IBM Picks Qtopia Over PalmOS And PocketPC

Why not Linux? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 09:55 · Score: 1, Interesting

A bit confused here, wasn't IBM behind Linux? So why not embrace it in a feild it could very well dominate in the future?

Re:Why not Linux? by WindBourne · 2003-02-19 10:01 · Score: 5, Informative

Qtopia is qt on embedded Linux. Same environment as Sharp's Zaraus. Good Stuff.

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Re:Why not Linux? by Forge · 2003-02-19 10:05 · Score: 1, Informative

"Don't bite the flamebait."
"Why not?"
"It might make you look dumb."
"It's OK. This one just needs a little clarity".

QTopia is a development environment for portable and embeded devices. It runs on embeded versions of Linux.

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--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Re:Why not Linux? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:11 · Score: 0

> "Don't bite the flamebait."
> "Why not?"

Because it will make you look dumb when someone already answered 4 minutes earlier than you, not to mention that you'll get modded -1 - Redundant.

Quite a shift by creative_name · 2003-02-19 09:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'd say IBM has made quite a shift since its inception. Moving from massive, room-filling mainframes to miniature gigabyte pocket drives and Qt-toting PDAs. It's nice to see that ol' Big Blue can still jump through the ever-moving hoops of technology.

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Posting as directed.

Re:Quite a shift by 4of12 · 2003-02-19 10:18 · Score: 1

quite a shift since its inception. Moving from massive, room-filling mainframes to miniature gigabyte pocket drives and Qt-toting PDAs.

Yes and no.

I would venture to guess that today's PDA's are almost comparable in performance with the mainframes from 3 decades ago.

Not to understate the magnitude of their business refocus - the range of uses changes just as rapidly as the price, weight, power consumption change, even if there is little performance difference between a 360 and a PDA.

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Re:Quite a shift by binaryDigit · 2003-02-19 10:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'd say IBM has made quite a shift since its inception

Well that's assuming you don't count their long lived involvment in semiconductor development. You could say that they've been at both ends of the size spectrum for quite a while now. Notice that it is their semiconductor involvement that is pushing this decision (pushing their PPC405LP). They've also been making drives for a great long while now as well, the pocket drive is a natural evolution. So in many ways, things haven't changed at all :)
Re:Quite a shift by swillden · 2003-02-19 10:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

It was Microsoft who wrestled the computer world from the headlock IBM had it in.
This is almost certainly a troll, but for those who might share the same misapprehension, it's worth pointing out that the above statement is completely false.
If there is a single cause of IBM's loss of control (and, actually, the company still is a monopoly in some spaces, though a relatively well-behaved one), it's the US Department of Justice. The consent decree IBM signed forced the company to stop bundling, which pretty much gutted the company's market strategy. If you want to add a second reason, it's the emergence of the personal computer, but the fact that IBM didn't retain control of that market is also largely attributable to the consent decree. At the time the IBM PC came out, IBM was deeply mired in red ink and floundering badly, which was a lot of the reason why IBM never put any real focus on the PC market and ended up giving it to Microsoft instead.
The reason that the DOJ hasn't had a similar effect on Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior, of course, is that Microsoft chose to ignore its consent decree and force the DOJ to make it stick in court, which has been so difficult, expensive and time-consuming that the US government has pretty much lost the will to press the charges home.

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Re:Quite a shift by jaoswald · 2003-02-19 11:00 · Score: 2

Current PDAs may be comparable to old mainframes in CPU performance, but that is never really what mainframes were meant for. Try hooking up 100+ terminals to a PDA and see what happens.

I/O is the relevant performance metric for old IBM mainframes.
Re:Quite a shift by Firehawke · 2003-02-19 11:14 · Score: 1

Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to recall IBM deliberately crippling the PC platform at the beginning in order to prevent it from eating at their mainframe sales.

Wouldn't it really be the clonemakers who opened the 8088 architecture with cloned BIOSes and IBM-compatible hardware?

I was only a kid at the time, but I distinctly remember there being two factions in the PC world at the beginning. The evil IBM empire with sidekick Compaq, who were selling their machines at extremely high prices, and the rest of the clone world. IBM did try to regain control of the architecture with the PS/2, but the higher price of the hardware for the platform (general rule, add $100 for any PS/2 component as compared to an ISA or EISA version of the time) killed the interest.
Re:Quite a shift by technomom · 2003-02-19 11:27 · Score: 1

Yeah, but I can't figure out how to plug the ten acres of raised floor housed 3380 DASD into it.
Re:Quite a shift by clem.dickey · 2003-02-19 11:34 · Score: 1

I worked for IBM when the IBM PC came out (August 12, 1981) and don't remember the company being "deeply mired in red ink" at that time. One reference gives 1990 as the year of IBM's first quarterly loss.
Re:Quite a shift by swillden · 2003-02-19 11:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

Maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to recall IBM deliberately crippling the PC platform at the beginning in order to prevent it from eating at their mainframe sales.
I've never heard of anything like this, and I can't think what in the PC might have qualified as "crippled". I certainly don't believe that many in IBM were concerned with PCs (which were considered little better than toys) eating into their mainframe sales.
Wouldn't it really be the clonemakers who opened the 8088 architecture with cloned BIOSes and IBM-compatible hardware?
They're the ones who ate IBM's lunch in the PC hardware market, sure, but I have to think that if IBM had really been at the top of their game they'd have recognized the opportunity for software sales. Or not. My point was that they couldn't be bothered because the company was in serious trouble and had bigger fish to fry.
I was only a kid at the time, but I distinctly remember there being two factions in the PC world at the beginning. The evil IBM empire with sidekick Compaq, who were selling their machines at extremely high prices, and the rest of the clone world.
Well, I was more or less a kid at the time as well, but I'm pretty sure at least one part of this is wrong -- Compaq wasn't IBM's "sidekick". Compaq was the company that reverse-engineered IBM's machines, which couldn't have made IBM very happy.
IBM did try to regain control of the architecture with the PS/2, but the higher price of the hardware for the platform (general rule, add $100 for any PS/2 component as compared to an ISA or EISA version of the time) killed the interest.
Yep, but I'd say this is just another facet of the fact that IBM really couldn't be bothered. Sure, the people in the PC division tried to do what they could but they weren't given the money or the tools they needed to really find a winning strategy (which clearly wasn't in selling the hardware; IBM always has been a company that focuses on high-margin business).

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Re:Quite a shift by Dynedain · 2003-02-19 12:24 · Score: 2

Or maybee it was because Compaq reverse engineered the IBM BIOS?

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Re:Quite a shift by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 12:45 · Score: 0

Oh great and powerfull butthead!
Re:Quite a shift by SubtleNuance · 2003-02-19 13:50 · Score: 1

Im not that old. But someone I work with remembers the days when IBM was the "Big Boy", who drove choices in IT and people resented them for it. IBM *was* most certainly the bad-guy.

now, IBM gets the cluestick and decides Free Software - great. they are welcome to particpate. you *can* reform people.
Re:Quite a shift by swillden · 2003-02-19 15:32 · Score: 1

But someone I work with remembers the days when IBM was the "Big Boy", who drove choices in IT and people resented them for it. IBM *was* most certainly the bad-guy.
I never claimed otherwise. IBM was an abusive monopoly that was investigated and found in violation of anti-trust laws.
now, IBM gets the cluestick and decides Free Software - great. they are welcome to particpate. you *can* reform people.
Free Software doesn't really have anything to do with it, IBM reformed and stopped being abusive when the Justice Dept. slapped them down. Free Software just happens to work well for IBM's current business model which is oriented first around services and second around hardware.

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Re:Quite a shift by cmacb · 2003-02-19 15:34 · Score: 1

" I was only a kid at the time, but I distinctly remember there being two factions in the PC world at the beginning. The evil IBM empire with sidekick Compaq, who were selling their machines at extremely high prices, and the rest of the clone world."
"Well, I was more or less a kid at the time as well, but I'm pretty sure at least one part of this is wrong -- Compaq wasn't IBM's "sidekick". Compaq was the company that reverse-engineered IBM's machines, which couldn't have made IBM very happy. "
Well, since I wasn't a kid at the time, my 2 cents:
IBM, unlike Microsoft, and many other companies these days has always engaged in a wide variety of research efforts. A true research company (unlike Microsoft) doesn't expect every effort they undertake to result in a profitable product next month. They did research in fabrication of electronic components, varieties of memory devices many of which never caught on (bubble) and even research into things that were only remotely related to their core business.
For those things that made it out of the realm of research and into some sort of product status the number of products that failed by far exceeds the number that are still with us today. Products within IBM even today get second class treatment if IBM leadership can't see how to make big bucks off of them. The VM operating system within IBM has always had second class status with respect to their primary MVS (now called something else I think) operating system. Even though many internal functions at IBM are dependant on the flexibility VM provides, their existing MVS installed base made them too timid to ever consider taking the chance of migrating all of those users to something else. Microsoft must feel a similar timidity when they try and decide what to do with the existing Windows/Office base. Lack of significant change on those systems leaves users wondering why the huge upgrade fees, while a major change to those core products would potentially give users a good justification to switch to something else.
Neither the original IBM PC, nor any of the clones of the time were any threat at all to the IBM mainframe business. It MIGHT have been a truly visionary thing for IBM to keep total control of PC hardware and software, but my guess is that if they had taken that approach, the PC (as we know it) would have failed and some other small computer would have surpassed it.
By keeping only a very LOOSE control over the direction of the PC IBM allowed the technology to grow in an unconstrained fashion. Keep in mind that IBM sold a LOT of PCs then, and still does. This whole situation while not being IBM dominated is still a lot more profitable to them than it would be had (for example) Apple become the standard for PC type devises.
For IBM, having a leading product or two, another couple in the background, and a big pile of projects on the scrap heap has always been standard operating procedure. In fact this is fairly standard for most really big companies, and it is to some extent what causes America to lead the world in science and technology in spite of our awful performance with respect to other countries in providing a basic education to our population.
Microsoft is a different company. They only bet research dollars on ideas that they think have a high chance of returning profit in the near term. Failures for them in areas such as 3D, publishing, and Internet services are doubly embarrassing because these are the handpicked roads to success. Microsoft would do well to imitate some of the great companies of the past and use that $40 billion warchest on something other than putting AOL and Quicken out of business.
Gates has probably done more to spur pure R&D in building his never finished house than has been spent to run the company that made him all that money. Unless the MS corporate culture undergoes a significant change, maybe in conjunction with a leadership change, I see them clutching on to Windows and Office far too long for the companies own good.
Re:Quite a shift by bluGill · 2003-02-19 15:44 · Score: 2, Informative

IBM is a lot older than you think. The company was started sometime in the late 1800s, and they built things like punch cards and typewriters. (Good typewriters too, as my finger recall, but appearently difficult to repair)

Sorry for this Redundant post by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 09:55 · Score: 0

Is it open source or not?

Re:Sorry for this Redundant post by luzrek · 2003-02-19 10:14 · Score: 1

The licensing agreement for Qt is quasi-open source. The summary is that if you are going to charge for the derivative products you have to pay Trolltech, but if you arn't going to charge for the derivative products then you don't have to pay Trolltech.

--
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Re:Sorry for this Redundant post by Locutus · 2003-02-19 10:39 · Score: 1

one correction, you'll have to pay for the dev tool. As long as IBM pays Trolltech for putting the libs on the device, the developers either build free/oss applications or they build commercial ones. You can still give away the source but if you charge the customer, you've got to pay Trolltech for the tool you used to build it.

Seems like a good mix to me. Heck, the Qtopia SDK is what, US$100. Big woop. IMHO.

LoB

--
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus

Go Trolltech! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 09:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

The trolls have given back a lot to the Linux community. KDE would be nowhere without Qt. Dual licensing seems to be one of the few open source business models that actually work (unfortunately, mostly for libraries). Plus, Qtopia is a great platform to work with, so good lock to Trolltech.

Re:Go Trolltech! by josh+crawley · 2003-02-19 10:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

And If I remember correctly, Cinelerra is also licensed this way too. Good way to go with open licensing schemes. Pay X amount to get out of GPL virus code. Users are happy, along with software corps.
Re:Go Trolltech! by IamTheRealMike · 2003-02-19 10:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

The trolls have given back a lot to the Linux community. KDE would be nowhere without Qt.
Don't forget the huge publicity boost KDE has given Qt. How many people here on Slashdot would have heard of Qt if it weren't for KDE? It works both ways.
Re:Go Trolltech! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:19 · Score: 0

I only wish that Qt would drop their silly requirement that code developed using the GPL version of Qt never be allowed to use the commercial version.
Re:Go Trolltech! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:22 · Score: 1, Insightful

"Don't forget the huge publicity boost KDE has given Qt. How many people here on Slashdot would have heard of Qt if it weren't for KDE? It works both ways."
Which fits the spirit of open source exactly. Both parties gained something - Qt got instant widespread recognition and visibility, KDE got a very not bad library to draw upon.
Re:Go Trolltech! by xombo · 2003-02-19 13:12 · Score: 2, Funny

So is this topic where I will see things like: (+5, Troll)?
Re:Go Trolltech! by SubtleNuance · 2003-02-19 14:01 · Score: 1

Pay X amount to get out of GPL virus code

huh? If you want to use SOMEONE elses work, and not return their altruistic favour, your going to have to pay.
Re:Go Trolltech! by PurpleFloyd · 2003-02-19 15:17 · Score: 1
The way Trolltech's dual licensing system works is as follows:
- Choose to make your program GPL under Linux, and you license QT for free.
Or
- Choose to make your program any other license, on any platform. Pay Trolltech the full license fee for QT.
Basically, this means that you can't use a QT-based GPL program in your closed-source program, unless the program's authors agree. What is does mean is that you can use QT for free if you develop Free software, or you can pay for QT if you develop non-Free software.
--

That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
Re:Go Trolltech! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 16:01 · Score: 0

The trolls have given back a lot to the Slashdot community.
Re:Go Trolltech! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 00:47 · Score: 0

...ummm, exactly. Are you always this confused?

This can hardly be a surprise by sydlexic · 2003-02-19 09:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

IBM is all about Linux and Java these days. Choosing otherwise would have been a fatal mistake both in terms of marketing and technology. The Zaurus is good technology and a powerful proof point. With IBM's resources, they should be able to take the technology all the way.

Re:This can hardly be a surprise by dhovis · 2003-02-19 10:35 · Score: 5, Funny

With IBM's resources, they should be able to take the technology all the way.

Yep,
Just like OS/2....

--
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Re:This can hardly be a surprise by colaboy · 2003-02-19 11:40 · Score: 1

... and Micro Channel Architecture (MCA)...
Re:This can hardly be a surprise by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 12:19 · Score: 0

Saying IBM couldn't sell OS/2 is like saying USA didn't have the military might to beat North Vietnam.

Trolls? by ThumbSuck · 2003-02-19 09:58 · Score: 4, Funny

TrollTech?

Trolls! They invade everything nowadays

Re:Trolls? by kfg · 2003-02-19 10:23 · Score: 1

Yeah, but at least they make good cars in Trollhatten.

KFG

linux just won by mindserfer · 2003-02-19 09:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

There is lots of room at the bottom said - RF
And we know what happened that last time ibm released a pc reference platform.

I would say that linux just won the future.
and the future is wareable -peace yall.

- the final invention says that
" we'll make great pets."

Re:linux just won by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:04 · Score: 0

Linux didnt win shit.

Did you fuck up during the reading, or the comprehension?
Re:linux just won by binaryDigit · 2003-02-19 10:30 · Score: 1

And we know what happened that last time ibm released a pc reference platform.

