KDE 2.2.1, On Win32/Cygwin

m_ilya writes: "It looks like KDE 2.2.1 has been ported on Cygwin. More than year ago I was forced to use WinNT at work, and I've been missing the Linux desktop a lot. I hope if I will be ever forced to use Windows again I would be able to have more Unix-friendly desktop :). Here's the announcement. Kudos to all the KDE hackers." Check out the posting on the Dot for some more links.

Comments

Too bad nobody will use it...

[Anonymous Coward]

too bad no one can use it since you can't redistribute the binaries because of QT. I doubt any Windows users would try it if they had to compile it

Re:Too bad nobody will use it...

[fault0]

Sure you can. Qt/X11 is gpl'd without any other restrictions other than what the GPL has. So you can port it to whatever you want, including distribute binaries of said Qt port.

Afaik, these guys are using Cygwin, which has a X11 server anyways, so not even that applies here.

Re:Too bad nobody will use it...

[m_ilya]

UNIX version of QT is avialable as GPL. It means that anybody can port it back to Win32 and it is still GPL.

Look at the project page. I've not seen mention that they have been ported UNIX version of QT to Cygwin but since they require X server it is very likely. So there should be no problem with licensing.

Re:Too bad nobody will use it...

[Spy Hunter]

Yes, this is KDE running in a large window on your Windows desktop, not KDE applications running in their own separate windows. It uses the Cygwin port of XFree86, which doesn't allow applications to run in their own separate windows yet. The GPL'd QT hasn't been ported, it is just running in sort of an emulation window, kind of like Wine in desktop mode. This doesn't use the commercial Windows QT.

Hmm

[fault0]

Nice, I'd be great to run a few KDE apps on Windows. However, IMHO, many of the same Windows equivalents would be better to use, as they are native. I'd take IE over Konqueror, for example.

And what about KDE 2.2.2? Any plans to port that or are they just going to KDE 3?

KDE on windows

[lavaforge]

I've used Cygwin to run X windows on MS windows, and it seemed a bit of a kludge. While it was nice to run apps, the integration with the rest of the system was messy at times.

While I really do have to applaud the Cygwin folks for their work, I wonder if it would not be more effective (or possible?) to port Kde as a litestep style shell replacement.

Re:KDE on windows

[fault0]

> I wonder if it would not be more effective (or possible?) to port Kde as a litestep style shell replacement.

I think they'd have to port Qt to windows natively. This, fortunatly, wouldn't be hard for an experienced programmer who knows the Windows API AND xlib. Most of the platform specific code of Qt is pretty well split off from the rest of the code. They are in the QXXX_x11.cpp files. There are only about 20 of these files, and KDE doesn't even use/require all of them (like QSound).

Re:KDE on windows

[Spy Hunter]

I think they'd have to port Qt to windows natively. This, fortunatly, wouldn't be hard for an experienced programmer who knows the Windows API AND xlib.

I hope they don't do this. If they do, they will just discourage companies from GPLing their products.

TrollTech has been very supportive of KDE's development since the beginning, and has bent over backwards to please Free Software advocates by GPLing their main, high-quality product. They took a risk in doing that. So far it has not come back to bite them, but if the GPL'd QT was ported to Windows against their will, it would be very bad for them. They couldn't stop anyone from doing it, but it would be bad. A lot of TrollTech's revenue comes from companies doing in-house windows apps. In-house apps can be GPL'd easily because the source only has to be distributed where the binaries go. If the program never goes outside the company, the source doesn't have to either. If there is a free, GPL'd QT on windows, all those people will stop paying TrollTech and simply use the free version. There is a reason TrollTech hasn't released a GPL'd QT for windows. There is of course a free as in beer version, but it is not GPL. It has a license forbidding commercial use, for this very reason.

TrollTech has gone very far in its support of free software, but it is still trying to make money. It is trying to be a company that will balance Open Source and profit. Porting a GPL QT to windows would hurt TrollTech, and it would make the GPL look like poison for companies that want to make a profit. It would be more ammunition for Microsoft's "virus" analogy. It is the wrong thing to do.

On the other hand, making XFree on Cygwin "rootless" would be a much better solution. Then there would be a high-quality, useable, Free X-Server for Windows, which would be great. Then you would have the ability to make KDE a shell replacement or whatever. It might still be less than optimal for TrollTech, but I think most companies would still elect to buy the Windows version of QT. Commercial X servers have had this capability for a while now, and it hasn't been a problem so far (that I know of).

Re:KDE on windows

[brunes69]

Ummmm, qt has already been ported to windows natively... Actually, it's neve rbeen a port, since it was designed to run on both.

Re:KDE on windows

[fault0]

I don't think a GPL'd port of Qt for Windows would be necessarily bad to TrollTech. People who used this port of Qt would have produce Free (as in Speech) Software anyways. Since most companies could not accept this anways, they'd buy the commercial license anyways.

I don't see many Free Software developers rushing out to buy commercial Qt licenses so they can produce Free Software for Windows. So, basically, TrollTech would not be harmed financially, and would probably gain more users (which could mean more Commercial licenses, if some of the Free Software developers wished to make non-Free Software).

Re:KDE on windows

[fault0]

I was talking about Qt/X11, which is licensed under the GPL, QPL, and an Commercial License. READ the original post :)

Re:KDE on windows

[brunes69]

Quote:
I think they'd have to port Qt to windows natively

Thats what you said. You never said anything about porting it from QT/X11, and neither did the parent.

Re:KDE on windows

[Spy Hunter]

The point is that companies developing in-house software don't care about the GPL one bit. They could care less whether they have to give the source to their own employees. There's nothing in the GPL that says you have to make the source available to everyone who asks. You only have to make the source available to people who have the program. In-house programs never are distributed outside the company so the source isn't distributed outside either. Why do you think TrollTech has not yet released QT/Windows as GPL if they are not worried?

Re:KDE on windows

[mlinksva]

In-house apps can be GPL'd easily because the source only has to be distributed where the binaries go.

No company that doesn't want its source to get out is going to GPL its internal projects to avoid paying TrollTech. Too big of a risk. All someone has to do is anonymously post the GPL'd source someplace on the net, and the company's valuable, secret, internal (oooh, aaaah) intellectual property and probably lots about their business practices are revealed to anyone interested with no recourse.

Long term, Troll Tech has to adapt to free software world domination just as much as any other company. If they can't make a good profit on training, consulting, custom development, and other services (see Cygnus), they better learn how.

Re:KDE on windows

[fault0]

Gah, I talked about "xlib" and "_x11". That's enough to clue most informed users in ;p

Re:KDE on windows

[WzDD]

I hope they don't do this. If they do, they will just discourage companies from GPLing their products.

This really misses the point. The fact that the GPL allows this is one of many reasons why it's so attractive. If people don't take advantage of the good things the GPL allows, then there's no point using the GPL in the first place.

Case in point here: Qt is also available under the QPL, which basically requires you to open your source code. If that was all people wanted to do, then they wouldn't have pushed for a GPL version of same code. The fact that Troll Tech dual licenses is proof that they recognise all the potential that a GPL-licensed Qt has for their business, and yet they did it anyway.

The whole point is, if you use the GPLed Qt, then you are obliged to GPL your code. Troll Tech obviously does not think their business customers will be prepared to do this. They certainly thought about it long enough - there was a huge delay between the (in my opinion misguided) outcry over the QPL and the dual-licensing of Qt.

Re:KDE on windows

[fault0]

I don't think TrollTech is worried about that happening. I has been said elsewhere by TrollTech that they did not release Qt/X11 under the GPL for a long time because they were worried that someone else would take over Qt's development by outpacing them (although I can't remember where, I think this was said in the interview with TT's president).

All in all, I think that it would have disadvantages and advantages, however, in this case, I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for TrollTech financially. It'd increase the popularity of Qt a lot.

If TrollTech really didn't want this to happen, they wouldn't have released Qt under the GPL anyways. It'd be completely legal for anyone to do this, if he/she wanted to.

Re:KDE on windows

[Spy Hunter]

The whole point is, if you use the GPLed Qt, then you are obliged to GPL your code. Troll Tech obviously does not think their business customers will be prepared to do this.

Then why haven't they released a GPL QT for Windows? If this was really the case, they would have no fears about GPLing QT for all their platforms. But still only the Linux version is open source. In-house software is the key.

Re:KDE on windows

[infiniti99]

I think they'd have to port Qt to windows natively.

But Qt already has a Windows port, and it has been there since the beginning of time. Perhaps it would be easier just to consult a licensed Qt user to build binaries rather than port the library? I hold a Qt/Windows license, and I wouldn't mind building a native Konqueror or something, as long as it isn't too much work.

Re:KDE on windows

[Anonymous Coward]

No company that doesn't want its source to get out is going to GPL its internal projects to avoid paying TrollTech. Too big of a risk. All someone has to do is anonymously post the GPL'd source someplace on the net, and the company's valuable, secret, internal (oooh, aaaah) intellectual property and probably lots about their business practices are revealed to anyone interested with no recourse.

I do believe you're incorrect here...that could be done with proprietary closed source, the license doesn't matter. I personally have written a client for a piece of my company's software for load testing, I used GNU getopt source for it. Therefore, the app is GPL...however, anybody seeing the binary can also get to the source (ie employees only).

Re:KDE on windows

[Enahs]

All someone has to do is anonymously post the GPL'd source someplace on the net, and the company's valuable, secret, internal (oooh, aaaah) intellectual property and probably lots about their business practices are revealed to anyone interested with no recourse.

Right.

And not using the GPL will prevent some evil employee from posting the source anonymously.

I don't care how low your UID is; you're still naive.

Re:KDE on windows

[elflord]

And not using the GPL will prevent some evil employee from posting the source anonymously.

