Re:Question 2

[dsb]

Upgrade from that schlitz

Konqueror and Crossover

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to use Crossover in the Konqueror browser, make sure you do the following first. This was a major paino de asso for me, because for a moment I forgot that Konqueror Plugin Associations != KFM File Associations.

1. Go to your Konqueror settings, and click the "File Associations" icon.
2. Open the "Video" tree by clicking on the + symbol next to it.
3. Click on the "quicktime" item in the list.
4. Click the "Embed" tab.
5. Make sure "Show file in embedded viewer" is set, and that "Server Preference Order" has the Netscape plugin at the top of the list.

If Quicktime isn't in your "Video" list, click the "Add" button under the list. Enter Quicktime for the name, and add the following extensions to the "Filename Patterns" list:

*.qt, *.mov, *.moov, *.qtvr, *.QT, *.MOV, *.MOOV, *.MooV, *.QTVR

Then click "Add" in the Application Preference Order, and select "QuickTime Player" from the Crossover->Wine->Programs->QuickTime folder. Make sure you choose the one with the little Quicktime icon next to it, and not the document with the question mark. Don't ask me why there's two. :P Then follow the steps above to make sure it'll work properly in Konqueror browser windows.

Why why why?

[evilviper]

1. Why do people use KDE? It uses up more system resources than Windows 2000, uses the QT library which most programs do not (GTK+ is far more popular, even though it needs some work).
2. Why does Slashdot need to report on software releases? I can understand reports on something that is technologically innovative, but this is just a new .dot release of a desktop... Whoohoo, we can load icons 5% faster, this is much more important than the fact that Stallman is trying to take over the world.
3. Who gives a damn about what RedHat says is 'official'? The idea behind Open Source is to no longer depend on a central source, be it Microsloth or RedHat.

Faster ...

[anpe]

You will appreciate the trick that makes the icons load 5% faster in particular.
This is a joke. You need an 25% improvement in speed to notice a change in your UI. Okay, KDE is getting better every day, but there is no need to point out that kind of bullshit.

Seems quicker to me

[chegosaurus]

For what it's worth, after a couple of hours with 2.2.2 it seems snappier than 2.2.1.

I don't know whether it's down to improvements in the code or because I cranked up the optimizations on this build, but it definitely feels smoother and quicker to me. A pleasure to use on a 450MHz PIII laptop, which isn't really the state of the art nowadays.

While I was building KDE yesterday (took all afternoon!) I switched back to GNOME, and I have to say that I think GNOME really has a lot of catching up to do. Galeon is cool, but it and Nautilus together can't compete with Konqueror for flexibility and ease of use.

I'm also yet to find a GNOME mail client as simple and stable as KMail.

Looking forward to GNOME 2.0 though. If they can jump back ahead of KDE then it will be a mighty cool desktop.