Do you mean PREP/CHRP. Oh, or were you referring to PS/2 ;)

Re:no linux? by vrone · 2003-02-19 10:01 · Score: 1

Qtopia is just a GUI/Toolkit for embedded devices. It runs on Linux without a problem. For example, Lineo (now owned by Motorola/MetroWerks) used Qtopia for the Sharp Zaurus which is quite hapily running Linux.

Syncs with all OSes, opensource OS by jrockway · 2003-02-19 10:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Looking at the Qtopia website, Trolltech seems to be dedicated to making desktop software for all major OSes, even Linux :) This is certainly better than WinCE which probably does not sync nicely with MacOS or Linux. Even PalmOS officially leaves out Linux/UNIX (but pilot-link works great!).

Also, Qtopia is open source... I think I want a Qtopia device now :-D (Although none really have the capabilities of my Clie NX70 :)

--
My other car is first.

Re:Syncs with all OSes, opensource OS by zsazsa · 2003-02-19 11:57 · Score: 3, Informative

Also, Qtopia is open source... I think I want a Qtopia device now :-D (Although none really have the capabilities of my Clie NX70 :)

Go out and buy a Sharp Zaurus. It has a 206Mhz StrongArm, keyboard, SD slot, and a CF slot that accepts memory, cameras, ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth cards. What does the NX70 have over that, other than a built-in camera?

The Zaurus SL-5500 is a good PDA and an even better "handheld computer." The SL-5600M will be even more capable when it is released.
Re:Syncs with all OSes, opensource OS by JSCarr · 2003-02-19 15:08 · Score: 1

Yep. I've had the SL-5500 for about three months and couldn't be happier ... although I almost wish I'd waited for the SL-5600M. I didn't want a to-do list and calendar, I wanted a handheld computer, and that's exactly what the Zaurus is. Not to mention the amount of free software available out there for it (open source, remember?) and the nifty little keyboard that works far better than any handwriting recognition software that I've tried.
Re:Syncs with all OSes, opensource OS by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 17:21 · Score: 0

handwriting recognition is just a tad slow. enough delay for an ex-palm user to notice.

PIM functionalities are still not up to par with Palm's. I suggest you go read some forums before you throw 300 dollars at Sharp.

Cool gadget... everyday usablilty: NO

Zaurus 5500 owner.

Failure Haiku by YOU+LIKEWISE+FAIL+IT · 2003-02-19 10:02 · Score: 0, Offtopic

struggling late first post
what part of 'first' don't you get?
YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT

--
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.

Broadening the user base by bluegreenone · 2003-02-19 10:03 · Score: 5, Informative

I am glad to see this since it should broaden the Qtopia user base significantly. You may or may not know that Qtopia is also used by the Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA (both the Sharp software and OpenZaurus distros use it). There is also the OPIE project, which is basically a suite of PDA apps built on top of Qtopia. This bodes well for getting more Liunx PDA users on board, and provides some existing apps for those using Qtopia for the first time.

Re:Broadening the user base by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 13:41 · Score: 0

Karma whore. Doesn't read the article.

Doesn't even read the /. blurb itself.

Sheesh.

why not Symbian? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:03 · Score: 0

maybe symbian is not made for PDAs, I don't know.

Huge! by RealBeanDip · 2003-02-19 10:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

This is a HUGE win for the Trolls.

They deserve this success too. They have given us QT, which IMO is THE BEST Application Framework for C++ ever developed.

However I'm wondering if there isn't another faction inside IBM that we haven't heard about... waiting to kill off anything that isn't Windows based (sort of like what happened with the IBM PC Co and OS/2).

--

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Brace yourselves! by mao+che+minh · 2003-02-19 10:04 · Score: 1

*braces for impact against the ensuing "anti-KDE/Trolltech, pro gtk threads"*

Re:Brace yourselves! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:08 · Score: 0

well at least an embedded version of gtk is free, unlike qt-embedded.
Re:Brace yourselves! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 12:29 · Score: 0

Brace yourself for people running emacs on a handheld. Everyone knows they should use vim.

pretty good: linux on embedded devices by fiiz · 2003-02-19 10:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

This has got to be a pretty good week for linux and opensource products on portable devices!
It also goes a step further than motorola's annoucement earlier this week as here we have an opensource product in the middleware as well as the OS--and the middleware/interface makes a real difference in this type of device. Note that they will use a Montavista kernel, just as motorola:

"Included in the software stack are the IBM Power Manager and the MontaVista Linux kernel. These two components will work together to lower the voltage and frequency of the device when they sense there is low requirement for processing power."

I guess the palm market is becoming so saturated that differentiation from competitors is also crucial at this stage--this will allow them to offer different apps etc than palm/pocket PC.
Goodie goodie, IBM is back on the handheld market with some fun stuff--we as consumers might see some great new apps.

--

yours ever, fz.

X-less QT by Dr.+Spork · 2003-02-19 10:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think TrollTech are onto a good thing. One thing that surprises me is that with all this QT running without X windows underneath is that it isn't giving people ideas about a better desktop GUI. I mean, a lot of effort has gone into a super-efficient X-less QT that requires minimal hardware to run well. Why not translate all that work to the desktop and start now on the plan of phasing out the X windowing system from unix GUIs. I'm not saying we take drastic steps now, but we'd be stupid to take no steps to transition the desktop to QT all the way down.

X windows reminds me of the space shuttle. It's big and old and we know it won't last forever, but we hide our heads in the sand and we don't want to hear about it. Well, that's a really stupid attitude, especially since there is such an inviting alternative.

Re:X-less QT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:11 · Score: 0

One thing that X has and QT doesnt is network transparency. This has always been a show-stopping shortcoming of all the "X replacements" out there.
Re:X-less QT by PD · 2003-02-19 10:20 · Score: 1

The problem with getting rid of X is that most people really like it, and nothing out there even comes close to the features.

Hint: it's not all about the pretty pictures on the screen.

--
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Re:X-less QT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:21 · Score: 1, Interesting

X windows reminds me of the space shuttle. It's big and old...

It doesn't have to be. The Pico X server running on my ipaq is tiny (I could tell you exactly how big, but the piece of junk's battery is dead - as usual). We're talking less than a megabyte. I've tried running Qt and for me, the lack of an X server makes it less than useless (I know you can run it over X, but it's a hack - and I know you can use VNC, but the client's not always available). The applications are pretty, the syncronization would be nice if I had any windows boxes (or Evolution) to sync against, but I prefer having X, the Matchbox WM and the applications that I want to run. GPE (like Qtopia) is all well and good, but all you need is a menu system to launch apps, you don't need to copy how Palm behaves.
Re:X-less QT by BESTouff · 2003-02-19 10:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

Here we go ! I was wondering how long before the first clueless anti-X cluebie would post its rant. Guys, there have already been tons of arguments on this very subject, and many attempted X replacements (Fresco, GGI, ..), none of which are ready to takeover XFree86 in terms of functionnality/performance, much less number of ported applications/frameworks. Moreover, some bright people are working now on improving X protocol and implementation where it sucks (e.g. Keith on XRender, XRandR, Xft, etc.).
But go on, just show us what you're up to and code something better. It will be adopted and enhanced if it's really good, the free software community is very good at joining well-thought projects.
Re: X-less QT by Brian+Blessed · 2003-02-19 10:35 · Score: 1

Why do people keep suggesting X is replaced? I'm not sure what sort of problems they have had, but it seems evident that they don't understand the nature of those problems and just blame X.

X abstracts out all of the messy hardware specific stuff that goes into rendering the desktop, providing optimized drivers for the cards and network transparency.

Also I'm guessing that Qtopia is either only accelerated for very specific embedded hardware, or just uses the framebuffer. This used on our desktop PC's would give awful performance, as anyone who has used the framebuffer X server on an unsupported chipset knows (I have a Sun Javastation Krups).

- Brian.
Re:X-less QT by Bob+Uhl · 2003-02-19 10:37 · Score: 1

Ummm... While certainly X can be improved quite a bit,QT is not the way to go (it's C++, for Pete's sake!). X provides a lot of important things and does a pretty good job. It's not terribly broken, so don't fix it terribly.
Re:X-less QT by xchino · 2003-02-19 10:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

How did parent get modded to +5?

Yes, let's all move over to a windowing system with serious licensing issues that's designed from the ground up to be run on embedded devices. That sounds perfect.

And what is this "plan" to start phasing out X windows? Was there a meeting I missed? Last I checked X was still being heavily developed.

"I'm not saying we take drastic steps now, but we'd be stupid to take no steps to transition the desktop to QT all the way down."

This is ridiculous. We'd be stupid TO take steps to transition "the desktop" to Qt all the way down. You're the only one who wants this. Not everyone loves KDE, and even less people love Qt. The seperation of the windowing system and the actual desktop is what gives *nix users the configurability to give their desktops personality. If you want a one-size-fits-all desktop, get windows.

As for you're space shuttle comparison, X windows is not inherently big (at least is doesn't have to be). It's not old. As I said, it is still under development, and there have been recent releases. Having history doesn't make software old.

As far as I can see, you're the only one with your head in the sand. It sounds like you're regurgitating all the inaccurate FUD-based trolling that goes on any time an article related to X is posted.

Qt is in no way a replacement for X, and it never will be, in it's current form.

--
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Re:X-less QT by WindBourne · 2003-02-19 10:50 · Score: 1

You are in luck. Please write your own and when it is better than X, I will be happy to try it.
Likewise, many others will try it as well.

--
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Re:X-less QT by Squarewav · 2003-02-19 10:55 · Score: 2, Insightful

I dont think X needs to be replaced just improved, a lot. for one it needs a native codac server so that when someone writes a video app they dont need to write ther own codac server. It also needs a much better way of cut&paste for exmple you cant highlite one piece of text and then select copy then highlite another and select paste, that whole middle click paste thing sucks ass. It also needs a way to change res on the fly but I hear thats going to be in 4.3 . kde adds much of these things but they only work within kde not to mention kde is too much of a mem hog on slow systems
Re:X-less QT by IamTheRealMike · 2003-02-19 11:00 · Score: 1

Why not translate all that work to the desktop and start now on the plan of phasing out the X windowing system from unix GUIs. I'm not saying we take drastic steps now, but we'd be stupid to take no steps to transition the desktop to QT all the way down.
You're ignoring the fact that Qt is only GPLd when using X11. You're ignoring a lot of facts actually.
X windows reminds me of the space shuttle. It's big and old and we know it won't last forever, but we hide our heads in the sand and we don't want to hear about it. Well, that's a really stupid attitude, especially since there is such an inviting alternative.
If you're going to compare X to the space shuttle. then the Linux framebuffer would be a light Cessna aircraft. X has features, it has hardware support, it has apps. DirectFB (presumably what you are talking about) does not.
Finally, remember that it's actually GTK that works on the Linux framebuffer - not Qt. See for yourself. Qt is only GPLd when running on X, the code to make it work on the framebuffer isn't under the GPL afaik.
Re: X-less QT by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 11:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why do people keep suggesting X is replaced? I'm not sure what sort of problems they have had, but it seems evident that they don't understand the nature of those problems and just blame X.

The problem is not X, but rather XFree86. XF86 is monolithic, and contains its own drivers. I realize this is mainly because *nixes don't have their own video, but Linux does. For years I've had problems with mixing Framebuffer Consoles and X, simply because they both fight over the same video. In a better designed system, Linux would provide the video and X would ride on top of it.

There is nothing wrong with the Linux Framebuffer except for lack of decent drivers. The DirectFB intends to solve this, but at this point XFree86 totally beats out DirectFB in driver support. Why does Unreal Tournament 2003 require XFree86? Because it needs OpenGL. Why the hell does OpenGL, something you're never going to use remotely, require XFree86? Because everyone uses X!

And that's where things have gone stupid. NVidia's drivers are for XFree86. Other closed-source vendor video drivers are for XFree86. This is a problem guys. What if we want to use the video drivers for something other than XFree86? Oops, you can't. We need to separate the hardware and X protocol layers from XFree86. This would lead to better compatibility and stability, and give ease to future expansion. At least on Linux systems, XFree86 should not be trying to roll its own drivers.

If you don't think we need to clean this up, consider that nearly every Linux crash is always due to XFree86. And please, don't tell me how you shelled in from your other box to kill XFree86, you may as well reboot if it comes to that.

So you are right, people wrongfully blame X when they should really be blaming XFree86. Before flaming me, please note that I am not against the X protocol, but the idea of an X server having its own drivers. Even so, I think using X for local applications is a bit redundant.

Which brings me to my next argument, which is about replacing X as a fundamental application layer. IMO, it should be possible to have locally running apps that access the video directly without having to go through some weird pile of extensions. 99.99% of the time, I am running apps locally. For me, and nearly all Linux users out there, "remote" should be the exception, not the rule.

The trouble, of course, is that there is a lot more to X than just a framebuffer. Try DirectFB sometime and you will realize this quickly. X has some very important things, like Window Managers, Input methods, hinting (for things like docklets), keyboard/mouse grabbing, etc. We'd need good replacements for all of these, along with X compatibility for it all. This is not trivial.

Qtopia (nor Qt/Embedded) is not the answer to the desktop. It is a really cool system, but is pretty much limited to the scope of PDAs. What we really need is a Qt/DirectFB (there is already such a port of gtk). This is just one step of many, though.
Re:X-less QT by swillden · 2003-02-19 11:07 · Score: 4, Insightful
X windows reminds me of the space shuttle. It's big and old and we know it won't last forever
One thing I consistently don't see in posts critical of X is an explanation of *why* it won't last forever. Seriously, what's wrong with it? The only specific points I hear are not only vague, but wrong. Just to get the crap arguments out of the way, I'll list the most obvious ones and then maybe someone can give me some *real* reasons.
- It's too big. For what? X servers of every size exist, including some that are small enough to run on a PDA.
- It's too old. Assuming a piece of software has adequate features and performance, age is a *good* thing. Not only does a long life tend to shake out the bugs, but software designs and implementations that really suck tend not to get old, in a competitive environment. And many wannabe X replacements have come and gone.
- It's too slow. No, it's not. Run some benchmarks against your favorite competing windowing system (Windows?) on a variety of graphics cards and you'll see that X is very competitive performance-wise.
- It lacks features Compared to what? Compared to Windows, yes, there are some things X can't do, but compared to all of the wannabe X replacements (which Qt really isn't), it's X's massive feature set that keeps it firmly in the lead. And the design has proven over the decades that it can easily be extended to support additional features as necessary.
- The API is too ugly. Who cares? The only people who use it are toolkit authors. We have very nice toolkits that hide all of that "nastiness" away.
- There are too many incompatible toolkits And just how is producing yet another even less compatible programmer's API going to solve this? You're better off trying to invent and push the One True Toolkit, because at least then the transition can be gradual.
- The whole client/server thing is weird. Umm, then don't think about it.
- Remote displays are useless. Then don't use them! Also, you're wrong, they're very useful.
That's a good sample. What I'd like to see is some really good, technical arguments that point out significant deficiencies in X that cannot be addressed without a clean start. I won't even demand that the deficiencies be good enough to justify all of the effort that will be required to reimplement everything for the replacement, although a *really* good answer would cover that as well.
Any takers?
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Re:X-less QT by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 11:13 · Score: 1

Qt is only GPLd when running on X, the code to make it work on the framebuffer isn't under the GPL afaik.