You miss his point entirely. What it will do is prevent it from being distributed further. It gives them room for damage control. One the offending code is taken down, no-one can legally redistribute or use it. OTOH, if it's GPL code, there's nothing preventing anyone who downloads it from legally distributing it, and competitors from legally using it.

Re:KDE on windows

[elflord]

The point is that companies developing in-house software don't care about the GPL one bit. They could care less whether they have to give the source to their own employees.

Giving the source to their employees is not the problem here, giving the code to their employees under the terms of the GPL (which permits licensees to redistribute code) is.

Re:KDE on windows

[RedWizzard]

I do believe you're incorrect here...that could be done with proprietary closed source, the license doesn't matter.

If an employee (or anyone for that matter) posts a companies proprietary source code publicly they could be accused of industrial espionage. Revealing trade secrets is a serious offense, and of course it would be a copyright violation as well. Certainly an employee would be dismissed, and I'd expect a lawsuit to 'recover damages'. But the main protection many companies use to is not let most employees have access to the source.

Therefore, the app is GPL...however, anybody seeing the binary can also get to the source (ie employees only).

The GPL circumvents both of the companies defenses: they must provide the source code to all users who want it and they cannot apply additional restrictions to the license so anyone with the source can legally redistribute it in anyway they choose and the company can do nothing about it. Not many companies would be happy with that situation.

Re:KDE on windows

[robhancock]

There's some question of legal interpretation here, however. If the licensee for the software under the GPL is considered to be the company, not the employees, then giving the app to employees is not distribution, they're just part of the company. If an employee takes the code and distributes it without the company's permission, then how is that different from a case where an individual takes GPL code, modifies it, doesn't distribute the modified app or source, and then somebody steals the software off their hard drive?

Re:KDE on windows

[elflord]

There's some question of legal interpretation here, however. If the licensee for the software under the GPL is considered to be the company, not the employees, then giving the app to employees is not distribution, they're just part of the company.

You make a good point, but I still wouldn't want to be in that position if I were the company. The main problem with this line of argument is that once the software is within your grasp, the GPL gives you permission to use it. Some argument would need to be made that the employees didn't have the right to license the software as individuals while they were on company time.

A point that's even more problematic is this -- even if they could nail the employee, the GPL wouldn't prevent others from redistributing the software.

Re:KDE on windows

[clare-ents]

"
The GPL circumvents both of the companies defenses: they must provide the source code to all users who want it and they cannot apply additional restrictions to the license so anyone with the source can legally redistribute it in anyway they choose and the company can do nothing about it. Not many companies would be happy with that situation.
"
I don't believe this. The GPL affects distribution. If a person uses my computer to run linux I am obliged to show them the source if they ask me? No. I didn't distribute the software too them.

When a company delivers me a piece of software for my desktop computer they do not give the software to me. If they did I could delete it from my work machine and take it home to run there. The company id providing me the ability to use a machine that it owns with it's software. The GPL would apply to the company - i.e. software distributed by the company must give the source but internally it doesn't matter.

Re:KDE on windows

[Isle]

Or ask trolltech politely for a free version. Qt is not SOLD in a free GPL-only package for windows, but the licence is exactly the same as for X11 none the less.

So unlike what many seems to believe, there is no legal issue with using Qt for Windows. Windows is just not traditionaly used for GPL development, and therefore a GPL-only package has not been given as high priority for windows as for linux/X11.

Re:KDE on windows

[inquisitor]

I don't see many Free Software developers rushing out to buy commercial Qt licenses so they can produce Free Software for Windows. So, basically, TrollTech would not be harmed financially, and would probably gain more users (which could mean more Commercial licenses, if some of the Free Software developers wished to make non-Free Software).

This is what the Qt for Windows Non-Commercial Edition is for. License is fairly restrictive, but it'll certainly do in a "single developer in a garage" situation.

Re:KDE on windows

[fault0]

too bad 1). it's only for mvsc only
2). no source
3). nothing for it for version 3 of Qt.

so it's not really that viable anymore.
that said, I think Qt is a wonderful toolkit, and I really appreciate the years of work that TrollTech has put into it.

Re:KDE on windows

[RedWizzard]

Good point. What constitutes distribution? Certainly letting someone else use your computer in a one off situation clearly doesn't constitute distribution of the software on it. It's a bit more murky in the case of a company providing access to employees though. For one thing, in a company users would generally be using personal accounts and I think it would be difficult to argue that the software hasn't been distributed to those users in that situation. Think of software that has a click through agreement when first run by a new user. Deleting software from a company machine would be covered by the companies use of computers policy and isn't relevant here.

The way you're intepreting the GPL anyone could bypass it by simply saying that they are "lending access" to the software. Eg. I have a license to use some software, I install it on your machine, I'm still the license holder so I haven't distributed the software to you, I'm just letting you use the software temporarily. I doubt the FSF would agree with that interpretation.

whats the point

[Anonymous Pancake]

why run a sad windows wannebe program like KDE when you can have the real thing.. waste of time

Re:whats the point

[Anonymous Coward]

so we can use the apps, sherlock

Re:whats the point

[Reikk]

Can you give me some examples of applications that you would want to port that windows doesn't have better versions of? I can't think of any at the moment.

Re:whats the point

[mgkimsal2]

Konqeuror, while perhaps not the best browser on the planet, DOES give you much better control over cookies than IE. The new IE6 privacy mgr stuff is, imo, just horrendous.

Re:whats the point

[m_ilya]

You don't get the point. This is from FAQ

Tell me something about the reason why this should be have done ?

Somebody asked me, why one should port all this software to this X&%$? windows ? Another one told me, that this would be perverse. Why are we doing this real ?

I think, that kde is a great desktop and has the oppertunity to be a big player in gui apps and desktop area. Especially because of the famous qt library, which is designed very platform independed and already ported to many operation systems, porting kde application to other unix based operation systems isn't very much work. The one currently left operation system is windows.

Windows is the standard os in many companies. How could this fact be used to enforce kde propagation ? The answer is simple: Build something that allow kde application running on top on windows. This goal we try to reach with this project.

Re:whats the point

[fault0]

In some area's, Konqueror is a better file manager than Windows Explorer. For example, whenever I use explorer, I itch to have the menu that Konqueror pops up when moving around files. It's incredibly useful.

On the other hand, Windows Explorer beats the shit out of all X11 in terms of speed, esp. Nautilus, and Konqueror to less off a degree. And no, I'm not counting ROX because it's not in the same field as Explorer in terms of features.

Re:whats the point

[mgkimsal2]

konqueror the best? ha tahts funny

Either you're just really tired because it's late where you are, or you're just stupid. My comment specifically stated that Konqueror was NOT the best browser. Sheesh...

Re:whats the point

[Anonymous Coward]

how about the KDE taskbar? it's far more configurable than Windoze's and comes with many more applets too, and before xp windoze didn't have virtual desktops

Re:whats the point

[Spy Hunter]

The new IE6 privacy mgr stuff is, imo, just horrendous.

Actually, I prefer it over Konqueror's cookie management (which I also think is very good, don't get me wrong). With IE6, I have separate control over first- and third-party cookies. I can set all cookies to "block" except for harmless and sometimes useful single-session cookies. If I ever want to let one through, I simply click the little icon in the status bar, and it gives me a summary of what it has blocked. BTW, it blocks more than cookies: it's on to some other privacy-invading tricks as well (sometimes it blocks loading of certain apparently invisible .gifs). I can select any one of those blocked items and let it through.

Konqueror doesn't really have anything comparable. The closest you can get is to make it ask you about cookies whenever you visit a new site. That generates lots of questions, which is annoying. You can set it to block always, but when you want to let a cookie through then, you have to go deep into the preferences, which is annoying. Especially because the preferences dialog takes forever to load and forever to go away afterwards. The cookie deleter dialog is nice, but I don't really find myself using it much. I'd like more convenient control over what gets in there in the first place.

Re:whats the point

[Spy Hunter]

For example, whenever I use explorer, I itch to have the menu that Konqueror pops up when moving around files. It's incredibly useful.

Drag with the right mouse button. I'd guess Microsoft is worried about usability so much they didn't think about real users. It's non-obvious what to do when you want to copy a program instead of "link" it. You have to use the right-mouse button to drag instead of the regular left button. I guess they thought a little pop-up was too confusing for people so they didn't make it the default. Right-mouse button dragging is all I ever use, that way I always get the result I want instead of the result Windows wants.

Re:whats the point

[Reikk]

Your answer doesn't make sense to me. From the KDE website

General Overview

KDE is a network transparent contemporary desktop environment for UNIX workstations. KDE seeks to fill the need for an easy to use desktop for Unix workstations, similar to the desktop environments found under the MacOS or Window95/NT. We believe that the UNIX operating system is the best operating system available today. In fact UNIX has been the undisputed choice of the information technology professional for many years. When it comes to stability, scalability and openness there is no competition to UNIX. However, the lack of an easy to use contemporary desktop environment for UNIX has prevented UNIX from finding its way onto the desktops of the typical computer user in offices and homes. UNIX dominates the server market and is the preferred computing platform for computing professional and scientists. Without UNIX the internet would not be. But UNIX did not address the needs of the average computer user. This fact is particularly unfortunate since a number of implementations of UNIX (Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD etc.) are freely available on the internet. All of which are of exceptional quality and stability.

KDE The Desktop Environment

With KDE there is now an easy to use contemporary desktop environment available for UNIX. Together with a free implementation of UNIX such as Linux, UNIX/KDE constitutes a completely free and open computing platform available to anyone free of charge including its source code for anyone to modify. While there will always be room for improvement we believe to have delivered a viable alternative to some of the more commonly found and commercial operating systems/desktops combinations available today. It is our hope that the combination UNIX/KDE will finally bring the same open, reliable, stable and monopoly free computing to the average computer user that scientist and computing professionals world-wide have enjoyed for years.

Doesn't this port go against the ethics and goal of the project? Isn't it porting software to a less stable operating system? Contributing to a monopoly?

