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KDE 3.0RC3: Prepare to Fall in Love
Dre writes "As announced on dotsy, the first day of the Season of Love (for us Northerners, anyway) brings us the KDE 3.0 final release candidate, KDE 3.0RC3. Besides fixes for any remaining crashes and grave bugs, this release will become KDE 3.0, scheduled to free the world in early April. Having benefitted from a week-long hacking session early this month, I can report that this release is very solid and, best of all, much snappier than prior releases, particularly Konqueror. Downloads are available through KDE's load-balancing mirror system. Since this is principally a show-stopper release, things are on an expedited schedule; more binary packages will appear in the next few days, and shortly thereafter KDE 3.0 will be tagged."
Mandrake claims they will have KDE 3.0 packages available for 8.2 when it's released. I'd much rather they give us a thoroughly tested and functional 2.2.2 and let us upgrade to 3.0 when we're ready.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
how about they come up with something that is not a blatant rip-off of the WinXP or Aqua interface? originality is nice. if i wanted something like XP or Aqua i would have bought either of those.
>odd.. those icons look very much like XP/2k icons heh.
Is this a bad thing?
Seriously, MS spent millions(from what I understand) studying GUI's and making them look better. Their windowing system make lack(I still want the focus to follow my mouse, among other things) but I say the "look" has been well researched, use the best parts of it.
thoughts?
From my experience the best way to convert a windows user is to provide them with something they are comfortable with. Not a totally new system to learn.
Convert them with a look-a-like. They will eventually realize the true power of the Linux desktop!
Actually cscx, you may find that there are a lot of WinXP innovations pinched DIRECTLY from KDE, Gnome and other GPL stuff.
I was nothing short of stunned the first time I saw XP and its Taskbar grouping thing, something KDE had toyed around with for countless months and had in the main tree for months too. The same goes for plenty of MS features, all they need now is a middle mouse menu and window shading to make WinXP into WinKDE!
Whats more, MS doesnt develop things like the open dialog by themselves. Its inspired/designed by other developers, and its no surprise the KDE developers arrive at similar designs - whether they thought of them from scratch or not, 99% agree its the best way to do it.
'Though I usually agree, I don't see how Keramik is in any way a rip-off of WinXP and Aqua? Quite contrary, it is finally a creative, non-ripped-off, good-looking, clean and useable theme. (We've already had lots of themes, that had most of these attributes, but IMHO none every had _each_ of these).
You know, I thought exactly the opposite thing when I installed WinXP. I thought its default look/feel/whatever was extremely reminiscent of a certain few Linux (and other UNIX bretheren) Desktop Environments.
Now, regardless of who copied who, what difference does it make anyway? I _like_ the way KDE 2.2.2 looks and feels. Similarly, I like WinXP way more than its predecessors, much for the same reason. Well, that and XP doesn't crash quite so much.
As for IceWM, I've never much cared for it.
Lets not forget how many times MS has been caught ripping off other folks' ideas. We all stand on the shoulders of giants. If someone did come up with a totally different GUI style, the likelihood that its going to be accepted and used by everyone is pretty small. People don't like fooling around with stuff they are unfamiliar with when they are trying to get stuff done. Thats why I use WinXP and KDE 2.2.2. I am comfortable with the UI, and I can focus on getting things done, instead of fucking around for hours on end trying to figure out how to do x. Its for that reason that I've never really cared for Enlightenment, IceWM, or Gnome. (I only include Gnome here because its had a nasty history of throwing SegFaults for no apparent reason).
Back for a moment to how KDE3 seems such a blatant ripoff of 'Doze. Have you installed KDE3 and played around with it? Neither have I. It would make sense that KDE would most resemble Windows simply because it uses QT, which is also compatible with windows. Furthermore, if it is the aim for Linux to provide viable competition in the Desktop market, there needs to be a desktop environment that is just as pretty as windows, but is more stable. Damn, isn't that what KDE is? I would think that all Linux fans would appreciate something that contributes to the cause (dominance of Open Source/Free Software/etc), even if is not exactly their cup of tea.
What exactly is a legitimate Linux user, pray tell?
If the next version of KDE was to be name KDE XP, it'd probably be a pretty smart marketing strategy, assuming there are no legality issues with using the letters X and P consecutively.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Why is it that when Windows XP came out, all we heard from /.ers is:
"Ugh, it's so candy-coated I can't stand it."
But when a KDE theme does it 6 months later it's:
"Oooh pretty. It is going to be a bright, bright future."
I'm no Microsoft apologist, but come on people, make up your minds.
I'd rather they give use Mandrake 8.3, and make sure everthying worked together. I'm holding off on upgrading until I hear that everything is stable together, then I will pay the $60 for their club membership and download an ISO.
I've reluctanly entered the 'end-user' club. I want my computer to do things without having to CONSTANTLY fiddle with things not related to what I want to do. I want a nice simple script to set up the networked workstation as a firewall and then be done with networking. Mandrake seems to keep promising this, and I'm willing to pay for it, but I don't want to have to constantly be upgrading huge pieces of the OS. (and yes, I consider the window manager to be part of the operating system, because it is part of the system that I use to operate the computer.)
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I'm as much of a screenshot hound as the next guy, but being able to compete on "eye candy" is not, IMHO, a positive virtue. I want the GUI to compete on ease of use and innovations that makes people more productive; whether that results in more "eye candy" or not.
While the shots are nice, and KDE3 is indeed looking great, I would be really happy if the following (at a minimum) were addressed (esp. if this could be done in a standard way between GNOME and KDE):
Common Keyboard Shortcuts
A Modern Clipboard
Good Drag & Drop
A Very Simple and Functional Menu System
Good Keyboard Navigation (ironically, one of the best things about MS Windows Explorer)
If Linux is to be adopted on the desktop, I think these are the issues that ought to be trumpeted (if they are worth trumpeting).
For the love of $DEITY, loose != not win!!!!!
I'm no Microsoft apologist, but come on people, make up your minds
And I think there, my friend, you have inadvertintly stumbled on to the reason why the ``Slashdot'' viewpoint seems to be incoherent: it's not a single person's views.
If your running RedHat 7.2, set it to start in run level 3 and instead of startx do "xinit /usr/bin/wmaker" (withuot quotes and your snappy performance will be restored.
KDE is bloated and to a lesser extent so is gnome.
And oh yes, all my comments are IMHO.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Just where, pray tell, did Linux use Fisher Price's look anywhere?