Just to correct you, Qt/Embedded is available as GPL. Not that this helps the parent poster at all, though. If I wanted to use Qt in an X replacement, I would probably port from Qt/X11, since it is closer to home.
Re:X-less QT by Planesdragon · 2003-02-19 11:15 · Score: 1

This is ridiculous. We'd be stupid TO take steps to transition "the desktop" to Qt all the way down. You're the only one who wants this. Not everyone loves KDE, and even less people love Qt. The seperation of the windowing system and the actual desktop is what gives *nix users the configurability to give their desktops personality. If you want a one-size-fits-all desktop, get windows.

KDE is bloated (insomuch as it is) becasue the underlying scheme doesn't do everything that KDE wants done.

Off the top of my head, a computer needs:

1: Hardware
2: A system running the hardware, CPU, et al
3a: A system coordinating data between programs
3b: A system organizing the display of programs
4: A UI (GUI or CLI) to communicate with the user
5: Software to justify all of the above.

Linux is 2, X is 3b--but because 3a is severely limited, KDE needs to hack 4 to do 3a's job and make 5 work smoother. Since X is already 3b, it should either be tweaked to run with a new 3a, extended to cover 3a, or replaced by a new system that does 3a and 3b.

All that said (and yes, I know I'm missing formal details, I'm a geek, not a comp sci class monkey), Windows handles each part reasonably well, and even allows you to replace 4 without losing the functionality of 3a, 3b, or 5. If KDE or CYGWIN had real Windows ports to the correct parts in Windows, I'd use them--but they don't, so I don't, and so no one else does for much the same reasons.
Re:X-less QT by be-fan · 2003-02-19 11:15 · Score: 1

A codec (with an 'e') server is not a logical part of X. aRts, however, already does that. As for cut and paste, again, middle click paste isn't required anymore. Cutting and pasting (CTRL-C, CTRL-V) works just fine, as does (Edit->Cut, Edit->Paste)

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A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:X-less QT by Otter · 2003-02-19 11:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

Well, most of the "X sucks" people really mean that XFree sucks, and have never used a commercial X server. On the other hand, they've come by that mentality for a reason -- as far as Linux is concerned, XFree is X.
I'm not qualified to hold forth on the pros and cons of X but will point out this: when using MacOS X, it is such a relief to have a display system that just works. Want antialiasing? Just turn it on! Most users wouldn't even know it's something to which thought might be given, as opposed to desktop Linux use, where fighting XFree becomes an activity in its own right.
(And I still have XFree available on OS X for GIMP and remote Matlab sessions...)

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What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Re:X-less QT by be-fan · 2003-02-19 11:20 · Score: 1

The back up the performance thing:

Do a simple bitblit benchmark. The GDI doesn't perform anywhere near as well as X (4.1, in my tests). It isn't until you start writing DirectX code that you can get blit performance as good as X. Then, you've got 3D. 3D in Linux (through GLX) is just as fast as 3D in Windows (assuming a good driver like NVIDIA's).

On the client server bit -- Windows is more client-server than X! For example, when you create a process in windows, Win32 calls a thread-create function in the NT kernel, then sends a message to the Win32 server to set things up. The server runs in kernel space, but it still communicates via IPC mechanisms.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:X-less QT by CommandNotFound · 2003-02-19 11:20 · Score: 1

It also needs a much better way of cut&paste for exmple you cant highlite one piece of text and then select copy then highlite another and select paste, that whole middle click paste thing sucks ass.

Actually, that method of cut-and-paste is a "bonus" on top of the clipboard functionality provided by the applications (GTK and Qt use essentially the same methods, which I believe is based on the XDND protocol). You should really only use the middle mouse button for simple text and for swapping text between terminals and such. For anything more complex (such as graphics, spreadsheet cells, etc) use CTRL-X/C/V or the edit menus.

As a power user, I love the convenience of the middle-button clipboard, and I get frustrated at apps that don't honor it (kdevelop, for one).

It also needs a way to change res on the fly but I hear thats going to be in 4.3.

Honestly, I haven't missed this feature, but early on I set up a user called "gamer" running a small window manager at 800x600 and I log into that user when I want to play games. I don't know why else I'd want to change the res on-the-fly, but as you said, they're working on it so I'll take it.

kde adds much of these things but they only work within kde not to mention kde is too much of a mem hog on slow systems

You may not realize that you can run all the KDE apps you want from any window manager. I run kdevelop, kmail, and konqueror all the time, but I don't run the KDE desktop (too slow for me). I use WindowMaker. I also use Gnome apps alongside the KDE apps... these desktop systems are not mutually exclusive! You may realize this, but a lot of new users coming from Windows don't realize that you can run Gnome apps within KDE and vice-versa because the "desktop environments" are pretty much veneers over the standard X protocol and are not incompatible.
Re: X-less QT by be-fan · 2003-02-19 11:24 · Score: 1

Um, what if you want to do rendering in a window? In that case, the OpenGL driver has to interact with the window system. OpenGL drivers are written for X because X has a lot of code that the OpenGL drivers need. Not only does it support the GLX protocol, but (I'm using NVIDIA's drivers as an example) it provides certain memory management and emulation routines. Unless you are making something that runs full-screen only, you *can't* have an OpenGL driver without tying it to the window-system.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re: X-less QT by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 11:30 · Score: 1

Good point, though I think that's where DirectFB comes in. The OpenGL driver would need to be written against DirectFB, which supports the primitives needed for both full screen and window rendering ('surfaces', I'm guessing).

I don't blame the authors of existing drivers for choosing XFree86, as there is no real alternative at the moment. Even though DirectFB is near-complete, it just isn't popular enough and does not integrate well with X enough for people to bother.
Re:X-less QT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:33 · Score: 0

"The seperation of the windowing system and the actual desktop is what gives *nix users the configurability to give their desktops personality. If you want a one-size-fits-all desktop, get windows."
Frankly, at first glance, this seems like a bad idea if "Linux is going to conquer the Desktop!(tm) (patent pending!)"
What's one of the biggest complaints about Linux? "Do I use KDE, Gnome, Blackbox, Windowmaker, FooWM?!?! Why do all my apps look different and ugly?!"
Joe Average doesn't want everything to look like the proverbial bazaar. He doesn't want scantily clad ladies grinding metal and dancing through hoops on their bodies, next to some guy riding a unicycle. (Thanks, Letterman!) He wants his desktop to be right there when he installs the operating system, and he wants his apps to look like they belong on that desktop. Yes - Exactly like Microsoft's operating systems.
The thing is - this could easily be done with X right now. That lazy app developers don't allow for swapping GUI toolkits, isn't the fault of X.
As for you're space shuttle comparison, X windows is not inherently big (at least is doesn't have to be). It's not old. As I said, it is still under development, and there have been recent releases. Having history doesn't make software old.
One word: Exactly.
Some other words: Drawing upon the space shuttle, people often insist NASA is 'behind the times' because they use ancient CPUs to power the computerized systems. They ignore the fact that, for the task at hand, those chips are the best technology availible. They're reliable to the extreme, they're durable to the extreme, and they've got more than enough power to handle what they're doing.
I've seen the same arguments made about X, time and time again. "It's old and klunky!" Old? Has a history, sure. But as the parent said, it's still in development, with current-day releases. Having a history is a good thing - do you want the latest cutting edge thing that's filled with untold bugs? Or do you want something that's been solidly developed for years?
My vote's for the latter.
Furthermore, many people don't seem to understand that Linux (and all 'real' Unices) are multiuser systems. X, by nature, is multiuser as well. A homogenous GUI 'without all the bloat of X' (Another argument I find amusing..) wouldn't be.
Best tool for the job.
Re: X-less QT by CommandNotFound · 2003-02-19 11:37 · Score: 1

Why the hell does OpenGL, something you're never going to use remotely, require XFree86? Because everyone uses X!

Because OpenGL is meant for more than games. What if you need to render and manipulate a large quantity (huge...gigs of data) of remote sensing data in a 3d environment in realtime? In other words, you need a big honking machine that you can't get at BestBuy and put on your desk. You need a large cluster or SGI Reality machine that's being cared for in its own climate-controlled pen... it handles the massive data crunching while you use your NVidia (or other) desktop to remotely render the OpenGL commands it sends over the network.

It's really amazing how efficient this works... you should try it. I've used it in the instance described above (except the X-term was an SGI box), and I've also used it to get super-smooth framerates on the gl screensavers running on a PII-266 but displayed remotely on an Athlon/GeForce box over a 100mbit network. Things like glearth will run at 60+fps and only use about 60KB/sec of network bandwidth.

The important thing is that X is built for the long haul, and so it must include remote operation... the desktop configuration may not be the ideal solution in the future, and you don't want to limit yourself to the "one user, sitting next to the box" configuration over the decades (just ask Microsoft, who is trying desperately to turn single-user Windows into multi-user Unix).
Re: X-less QT by Brian+Blessed · 2003-02-19 11:45 · Score: 1

Why the hell does OpenGL, something you're never going to use remotely, require XFree86?

Why not use OpenGL remotely? - it's something I've wondered before: Remote OpenGL apps

On the other point, I think it's good that all the other things that X does over DirectFB are easily just not used on a machine that you don't want displaying graphics any more (init 3, no need to recompile the kernel).

- Brian.
Re:X-less QT by CommandNotFound · 2003-02-19 11:48 · Score: 1

There are too many incompatible toolkits And just how is producing yet another even less compatible programmer's API going to solve this? You're better off trying to invent and push the One True Toolkit, because at least then the transition can be gradual.

I'll throw my $0.02 in with your rant, as well. People who claim that Windows apps all use the same widgets have obviously not used many Windows apps... many of them use their own custom widget sets as well.

Here's a test... load Office XP [shudder]. Note that regardless of the Windows settings, Office uses its own XP-style menus. How could this be if it wasn't implementing its own menus? Next, load Windows XP [double shudder]. Note that the drag behaviour of the standard combo box has changed... you can't click, hold, drag, and release. You must click, release, then click to select an item using the standard combo box (in say, a control panel app). Now, go to Office XP and open an Office dialog box (Tools | Options). The combo box works in the old way -- you can click-drag-release. It's implementing its own controls, or altering the standard ones.

Standard toolkits.... pfft.
Re:X-less QT by deepestblue · 2003-02-19 11:50 · Score: 1

all the inaccurate FUD-based trolling that goes on any time an article related to X is posted.
Trolling? How about
The seperation of the windowing system and the actual desktop is what gives *nix users the configurability to give their desktops personality. If you want a one-size-fits-all desktop, get windows.
I don't want my desktop to have "personality". I just want it to work! Sheesh.
How about
You're the only one who wants this. Not everyone loves KDE, and even less people love Qt.
How do you know this?
And here's the best
Having history doesn't make software old.
'nuff said.
Re:X-less QT by swillden · 2003-02-19 11:55 · Score: 1

Well, most of the "X sucks" people really mean that XFree sucks, and have never used a commercial X server.
Good point.
Most users wouldn't even know it's something to which thought might be given, as opposed to desktop Linux use, where fighting XFree becomes an activity in its own right.
This is true but really just indicates that the configuration and management of XFree86 needs to be improved and, in fact, that is happening. For example, I'm typing this on a Linux box using anti-aliased fonts and I did *nothing* to enable them. XFree86 4.2 and KDE quietly conspired to turn anti-aliasing on by default and it just works. I know where I could go into the control panel to turn them off, or to tweak the settings, but the defaults are great by me.
I'll certainly admit that OSX is looking pretty tempting, though...

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Re:X-less QT by spinlocked · 2003-02-19 12:46 · Score: 1

The day someone takes away my middle click paste, is the day they pry the related X server code from my cold dead fingers. This is also the reason why I will never switch to a certain computer vendor who's products only have one mouse button.

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# init 5 Connection closed.

Oh... ...bugger.
Re:X-less QT by Atomizer · 2003-02-19 13:03 · Score: 1

What do you mean you can't switch resolutions on the fly? I just setup the resolutions I want in X config, and then use (CTRL ALT +) or (CTRL ALT -) to cycle through them. (You probably already have a bunch defined and you don't know it.) I use it all the time when I want to switch from my normal resolution (1280x1024) down to something bigger (800x600) to show somebody something without them having to squint.

I do think we need some kind of propertie page type of thing like Windows, Mac, etc have that can control resolutions with a GUI. (There may already be one, but I just don't know about it...)
Re:X-less QT by 13Echo · 2003-02-19 13:33 · Score: 1

What in the hell is wrong with X? It's fast, reliable, and has tons of features.

I can't quite figure out what the problem is. People harp on X all of the time because they are too stupid to stop running Enlightenment in framebuffer mode. It's not X!

Why don't you anit-X trolls start posting some legitimate remarks about X problems. We'll be waiting.
Re: X-less QT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 13:39 · Score: 0

I don't really think that it would be possible to write a DirectFB system that would be fast enough for high res, full screen, 3d video. It just wouldn't work.

But, we've seen project like MPlayer that do a reasonable job rendering video with the FBDEV- in a console, no less, without XF86. But it still lacks the speed and stability of XF86 drivers and XV.
Re:X-less QT by 13Echo · 2003-02-19 13:49 · Score: 1

RandR is a new extension that supports this feature. I think that Gnome CVS even has code for it, but you need to have a newer version of XF86. Nobody ever anticipated the need to adjust resolution and resizing for the X11 protocol, which is why we still don't see it. But rest assured that it will happen soon.

Take a look at this page for more info:

http://www.xfree86.org/~keithp/talks/randr/randr /
Re: X-less QT by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 13:50 · Score: 1

Interesting, I had no idea people were rendering 3D remotely for realtime display :)

Even so, I think that OpenGL still does not need a tie to something so complex as an X server, as polygons have nothing to do with TCP/IP. In the case of Linux, there could be an OpenGL driver capable of rendering to video surfaces (DirectFB full/windowed) or to system memory for sending over the network. Assuming you're using an X server that rides on top of DirectFB, all the bases are covered, right?
Re:X-less QT by Permission+Denied · 2003-02-19 14:00 · Score: 1

People don't understand how copy and paste is supposed to work in X because lots of applications do it wrong. Your example: select text, select copy, select more text in different application, select paste - should work correctly.
Here's how it's supposed to work: when you select text, that text becomes the SELECTION. The SELECTION is not sent over the wire to the X server - instead, the application only tells the X server "I now have the SELECTION."
When you select "copy" (from menu, keyboard shortcut or whatever), the SELECTION is copied to the X server. The SELECTION is then copied into the CLIPBOARD. The CLIPBOARD is stored on the X server and no application "owns" it. The application should gray out the "copy" button/menu/whatever if it does not own the SELECTION.
When you select "paste" (via menu, keyboard or whatever), the application copies the CLIPBOARD from the X server and pastes it in. When you middle-click, the application copies the SELECTION from the application that owns the selection and pastes it in.
You'll note that if you are selecting lots of text all the time (like in a word processor) but only selecting the "copy" command on that text occasionally, the text is only copied to the X server when you copy, not when you select.
The problem is that some applications don't provide "copy" or "paste" buttons/menus/whatever and only work with SELECTIONs. Xterm is like this (so if you want to copy from or paste to xterm, you must use middle-click (emboldened because this is usually all the explanation people need). Another problem is that people didn't understand this, so some people would switch around the SELECTION and the CLIPBOARD, or do all sorts of crazy things with them. If applications were coded correctly, cut and paste would always work and middle-click would just be a shortcut for advanced users who understand the difference between the SELECTION and the CLIPBOARD. Yet another problem is that some toolkit and applications programmers attempt to "fix" this problem by changing the way it works: Qt versions prior to 3.0 would not operate on the CLIPBOARD when using copy and paste, but rather on their own internal buffers and with the SELECTION when communicating with other applications. This led to all kinds of brokenness and generally meant that cut and paste would not work correctly to/from Qt or KDE applications but only internally with Qt or KDE applications. Yet another confusing problem is that X11 used to have these things called "cut buffers" which are competely obsolete but still supported by ancient programs like xterm.
So no, there's nothing wrong with X11 cut and paste protocol. It behaves correctly in network environments (selecting all text in a large document to delete it or increase the font size should not send megs of data over the network). The underlying protocols also avoid all sorts of race conditions that are inherent in network-oriented windowing systems (so you'll never have true remote display with correct, reliable cut and paste in MacOS or Windows, but you'll always be stuck with remote desktop solutions like VNC, Terminal Server or Remote Desktop (which are completely different from remote display like X11)). It's also not difficult for sensible applications programmers since good toolkits (like modern Qt) do this correctly and shield the programmer from the details. It is difficult for crazy programmers who don't use good toolkits since they then have to understand how it's supposed to work and how to use the underlying protocols (which you'll see are somewhat complex if you try reading through ICCCM - if you truly understand ICCCM, you'll see that it's necessarily complex since there are race conditions everywhere).
Re:X-less QT by 13Echo · 2003-02-19 14:00 · Score: 1

Oh, please. Screw the "just works" crap. KDE has a button that "just turns on" antialiasing. It's a non-issue, and has NOTHING to do with X, aside from the render extension that speeds things up. It isn't even a requirement.