Maybe due to all the recent flaws in the kernel and the mass migration from Unix to Windows 2000/XP, the developers are realizing that windows is a better operating system.

Re:whats the point

[Enahs]

Hi, troll.

Yeah, I know it's a troll, but look at me, silly me, responding anyway.

Doesn't this port go against the ethics and goal of the project? Isn't it porting software to a less stable operating system? Contributing to a monopoly?

*sigh* Maybe, but quite frankly, sometimes I long for my KDE 2.x desktop. :-) I've looked into getting OS X.1 running on my Apple at work mainly to start installing "ports" of popular *n?x apps. I use KDE at home, and I've come to expect everything else in the world to work like KDE. :-)

Now, I'm not saying that KDE couldn't use some improvements (like, for instance, if they were to copy pre-OSX Finder a little more closely ;-) but, doggone it, the major desktop(s) have their problems too. Not saying that KDE is less guilty by association; just saying that, given the fact that KDE is a free effort, that one would expect the commercial desktop OSes to be miles ahead of KDE and GNOME, usability-wise. But FWIW that's not the case. :-)

Back to my original point: I personally don't see a problem with this, mainly because it's a.) a neat little toy and b.) "proof" that apps written on POSIX systems are portable, unlike the stuff we get from Redmond. :-)

Maybe due to all the recent flaws in the kernel

There's more than just Windows and Linux out there, bucko. You're talking about Linux, right? Well...at least the Linux crowd doesn't attempt to hide or stifle major bugs in their OS. :-)

and the mass migration from Unix to Windows 2000/XP

Huh?

the developers are realizing that windows is a better operating system.

A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I'm not a Windows developer, but I know quite a few both In Real Life and online, and I've got to say that the phrase "happy Windows programmer" is an oxymoron.

More like, pointy-haired management types want something they can see in a box, and MS hucksters came along putting the hard-sell on their latest snake-oil release. And the developers were left with the task of developing on the turkey.

Have a nice night, troll. It's been fun. :-)

Re:whats the point

[biohazard99]

"Draging" most windows executables is a bad idea, the registry doesn't self-update and any "shortcuts" to it are lost, they must be redited with correct paths, except a windows dialog isn't as fast as 'ln name target'

Re:whats the point

[Reikk]

There's more than just Windows and Linux out there, bucko. You're talking about Linux, right?

You're right - I apologize. I was indeed referring to the Linux kernel, and the recent rash of security holes and other major bugs it hosted.

Well...at least the Linux crowd doesn't attempt to hide or stifle major bugs in their OS. :-)

People should not try to stifle major bugs in their OS. Enter Alan Cox. He recently refused to divulge the details of an important security hole in the linux kernel.

In regards to the mass migration from unix to Microsoft, I am referring mostly to my own personal experience. They company I worked for recently migrated from unix to MS, and the majority of people I know in the IT industry tell me similar stories. In addition, in regards to webservers, netcraft.com says:

"Microsoft-IIS gained more sites than it lost, with around 148,000 sites switching to the server over the last month, including blackbox.com, pga.com, Raytheon, and Johns Manville."

I'm just saying, maybe the KDE developers see these trends and are just preparing for the inevitable?

While trying to post this article, slashdot's database was down yet again. I had to go play a game of wolfenstein and come back before it was working. These failures continue to occur on a daily basis. Is it Linux, MySQL, or is slashdot just very poorly managed? Though, I suppose that's another issue for another day.

Re:whats the point

[ninewands]

Maybe due to all the recent flaws in the kernel ...

Okay, I'll grant you there was a problem with 2.4.11 and a NASTY bug in 2.4.15, but at least Linus publicizes its bugs and gets a fix out as quickly as possible, as opposed to your favorite monopoly OS company which is trying its best to hide them ...

... and the mass migration from Unix to Windows 2000/XP ...

Say WHAT? I don't know the source of your information, but I've got news for you. The only mass migration to Win2K I've seen is from Win9x/Me/NT. As for XP, I don't know of a single case of anyone voluntarily switching to it.

... the developers are realizing that windows is a better operating system.

Maybe this is the reason why all the computer science courses at the university I work at are taught under ... errrmmm ... UNIX!

Re:whats the point

[Queuetue]

People should not try to stifle major bugs in their OS. Enter Alan Cox. He recently refused to divulge the details of an important security hole in the linux kernel.

No he didn't. He made a (possibly misguided) attempt to hilight the dangers of the DMCA by not showing certain kernel changelog information *within* the United States. The information is available outside of the U.S.

Re:whats the point

[be-fan]

Really. So the JPager applet I ran for several years was just a figment of my imagination?

Re:whats the point

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, that's third party, fucknut

Re:whats the point

[be-fan]

windoze didn't have virtual desktops
>>>>>>>>>>
So, according to your logic, an OS doesn't have something unless its built into the OS? And you're the same people who complain that MS is a monopoly for integrating everything? You do realize that the whole range of OSS programs are one big "third party" system, don't you?

Re:KDE on win32

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. While KDE is wasting development time on stupid little eye-candy features like button throbbing, Windows XP renders stuff in half the time that KDE does.

Give up your KDE and go with IceWM. At least Marko has his head on straight.

Re:KDE on win32

[phreakinb]

ill be doing something for school like an essay or something(in windows) and what-do-you-know. blue screen...so far linux has only crashed once on me. and it was my fault. sofar linux has been way better for me. when i get in high school and get a laptop ill not even think of installing winblows.. ill go straight for SuSE and star office

Probably still has a ways to go...

[mgkimsal2]

Their own project site says it's 'alpha'-level software. One of the guys in the office had played with Cygwin and Xfree86 running some stuff - nice idea, but seemed a bit kludgy at the time. Still, I suppose it can only get better. :)

To those who ask "why bother?", at this time you might be right. However, as KDE matures, it'd be nice to know you could write apps that would run on many more boxes than just native Linux boxes. (Haven't seen KDE run on anything but Linux - I assume it might run on Solaris? *BSD?) Yeah, it's an early hack right now - if it matures to become a good alternative, it certainly can't be a bad thing in any sense of the word (unless you were to argue that that time could have been better spent developing some other apps).

Re:Probably still has a ways to go...

[christurkel]

KDE runs on most *BSD variants, except Darwin.

Re:Probably still has a ways to go...

[mgkimsal2]

Thanks for the clarification - I'd kinda figured as much, but the only *BSD machines I come in contact with are web/ftp servers with no displays (at least none I can connect to).

Re:Probably still has a ways to go...

[elflord]

One of the guys in the office had played with Cygwin and Xfree86 running some stuff - nice idea, but seemed a bit kludgy at the time.

For all the flaws in the implementation, it does a great job at turning a Windows machine into a moderately usable X-term without paying for a commercial windows X server.

Re:Probably still has a ways to go...

[twaltari]

Cygwin/XFree has improved a lot during the past year and isn't that kludgy anymore. It works very well as an alternative for commercial win32 X servers (Exceed, WinAxe etc).

Re:Probably still has a ways to go...

[LeBleu]

Actually, one of the computer labs at University of Wisconsin-Madison had KDE running on UltraSPARCs (running Solaris, not Linux) back a few years ago (~1998 - 1999) when I was in school.

I don't really see the point of running KDE on Windows as long as you're still depending on an X server. (Well, other than just because you can..... :) Now, if QT could be ported to wrap the Win32 interface, instead of X, then you would have a real possibility of making an application for KDE also available as a Windows application. (Just compile it for Windows, include the Cygwin DLL, and boom, you've got a windows version.) In which case someone might actually make some useful applications available for both Windows and Linux by using it.

The kde-on-cygwin homepage...

[bflong]

is here.

There are a few screenshots of kde 1.2.x there, but very little on the kde 2.X port.

Re:KDE on win32

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, IceWM. With a win95-look-alike taskbar, and two panel applets. YAY! let's use that.

Marko should give up development on IceWM. Since KDE has IceWM themes support, it's obsoleted by it anyways.

Great lets make Windows slower and buggier.

[RodeoBoy]

I really do not see the point. It will not be like running *nix, what ever that means, and there will be few if any features that Windows already has. It is bad enough that everyone is focused on out windowing Windows, but no we have to try and do it on a M$ OS. I hope they had fun doing it because that is the only reason to even try, for the fun of it. It is bad enough that so many of the distros are trying so hard to be like Windows, and it is succeeding. Look at all the new bug that are coming out because of the push to add more feature and get them out quickly. One has got to ask themselves how different is this than M$. If I want to have pretty pictures and one hand computing the boot up Windows, but if I want to think, burn and type Slackware. Well at least there are still fixes going on for 2.2, M$ just stops fixing older OS's until they drop them all together i.e. Win95 or just don't offer you the features i.e. no ASP.NET for IIS 4 and NT 4.

Re:Great lets make Windows slower and buggier.

[Anonymous Coward]

As KDE matures, it'd be nice to know you could write apps that would run on many more boxes than just native Linux boxes. (Haven't seen KDE run on anything but Linux - I assume it might run on Solaris? *BSD?) Yeah, KDE-SIGWINCH's an early hack right now - if it matures to become a good alternative, it certainly can't be a bad thing in any sense of the word (unless you were to argue that that time could have been better spent developing some other apps).

Re:Great lets make Windows slower and buggier.

[AnimeFreak]

I think the purpose is to see if you can do it. It's like running Emulators on top of Emulators, it really has no point, but just to see if you could do it (like running Virtual PC in Mac OS, running Windows with Basilisk running Mac OS, then running SoftWindows 68K with Windows 3.1, and so on...).

Yet, IMHO, it is neat to see KDE running in Windows. Even though that can be done by running it off another computer and using a X server on a Windows box, this way allows you to access the files on your local drive. I personally like to see the same thing pulled off with Gnome. Heck, GIMP runs in Windows and it installs the GTK+ libraries, so I guess it isn't too hard to get Gnome working.

Re:Great lets make Windows slower and buggier.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though that can be done by running it off another computer...

It is not run off another computer. It is being ran off the same machine using Cygwin's X server for graphics. Jeeeze .. at least read some and not just make accusations based of the screenshots.

Re:Great lets make Windows slower and buggier.

[AnimeFreak]

Umm... I wasn't accusing them of doing that.

I was saying that is the only way you could do that until this was heard of. Sorry if I confused you there.

I was basically stating that the alternative method to running KDE on Windows is to get a X Server program (such as Exceed or Micrografx) and run X off a network (allowing you to run KDE in Windows). I never stated that those were false.

virtual desktops on win xp

[buzzini]

This is arguably off-topic, but for those of you who've been pining for virtual desktops on Windows, check out the Windows XP Powertoys which includes a virtual desktop tool.

Re:virtual desktops on win xp

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it's made by microsoft. Since it is the first version, it will take 10 years to become stable.

Re:virtual desktops on win xp

[buzzini]

Didja actually try it? It's perfectly stable. This capability has been in Windows for years, though not exposed through UI. It's a shame that some folks are unable to take off their anti-ms blinders & evaluate technology objectively.

Re:virtual desktops on win xp

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and coincedentally these people are all not logged in, and all post things that seem designed to irritate people..

Re:KDE on win32

[Anonymous Coward]

Point taken, but there's also been major problems found in recent versions of the kernel that are supposedly stable. If you're running Windows 95 or 98, the BSOD is a way of life. But newer versions, especially Windows 2000, are much stable than their predecessors.

Commit to CVS?

[Mr. Sketch]

Will these ports of KDE make it into CVS so that windows will be just another build target for KDE? That would be really nice, however I heard that QT wasn't releasing a free version of 3.0 for windows which would prevent KDE 3.0 running under windows. Or maybe trolltech just wasn't releasing the source for QT 3.0 for windows.

Anyways, great jobs guys!

Re:Commit to CVS?

[m_ilya]

Will these ports of KDE make it into CVS so that windows will be just another build target for KDE?

As I understand KDE itself is not a problem since it almost do not require patching. It is already very portable. What needs patches is Cygwin.

That would be really nice, however I heard that QT wasn't releasing a free version of 3.0 for windows which would prevent KDE 3.0 running under windows.

They have ported Unix version of QT which is avialable as GPL.

Re:Commit to CVS?

[Mr. Sketch]

They have ported Unix version of QT which is avialable as GPL

Where? Not from trolltech, at least not that I could find. They have a binary version of QT 2.3 for MSVC, but I couldn't find anything except a 30 day evaluation for QT 3.0.

Re:Commit to CVS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it. I sure won't be taking care to make it portable to Win32. It's a unix desktop, not a computer desktop.

Re:Commit to CVS?

[Mr. Sketch]

It's a unix desktop, not a computer desktop

Why can't it be a computer desktop? Pretty much all the programs except the control center are not unix specific. When you say "I sure won't be taking care to make it portable to Win32" is that implying you are a KDE developer/contributer? I wasn't implying that every developer would have to ensure their code will work on Win32. I was figuring a small porting team would work on that and make their commits and build binaries, etc, since after the project as a whole is ported, it shouldn't be too difficult to maintain new additions, maybe do nightly/weekly builds from cvs to see what (if anything) needs some work to keep it Win32 compatible.

I think it would be nice to offer the KDE desktop as an alternative to the standard Win32 desktop, or at the very least offer the KDE applications as native Win32 apps (kinda like how the Gimp works, but it's GTK+).

Re:Commit to CVS?

[m_ilya]

Look here.

Here quote from that page:

The Qt Free Edition is provided under both the Q Public License ("QPL") and the GPL.

Don't forget: Litestep!

[gatesh8r]

Not KDE, though if you like Afterstep, this is an alternative to the Lose9x shell at least. http://www.litestep.net/

Re:Don't forget: Litestep!

[Anonymous Coward]

list.shellfront.org, there are 62 Win32 shells available.
This KDE thing looks interesting but i'm not sure I se the point...layers upon layers...just replace the shell and have less to deal with.
Okay, if you already use Cygwin for something...maybe...but they are still using the Explorer taskbar in those screenshots, problem not solved!

Choice is returning in the browser market

[Eloquence]

After Netscape's failure to come up with immediate usable follow-up releases to Netscape 4.7, the future on the Windows browser market looked bleak: Microsoft had managed, by throwing enough smart people at the problem and leveraging its monopoly position to distribute the result, to entirely dominate the browser platform. In the US, IE is around 90% (strangely, Netscape 4.x still hovers at around 20% in Germany).

But Mozilla is now very fast and stable on Windows, and it is clear that the 1.0 release will be one of the best browsers available (memory usage will likely remain unsatisfying, but memory prices these days are negligible) -- and available on all relevant platforms. Then you have spin-offs like K-Meleon and Galeon which use the Mozilla Gecko engine with smaller general overhead and some new features.

Development of Moz & Co. will not stop with the 1.0 release -- they will continue to improve proportionally to the number of people that use and hack them. The same is true for KDE's Konqueror, which is an excellent, fast browser that just keeps getting better, and has some very nice features, especially on the GUI side. I'm not keeping up with IE, but some of the Mozilla/Konqueror features seem to be unmatched by IE: tabbed browsing (Moz), background loading, very flexible window layout, perfect search engine integration etc. etc. None of them are bundled with any specific vendor-services (except for Netscape's "What's Related" in Mozilla). Wonderful cookie management. No smart tags either.

From what I have heard, IE 6.0 only had marginal improvements, reminiscent of a single milestone in Mozilla. This would not surprise me, given the fact that Microsoft no longer needs to invest in the browser market since they already dominate it pretty safely (or so they think). This is completely different to oss, which keeps getting better until its developers are satisfied.

The KDE port to Windows may eventually give Windows users another mature choice for browsing, besides Opera, Mozilla and K-Meleon, Konqueror. The Qt libraries are cross-platform (though there may be licensing issues), so hopefully eventually we'll see a simple to install binary port of Konqueror.

There's lots to say about why choice in the browser market matters, but I'll save that for another rant. Trust Microsoft: They knew why they had to concentrate all of their resources on killing Netscape 5 years ago. Part of their strategy was OEM licensing, telling PC manufacturers not to include Netscape besides IE, or suffer the consequence of prohibitive Windows prices. From what I have gathered, many of these practices are now forbidden, so OEMs should now be legally able to install another browser besides IE. And the choices for them to do so are growing. This gives PC manufacturers potential revenue streams since they can "customize" these browsers in unprecedented ways.

So this should be a wake-up call to OEMs to install browsers besides IE. The time is now, and liberating the browser is the first step to breaking the MS OS monopoly.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[searleb]

Although Opera totally uninterests me, I think that you can't discount it. Opera is a slick browser alternative to IE, and I know an awful lot of people who prefer it. Personally, I think IE is the only thing currently worthwhile about Windows, and I agree, it still doesn't hold a candle to galeon, recently discussed here .

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[Anonymous Coward]

"..it still doesn't hold a candle to galeon"

Yeah, good old Galeon, with it's much more restrictive form of MDI than Opera. Yeah, I'll hold a candle up ur ass!

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[Anonymous Coward]

Never tried Galeon. Opera 6.0 also has SDI. Mozilla has SDI and MDI in the form of tabs. And about that candle, well, you know the URL.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[Anonymous Coward]

That is rather absurd.

IE6 is much more refined... their was no real need for any major overhaul of the interface but under the surface it operates much more efficiently in every way. It's not like they should change everything just for the sake of it.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[Anonymous Coward]

Was there ever a browser "market?" Seriously, Netscape gave away Navigator for free. Did they expect people to turn around and suddenly pay for Navigator Gold or whatever? I don't believe there is any money to be made in the browser "market." It is about control. Who controls the access portal. It is the same focal point of AOL, Netscape, Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, shall I continue? What they are finding out now is they have no control whatsoever. What I really do not get is why people bitch about Microsoft bundling IE with Windows, yet where is the bitching about AOL bundling Navigator? IIRC, they used Navigator exclusively back in the days.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[Eloquence]

Did they expect people to turn around and suddenly pay for Navigator Gold or whatever?

Yeah, they did. The free copy was technically only an evaluation copy for a long time. However, they had to make it totally free in order to compete with IE. There were lots of other channels which Netscape tried to use to make money, including partnerships with solution providers like Sun (Java in the browser - ugh), content providers (remember Netcaster? that thing was fucked up), licensees of the client software etc. They were fucked in almost every area by Microsoft, either because IE was free or because MS used its market power to stop people from entering any business relationship with Netscape. Netscape was also partially at fault because some things they did were really stupid.

If we assume that IE had not existed (Microsoft realizing in 2001 that the Internet may be relevant, or something), Netscape would certainly be a highly profitable company by now, and a very decent web-browser.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[Junta]

Note he was talking about IE, which has a distinct lack of any MDI mode. But on the subject, I like being able to middle click and have a document load in a background tab. I can't display two pages at the same time in MDI, have to do SDI then, but that is a much rarer case. If Opera can do pop-under MDI, and have a "maximize by default" so it resembles a tab interface, I'd be much more interested. Having the option of windowed MDI is nice, but the tab paradigm has advantages..

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[elflord]

The KDE port to Windows may eventually give Windows users another mature choice for browsing, besides Opera, Mozilla and K-Meleon, Konqueror.

Not really. The problem is that it's a port to cygwin, not windows. IOW, it's running through some sort of emulation layer that is darn slow, IME.

The Qt libraries are cross-platform (though there may be licensing issues), so hopefully eventually we'll see a simple to install binary port of Konqueror.