And as far as Linux is concerned, XFree is not X. Maybe you've never heard of a company called Metrolink? Xi? They all work on Unix clones.
Re: X-less QT by CommandNotFound · 2003-02-19 14:13 · Score: 1

Interesting, I had no idea people were rendering 3D remotely for realtime display :)

Well, I used to have a cool job like that, but I was greedy (stupid) and took more money to do real work (boring). :-)

SGI had to make GL network transparent because at the time (early 90's) only large machines could do the things they needed to do, so you had to hang xterms off a big box.

Even so, I think that OpenGL still does not need a tie to something so complex as an X server, as polygons have nothing to do with TCP/IP. In the case of Linux, there could be an OpenGL driver capable of rendering to video surfaces (DirectFB full/windowed) or to system memory for sending over the network. Assuming you're using an X server that rides on top of DirectFB, all the bases are covered, right?

I'm going into waters that I know little about, but I thought that X was already optimized for local displays in much the way you're describing... isn't that what DRI (Direct Rendering Interface) and other modules do? I know that's why I can get many frames per second with NVidia drivers under xfree86.

Anyway, xfree86 implementation issues aside, don't discount good remote display capabilities... they can be extremely useful in home and in production environments. Also, projects like The Linux Terminal Server Project allow many nice systems to be built very cheaply for schools, home, and business using X11. The best part is that you have all this stuff built-in and ready in your Linux system... get an old Pentium or PII ($50) with a decent PCI graphics card ($50-$75) and 17" monitor ($120) and hang it off your big box on the network... for everything but page-flip games you won't be able to tell you're running remotely. Nice price for a second PC that requires practically no administration, and can even be floppy based (ltsp).
Re: X-less QT by mt_nixnut · 2003-02-19 15:26 · Score: 1

One user, one machine is what the other guys do. I use Linux with X becuase it does more. Diskless terminals are magic as far as I am concerned and with Xfree86 this is not an after thought but built in from the ground up.
I hope the community never caves to this kind of pressure and continues to improve the things they already do better than the rest. Which is produce a true multi-user network based environment.
IMO PDA's are one of the few places this kind of one-user display really belong. Even MS sees this, if you look at the features that they have been cobbling on to their OS for remote desktop, terminal services, etc. it's obvious. Their suffering from X envy.
Re: X-less QT by be-fan · 2003-02-19 15:27 · Score: 1

If you're writing to some windowing system (in this case, DirectFB) then what's the point of making the driver windowing system independent like you suggested. At that point, you're just advocating ditching X, falling into the same misconception of "X is slow and bloated" that many seem to believe.

--
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Re:X-less QT by xchino · 2003-02-19 15:35 · Score: 1

You: "I don't want my desktop to have "personality". I just want it to work!"

Me: "If you want a one-size-fits-all desktop, get windows."

Geesh, that one was a no brainer. RTFP.

"And here's the best
Having history doesn't make software old. "

It's obvious you have trouble making a distinction between history and old software. Let me put it in terms you can understand.

Commander Keen is old software. It isn't developed anymore, and hasn't been for awhile.

If a new Commander Keen came out, it would already have history, but it wouldn't be old

Hope I didn't go over your head with that one.

--
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Re: X-less QT by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 16:01 · Score: 1

DirectFB is just a bare bones framebuffer system with surfaces. You could build something like Windows XP on top of it or maybe an X server.

With XFree86, you have both the X server and graphics layer merged as one program. This is an artifact of Unix systems not having their own video drivers so XFree86 would supply them (unfortunately requiring root access, XFree86 is setuid as you know). This is not the case anymore with Linux, and an X server could be made that is easily separated from the graphics layer. This is a much cleaner design and is more secure. In fact, you can already do it (see XDirectFB and also XFree86's fbdev driver), but these solutions are lacking at the moment.
Re:X-less QT by Spy+Hunter · 2003-02-19 16:08 · Score: 1

X is plenty small. I recently installed GPE and Familiar Linux on my iPAQ, which uses GTK on X for the display. It is plenty fast (as fast as WinCE) and plenty small (16 MB Flash ROM is all it has, and that has to contain Linux itself, a GNU base system (a shell, cmdline utilities, etc), X, GTK, and finally the applications that make it useful). The included TinyX server really lives up to its name, taking less than 2 MB of Flash! With X and wireless ethernet, I can run programs remotely from my desktop (like XMatrix ;-). Actually the setup I have now is: when I plug the ipaq into its usb cradle, my linux box starts up a usb-eth network connection with the iPAQ and then runs x2x. Then I can move my mouse off the left side of the desktop's screen and onto the iPAQ! Fun stuff.

--
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Re:X-less QT by iabervon · 2003-02-19 16:14 · Score: 1

As we speak, I'm running Qtopia on my Zaurus, it's a big pain that it's *not* using X, because if it were, I could trivially have the programs appear on my monitor rather than just on the Zaurus (whose keyboard is inaccessible while it's in the cradle, which is providing network to it).
Re: X-less QT by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 16:17 · Score: 1

I agree with you. My beef with the current system is mainly the organization. I don't know enough about the X protocol itself to comment on it, so I will say it is good enough.

What I don't like is how XFree86 accesses the graphics hardware itself. First, this goes against everything else in Linux. Normally applications use a kernel driver, but not XFree86. Second, this is a security risk. XFree86 requires root access in order to do its own driver handling, and this is why it is setuid root. Third, because XFree86 sticks its hand right into the video, it is easy for it to conflict with other programs that might be accessing the video also (svgalib, fbcon, etc). If there was a separate system managing just your graphics, then this could all be handled properly and cleanly.

The Linux Framebuffer is a wonderful solution (or at least the idea is anyway), because it makes your video device "/dev/fb". Set your permissions with chmod and be done with it. No root access, no sharing conflicts. You can actually run XFree86 on top of the Linux Framebuffer, but unfortunately it lacks a lot of features this way (though I'm sure it will improve). Also, the Linux Framebuffer lacks any sort of 3D. So clearly there is a lot of work left here :(

As far as local vs remote, I think the situation could be a little bit better than it is now, by coming up with a way for programs to access the display directly if running locally. But I would not want to sacrifice the remote capability. Remote should _always_ be possible, it is just a question of how to organize the layers that get you there. If I weren't already working on another major project, I'd probably try my hand at this :)
Re:X-less QT by swillden · 2003-02-19 16:27 · Score: 1

when I plug the ipaq into its usb cradle, my linux box starts up a usb-eth
Do you have any problems with usbnet? I and some others that I work with have found that it tends to crash out PCs. Not consistently, but if I'm using it heavily I'm just about guaranteed a lockup every couple of days.
then runs x2x. Then I can move my mouse off the left side of the desktop's screen and onto the iPAQ! Fun stuff.
Very cool idea. Now I almost wish we were using X rather than Qt...

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Re:X-less QT by Christianfreak · 2003-02-19 16:28 · Score: 1

this is true but the screen doesn't resize itself, thus you get the effect of magnifying the screen not actually resizing it.

Personally I hope that they leave the magnification features in and add the resizing as well.

--
The Anti-Blog
Re:X-less QT by Spy+Hunter · 2003-02-19 17:13 · Score: 1

I have had no problems with it at all. Kernel 2.4.18 on the desktop, 2.4.19-rmk4 on the iPAQ. It's much nicer than ppp through the serial port (ugh - now if only the ipaq bootloader would support usb I could forget about serial altogether). I have seen a rumor that some redhat release has a broken usbnet driver, are you using redhat?
Actually, I'm sure it would be possible to write a program similar to x2x for Qt-embedded. The only difference would be the requirement to run the program on both sides of the connection (and the fact that it's not already written for you ;-). And truth be told, the network transparency features of X aren't all that useful on an iPAQ in a practical sense. Yes, running xmatrix remotely from my desktop is cool; I've also tried emacs and netscape. But they're not designed for the tiny screen and stylus-only input, and the wireless connection is unreliable and battery-hogging. It's better to just install the programs I want and run them locally.
Out of curiosity, what are you using usbnet and qt-embedded for?

--
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Re: X-less QT by master_p · 2003-02-20 01:19 · Score: 1
I think the problem lies with the driver model of unix: there is no driver model. I would like it very much to have an O/S that has the following architecture (from top to bottom) :
1. applications
2. software drivers
3. hardware drivers
4. kernel
I would also like each driver to be one file only, and have predefined places where these files go. For example:

system
- hardware_drivers
- - video.hdr
  - audio.hdr
  - mouse.hdr
- software_drivers
- - window_system.sdr
  - game.sdr
  - opengl.sdr
  - directx.sdr
The reason for separating hardware from software drivers is to provide a layer of abstraction for the hardware. Then, the software drivers would use the services provided by the hardware drivers without knowing anything about the hardware. A driver replacement would be a simple drag-n-drop.

So, without a driver model(and without a generic model for where files should be), XFree86 has its own drivers, the kernel has its own FrameBuffer stuff etc.
Re:X-less QT by swillden · 2003-02-20 02:35 · Score: 1

I have seen a rumor that some redhat release has a broken usbnet driver, are you using redhat?
Nope, Debian with a custom 2.4.18 kernel.
Out of curiosity, what are you using usbnet and qt-embedded for?
I work for IBM and I'm writing software for a "secure" PDA. usbnet is the handiest way to talk to the device.

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Re:X-less QT by Pivot · 2003-02-20 02:41 · Score: 1

The problem I see with X is not the X protocol per se, but the XFree86 implementation and the development model.

If you wanted or needed to refactor the XFree86 X server, you will find it hard to do. Development is fairly closed in comparison with Linux kernel development. The codebase is rather big, and the X server is a bit harder to build than your average open source project. The codebase is modularized, but the modularization was not put there in order to make it easier to refactor the code.

Maybe it's easy for an experienced developer to work on the code, but I still think that the barriers to entry development on the XFree86 codebase is too high.
Re:X-less QT by Roberto · 2003-02-20 02:46 · Score: 1

Are you telling me you never heard of VNC servers?

here is what 10 seconds of googling gave me:

http://community.zaurus.com/projects/fbvncserver /

One would expect those who spend $300 on a gadget to actually try to use it ;-)
Re:X-less QT by g4dget · 2003-02-20 05:46 · Score: 1

VNC is not a replacement for X11. fbvncserver gives you a fixed 240x320 window on your desktop machine (and slowly and without desktop integration at that). X11 allows applications to open individual windows of arbitrary size on the desktop that behave just like any other application running on the desktop.
Re:X-less QT by Roberto · 2003-02-20 05:53 · Score: 1

Sure. But it sure beats not using the Zaurus because the keyboard is locked by the cradle, doesn't it?
Re:X-less QT by Zigg · 2003-02-20 06:25 · Score: 1

Joe Average doesn't want everything to look like the proverbial bazaar. He doesn't want scantily clad ladies grinding metal and dancing through hoops on their bodies...

No, I think he does. You obviously haven't been in Joe Average's garage to see his wall calendar, or seen the magazines in his bathroom...

(Seriously, I find that the less serious someone is about their computer, the more shiny things attract their attention. This is why spyware is such a winning proposition, and why e-mail worms propagate like they do.)
Re:X-less QT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 07:36 · Score: 0

So you know as much about programming as you do the space shuttle!
If X really is like the shuttle then.
1. It has been updated.
2. It can do things that nothing else can. How else can you bring back 33,000 lbs of stuff from space.
3. It will take 10 years to replace it.

Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest.
Re:X-less QT by iabervon · 2003-02-20 14:03 · Score: 1

Actually, I was using ssh to connect to it; it was just somewhat inconvenient because I couldn't use graphical programs that need text input. Such as, for example, the "Add/Remove Software" thing necessary to install the VNC stuff...
Re:X-less QT by fredrik70 · 2003-02-24 10:39 · Score: 1

hmmm,c++ doesn't have to be bad, if you just use it carefully and don't belive the OO hype too much. classes and inheritance, et. al. is a good thing imho, if used in moderation.
(yeah, I do come from a c background - current work gotta do c++)

--
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How by gearheadsmp · 2003-02-19 10:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

is this suprising? IBM's a big supporter of Linux in pretty much every area that it can be. Embedded, desktop, server, mainframe, etc.

Re:How by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 12:18 · Score: 0

is this suprising? IBM's a big supporter of Linux in pretty much every area that it can be. Embedded, desktop, server, mainframe, etc.

How typically slashdot. IBM are the good guys today right? Sun and HP and the others are the baddies, because they're not open enough in their support. IBM will support linux just as far as their own interests require it. As will Sun, and anyone else. IBM have no real focus on anything, they never have - they're just bigger the others.

Still no sync for Mac by mrklin · 2003-02-19 10:07 · Score: 2, Informative

Apple, Sharp, and Trolltech do not offer any syncing solution for Mac OS X. It's... like... beep beep beep.. a bummer.

Re:Still no sync for Mac by james_marsh · 2003-02-19 10:22 · Score: 1

Bzzt. Wrong.

'Qtopia Desktop is a Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux-based PIM center for storing information, entering data, loading applications, and transferring documents to Qtopia-based devices. Qtopia Desktop features include: A unique synchronization algorithm that provides rapid information back-up and document transfer to Qtopia-based devices; A Palm(tm) Desktop import tool for PIM information; and provide "conduits" for custom plug-in of 3rd party applications.'
Re:Still no sync for Mac by Wesley+Felter · 2003-02-19 10:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hopefully Trolltech/IBM will support the standard SyncML protocol, which would give them iSync support "for free".
Re:Still no sync for Mac by Iguanaphobic · 2003-02-19 11:34 · Score: 1

Mainly because of the three, Apple is the only company that has joined the SyncML organization. This could be causing political problems between Sharp and Apple. See this for a thoughtful analysis of the situation.

--
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Re:Still no sync for Mac by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:57 · Score: 0

Try to be realistic. The size of the Mac user base is far far smaller than Windows. By most definitions Mac is a niche product. It is a trade off. You accept the good things about Mac with the realization that it will never be as popular as Windows. Hopefully the things you like about Mac offset the compatibility issues.
Re:Still no sync for Mac by Iguanaphobic · 2003-02-19 12:16 · Score: 1

Aarghh. Something ate my URL. Here.

--
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Re:Still no sync for Mac by yomegaman · 2003-02-19 12:28 · Score: 1

Well, when I go to the Downloads area I see Linux and Windows versions but nothing for Mac OS X. Don't you feel stupid for pulling the tired 'Bzzt. Wrong.' routine now?