Running it with the native Windows Qt port is an interesting idea. Not sure how well it would work, but it would potentially speed things up a lot.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[mlinksva]

Netscape was very much at fault for its failure in the browser market and in general. They thought they'd take over the world, developed and bought a a million different applications to do so -- and every single Netscape application I ever saw sucked. The browser and the company deserved to die. If Microsoft had never produced a browser and Netscape somehow held on to its dominant market share (I don't think it would have, someone else would've come along), we'd all really hate Netscape and its crappy products now. Not that any of this excuses Microsoft in any way, shape, or form ... but I don't care about excusing any proprietary software company any moreso than any other. The important thing is that we now have at least two viable free software engines (Gecko and khtml) and several browsers and platforms supported amongst them. That's real choice. Netscape vs. Microsoft wasn't ever real choice, even if they had evenly split the market 50/50.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[fault0]

I beleive both are possible in Opera.

Just maximize any sub window, and when you open up a new window, it will "maximize by default" you basically have tabs.

Also, button3, or shift button-1 opens up a new sub window.

Note that this is in windows Opera. I can't imagine it'd be too different in Linux.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[man_ls]

I took an online course that "required" Netscape to run. The sad thing? IE 5.5 rendered the pages more correct than Netscape itself did!

IE renders what the code tells it to, whether it is W3C correct, or if it's not. Netscape assumes everyone writes perfect code to begin with, so a lot of pages won't display properly with it.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market

[chrisvdp74656]

>it's running through some sort of emulation layer that is darn slow

Not quite. Cygwin is an implementation of the Un*x APIs in Windows. It is similar in function to wine, which is an implementation of the Win32 API in Un*x/x86.

What this basically means, AFAIK, is that cygwin 'runs' the un*x binaries by translating their function calls (Hey, OS, do this for me, will ya?) into something windows can run. (Ugga ugga ug ug. Ugga ug.) Yes, it is similar in function to an emulator, but an emulator typically pretends to be hardware, whereas cygwin and wine pretend to be software.

HTH.

Chris

Oh joy

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have to install Andale Mono font so that when the anti-alias is turned on in KDE it can turn all your fonts to A.D. Mono like on Linux?

How about that wonderful "Bad Font: &@!#^&@" error that shows up when you try to change fonts in Konsole? They port that too?

Man, Linux really sets the trend.

reminds me of that line from airplane

[A_Non_Moose]

because of this, from the cygwin site:
What Is Cygwin?
Cygwin is a UNIX environment for Windows.

And while reading the description I kept thinking of that line:
"... it is like humping your sister, sure it feels good when you start, but you both know it is wrong.

KDE on windows...hurmph...like putting a tiara on a moose...uhhh...bad analogy. And get that thing away from my head!

Re:reminds me of that line from airplane

[Utter]

Unfortunately, a lot of developers (like me) must use Windows to earn their living. I find Cygwin essential for my work. Bison, flex, bash, gawk, sed and perl is some of the tools I use daily.

/Jonas U

Re:reminds me of that line from airplane

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you more productive than millions of other Windows programers who don't use Unix tools on their Windows boxes ?

Other resources

[Col. Panic]

I also am forced to use NT at work, but it is much easier with a few tools. Here are a few other ports:

pstools

strings

grep

Re:Other resources

[Cally]

Cygwin provides all these (I think, not sure about pstools) and lots lots more besides:


andrew@INEGO% ls -l /usr/bin|wc -l

572

Anyway, Gnome (and even Nautilus, IIRC) already run on Cygwin. As it goes I've been lost in the Cygworld myself for the last six hours, grepping and a shell-scripting, sed'ing and ^Ring, man pages to the left, info to the right... it absolutely rules, it's made Microsoft bearable for me. Tons of other runs under it too, I've got Apache and Perl going (from the standard src distributions) - problems with mod_perl though, which is a shame. XFree86 isn;t really practical on this P2-233 but the commandline is all I ever needed and more. Even netcat and mutt run... if only I had working mailserver..

Re:Other resources

[Col. Panic]

Yeah, I meant in addition - btw I still have two dillemas - finding awk and tab line completion. Little help?

Re:Other resources

[Utter]

gawk is included with Cygwin. If you are running bash instead of cmd.exe you also get tab-completion.

/Jonas U

Re:Other resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, Gnome (and even Nautilus, IIRC) already run on Cygwin.

No, no, no no, stop it. Stop it right now. The holy KDE does everything first and always deserves a slashdot story for it. Do not denigrate the holy KDE, or you shall suffer the wrath of the sacred army of Konquerors!!!!

Re:Other resources

[stevey]

Shameless plug I know - but GNUSoftware.com has a directory of tons of GNU stuff ported to Windows.

Check it out sometime, and add pointers to software that isn't listed .. please!

Re:Other resources

[Anonymous Coward]

This user has been banned from slashdot. His/her whole subnet has been additionally banned.

Please try to keep slashdot a safe haven for pro-KDE and pro-Linux comments. Thanks.

Re:whats the point .. oops

[Anonymous Coward]

oops im tired :)
Konqueror is decent, especially the loadtimes compared to mozilla or netscape. I like the little details like buttons with the same theme as kde and stuff like that. Stil i dont think i got flash plugin working

Re:whats the point .. oops

[mgkimsal2]

Fair enough - tired is fine. :)

Yeah, aesthetically, it's coming along nicely, and as I mentioned before, cookie control is better than many other browsers. If they could do the tabbed browsing like in moz.9.6, and a few other things, it may become my default platform. As more of my work is done via just web browsers, I'm flirting more and more with using Linux/KDE as my primary environment, instead of secondary to W2k. I *really* don't want to get into the whole XP thing in the Windows world. By the time I need to upgrade again, fingers crossed, Linux/KDE will be a rock-solid alternative (close, but no cigar yet).

Real reason why no one will want to use it

[fireboy1919]

While its true that QT library can't be compiled,
there are some ways to get around that. And while I like the way the Windows shell works, occasionally I find advantage in using other visual shells. I'd use KDE.

HOWEVER, the big problems lie in the conversion.
I love cygwin and use it as my main POSIX environment. I use it much more than Linux, and have added most of the best tools to my version of it.

Icewm and twm have already been ported, and despite the simplicity of the two, both have problems in Windows, making a lot of other programs less workable (this is especially true of Icewm). In addition, configuration is based upon a series of workarounds, and is thoroughly unlike the elegant method used within Linux.

KDE already somewhat slow, buggy, and complex in Linux - while Icewm and TWM are quite simple. There's no way KDE will even be usable considering its complexity. The ability to change the configuration will make it far too difficult to change, and it would be too slow to run on all but the fastest machines since cygwin versions of apps are all slower than their linux counterparts.

In addition, having the Window manager is one thing, but having apps for it is something else entirely. That's what it'd really be good for. I'd love to use kdevelop under cygwin, but its not going to be joining Windows with KDE.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market [OT]

[jacoplane]

I recently read in the WSJ about the alliance Sony and AOL have recently forged. One of things they are going to be collaborating on is:

The joint development of an Internet browser designed for optimal performance, a consistent experience, and greater convenience on networked consumer electronic devices. Both companies envision not only employing the browser in future Sony products but also making it available to other consumer electronics manufacturers

Are they talking about Mozilla? If not what does this mean for Mozilla? Remember that AOL owns Netscape, who are the biggest contributors to Mozilla. There's also an article about the alliance here. I tried to post it as a story, but it got rejected. Sorry about the offtopic message here.

KDE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does everything in KDE start with a "K"?

Whats the file manager in KDE called?
KFM
Whats the file manager in Windows called?
Explorer

Whats the html browser called in KDE?
Konqueror
Whats the html browser in Windows called?
Internet Explorer

It gets old. Fast.

Re:KDE?

[fault0]

It'd called branding. It signifies that a particular program was written by a certain group, in case, the KDE developers.

Microsoft does it too.

Whats the html browser in Microsoft Windows called?
MicrosoftMicrosoft's word processing application?

Microsoft Word

What is the name of Microsoft's C++ IDE?

Microsoft Visual C++

Re:KDE?

[fault0]

Bah, messed up that last post.

It'd called branding. It signifies that a particular program was written by a certain group, in case, the KDE developers.

Microsoft does it too.

Whats the html browser in Microsoft Windows called?
Microsoft Internet Explorer

What's the name of Microsoft's word processing application?

Microsoft Word

What is the name of Microsoft's C++ IDE?

Microsoft Visual C++

Re:KDE?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I think a better anology would be Windows. I can't think of any non-MS windows programs that begin with Microsoft or MS. But Win is quite common: Winamp, WinZip etc.

Re:KDE?

[posmon]

the addition of the k/win is because they are the platforms that the software runs under.

the microsoft in front of things is to tell you who published it.

now i'm off to play sierra.monolith.win.aliensversuspredator 2.0

Re:whats the point .. oops

[Anonymous Coward]

"..Linux/KDE will be a rock-solid alternative.."

I hope so too. I think that KDE and GNOME are not as rock-solid as Windows can be with the proper configuration. From what I've seen of KDE and GNOME, KDE seems to be the best bet for an environment that can be rock-solid in the not-so-distant future. Hopefully, KDE 3.x will realize this dream.

Don't expect this to be a barn burner

[joshv]

I played around with the 1.2 port and it was darned slow. Looking at the sourceforge update it seems that performance problems still plague the 2.2.x port.

Still, it's pretty darned cool to be able to run KDE in a window in NT/2000/XP. I look forward to the day when there is an entire cygwin distro. Won't have to dual boot or buy VMWare to try out linux apps.

-josh

Re:Don't expect this to be a barn burner

[krogoth]

The problem is cygwin. Cygwin is very slow for some things (probably what has to go through the emulated API).

Re:Don't expect this to be a barn burner

[man_ls]

The problem is that a lot of the POSIX-style system calls don't map well to the Win32 system layer. One main example is fork():

In Unix, it's fork and be done with it. The code's built in. Under Cygwin, fork() is emulated like in the first versions of Unix, involing some wierd scheme of memory address copying and process signaling, since Win32 has no need in itself for a function like fork.