--
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Re:Still no sync for Mac by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 23:32 · Score: 1, Informative

There are some efforts with initial success. Take a look at this.

QuickTime...How does it work? by AnonymousCowheard · 2003-02-19 10:07 · Score: 3, Funny

Entrepreneur: QuickTime is the latest business machine that lets you go back in time and correct all the bad business decisions you made.

Boss Hog: We need to go back and dump sugar in them Duke Brothers' gas tank. Get onto it, Rosco!

IBM HINT: There is no QuickTime...

--

But I'm sure you already Gnu that.

crazy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:08 · Score: 1, Informative

Wow, great to see IBM getting into the PDA market. For those who don't remember, they pretty much set the gold standard in the laptop industry, and we still live with the benefits today. But while this sounds like a good toy for geeks, I have to wonder about some of the choices made in the design of this device.

PDAs typically use processors designed specifically for embedded environments. They're built from the ground up for low power consumption in preference to blazing speed. The PowerPC is exactly the opposite, as anyone who has sat down at a recent G4 can tell you -- these things scream.

Furthermore, Linux is specifically architectured for the server market, which is why it's seen so much success in the enterprise. Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism. The choice could also be bad news for Linux, as people will start to think of the OS as suitable for only small devices.

It's a good idea, but I'd like to see them take a more sensible approach.

Re:crazy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:26 · Score: 1, Informative

I'm not sure if you're trolling or just clueless. (Also, I could swear I've read this comment before...)

The PowerPC 405LP was designed for embedded applications; it has no similarity to G4s other than the instruction set.
Re:crazy by Anti-HanzoSan · 2003-02-19 11:09 · Score: 0

Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism.

HanzoSan? Is that you?
Re:crazy by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:46 · Score: 0

How the fuck does the parent ever get modded up? Its just flaming troll bait.
Re:crazy by cbiffle · 2003-02-19 12:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

"PDAs typically use processors designed specifically for embedded environments...the PowerPC is exactly the opposite."

Ah, not quite! Just as the presence of Athlons does not mean there are no embedded x86 Elans, the presence of the G4 doesn't mean there are no embedded PowerPCs! Don't confuse the architecture (PowerPC) with the implementation (G4).

The PowerPC has long been a staple of the embedded commuity (by 'long' here I mean 'half a decade or so' :-) ). As you'll note from the Macs, chips based on the architecture tend to have low power consumption and the resulting low heat output. However, smaller PowerPC implementations can be found in everything from Cisco routers to TiVos. I know of at least one $25 'residential gateway' DSL router that's a PowerPC.

The PowerPC's proven itself to be an astoundingly flexible architecture, and if IBM says they've got a low-power-consumption chip, I'd believe it, even if they posted good performance figures. As with the ARM, which was also not originally an embedded chip, performance and power consumption are not -always- mutually exclusive.

Also, as far as Linux on the PDA is concerned...I run Linux on my iPaq (and use it as a PDA) and have found it to be smaller and more stable than WinCE, and more stable (though larger) than PalmOS. My distribution of Linux fits handily into 16M of flash, and that includes Qtopia, all my PIM apps, Konqueror, Kinkatta (an AIM client), and various wlan mapping tools. Even my non-Linux friends prefer my 'feudal' Linux PDA -- and this was put together by a bunch of volunteers. I'm really looking forward to see what IBM's got.

This is probably not needed, by euxneks · 2003-02-19 10:09 · Score: 3, Informative

But I didn't know and that means there is probably a bunch of others out there too..:

Qt is a multiplatform, C++ application development framework. One source runs natively on Windows, Unix/Linux, Mac 0S X, and embedded systems.

Go here for a brief overview from Trolltech.

Pretty cool with the customization aspect.. Is there any programmers out there who have some real experience? This is pretty interesting to me, and I wouldn't mind hearing some feedback and maybe links or something. =)

--
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni

Re:This is probably not needed, by Osty · 2003-02-19 10:36 · Score: 1

I'm sure there are plenty of projects out there that use Qt. Qt has been around for a very long time, and is quite mature. This isn't something that just sprang up overnight.
Re:This is probably not needed, by Balinares · 2003-02-19 12:31 · Score: 5, Informative

> Is there any programmers out there who have some real experience?

I have no experience of the embedded version of Qt, so keep in mind I'm talking about the X11/Windows library here.

In three words: it fucking rocks.

Qt is simply the single best designed piece of software I have -ever- seen. While it sets out for a huge task, being a completely self-sufficient C++ framework, a multiplatform one at that (and it can indeed easily replace the entire MFC), the class hierarchy is extremely clean, and it's very easy to get the hang of it. Actually, the entire documentation is absolutely excellent, clear and very well cross-referenced. I've never stayed stuck while looking for some info in there (quite unlike the MSDN documentation!). Go take a peek, someday.

One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial.

The other thing about Qt is, if you need to do something complex, Qt makes it very straightforward. For instance, yesterday, our VB programmer was trying to make a custom widget that lets you stack frames vertically, each under its own tab, and showing only one at a time. After hours of work, he got to work a simple version of it that couldn't resize, among other shortcomings. Well, it took me much less time to rapidly put together the same thing in Qt, only it worked right away without those shortcomings, could accept any kind of subwidget, and, oh, of course, could resize at will and would work right away on any platform. Keep in mind that this guy is very experienced with his tools, while I'm a relative beginner with Qt.

There are countless useful features in Qt. For instance, it doesn't duplicate data when duplication is not either required or specifically requested by the programmer. Copy a QString or a QPixmap ten times, and Qt will keep only one copy of the data in memory for all the instances. Modify one of the ten instances, and Qt will then replicate its data to modify it without touching the nine other instances.

And those guys actually license their boon of a tool under the GPL. That's almost too good to be true.

Anyway, enough rambling. If you're a programmer, do yourself a favor, and check out Qt. Even if you don't end up using it, you will likely learn quite a lot about how powerful object orientation can be when used by people who know what they are doing.

--

-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Re:This is probably not needed, by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 13:35 · Score: 1

For some good examples of crossplatform apps that use Qt, see Opera and Psi. I'm the author of the latter (yes, shameless plug).
Re:This is probably not needed, by Dominic_Mazzoni · 2003-02-19 14:08 · Score: 3, Informative

While I'm a big fan of Qt, I'm also a fan of wxWindows, and I'd like to point out that wxWindows does all of the things you mentioned.

Qt is simply the single best designed piece of software I have -ever- seen. While it sets out for a huge task, being a completely self-sufficient C++ framework, a multiplatform one at that (and it can indeed easily replace the entire MFC), the class hierarchy [trolltech.com] is extremely clean, and it's very easy to get the hang of it. Actually, the entire documentation [trolltech.com] is absolutely excellent, clear and very well cross-referenced. I've never stayed stuck while looking for some info in there (quite unlike the MSDN documentation!). Go take a peek, someday.

The wxWindows documentation is online here. Go take a peek - it's remarkably complete and detailed.

One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial [trolltech.com].

wxWindows provides a few ways of doing this:
you can either use a wxTextFile or a wxTextInputStream.
Both give you a ReadLine method or equivalent.

The other thing about Qt is, if you need to do something complex, Qt makes it very straightforward. For instance, yesterday, our VB programmer was trying to make a custom widget that lets you stack frames vertically, each under its own tab, and showing only one at a time. After hours of work, he got to work a simple version of it that couldn't resize, among other shortcomings. Well, it took me much less time to rapidly put together the same thing in Qt, only it worked right away without those shortcomings, could accept any kind of subwidget, and, oh, of course, could resize at will and would work right away on any platform. Keep in mind that this guy is very experienced with his tools, while I'm a relative beginner with Qt.

Also easy with wxWindows. Their Sizer classes are by far the best method I've ever seen for laying out automatically resizable dialogs.

There are countless useful features in Qt. For instance, it doesn't duplicate data when duplication is not either required or specifically requested by the programmer. Copy a QString or a QPixmap ten times, and Qt will keep only one copy of the data in memory for all the instances. Modify one of the ten instances, and Qt will then replicate its data to modify it without touching the nine other instances.

wxWindows also reference-counts strings, bitmaps, and many other common data types.

And those guys actually license their boon of a tool under the GPL. That's almost too good to be true.

Unless you want the Windows version - that costs an arm and a leg. wxWindows is GPL for all platforms (and it currently supports more platforms than Qt).

Anyway, enough rambling. If you're a programmer, do yourself a favor, and check out Qt. Even if you don't end up using it, you will likely learn quite a lot about how powerful object orientation can be when used by people who know what they are doing.

Agreed. Check out both, though. Honestly, if I had a large budget to create a commercial cross-platform application, there's a good chance I'd choose Qt. But wxWindows has its advantages. For a free cross-platform software project, there's no contest: wxWindows is free on all platforms, with a very comparable feature set.
Re:This is probably not needed, by 13Echo · 2003-02-19 14:14 · Score: 1

I'm not so sure that Opera uses QT on every platform. I think that they just modify the Windows code to run on QT environments like KDE. Otherwise, I'd suspect that they'd have releases a bit more in sync with one another. But still, their Linux releases are way behind their Windows releases, and their Mac releases are even worse. Even then, they all seem to be missing specific features that are included in the Windows version. Email seems to ring a bell.
Re:This is probably not needed, by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 17:21 · Score: 0

I've just begun programming with Qt in the Linux environment. I'm a senior in software engineering and I needed to start my project at the beginning of this term (early January)... My senior project is an instant messenger (both server and client) in KDE. At the beginning of this term, I had no experience with TCP/IP programming or SQL, and with Qt's help, I've made huge progress.

Qt's documentation is absolutely awesome! And it seems to be a very well engineered toolkit... when I say engineered, I mean they obviously put a lot of forethought on how to put their C++ classes together... it's not a hacked job by any means... I'm completely and entirely impressed... the slots/signals model for Qt objects is really nice too! Qt has great support for databases (QSqlDatabase), networking (QSocket/QServerSocket), GUI(QWidget), OpenGL(I haven't used this), multithreading(QThread), 2D Graphics(QCanvas), and XML...

For junior project last year, my team used GTK--, and well... um... Go Trolltech!
Re:This is probably not needed, by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 18:06 · Score: 0

QT is awesome, I agree completely. If you want to see object design done right, look at the kde sources, even if you hate kde.

I don't see QFile:: as much more than an interface around stdio (or CFile). I think a much better example would be QTextStream -- but then you need to compare it to an equivalent iostream class in microsoftland for an apples-to-apples argument. What's so hard about FileStream?

Also, you mention QT's copy-on-write implementation, as if that's unique to QT.
Java and VC++ generally do this the same way, using shallow copy (copy-on-write).

QT is altogether far more sane and clean and pleasant than MFC, but that only matters where their features intersect. Counterexample, I'd much prefer MFC's XML Schema support to QDOM, if given a choice.

QT does indeed rock.
Re:This is probably not needed, by kris · 2003-02-19 19:48 · Score: 1

I have first hand account of a project that used the normal version of Qt, not Qt Embedded. Development was done on Linux, and testing was done on Linux. The resulting code was periodically recompiled on Windows to produce a Windows binary. End users had access to Windows and Linux binaries.

I have never seen a library that rocks more than Qt. Porting to Windows was almost as easy as a recompile. Things that did not work in the first attempt turned out to be actual bugs at a 90% rate or so. The porting overhead was marginal, at the order of two days for each two months of development.

Support was done via the Qt mailing lists, and was timely and qualified.

If you have to do any kind of multiplatform development, you should seriously check out Qt. I recommend it very highly.
Re:This is probably not needed, by tomkins · 2003-02-20 04:06 · Score: 1

One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial [trolltech.com].

Is there something lacking in std::string::getline()?

What could be easier than this:

string line; ifstream f("myfile.txt"); while (getline(f, line)) { // do something... }
Re:This is probably not needed, by Balinares · 2003-02-20 06:05 · Score: 1

For the records, I know wxWindows fairly well, and I use it at work for commercial apps, since we don't (yet) have a commercial Qt license.

And don't take me wrong -- it's indeed very good! Qt is just, well, excellent. wxWindows' documentation, while complete and detailed, just isn't as clear and easily browsable as Qt's -- good as it is, I sometimes stayed stuck looking for some very precise piece of info (about the safeYield() method, to be precise, which didn't seem to behave as advertised). Same for the vertically stackable widget I was talking of previously: the same thing in wxWindows is much easier than in VB, just not as much as in Qt in terms of developpement time and code flexibility and reusability.

But heck, the whole argument is pointless -- there's not much point in pinning the very good against the very very good, especially when the latter is (literally) infinitely more expensive. :)

Thanks for your post! I'm sure many readers didn't know about wxWindows and will want to try it out now, which is a good thing.

--

-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Re:This is probably not needed, by Balinares · 2003-02-20 09:28 · Score: 1

> Is there something lacking in std::string::getline()?

*bangs head on keyboard*
Nope, there isn't, and I'm a dumbass. Thanks for the reminder -- I didn't check OUTSIDE the MFC for readline-like functions. Must be all that VB they made me do, damaged my brain. *cough*

--

-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.

Microkernal ROM limits by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:13 · Score: 0

Actually the 64KB ROM limit in both OSs requisite this decision. I think Q has a limit of 128KB.

correction by scm · 2003-02-19 10:13 · Score: 3, Informative

QT/Embeded is the embedded version of the QT library. Qtopia (formerly QPE) is a PDA operating environment based on QT/Embedded.

After Sharp decided to use Qtopia on the Zarus, TrollTech seemed to lose interest in the Qtopia version for Familiar on the iPaq, so an open source fork was started called Opie http://opie.handhelds.org/

One of their goals is binary compatabilty with Qtopia though.

Re:correction by scm · 2003-02-19 10:19 · Score: 1

I guess the crack still hasn't worn off from having mod points. That should be Zaurus, and "open source fork" is a stupid thing to say, since both Qtopia and Opie are GPLed.

Feudalism?! by FatSean · 2003-02-19 10:18 · Score: 1

Man oh man...

--
Blar.

Re:Feudalism?! by stratjakt · 2003-02-19 10:38 · Score: 1

It is an excercise in feudalism.

"His highness the king doth proclaim that henceforth all lords within his kingdom shall implement SysV style IPC!"

--
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!

Linux footprint too general-purpose. by AnonymousCowheard · 2003-02-19 10:20 · Score: 1

Until Linux gets chopped-up and more logicall sorted, the Linux kernel will keep growing. Think of all the drivers people are downloading and will never use.

Last time I checked, Linux may not be desirable in handhelds because the kernel is growing, growing, growing and the new features don't realy put a dent in the desire for such computing that needs to be small and quick on the sleep and resume modes. Much of Linux' embedded features are added by special-interest companies and may or may not be free. This supposed fact proves IBM is looking for a beginning product that has all these features already built. We know Microsoft does the same: looking for startups with an interesting merit, buy them out, embrace, and extend. Or IBM is trying to keep the world competing by investing with other companies. It makes sense; in other related news, Linux wouldn't be any good without a competitor to compare it with. Now we can compare Linux with PalmOS, whatever else IBM may choose, and perhaps that is why so many operation-specific operating systems have spuriously appeared these last 5 years...trying to fill the gap Linux can't always fill, yet still every advancment is complimentary to eachother unless the destructivness of the patent system invades...

--

But I'm sure you already Gnu that.