There was another in the similar line, I forget what exactly, but the cygwin FAQ or thereabouts said that those two system calls are what causes such a massive performance hit in emulation.

Anything that has to do real-time conversions for an app is going to be slower than the native environment, even on a fast computer.

Re:Don't expect this to be a barn burner

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE is dog slow in the first place. Running it in cygwin only makes it worse.

Re:Choice is returning in the browser market [OT]

[Eloquence]

They are probably talking about some derivative -- AOL recently announced that they are testing Mozilla's Gecko engine in a special CompuServe web-browser (CompuServe is 0wned by AOL), and provided the test is a success, may eventually use it in AOL as well. (AOL had a deal from 1996-2000 with MS to use IE as its browser in return for desktop space. Don't know if it has been extended.) AOL's bastardized version of Mozilla under the Netscape brand is so messed up that only using Gecko seems like a good idea (and a must for a platform with little resources).

I don't think AOL will cancel Moz development anytime soon, unless they are conspiring with Microsoft (in which case they'd be better off sabotaging Moz through their developers). But if it happens, the only net effect will be a slowdown in development. Even many former paid hackers will likely continue working on Moz in their spare time.

Is this a troll statement?

[deuist]

Isn't saying you want the feel of Linux a bit of a absurd statement? KDE looks more like Windows than any other UNIX environment out there.

Re:Is this a troll statement?

[fault0]

How about qwwm (or something like that?), icewm(with it's winish startbar), and even gnome. all can be fairly argued to be winish.

kde is more os2-ish than win-ish, although win9x had lots of os2-ishness. :)

Re:KDE on win32

[evilviper]

If you want a stable, secure, and lightweight OS use Blackbox or XFce on top of OpenBSD. For all of KDE's huge footprint, tons of code, it doesn't even come close to the ease of use of XFce. Now why Linux companies don't introduct first time Linux users to XFce is beyond me. It would certainly change the reputation of Unix being dicciult to use...

It's about time!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally we can have the stability of Windows combined with the world class user interface of Linux.

May God have mercy on our souls.

Re:It's about time!

[Anonymous Coward]

it was funny the first time, but now this line is attched to every story about cygwin...
so redundant might be a more fitting tag

Re:TOTALLY OFF TOPIC! + Why not GNOME?

[Anonymous Coward]

+3 ? Huh? This is *totally off topic*! What do web browsers have to do with KDE?

There should be something similar to "flamebait", but opposite: "modbait" perhaps? A post that is designed to get modded up by appealing to slashdot readers, without having much to do with the original story.

Re:whats the point .. oops

[Guillaume Ross]

I always used to hate gnome, but I tried ximian again lately, on my RH7.2 box, and god, THIS THING IS GREAT! :)

Re:KDE on win32

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

An AC Said:
Point taken, but there's also been major problems found in recent versions of the kernel that are supposedly stable. If you're running Windows 95 or 98, the BSOD is a way of life. But newer versions, especially Windows 2000, are much stable than their predecessors.

So it seems your whole arguement against Linux is a couple "oopsies" in realeases of the Kernel. Of of x number of hundreds of releses, that's a damn good ratio, if you ask me.

Don't get me wrong, w2k IS a good OS. It really is. And yes, '9x is crap, it really is (although I still run 98_se on one of my boxes here at home...).

But, I could mention SP4... er well, that one didn't happen (sarcasm). 4a! Right! That's the ONLY one. SP6? Nope, never existed (sarcasm). SP6a. Nimda holes, Code Red holes, etc...

And a couple bad Kernel revs is your only arguement. Fine. Don't use that Kernel. It's REALLY that simple. It's called CHOICE. I CHOOSE to run 2.4.14 because I found it the best for my box (2.4.9 was the one previous that I used).

I hate to come off as a M$ basher, but:
Does M$ give you that kind of choice? Nope...

P.S.
The 2.4.x Kernels are NOT considered "stable", they just are (considerably) more advanced than 2.2.x (which are the ones that are considered the stable kernel...).

Branding?

[mgkimsal2]

Well, it's kinda branding, but the message it's sending isn't necessarily that "these developers wrote this program". "K" thrown in front of something seems to signify that it's written to work with KDE, not that any 'official' KDE developers worked on it. It's late, but "KBear" comes to mind as something which isn't 'officially' from the KDE team, but simply means that it's geared to work with KDE. Unfortunately, 'K' is too easy to tack on - I think the 'branding' message will be diluted, if it's not already to some degree.

Forced to use windows?

[Jeff Probst]

m_ilya writes: "It looks like KDE 2.2.1 has been ported on Cygwin. More than year ago I was forced to use WinNT at work, and I've been missing the Linux desktop a lot. I hope if I will be ever forced to use Windows again I would be able to have more Unix-friendly desktop :). Here's the announcement. Kudos to all the KDE hackers." Check out the posting on the Dot for some more links.

Whenever I read someone saying that they are forced to use windows at work I cringe.

Does this company have a policy against using anything other than windows? If they do, I doubt that the poster will be permitted to run KDE even if it is win32.

The fact of the matter is that this guy uses windows at work to be productive as his line of work is in win32 applications no doubt.

Please don't kid yourself otherwise.

Re:Forced to use windows?

[Mr. Sketch]

Whenever I read someone saying that they are forced to use windows at work I cringe.

I'm 'forced' to use windows at work too, but I write software for Windows so I kinda need MSDev which doesn't run under wine and is WAY too slow under VMware (It takes over 3 hours to compile anyways on a 1GHz 512MBram, I shudder to think what it would take on VMware), otherwise I would run linux. However, running linux isn't very practical for my main box since I spend 98% of my time coding in MSDev and the rest doing e-mail or taking a break (read: posting on slashdot). If all I did was do e-mail and surf the web (read: 'If I was a manager'), then I would definatly be runing Linux at work. I think most people who are 'forced' to use windows at work do it a matter of practicality rather than company policy.

Re:Forced to use windows?

[BlueUnderwear]

Whenever I read someone saying that they are forced to use windows at work I cringe.

Does this company have a policy against using anything other than windows?

At my former job (a bank), company policy was indeed that windows was mandatory. So those jobs do exists. Funny that anybody would doubt this, I always lived under the impression that most jobs required windows, and that places where you are allowed to run Linux on the desktop (such as my current job) were still the exception.

If they do, I doubt that the poster will be permitted to run KDE even if it is win32.

Good point. Indeed, during the first couple of month, while working on a java project, it was impossible to get permission to install Cygwin. However, after that I got involved in a project with Tcl, and as there is (fortunately) no Visual Tcl, I got permission to install Cygwin, Emacs, the works. Certainly, being good friends with the guy in charge of security helped too, but this experience shows that places which mandate Windows, while still allowing Cygwin do indeed exist.

The fact of the matter is that this guy uses windows at work to be productive as his line of work is in win32 applications no doubt.

Nope. In general such policies exist to make IT support more productive. If they only have to know one operating system, it's easyer for them. Although this may seem backwards (IT are there to support the users, not the other way round), this is unfortunately what happens in many places.

Re:Forced to use windows?

[atam]

However, after that I got involved in a project with Tcl, and as there is (fortunately) no Visual Tcl, ...

Well, Visual Tcl does exist, check here. However, it is an open source project, not another M$ Visual Studio addin.

Re:Forced to use windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it comes down to having to use specific apps for which conversion drivers do not exist in other apps, or simply cannot interface with anything else.

When I can get Lotus Smart Suite working under Wine (there is already workarounds for Notes on the web), get my USB-USB transfer cable to work between Linux-Win98 machines, and find solutions for a number of other incompatable utilities, then I'll be able to move my laptop over to Linux. Until then, I am, as the subject says, "forced" to use Windows. Not company policy, but a matter of practicality.

Linux Desktop

[meekjt]

I always find Timothy's posts a little odd... Why does he call KDE a "Linux desktop" when it runs on many versions of UNIX? And, how is KDE "Unix-friendly" when it is very much a clone of MS Windows?

Re:Linux Desktop

[Nailer]

KDE is a clone of MS Windows? How? Because it uses a list box widget to display a list of applications? Sorry to burst your bubble, the Start menu came from OS/2, not that it's especially unique or anything.

KDE is findamentally different from Windows in a variety of ways - style guidelines word strongly against MDI apps, which are the standard for most Windows apps despite being confusing to end users. KDE is more focused around using multiple desktops than Windows is, Windows still encourages users to log on as someone else if they'd like to run a program as another user (runas is flaky) rather than KDE's kdesu approach.

Windows looks like my AtariST. MacOS looks like Next, and older MacOS looks like Xerox porototype work.

Everyone's stealing ideas from everyone else - XPs task grouping came about after GNOME had this feature for years. KDE grabs concepts from MacOS and OS/2 too, as does Windows.

Re:Linux Desktop

[juju2112]

Those are the words of the submitter, m_ilya.

All Timothy said was, "Check out the posting on the Dot for some more links."

Re:Linux Desktop

[scrytch]

KDE is findamentally different from Windows in a variety of ways - style guidelines word strongly against MDI apps, which are the standard for most Windows apps despite being confusing to end users

You just make this stuff up, don't you? In fact, the only major MDI app MS still puts out is Access. In fact, MS's own style guidelines discourage MDI. I guess the truth is inconvenient when it's Microsoft in the crosshairs.

Re:Linux Desktop

[Nailer]

You just make this stuff up, don't you? In fact, the only major MDI app MS still puts out is Access.

I know they've changed Office with 2000 (hence the use of most windows apps), and IE has been SDI for a long time, but I wasn't aware they changed their guidelines.

In fact, MS's own style guidelines discourage MDI.

Fair enough, I stand corrected.

I guess the truth is inconvenient when it's Microsoft in the crosshairs.

I guess politeness is inconvenient when someone makes a mistake. Fair enough then, piss off you weak pathetic annoying fuckwit. : )

Re:Linux Desktop

[scrytch]

For what it's worth, I apologize for the tone. I hadn't really looked at who I was responding to. I actually respect a lot of your views, and I apologize for tarring you with the majority of the slashdoterati (which your own sig isn't kind to), at which that nasty comment was aimed.

Guess I need to remember that when I correct a misconception for the 233437324134th time, it's not the same person each time... Sorry, and peace.

Re:Linux Desktop

[Nailer]

Thanks, that was nice, I appreciate that.

Re:Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a room and go fuck each other..

Improvement in IE6

[crisco]

It has a W3C standards compatibility rendering mode, triggered by the proper DOCTYPE declaration. More info here and MS own pages on it (described as 'CSS Enhancements' by MS). From my perspective that is significant, though too long in coming.

You're right though, choice is good, more browsers are good, standards compliance is good.

NOT good for trolltech

[dimator]

Trolltech's whole angle has been to make money on the windows ports of their Qt library, and now these guys go and port the free *nix version to windows. Luckily, it doesn't look like a "real" port; you still have to jump through cygwin and other bull shit hoops, but I'd bet the Trolltech guys are starting to worry now...

Re:NOT good for trolltech

[mj6798]

Trolltech's whole angle has been to make money on the windows ports of their Qt library,

TrollTech's angle has been to make money from commercial developers on any platform. I suspect that TrollTech actually gets more revenue from UNIX, but they have to answer that.

TrollTech's angle has also been to popularize an otherwise commercially irrelevant toolkit by getting lots of students open source developers to spend time learning it, evangelizing for it at their employers, and contribute suggestions for improvements.

Re:whats the point .. oops

[Anonymous Coward]

I always used to hate kde, but I tried kde again lately, on my debian/gnu linux box, and god, THIS THING IS GREAT! :)

English to E Translation

[Jeff Probst]

Building on the most excellent English to E translation perl script done by Shoeboy, I have translated this submission.

It looks like KDE 2.2.1 has been ported on Cygwin
It looks like KDE 2.2.1 has been ported to Cygwin, but I am too lame to get it working myself.

More than a year ago I was forced to use WinNT at work
My company suffered when the dot com crash happened. Given that the typical open source business model goes something like:

1. Release Free Software
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

the unprofitable linux division was closed. If I wanted a job I had to develop software targeted for the profitable windows market.

and I've been missing the Linux desktop a lot
When I ran KDE 1.2 more than a year ago, it really sucked. I missed it because it puts a fucking K in front of every application

I hope if I will be ever forced to use Windows again I would be able to have more Unix-friendly desktop :).
sadly I did not work well with the windows team as I am an abrasive person. They got sick of my propaganda and fired me. I am still unemployed.

Hope that clears things up!

Re:English to E Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll translate your post for everybody:

I don't have a girlfriend.

Re:English to E Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the asshole moderators 'round here would never think to mod that post up as being Funny or Insightful - which it actually was.

Re:Wow! Almost as embarassing as Mozilla!

[DaCool42]

so you like it then? hehe. personally, if anything, i'd run blackbox or twm under cygwin.

tab line completion under Windows [OT]

[alienmole]

To get tab line completion, set the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Command Processor/CompletionChar

To a REG_DWORD value of 0x9. This works on WinNT 4; other versions may vary.

Re:tab line completion under Windows [OT]

[Osty]

This works on WinNT 4; other versions may vary.

This works on all systems that use cmd.exe as the commandline shell (NT4, Win2K, WinXP). XP actually has a UI that will let you set your file completion character and directory completion character without editing the registry by hand (I still do it the regedit way, simply because it's faster).

Re:tab line completion under Windows [OT]

[sg_oneill]

It's kind of nifty indeed, but it's really quite goofy in comparison to the bash version, in that it often chooses where it should hold off (ambiguity). It also suffers from not being select out of the PWD.

Re:tab line completion under Windows [OT]

[steevc]

In W2K if you use

cmd /f:on

then Ctrl-F completes file names and Ctrl-D does files and paths. Very useful for paths with spaces as it does the quotes for you.

Steve

Re:tab line completion under Windows [OT]

[Col. Panic]

Very slick - thanks tons :)

Re:tab line completion under Windows [OT]

[Col. Panic]

Yeah, but I'll takes what I can gets.

Re:Wow! Almost as embarassing as Mozilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Windows a lot, and I've gotten tired of its high-quality, fully-integrated windowing system and amazing GUI development libraries.

You must be talking about something other than "Microsoft Windows", because Microsoft Windows has a lousy IDE (VC++), buggy GUI libraries, and a sluggish and resource-hogging window system.

Re:KDE on win32

[kraf]

> Now why Linux companies don't introduct first time Linux users to XFce is beyond me

probably because it sucks ? I've used it and it's as clunky as CDE and missing the configurability of fvwm2 or pwm

I'd choose the more complete kde over xfce anytime, thank you

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can enjoy KDE's performance hits on top of Windows' performance hits. :)

hmm...

[xmodfoo]

Can I use WINE to emulate win32 in Linux and run KDE with it?

Re:hmm...

[Tilps]

Actually no - I tried to run cygwin under WINE - but WINE doesnt like it at all... in part I guess because cygwin calls cmd.exe(or command.com) which isnt the kind of thing that is the main focus of the WINE support layer.

Re:hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just toying with that, actually. It involved running a windows-based gameboy emulator under WINE.

Scary thing is... it didn't even crash!

who cares?

[mj6798]

TrollTech has been very supportive of KDE's development since the beginning, and has bent over backwards to please Free Software advocates by GPLing their main, high-quality product.

TrollTech didn't do this out of charity, they did it to popularize a toolkit that otherwise wouldn't have had a chance in the market: at the time Qt came out, there were already several established commercial toolkits out there, with better tool support and much better documentation. The only gimmick Qt had was the QPL, and the adoption by KDE the popularized it.

I hope they don't do this. If they do, they will just discourage companies from GPLing their products.

The GPL is a two-way street. TrollTech has profited handsomely from the adoption of Qt by the open source community. If they didn't like the deal, they didn't have to take it--they were under no obligation to put Qt under the GPL. I hope any other company will take notice and think carefully about putting software under the GPL.

Re:KDE on win32

[jquirke]

I think you have missed what he was trying to say.

I think he was generally speaking about KDE and it's associated applications being less stable and slower than their Windows equivalents. And to be honest, they are [at the moment].

We call all talk about how "stable" the Linux kernel is [ignore recent events], but as long as a lot of programs that run on top of it frequently crash it's not that much use - it just means you have to restart the app, instead of the PC. You still in many cases have lost your work.

And by the way, please stop suggesting that KDE is exclusive to Linux, because it isn't. I run it under FreeBSD, as I'm sure many others do. I must admit, [2.2.1] is much more stable, and it's increasingly getting better.

Best wishes to the KDE developers, they've done a great job.

Re:KDE on windows (mod this up)

[Sleepy]

I don't think a GPL'd port of Qt for Windows would be... bad to TrollTech. People who used this port of Qt would have produce Free Software anyways. Since most companies could not accept this anways, they'd buy the commercial license anyways.

I don't see many Free Software developers rushing out to buy commercial Qt licenses so they can produce Free Software for Windows. So, basically, TrollTech would not be harmed financially, and would probably gain more users (which could mean more Commercial licenses, if some of the Free Software developers wished to make non-Free Software).

Amen!

I'd have to hope Troll Tech is confident enough to GPL the native Windows version.

Troll Tech keeps relaxing their licensing according to the successes of GTK and GNOME. Fine, competition is great. I have no doubt the Qt license will change AGAIN in the future...

However the current COST of a Qt license is hurting Linux. By that I mean, they are hurting the small software developer. Troll Tech should have pity on low volume commercial software companies -- including shareware (what I call "mom and pop dot com") -- because the current licensing is way too expensive for the small guy. We want to encourage innovative, small developers... not just cheer and jeer for Oracle, and the latest game port. Qt licensing is like a head tax.. fair for some, but too steep for many.

I'll give you a great example of Qt-like licensing:
I lived in the state of New Hampshire. There in the land of "small government" the distribution of alcohol is a state-run monopoly. In order to have your alcoholic beverage "approved" to go on the wholesalers list, you pay a set tax regardless of the quantities sold. So, whatever Budweiser pays is also paid by Nutfield brewing company, or any outside brewer who wants access to the NH market.

The result is, while the Northeast is a boom region for microbrews, New Hampshire lags the pack with just one midsized microbrew. This is artificial and due to the state tax, because NH consumes more microbrew per capita than anywhere in the northeast. The tax brings in income, but it's miscarried an entire industry.

Anyone who thinks Linux on the desktop will "get there" without "shareware" is deliding themselves. There are just too many varied interests for the free software teams to fill.

Now, you and I probabnly don't care about shareware... but these tiny niche apps will keep THOSE people on Windows forever. These apps COULD be ported to Linux if the right toolkit were available.

Now, GTK gets around this totally by being LGPL. I don't think Troll Tech want to go THERE. So, they should address the vacuum by producing a low-volume commercial license. It will help the platform considerably!

i have a question

[Pr0xY]

i haven't really delved into the KDE sources quite so much yet...but is there any real X dependant code in there? I mean it is based on QT which is multi-platform, so as long as they use QT for everything then it should as simple as a recompile to use it in windows, you could probably even use it to replace explorer.exe. The only thing i can think of off hand that might be a prob is the different directory structure, but that should be a big deal

Re:i have a question

[Overcoat]

KDE does contain X-specific code, but even assuming you could work around it, X windows allows KDE stuff like video card support and hardware cceleration. Running KDE in MS Windows (using the Qt framebuffer I assume) would require using the CPU to handle everything, which would slow down the system noticeably.

Re:i have a question

[damiam]

Running KDE in MS Windows (using the Qt framebuffer I assume) would require using the CPU to handle everything, which would slow down the system noticeably.