Re:Linux footprint too general-purpose. by Sunnan · 2003-02-19 10:42 · Score: 4, Informative

Most of that stuff can be removed at compile time.
Re:Linux footprint too general-purpose. by swillden · 2003-02-19 16:03 · Score: 3, Funny

Think of all the drivers people are downloading and will never use.
So don't build the parts you don't need. This is one of the huge advantages of having the source code.
Last time I checked, Linux may not be desirable in handhelds because the kernel is growing, growing, growing
Dang. I guess I need to find something else to run this handheld on. I mean, since the 2.4.18 kernel that it's currently running can't fit. And I thought I still had half of my 32MB free, even with Linux, busybox, Qt, and a couple dozen apps, but I guess "cat /proc/meminfo" is lying to me...
and the new features don't realy put a dent in the desire for such computing that needs to be small and quick on the sleep and resume modes.
You mean my PDA *doesn't* really suspend and resume in less than a second? Man, do me a favor and go tell kids that Santa Claus doesn't exist or something, because you're really getting me down.

--
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Re:Linux footprint too general-purpose. by karlm · 2003-02-19 17:05 · Score: 1

Linux isn't modular? Does the sun not shine in your world? Does the air always smell like farts? Get your head out of your ass!
Almost all of the drivers can be compiled as modules (which means they can be left of the FS or not compiled in the first place). I hear they're working on making ALL of the drivers modules and placing the modules necessary for booting in an initial compressed ramdisk. I think QNX and VxWorks are smaller. Do Symbian and PalmOS support premptive multitasking in protected memory spaces?
In any case, Linux scales very well down into a PDA environment due to its modularity.

--
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
Re:Linux footprint too general-purpose. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 07:15 · Score: 0

People don't seem to get the value of Linux Everywhere. Lots of large companies do lots of in house development. Having only one OS and one set of development tools makes life a lot easier. Let's say you work for an oil company and you need to develop a program to handle Geo data. Your company has Solaris servers, windows workstations, and your field people have palms.
You write the app using VB under windows. The field workers want a version that runs on there Plams. You now have to find a Palm programer to port your code to PalmOS. Now the research staff want a tool that that they can use on there SGI workstations to import the data into GIS. Now you need to find a programer that knows Unix well enough to write an import modual.
Now if you are running Linux on everything it all becomes much easier.
Why do you think MicroSoft wants Windows Everywhere?
Re:Linux footprint too general-purpose. by fredrik70 · 2003-02-24 09:59 · Score: 1

not sure about palm OS but symbian got both peremptive MT and protected mem.

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if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }

Seems like a no brainer. by SatanicPuppy · 2003-02-19 10:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Lets ignore all the security issues for a moment. Let's just imagine that MS finally makes something truly secure, and no one is going to be hacking your phone or PDA.

The primary issues then become functionality and memory footprint. In terms of low cost buying power, you can't beat linux. In terms of memory scalability, you can't beat linux.

Add in stability, and the reality of security, and it seems wierd that anyone would go another direction.

--
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Re:Seems like a no brainer. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:35 · Score: 0

In terms of usability, linux sure as fuck can be beat.

"Look my PDA's OS runs from a 64k ROM"

"What does it do?"

"Nothing!"
Re:Seems like a no brainer. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:08 · Score: 0

> In terms of memory scalability, you can't beat linux.

QNX comes to mind. Frankly almost anything but linux comes to mind.
Re:Seems like a no brainer. by grungeKid · 2003-02-19 11:30 · Score: 1
No, the primary issue is as ever, interoperability, as in:
- "can it read word and power point files?"
- "can it sync with my Outlook/Exchange system?"
- "Can it read IE-specific websites (incl stuff like client-side scripting and NTLM auth)?"
- "can I use it to connect to my LAN through my windows-based VPN?"
I'm not saying that these IBM/QTopia devices won't be able to do all of the above, but I'm pretty sure that the Pocket PC devices will make it a lot easier.
Re:Seems like a no brainer. by yomegaman · 2003-02-19 12:35 · Score: 1

Right now, tell me what is meant by 'memory scalability'. You can't, can you? You know why? Because it's meaningless gibberish, that's why.

--
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Re:Seems like a no brainer. by SatanicPuppy · 2003-02-20 06:37 · Score: 1

Memory Scalability: Not having your operating system load 95% of everything it MIGHT need EVERY time it boots up. Meaning, of course, that you can SCALE your memory requirements to the hardware you are using.

I can set up a FUNCTIONAL Linux firewall on an original pentium (90mhz). You can't set up a functional M$ anything on a box that small, unless you want to run MSDOS batch scripts. Fricking XP has a MINIMUM memory requirement of 128megs. That's inex-fricking-scuseable.

--
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Yes and No by burgburgburg · 2003-02-19 10:22 · Score: 4, Informative

If you go here, you'll see that they have three licenses: a Commercial Development licence, a Commercial OEM license and a GPL Development license. So it depends on what you're planning on doing with what you build. You can't build a commercial product with the GPL license.

It says so..... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:25 · Score: 3, Funny

"You may or may not know that Qtopia is also used by the Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA (both the Sharp software and OpenZaurus distros use it). "

In the post: "the embedded version of their Qt library, used by the Sharp Zaurus PDA"

Then that's not GPL... by sterno · 2003-02-19 10:26 · Score: 0

To say that the product is GPL and to say that it cannot be used for commercial purposes are mutually exclusive statements. If it's GPL'd, they can't add additional restrictions.

--
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service

Re:Then that's not GPL... by vano2001 · 2003-02-19 10:40 · Score: 1, Interesting

I agree... I cannot see how one cannot use GPL qt library for linux to create commercial Linux apps. Apparently there is no GPL version of the Qt/Windows though.
Also it is odd that TrollTech's website says that one still needs a commercial license to use qt apps for internal use in a commercial company (that is even if you don't sell the product, but just use it).
Can anyone with more information regarding how TrollTech licenses Qt enlighten us?
Re:Then that's not GPL... by infiniti99 · 2003-02-19 11:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

The Free editions of Qt are pure GPL. Their website hints that you should buy a license for internal development, but this is not a requirement. I think it is just a case of the marketing guys being confused (maybe even over the difference between closed vs commercial). The issue has come up on the qt-interest mailinglist before, with the end result always being that a license is not needed for GPL development, and the Trolls have never responded otherwise.

Of course, it is encouraged that you support Trolltech if you are benefitting from their library. It's not every day that a company gives you their entire flagship product as open source. Plus their support is usually pretty good :)
Re:Then that's not GPL... by jfunk · 2003-02-19 11:23 · Score: 1

If you link your app to a GPL'ed library, you are required to distribute the source for your app. That's why the LGPL was created.

If you want your app to be closed-source, you have to use the non-GPL'ed version of Qt, which will cost you.

I think it's a great situation, myself. Trolltech gets money, while providing an incentive to create GPL'ed apps.
Re:Then that's not GPL... by pyros · 2003-02-19 11:24 · Score: 2, Informative

Here's how it works. If you use the GPL Qt, you need to release your product as GPL. You can still charge for GPL products, you just have to make source available for the cost of media and shipping. But if you don't want to release your product as GPL, you get a commercial license from Qt. Then you aren't under the restritcions of the GPL, because you aren't using the Qt libs under the GPL. That's how every product with a "free for non-commercial use" download licenses the product, although not always with the GPL.
Re:Then that's not GPL... by Tyreth · 2003-02-19 13:34 · Score: 2, Informative

You cannot link to the GPL and make your application closed source. You must make it open source under the GPL as far as I understand. This is why the LGPL (library GPL initially, now called lesser GPL) was introduced - to allow libraries to be linked to and still keep the application closed source.
So you could use Qt GPL version and make an app and sell it, but you'd also have to release the source code with it under the GPL license.
Re:Then that's not GPL... by dunng808 · 2003-02-19 13:53 · Score: 1

I agree. You cannot apply the GPL with discrimination based on usage. Either a work is released under the GPL or it is not. More specifically, if it is, further restrictions are without merit.

--
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Re:Then that's not GPL... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 15:00 · Score: 0

I think it's unfortunate that TrollTech is spreading FUD by this statement. Maybe RMS should set them straight.

That being said, if you use a modiied GPL app for internal use, make sure to control it's distribution. I worked for a company where some idiot distributed such an app. The calls for source were very forceful. (Not sure where it ended up but the lawyers were not happy)
Re:Then that's not GPL... by Phroggy · 2003-02-19 18:17 · Score: 1

To say that the product is GPL and to say that it cannot be used for commercial purposes are mutually exclusive statements. If it's GPL'd, they can't add additional restrictions.

That's not what they're saying. It really is the GPL, with no additional restrictions. According to the GPL, if you release an application that links against Qt (which is GPL, not LGPL), your application must be licensed under the GPL. And, in accordance with the GPL, you can sell copies of your application for a fee, as long as you provide source code and don't place additional restrictions on your customers (they're free to redistribute your software if they want).

So, if that sounds good to you, go for it! But if you don't like that idea, and you'd rather use Qt for a proprietary closed-source project, you need a different license.

--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Re:Then that's not GPL... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 19:00 · Score: 0

> That being said, if you use a modiied GPL app for
> internal use, make sure to control it's distribution.

The receivers of GPLed software must be allowed to give it to anyone they like.

Neither Trolltech nor RMS are spreading fud, they simply know the score.

> I
> worked for a company where some idiot
> distributed such an app. The calls for source
> were very forceful. (Not sure where it ended up
> but the lawyers were not happy)

The calls for source are justified, and the 'idiot' was acting within the rights granted to him by the GPL.

Re:X-less QT: Build it yourself by mbaranow · 2003-02-19 10:33 · Score: 1

This is already possible thanks to the great GPL licensing by Trolltech. Here is what you need to get started

- Linux kernel with frambuffer support
- GPL version of Qt/Embedded
- GPL version of Qtopia SDK
- Lots of new apps ported and written for Qtopia

This is excellent to get your old 486s and old laptops going. You can also mix and match with uClib and some tiny linux distros. How long before we have a new linux Qtopia distro?

But will IBM actually make PDAs? by hirschma · 2003-02-19 10:34 · Score: 1

Nice that they are putting out a reference platform for others, but will they take the risk of putting one out themselves?

IBM may have what it takes... by peterdaly · 2003-02-19 10:35 · Score: 1

I hope IBM has what is takes to fix the major flaw in the Sharp unit, which is battery time with wireless. That's where this OS will really shine, but currently get a black-eye due to the power requirements.

Wireless devices like this I would think would be right up IBM's alley, it's the next logical step.

-Pete

--
Soccer Goal Plans

Re:IBM may have what it takes... by Locutus · 2003-02-19 13:06 · Score: 1

Then use Bluetooth for your wireless networking. There's the CF modules you can use and Pellico Systems has a module that plugs into the serial port.

It won't be blazingly fast but could be good enough while Intel fixes it's XScale problems.

try:
http://www.zaurus.com
http://www.pellicos ystems.com

LoB

--
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus

Is IBM serious about the PDA market? by binaryDigit · 2003-02-19 10:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

I don't think so. How do they benefit by coming out with a pda that does not support the two major pda os's out there (PalmOS, WinCE)? How could they hope to ever be something other than a niche player? How many other companies that don't currently have pda's are going to come out with a pda that currently has little market support. Will any existing pda manuf. hop on the IBM bandwagon (e.g. Compaq/HP, Sony, etc).

Nope, this looks like IBM pushing their PPC405 into the embedded market, any resemblence to a pda is purely incidental.

Re:Is IBM serious about the PDA market? by melvin22 · 2003-02-19 15:36 · Score: 1

I would think that IBM is more interested in selling their PPC chips, and building a platform to deliver technologies such as the one mentioned here to corporations that require some kind of custom, secure, mobile solutions. I don't know what exactly. Maybe a hospital that wants secure PDAs for doctors to access patient information? Aaaah, I'm just speculating here.
Re:Is IBM serious about the PDA market? by Omnifarious · 2003-02-21 06:42 · Score: 1

Actually, from what I can tell, QTopia is very rapidly gaining mindshare in the PDA market. It is absent of the bloat, instability and extreme cruftiness of the WinCE platform, and the limitations of the PalmOS platform.

Besides, PDA users could care less what OS their PDA runs anyway. And there are easily as many applications available for QTopia as WinCE or PalmOS.

--
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop

From the same guys who brought us OS/2... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:38 · Score: 1, Funny

How is it IBM always seems to miss the trolley when it comes to picking the right platform? Yes indeed, why should IBM use a proven, well-supported platform like Windows CE/PocketPC based on the same technology as the leading desktop operating system, or a truly innovative platform like the new Palm OS, based on BeOS technology and built from the ground up for the handheld market, when they can grab some tacky warmed-over open-source products designed for the desktop with an outrageous memory footprint and an unfriendly, rough design, as they have done with Linux and QT?

Its a good thing there are industry leaders like Palm and Microsoft that continue to promote true innovation against the tide of inferior products from the likes of IBM. Now lets hope this fails quickly so embedded linux can die the quick death it deserves, and IBM can quietly sign on to sell OEM PocketPC systems afterwards without losing too much face.

Re:From the same guys who brought us OS/2... by Locutus · 2003-02-19 12:29 · Score: 1

A company like IBM needs to provide solution that work. OS/2 worked years before Windows NT was usable on the DESKTOP and DOS/Windows never really made it. Sure it worked sometimes but support and reliablity were not enterprise ready. The same goes for WinCE.

Regarding the PalmOS, well, it's not full featured enough and Linux already is.

That's my "take" on why IBM didn't go with WinCE or PalmOS.

LoB

--
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Re:From the same guys who brought us OS/2... by mangu · 2003-02-19 12:48 · Score: 1

why should IBM use a proven, well-supported platform like Windows CE/PocketPC based on the same technology as the leading desktop operating system

For the same reason Henry Ford didn't use the proven, well-supported technology, based on the leading cart-puller of his time, i.e. the horse.
Re:From the same guys who brought us OS/2... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 13:04 · Score: 0

Depends on what kind of "feature" you want. I for one don't really care for handhelds that always get hacked through new OpenSSL exploits or have a text editor with a built-in LISP environment. When it comes to technology that works now, Linux is miles behind Palm, which is the industry leader in accessibility. Linux on a handheld is like X-Windows on the desktop, never even should have been considered, but these Linux developers don't understand the needs of ordinary people.
Re:From the same guys who brought us OS/2... by Locutus · 2003-02-19 15:17 · Score: 1

I wouldn't say that IBM is teaming up with Trolltech to provide product to "ordinary people". As far as the PalmOS goes, it's a good PDA OS but not a full featured OS for when many enterprise customers would want to do. PalmOS v5.0 is a v1.0 product. Had it be embedded BeOS that would be another story but it's not. Therefore, it's got to prove itself and Linux already has proven itself to IBM.

LoB

--
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Re:From the same guys who brought us OS/2... by fredrik70 · 2003-02-24 11:23 · Score: 1

Also, I believe IBM's commitment to Linux is a very longterm commitment, and since they help out with the development of the kernel why not try to consilidate their OS platforms? NOw linux has proven itself to be modular enough to run on anything from your mainfram to your PDA, why not stick to it and work hard on improving on the bits it might be lacking in? If they use palm they're under the control of palm, if they use WinCE same thing, but with embedded linux they can actually make the changes they see fit straight away. And they can do this *whitout the need* to develop their own embedded OS! IBM doesn't really care too much about the softwae sales, it's in the harware and (especialy now lately) the services you can sell with the product the money is.
just my 0.02SEK

--
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }

Good for Zaurus? by connsmythe96 · 2003-02-19 10:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

I hope this means that the Qtopia will get a lot more commercial support. Other than tK, there aren't many commercial programs out there. Not that I WANT to have to pay for software, but a lot of specialty programs aren't going to be developed by freelance open-source programmers. Hardware support has also been a problem for me with the Zaurus. Maybe another linux PDA (or another person in charge or the Zaurus) will help create more interest in developing hardware drivers for it. I sure hope so.

--
if(!cool) exit(-1);

This is the new battlefield by tom_conte · 2003-02-19 10:44 · Score: 3, Informative

Yeah, well, is IBM really going to be able to compete with Symbian and Microsoft? Sure, it's nice to see a dinosaur company like IBM making bold moves, but they're just one step behind the other guys. I would say IBM is an outsider in the new battle for the "pervasive OS". Today, the big contenders are Nokia/Sony Ericsson + Symbian and (as usual) Microsoft. Sure the Zaurus is nice, but check out the 3GSM news and all you will see is Symbian and M$.

Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:45 · Score: 0

And IBM will put the same amount of marketing as to what went into OS/2.

What's up with that ad for MS Visual Studio .Nyet by Locutus · 2003-02-19 10:47 · Score: 1

Do they get to pick what story their ads get tied to?????

--
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus

Good For The Zaurus by zackZ · 2003-02-19 10:53 · Score: 1

This is definetely good news for Sharp's Zaurus PDAs. With Palm and MS being the other players, IBM's support would definitely help! But again, knowing IBM, they once got into the Palm platform too! Nothing came of it! Hopefully IBM has learnt something from its failures.

Feudalism? by hirschma · 2003-02-19 10:54 · Score: 2, Funny

I think that you should serf the internet over to dictionary.com :)

Re:x-windows by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 10:58 · Score: 0

What!?

What d'ell you talking about?

Not to mention... by maynard · 2003-02-19 11:11 · Score: 1

The reason that the DOJ hasn't had a similar effect on Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior, of course, is that Microsoft chose to ignore its consent decree and force the DOJ to make it stick in court, which has been so difficult, expensive and time-consuming that the US government has pretty much lost the will to press the charges home.

Not to mention a change of administration in the executive branch leading to a kinder, gentler, nation for our formerly oppressed corporate underclass. Thank God for campaign contributions or we wouldn't have PC software at all! *cough* --M

Re:Not to mention... by swillden · 2003-02-19 11:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Not to mention a change of administration in the executive branch leading to a kinder, gentler, nation for our formerly oppressed corporate underclass.
Go back and reread your the history of the case; the soft-pedaling started during the Clinton administration. This isn't a Clinton/Bush or Dem/Rep issue, more a failure of the system as a whole. I'd have to go back and look again myself, but ISTR that the DOJ was toughest near the beginning, which was during the Bush Sr. administration.
And for those who are convinced that only the Reps favor corporate America, keep in mind that the Dems are heavily behind the push to maintain Big Media's stranglehold.

--
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Re:Not to mention... by Tailhook · 2003-02-19 15:39 · Score: 1

"And for those who are convinced that only the Reps favor corporate America, keep in mind that the Dems are heavily behind the push to maintain Big Media's stranglehold."

The dems soak up most of the Lawyer and Union money. The reps get from anyone capable of producing revenue.

There are no innocents. Only those that know the score, and naive fools that believe their "side" retains some token nobility.

--
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Re:Not to mention... by puppetluva · 2003-02-20 00:36 · Score: 1

This is wrong.

The DOJ started being tough on Microsoft with the appointment of Joel Klein as the head of the Antitrust division. . . a Clinton-era appointee.

Bush Sr. had a pansy in the Antitrust office (actually she was a politician that didn't even have a law degree if I remember correctly).

The "back-peddling" didn't happen until Bush Jr. It just was so fast and thorough that it made you think that it started earlier.

Like it or not there HAS been a direct partison correlation to the enforcement of corporate Antitrust law in the US over the last three decades.

Re:x-windows by otis+wildflower · 2003-02-19 11:13 · Score: 1

x-windows SUCKS. Yes, it DOES!

Then why use it? QTopia doesn't require X.

Re:X-less QT: Build it yourself by Jason+Earl · 2003-02-19 11:13 · Score: 1

On the other hand 486s also make good X terminals :).

MOD PARENT UP by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:17 · Score: 0

Best YOU FAIL IT post that will ever be witnessed by man.

So does this mean.... by greymond · 2003-02-19 11:21 · Score: 1

instead of having a black Palm Pilot with an IBM logo on it and calling it a "Workpad"- they are going to have a black Zaurus with an IBM logo on it and call it the Z-Pad?

or are they just going to put the Qtopia on the palm pilot?

--
Ave Molech Setting

Re:So does this mean.... by Guillaume+Ross · 2003-02-19 15:44 · Score: 0

I surely would prefer the "Z-pad", as it would probably come with a piece of software or two more (Notes client anyone?), and I just love having a PDA that matches with my laptop !

X-less QT is a bad idea by g4dget · 2003-02-19 11:23 · Score: 1

One thing that surprises me is that with all this QT running without X windows underneath is that it isn't giving people ideas about a better desktop GUI.

In what regard is running Qt without X windows a "better desktop GUI"? Qt/Embedded doesn't run 99% of the UNIX GUI applications, it can't be used for remote access to compute servers, there is only a single implementation of it (from Troll Tech), it requires more memory and CPU, it only gives me a single toolkit, and every commercial software vendor has to spend $2000+ per developer.

I mean, a lot of effort has gone into a super-efficient X-less QT that requires minimal hardware to run well.

Qt/Embedded on the Zaurus uses a 200MHz ARM with 64Mbytes of RAM; that is not "minimal". If you look at its memory usage, it's upwards of a dozen megabytes. X11 clients run on 8bit microprocessors with 64kbytes of RAM, and X11 servers run on machines with less than 1Mbyte of RAM. The notion that Qt/Embedded is "super efficient" is some marketing fiction not grounded in reality.

Let me put it this way: if Qt/Embedded is so "super efficient", where are those savings supposed to come from concretely and specifically?

X windows reminds me of the space shuttle. It's big and old and we know it won't last forever, but we hide our heads in the sand and we don't want to hear about it. Well, that's a really stupid attitude, especially since there is such an inviting alternative.

You are confusing XFree86 and the X11 protocol. At some point, we should probably throw out XFree86, which has become a pretty messy and big codebase (even though you can compile it into very compact and efficient servers), but there is no reason to get rid of the X11 protocol--nobody has yet come up with anything better.

Re:X-less QT is a bad idea by yomegaman · 2003-02-19 12:31 · Score: 1

According to Troll's website the Qtopia SDK goes for $195, not $2000+.

--
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Re:X-less QT is a bad idea by g4dget · 2003-02-19 12:59 · Score: 1

Qtopia is $195, Qt/Embedded, like their desktop products, is of the order of $2k per developer, plus runtime licenses. Since we are talking about Qt/Embedded for desktop apps, presumably, Troll Tech's current desktop pricing structure would apply.
Re:X-less QT is a bad idea by Moritz+Moeller+-+Her · 2003-02-19 14:13 · Score: 1

QT for the desktop (X11/Win/Mac) does NOT have a runtime license fee.

QT/Embedded does have one, starting at 6$:
http://www.trolltech.com/products/embedded/pr icing .html

QT for the desktop only has a moderate one time developer fee, if you don't want to use GPL:
http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/pricing .html

--
Moritz
Re:X-less QT is a bad idea by g4dget · 2003-02-19 16:44 · Score: 1

QT for the desktop (X11/Win/Mac) does NOT have a runtime license fee.
And I did NOT claim that Qt for the desktop had a licensing fee, so why are you shouting?
QT for the desktop only has a moderate one time developer fee, if you don't want to use GPL
If you consider $1550 or $2330 "moderate".

Over PalmOS and PocketPC? by treyb · 2003-02-19 11:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't see how IBM could have chosen Qtopia over PalmOS or PocketPC since those operating systems don't run on PowerPC hardware. Rather, it appears to me that IBM Microelectronics wants another market to sell PowerPC chips into and chose just about the only viable solution that wouldn't take years to deliver.

at Linuxworld... by Drunken_Jackass · 2003-02-19 11:28 · Score: 1

IBM had a sharp display where they had all makes and models of the Zaurus. I guess it's no surprise that they're adopting Qtopia as their OS of choice for handheld devices.

On an unrelated(ish) note - they had the Japanese Zaurus there, and i got a chance to play with it a bit. I was about to trade in my iPaq right then and there. Really neat piece of tech.

--
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.

GGI was never an X replacement by maynard · 2003-02-19 11:32 · Score: 4, Informative

It was a combination of a kernel driver for the video card and a set graphics libraries, which working together would provide a common hardware abstraction layer for all applications which might need to paint to a display. This way all applications could use the same functions to paint the display no matter what the underlying hardware. They then created a GGI X Server as a proof of concept that X could work over GGI. The real intention was to replace SVGAlib and get X drivers out of userspace - for both performance and security reasons. Pretty much what we have today with frame buffer and DRI support in the kernel, but far advanced for its time. There was some kind of falling out between Linus and the project so it never got added to the baseline kernel, the politics of which I can't remember. This is going back to 1996 or so. Too bad, it was a good idea which didn't survive.

You might be thinking of the Berlin Project, which I see has moved over to something called Fresco. Haven't followed up on that in some time so I can't speak to its current development activity.

Cheers,
--Maynard

Re:GGI was never an X replacement by Shelled · 2003-02-19 15:09 · Score: 1

I'll bet half the people on this forum would kill for your ID# :).
Re:GGI was never an X replacement by fizbin · 2003-02-20 05:23 · Score: 1

Pshaw. 3000 is low?

I could understand if you made that comment to someone with a three- or two-digit id, but I still consider myself a late arrival to slashdot. (Since I remember none of the days before logins)
Re:GGI was never an X replacement by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 09:44 · Score: 0

I remember the days before logins. But there were a bunch of people who didn't bother registering for an account because it didn't buy you much - just a consistent name. This was before scoring and moderation. And you're right, a four digit UID doesn't mean much. :) --M

Re:x-windows by TheRaven64 · 2003-02-19 11:38 · Score: 0, Offtopic

This was moderated as 'troll' but it makes a valid point. X really is showing its age, compare it with something like Display PostScript, for example, or try implementing something that looks like the Aqua GUI on it, and it just can't handle it. It doesn't even support transparency properly...
Running a windows terminal server client over a 128K ISDN line is faster (in most cases) than posting an X display over a 10Mbit network. When Microsoft is this much better than you, then it's time to take notice. I recall reading a while ago that there was a gtk+ port to the Linux framebuffer, designed for PDAs. This would be better than X in a small device (X is a resource hog, adn XF86 is far from stable.) I also agree that remote-X is a particularly inelegant solution, a remote gtk / Qt (i.e. draw the widgets using the remote commands) would be better (as happens with the GDI in TS).
Feel free to moderate this as Off-Topic, but lack of a modern windowing system is one of the biggest problems with Linux / *BSD in any form factor from PDA to desktop (although not in servers) and it is unlikely to go away.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News

PDA or Other? by MSTCrow5429 · 2003-02-19 11:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

Either this isn't a PDA but some other product whose true purpose is being hidden, IBM doesn't know what it is yet, it is a PDA but is light years ahead of Palm OS and PPC, or someone made a huge mistake. Palm OS and PPC dominate the PDA OS market, with Palm in the lead. A sliver represents Linux etc. If IBM's product is not at least three times as good as Palm/PPC or significantly underpriced, it will fail. If it has blazing performance, excellent hand writing recongnition, and advanced AI (maybe similiar to the Newton but enhanced), it won't sell, especially in a depressed economy. It will need several killer features that no one else has to succeed. It is also possible that it is just a tool for the IBM server market. Although why anyone couldn't use a Palm/PPC device instead is an open question. Or IBM is tossing out a hardware ref and seeing what happens, who bites, what develops.

--
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997

Re:PDA or Other? by jonr · 2003-02-19 12:58 · Score: 1

Very true MSTC... IBM & Trolltech need to show something quite different/good to beat the Palm/PocketPC bandwagon. And don't forget, Symbian seems to be making it on the new phones, if the SE P800 was a bit cheaper (And if I had a job) I would buy one in a heartbeat and probably park my Palm for good.
Nobody has come up with a sales pitch for a connected phone/pda. The web is too 'fat', you need fairly recent computer to be able to enjoy it with all the flashy graphics and stupid <table> and 1px gif based layouts. Perhaps XHTML/XML will be the next step? (Get a clue, web "designers")
J.

That's not what it says... by sterno · 2003-02-19 11:50 · Score: 1

It says you can't use it for commercial purposes. So, if I write GPL'd software and sell it, then I'd be violating the license as I understand it. If that's not what they mean, then why say it at all, the GPL implies what you've said.

--
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service

Re:That's not what it says... by jfunk · 2003-02-19 13:52 · Score: 1

It says you can't use it for commercial purposes.

I think you're referring to the non-commercial edition of Qt for native Windows. That's not GPL'ed.

The only GPL'ed version of Qt is for UNIX systems and it's a different chunk of code. You are free to sell applications linked to it as long as your applications are GPL'ed as well. Remember that the Linux distros have no trouble selling KDE.

Nothing's stopping anybody from porting the GPL'ed Qt to Windows though. GPL is GPL, after all.

You do not understand the PDA market by rsborg · 2003-02-19 11:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't think so. How do they benefit by coming out with a pda that does not support the two major pda os's out there (PalmOS, WinCE)?

PDA's do not synch to each other. Period. I know that IR port on your Palm is ever so useful, neh? What does PDA OS compatibility mean? To the PDA user, not much. As long as the requisite apps exist, and the price is right, and the PDA can synch to the REAL computer (ie, desktop/laptop running Win/MacOS/Linux), in many people's eyes it is a serious PDA. Add in a standard memory card (Flash/Smart/SD), and ability to export/save as some standard file format, and you have a PDA that's as good as any PocketPC/Palm out there.

--
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting

So... by sterno · 2003-02-19 11:53 · Score: 1

It's GPL then :). Why do they have to go confusing the matter. Just say, "it's GPL", and maybe even clarify, "not LGPL", and then it all makes sense.

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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service

Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 11:53 · Score: 0

Maybe because Qtopia is an APPLICATION, not an operating system? It's Qt on framebuffer plus lots of goodies and a kick-ass API.

Try using that little thing called a "web browser" and follow a few links before posting something as stupid as this.

Nuggets of truths--Linux PDA's do suck. by Ilan+Volow · 2003-02-19 12:13 · Score: 1

To salvage the truth from a troll, there actually is a high correlation between linux being put on PDA's and those PDA's tending to suck.

Too often, linux developers who have little or no knowledge of interface design say "Ah-ha! Because of linux's spectacular portability, I can port this application that runs on my pentium 4 machines with a 21" monitor to my StrongArm PDA with a 240 x 320 pixel screen." Unfortunately, they really don't take into account the difference in usage between a desktop machine that sits on your desk and something that's so small it fits into your pocket. You tend to see this screwed up way of thinking in PDA's like the Agenda and Zaurus. To be fair, you also tend to see it in messed up designs like WinCE. IBM really should have gone with PalmOS.

Qtopia is a prime example of a desktop UI that was shrunk 20 times to be put into a PDA without any real forthought. Maybe it'll be okay for something like set-top boxes or answering machines, but I would be very disappointed in IBM's human factors department if they actually approved using Qtopia with PDA's.

--
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!

Re:Nuggets of truths--Linux PDA's do suck. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-03-04 23:26 · Score: 0

I will dispense with the clever reply and simply state ...

"you are full of shit my friend"

Informative? WRONG information! by mangu · 2003-02-19 12:21 · Score: 1

You can't build a commercial product with the GPL license.