There is no framebuffer in Windows. I believe the KDE port runs on the same GDI graphics layer as all other Windows apps.

Re:i have a question

[Anonymous Coward]

Qt running natively on Win32 is , in most cases, faster than running on X just because GDI tends to be faster than xlib.

Re:i have a question

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE on cygwin is based on xfree86, which uses currently a framebuffer. A gdi based server is in work.

Re:KDE on win32

[pherthyl]

could you provide a link to the XFCE site? for some reason google failed to turn anything up....

Re:KDE on win32

[pherthyl]

bah. ignore that shit. I guess checking xfce.org would have been an idea... ;)
but google is on crack too..

Re:KDE on windows (mod this up)

[Isldeur]

However the current COST of a Qt license is hurting Linux. By that I mean, they are hurting the small software developer

Blah Blah Blah. We've heard this one before. I'f you're going to be producing commercial software for windows with Qt you have to pay, what, about $1200 to Trolltech? It's at least a long-term license too.

Tell me something, if you plan on making less than that amount of money on your product, perhaps you should consider GPLing it anyways...?

You should know that....

[Anonymous Coward]

i took a dump 3 minutes ago....thank you :)

MODERATORS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod down the parent as the obvious troll it is.

Re:KDE on win32

[evilviper]

Clunky is a very broad term, so I can't exactly address it.

As far as being totally configurable, it's much more configurable than KDE, and is much easier to configure as well.

To set a file-type association all you need to to is right-click a file, select 'register', then type in the command to use to open the file. That's a hell of a lot easier than KDE or GNOME. Not to mention that it works perfectly every time, very unlike GNOME or KDE.

More than that, everything is just that easy to configure... You right-click any panel icons to change the icon, application, or title associated with it.

I don't know what problem with XFce is, but it is a great interface all around.

why I hate slashdot.

[Pengo]

Whatever, don't be a mindless sheep.

The guys has his opinion, if it doesn't match yours don't scream foul.

Re:why I hate slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the poster was making the same point - but with irony.

But then again, maybe I'm giving him too much credit ;)

Re:why I hate slashdot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha you dollop! Have you heard of a word called satire?

Re:why I hate slashdot.

[sirsnork]

Settle down.. Did you not see the IMHO.. He's allowed his opinion as much as you are allowed yours

it happened before...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, it happened before. The same guy who is responsible for NT is also responsible for VMS. And Eunice, a UNIX emulator for VMS, was quite popular on VMS. I have yet to see an NT or VMS emulator for UNIX.

Nah, try rdesktop and xfree instead....

[Nailer]

Can I use WINE to emulate win32 in Linux and run KDE with it?

Well actually....

Re:KDE on windows (mod this up)

[fetto]

I would if there was a native GPL'd QT on windows, now I use wxwindows instead and the Trolls just miss out on developer base.

How GOOD is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone actually tried this and seen how good it is? From my past experience, tools ported on cygwin haven't been very stable, so I'm interested. As for the market for this, I've been trying to approximate multiple desktops on Windows for quite a while (using programs like Cooldesk). If KDE on Windows is stable, I'll switch to it just for this feature.

Re: `Branding' message will be diluted

[noperoblimo]

An example of this dilution is K-Meleon, which despite the K-prefix isn't KDE.

Re:KDE on win32

[Anonymous Coward]

XFce easy? I tried it once, and couldn't figure out how to put any damn theme to replace the stupid ugly look of it! then where do i get the window list? right click on the desktop. what's the use of the @%$! panel for goodness sake. just because i need to switch app, i have to make the window smaller and click on the desktop. KDE is way easy. Fast? Sure XFce wins, but compare the features between XFce and KDE... Go ahead, count!
BTW, if you like XFce so much, nobody is forcing you to use KDE.

tab line completion

[ConceptJunkie]

4NT is a (large) superset of cmd.exe functionality, which has been around since before NT (it was 4DOS back then, which still exists for Win9x). While it's not related to nor based on any Unix shell, and it is a commercial closed-source shareware product, it is extremely flexible and very powerful. I've been using it for about 11 years myself.

Re:KDE on windows (mod this up)

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't miss anything for people like you would never bring them any revenue anyway.

Re:KDE on win32

[Anonymous Coward]

This stupid CDE "idea" with having windows obscure main panel disqualifies XFce right away.
What is the point of panel or iconized windows when I have to move other stuff around just to get to them.
Completely unusable and frustrating.

Re:KDE on windows (mod this up)

[fetto]

That is the reason why Microsoft is so successful, they are not just greedy they are greedy and smart enough to realize that a large install base is the key to expanding.

Destroy the monopoly

[LS]

I've always thought the best way to destroy the windows monopoly was a more subtle approach. The current approach is to build a system to capture market share from windows. But a better approach (which is supported by Cygwin and KDE), is to slowly replace windows components, eventually down to the core, so that there is no longer such a thing as "Windows" or "Linux", but instead a set of interchangable parts to build your system. I don't know the technical details of doing this at the kernel level, but I bet with enough effort the windows kernel could be replaced with a free version.

LS

Re:Destroy the monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are saying is tried and true.

Embrace and extend. Its the microsoft way.

I say fight fire with fire. Cygwin rules!

Depends on the Windows version

[HiThere]

I haven't even been able to get the simple X-Windows test application to run for more than a few minutes on my Win95b box.

Perhaps it runs on Win98, but most of the success stories I've heard of are Win-NT. Haven't heard much one way or tother about Win 2000 or Win-ME (which is supposedly a modified Win-95! with a replaced DOS layer [replaced by what I don't know]).

OTOH, I must admit that back when I purchased CygWin they said up front that it was for Win-NT and Win-98. That Win95 would usually work for awhile, but that garbage collection problems would cause it to crash after a half-hour or so. The recent versions are a lot more stable than that, but I doubt that they've been putting much work into it. So perhaps X works with all of the more recent versions.

Re:KDE on windows (mod this up)

[Sleepy]

[my quote] -- However the current COST of a Qt license is hurting Linux. By that I mean, they are hurting the small software developer.

Blah Blah Blah. We've heard this one before. I'f you're going to be producing commercial software for windows with Qt you have to pay, what, about $1200 to Trolltech?

[your quote] Nice to trivialize the expense of $1200... are you still employed by a dot-com? My point still went over your head (or you stepped deftly aside...).

The point isn't the the cost of the license, per se... it could be a $600 license and there would still be a problem.

What is my point then? There are two:

1. No one knows how an application will fare in the marketplace. $1200 is a LOT for a crazy guy with an application idea.
2. The price is a LINUX BARRIER to entry.

That's right, the Windows license for Qt actually hurts Linux desktop development. These developers will *continue* to target Windows, because there's no user base in Linux who will pay for software.

This is a chicken-and-egg problem. People don't use Windows because it's Microsoft... many use it because it is a program loader for their apps.

Tell me something, if you plan on making less than that amount of money on your product, perhaps you should consider GPLing it anyways...?

Irrelivent. No one can predict the future. If a well-meaning shareware developer were to consider a port to Windows, guess how quickly that idea will be sacked when the guy's wife realizes it's "$1200" to write Qt software that runs on Linux.

Oh WAIT... it's $1200 to write Qt software on Windows. Hey, forget about cross-platform... just write the freakin software in Visual Basic. Most people will "leave it" when given a $1200 "take it or leave it" ultimatum.

PS - Who ever moderated this guy as "Flamebait"... you need to read the moderation guidelines. He wasn't flaming as far as I can tell... just disagreeing. Oh, wait.. there's no way to send notice to these moderators...

Re:KDE on win32

[evilviper]

The panel can be set to always be on top of other windows. So what's the problem again?

Re:KDE on win32

[evilviper]

couldn't figure out how to put any damn theme
Well, you click the Setup button, then under the Pallette tab (you know, the first one to show up) just click the load button to browse to the theme you wanted... It's right there in front of you... I don't see how anyone can miss that.

where do i get the window list?

You can click on the desktop or on the bar of any window and choose 'switch-to'.

What's more, XFce does the exact same thing KDE does, the difference being that it takes 10x more applications in KDE to do the same things.

The thing that bothers me the most about your complaints is that people might actually believe you. It takes less than five minutes to read through the entire XFce manual, which tells you EVERYTHING you could want to know. The manual isn't hard to find either... You just click on the big blue 'i' on the panel.

Re:KDE on win32

[evilviper]

I searched on Google for XFCE and found nothing but relevant links, and that's after looking through the first 10 pages of hits. The first ~5 links take you to XFCE.org which is the home page, the rest take you to distro pakages of XFce, interviews with the main developer, and reviews.

You got it.

[digitalunity]

You hit the nail on the head with this one. What is a license? It is not ownership. It is merely a contract granting usage of a particular copyrighted work(the program) to a person.

[IANAL](first year law student)
When a company uses a GPL'd program, they do not actually distribute the program internally. The usage of the program by the companies employees does not constitute the distribution of the program. The employee has no rights not explicitly granted by the company. Even if employees of the company develop the program, the company itself is still the copyright holder. An employee's distribution of a GPL'd company-owned program would constitute theft from the company.

This, of course only applies to company employees. If, perhaps the program was leant to someone not a part of the company, this would constitute 'Distribution'. A person outside of the company would be a seperate legal entity.
[/IANAL]

Of course, with all things, this is nothing more than my own personal interpretation of copyright law. If any real lawyers would tell me how far off I am, that'd be fantastic!

You are why I hate slashdot.

[Jupiter9]

What are you so up tight about. First of all, it's a good chance that this guy is being sarcastic. Secondly there is nothing in his post that could be considered "Scream[ing] foul." He simply states that he would prefer certain windows apps over KDE apps even though he would prefer the KDE desktop.

How on earth you go moded to a 4, Insightful is beyond me. It just shows how much Linux bigotry goes on in Slashdot.