Yes, you can. You only have to distribute your product under the GPL licence. Red Hat does it. Suse does it. Caldera does it.

AWESOME sig! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 12:27 · Score: 0

However, it would be funnier if more people knew the reference...

Accidental confusion? by sleepingsquirrel · 2003-02-19 12:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yes the Qt licenses are very confusing, because on their site they claim ...

Terms of use
Developing and distributing applications
Private users may use the Qt non-commercial edition in a non-commercial setting to produce non-commercial applications.
A non-commercial setting means that you must not use the package in the course of your employment or whilst engaged in activities that will be compensated. A non-commercial application is an application that cannot be sold, leased, rented or otherwise distributed for recompense.
Private users may distribute the applications they develop as free software, i.e. they must distribute their software free of charge, include the complete source code and pass on to their users the right to copy and modify the software under the same terms.

...that would seem to be in direct contradiction to what the FSF says about selling GPL'd software...

Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.
...and...
The (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy.

But finally Trolltech goes on to say...

A simple way to meet these requirements is to use one of the well-established open source licenses for your code. Add a file containing the license text to your source package and a short copyright notice to every source file. See http://www.opensource.org for information on free software licensing and for a list of approved licenses. Note that although the license requires that you provide the source code, you may also include an executable version of your software for the convenience of your users.

It's all very confusing and I can only conclude this confusion is deliberate, in the hopes that they will sell more commercial licenses.

Re:Accidental confusion? by Minna+Kirai · 2003-02-19 14:35 · Score: 1

They're not the first ones. The same incorrect terms used by many software vendors. (So Trolltech is speaking a language familar to big software buyers)

The word "commerical" is used to mean "proprietary". This has a bit of truth to it, as "commercial" implies "we can sell it", and non-proprietary software cannot be sold.

(Technically you can sell it, but not effectively. The first customer can undercut your prices to all the rest. To profit from non-proprietary software, you need to use it to feed some other revenue stream, like support, documentation, or hardware)

Microsoft in particular has used the "proprietary = commerical" belief to imply that the GPL, by being non-proprietary, is therefore uncommercial, which means anti-capitalist, socialist, and unAmerican.

Will this by SomeOtherGuy · 2003-02-19 12:37 · Score: 2, Funny

sync with my lotus suite applications running os/2 on my ps/2? And please tell me that it will cost a good 25-30% more than the competition....go big blue.

--
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.

Re:Will this by eyegone · 2003-02-19 14:43 · Score: 1

Yes, using an LU6.2 session over Token-Ring.

--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Re:Will this by SomeOtherGuy · 2003-02-20 03:31 · Score: 1

Cool. I don't see what all the fuss is about this new fangled Ethernet stuff, Token Ring is the only way to go.

--
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.

One problem with X by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 12:39 · Score: 0

A task as simple as filing and stroking shapes is quite complicated because of X's bizarre pixel-oriented imaging rules. When you fill a 10x10 square with XFillRectangle, it fills the 100 pixels you expect. But you get extra "bonus pixels" when you pass the same arguments to XDrawRectangle, because it actually draws an 11x11 square, hanging out one pixel below and to the right!!! If you find this hard to believe, look it up in the X manual yourself: Volume 1, Section 6.1.4. The manual patronizingly explains how easy it is to add 1 to the x and y position of the filled rectangle, while subtracting 1 from the width and height to compensate, so it fits neatly inside the outline. Then it points out that "in the case of arcs, however, this is a much more difficult proposition (probably impossible in a portable fashion)." This means that portably filling and stroking an arbitrarily scaled arc without overlapping or leaving gaps is an intractable problem when using the X Window System.

Think about that.

Re:One problem with X by po8 · 2003-02-19 20:19 · Score: 1

Heh. If this is your biggest problem with the X rendering model, you don't understand the X rendering model very well. (My biggest problem, for the record, is the lack of any kind of splines. But the fact that generating wide ellipses that are correct according to the spec requires cubic time and looks terrible is a good candidate. The fact that there is no closed-form solution that meets the spec for dashed wide ellipses---it would require computing an elliptic integral---is also interesting.)

First, wrapping the line and rectangle functions so they do what you want is, of course, trivial. But it's not clear that it is what most people want: the argument is that XDrawRectangle should produce the same result as the 4 XDrawLine calls with the same coordinates that would produce it.

Second, non-circular wide arcs are broken in the X rendering model. Don't do that. (BTW, what is this "manual" you keep referring to? The Digital Press version of the X specs? The O'Reilly books?)

The solution: a better rendering model for X. Fortunately, Packard's X Render Extension and Worth and Packard's Xr provides exactly that. The combination essentially gives a C API to an X implementation of the Postscript rendering model, but with nice anti-aliasing and compositing. All this without throwing the X baby out with the X rendering model bathwater. Imagine that.

Packard suggested this exercise to me: Look at your X screen right now. Try to find something that's not either (a) a bitmap, or (b) composed entirely out of rectangles and lines. For almost every X app in existence today, the old, broken X rendering model is just fine. If you need more power than that, a new rendering model is available.

Those who don't understand X are doomed to repeat it.

Qtopia/Zaurus by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 13:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

Just a fine coincidence. Bought a Zaurus Open-Box yesterday for 200 bucks at staples.I have had 2 palms and I was more than presently suprised at qtopia. I like it better than the palmos pda's that I have used. It just seems to work, it's reliable and easy to use so far. I already think that qtopia blows palmos and CE off the map. And if desktop linux was this usable for the normal 'Joe' we would be much better off.
Just my 2 units of currency..

Re:huge by kupci · 2003-02-19 14:06 · Score: 1

Er...actually OS/2 is still supported... Not sure how your theory fits in with IBM's support of Linux (I can run Db2, WebSphere, WSAD/Eclipse, MQSeries, Tivoli, Notes (Wine) etc etc on Linux. Nor do I see it fitting in with their support of Java (some 80% or so of the spec for J2EE was contributed by IBM) Nor their contributions to Apache and other open source projects (Eclipse) Certainly supporting M$ is a source of income for IBM just as many other firms, but I find it pretty impressive that they support such a wide variety of platforms. That surely makes life hard for them, and easy for companies like M$ (then again, Win95vsWin98vsNTvs2000vsXP you get the picture..)

IBM track record is abysmal by gelfling · 2003-02-19 14:40 · Score: 2, Funny

They couldn't even make a go of rebranded Palm units. They killed off their own z50 WinCe micro laptop. They don't have a credible minilaptop in the US (Japan only thank you very much). They can barely get their own Lotus Easysync to work with Lotus Notes desktop applications. Their machines are getting bigger and bigger, not the other way around.

If anything this is a test bed for some kind of embedded technology subproject.

Their heart isn't in it. This is a throwaway project - some bright execuweenie in training has been given a bag of burnable cash to show what he can do for the benefit of Sam Palmisano and Co.

Saddening by donscarletti · 2003-02-19 15:54 · Score: 1, Interesting

I worries me to see that for one promising application of linux (Embedded graphical systems) that a non-free library is being used. In my mind having a GPL licence preventing static linking and closed source projects from using it, which can be circumvented with quite a hefty payment to trolltech kind of makes a mockery of the whole Open Source Concept.

I also find it anoying that QT provides wrappers for MacOS' and Windows' existing UIs but on LINUX it creates it's own right down until it touches the windowing system instead of merly providing a wrapper on top of a community supported one (I know QT is older than GTK but there were others before it).

The whole multiple UI systems would be fixed if QT was just made into a wrapper for GTK+ (the reverse would be inpossible because of both licensing and language binding/archetecture issues, although if it wasn't it would be a just as good)

I challenge Trolltech to do this. They would still be able to keep charging royalties to developers using their cross platform wrapper (which is what they advetise to be QT's greatest strength.

As for Qtopia, it has no open source competitors, so the only reasonable solution is to stomach it for the time being, but to have a UI that is owned by a company that seeks to make a profit by restricing it's use seems to me as an unacceptable future for an operating system. Hell even M$ doesn't charge money for people to compile closed source stuff on windows. It seems to me even more laughable that some people consider a UI that costs money for static linking or porting to other OS's as a suitable base library for a free OS like LINUX, it just has no future.

--
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem

Re:Saddening by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 19:51 · Score: 0

that could probably qualify for the dumbest-toolkit-idea-ever - providing yet another c++ wrapper to gtk+ just for the sake of losing almost all of qt's benefits. why are they doing the thing right instead of using the ass-first way that /. trolls like so much?

This is a HUGE win for the Trolls. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 16:14 · Score: 0

Mwuahahaha!

SO HOW ARE YOU TAKING OUT THOSE GPS SATS EXACTLY? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 16:24 · Score: 0

n/t

So, why hasn't KDE been converted to Qt/Embedded? by g4dget · 2003-02-19 16:53 · Score: 1

Since you are part of the KDE project, and since Qt/KDE/Zaurus/TrollTech supporters keep telling us how much better Qt/Embedded is than X11, and how cheap it is, and how efficient it is, and how everybody will gladly port to Qt, and all that, why isn't the KDE project getting rid of X11? Come on, do you lack the courage of your own convictions? Please tell us.

I'd love a Zaurus but... by sjbe · 2003-02-19 16:57 · Score: 1

I don't use Outlook. I use Mozilla for addresses, email, etc because it is OSS and more importantly cross platform. Last I checked no PDA except palm syncs to Mozilla, and even palm only does a half baked job of it. I'd buy a Zaurus in a heartbeat if it could sync directly to Mozilla, including the calendar project.

Minor rant. I'm really tired of Outlook being the only email/calendar client anything supports. Yes, I know it's popular but not with everyone...

That said I'd like to see bluetooth built in but that's not a deal breaker for me. My laptop has bluetooth built in so it would be uber convenient.

Re:I'd love a Zaurus but... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:19 · Score: 0

Have you tried Evolution? That's what I use for my Palm and it works well not to mention its a good program. And while cross platform is good when it comes to email most people use only one platform. So for the individual user I don't see why it would matter that Mozilla is crossplatform. Unless of course you haven't actually committed to linux and are still dual-booting with windows in that case I'm sorry to say you'll be stuck with your current limitations forever. The windows platform is dedicated to Outlook but on linux thankfully there are other options.
Re:I'd love a Zaurus but... by Omnifarious · 2003-02-21 06:52 · Score: 1

I also like Evolution significantly better than Mozilla mail. My favorite feature of it is its tight integration with PGP/gpg. I now sign all of my emails, and it's easy to do. My second favorite feature is that fact that it doesn't download images (or anything else) in order to display HTML mail properly. Since most such images are actually notifications that you've recieved the spam and have read it, I appreciate this feature a great deal.

It also just feels nicer and more polished. It's a much more sophisticated and better done email program than Mozilla.

Sadly, it isn't as cross platform. :-(

--
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Re:I'd love a Zaurus but... by sjbe · 2003-02-21 11:46 · Score: 1

It also just feels nicer and more polished. It's a much more sophisticated and better done email program than Mozilla.

Sadly, it isn't as cross platform. :-(

Don't get me wrong. I do not think Mozilla is an amazing mail client. It's adequate at best. But it is the only satisfactory mail client that is available on pretty much any platform I want, integrates with an address book and has a calendar available. I need something that will work on Windows, linux, OS X, IRIX, etc. Mozilla Mail pretty much wins by default. I'm not thrilled about it but that's life.

Realistically I'm not all that interested in what client is the best overall. I'm interested in the client that is the best which does not restrict my choice of operating system. Hence whenever possible I use OpenOffice, GIMP, Mozilla, Apache, etc. Outlook and Evolution don't interest me because they restrict me in my choice of operating systems and the tools that go with them.

Are these OSS apps the best apps out there? Mozilla & Apache maybe but overall probably not. But they are plenty good enough for my needs and don't restrict me to a given operating system. I can do my work the way I want to and not have to worry about learning a new system every flippin' time I switch computers. I'm a unix guy at heart but I have to use Windows much of the time.

Heck I haven't bought a new PDA in 5 years because they can't seem to find a way to get OS agnostic software for linking to them. I can't believe no one has established a standard way to connect PDAs (calendars, address books etc) to PCs. Is it really so hard? Palm won't get off their ass, and the Zaurus is promising but doesn't work with my choice of email/address/calendar client so what good is it?

Sigh. Too depressing...

Slashdot. Where do you want to go today? by rice_burners_suck · 2003-02-19 17:00 · Score: 0, Troll

IMB is obviously a bunch of idiot mother fuckers because they turned down PalmOS which is the superior operating system of choice for all products that require an operating system and instead proceeded to choose this stupid Qtopia thing over the PalmOS operating system platform which I consider to be a very poor and stupid decision when you consider the fact that like I said before in this post somewhere that like PalmOS is like superior and shit when compared to this Qtopia thing that I have never seen before but neither have I seen that PalmOS thing as I have never used one of the devices that uses it but I think that it would be kind of cool if people like Sony and shit provided PalmOS preinstalled on your computer when you but it at the store instead of putting that stupid windows thing on there instead.

This post intentionally left blank.

Re:Slashdot. Where do you want to go today? by NoCoward · 2003-02-19 17:53 · Score: 1

Yes, it must suck to own stock in Palm Corp. I feel your pain!

Another Win for the Mega-Corps by NoCoward · 2003-02-19 17:03 · Score: 1

It must be nice for corporations nowadays. You get people to develop OSes and software for you for FREE while you reap the profits. What a good deal...

PyQT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 17:06 · Score: 0

Does this mean I'll be able to program a handheld using Python and PyQT?

avoiding X API by BroncoInCalifornia · 2003-02-19 17:10 · Score: 1

"The API is too ugly. Who cares? The only people who use it are toolkit authors. We have very nice toolkits that hide all of that "nastiness" away."

A good way to avoid the X-Window API is to use Trolltech's Qt!!!!

--

Religion is the main cause of atheism.

huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-19 18:39 · Score: 0

IBM's decision to choose Trolltech's Qtopia

Huh?

Trolltech?

wtf?

Trolltech???Trolltech???

I don't get it.

Exactly by SuperKendall · 2003-02-19 18:42 · Score: 1

Remember all of the big stars that sang at Clinton coronation... and don't forget Gore was fond of visint Microsoft's campus.

That gun had all chambers loaded when we pulled the trigger, as far as our presidential choice affecting Microsoft was concerned.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Yes, it's well over a Hundred years old. by Schwarzchild · 2003-02-19 18:50 · Score: 1

It wasn't called IBM when it first started out as a startup by a census employee. You see the Census Bureau had a problem....it took them almost ten years to tabulate the previous census and they had no clue how they were going to complete the next census so they asked people to come up with ideas on how to solve their problem. One of their employees thought of developing a machine to automate the manual process and so came about the start of the company.

The name IBM didn't come into use until the 40's or 50's when Thomas Watson Sr. decided that he wanted the company to have a name that matched his view of its glorious future.

See Raymond Kurzweil's excellent treatise on computers The Age of Intelligent Machines for more on the history of IBM and computers.

--

"sweet dreams are made of this..."

Re:Yes, it's well over a Hundred years old. by slittle · 2003-02-19 20:39 · Score: 1

IIRC, they adopted the IBM name from a company they bought.

--
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
Re:Yes, it's well over a Hundred years old. by GregWebb · 2003-02-19 21:56 · Score: 1

They were called Hollerith before then, as I recall.

--
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!

You're factually correct by maynard · 2003-02-20 02:15 · Score: 2, Informative

While it's true that under the Bush I administration the DOJ followed through with a consent decree over anti-competitive practices at Microsoft, that action was over contracts between MS and all large PC vendors which bundled Windows with all PCs manufactured regardles of what OS they shipped with. Microsoft signed the consent decree and immediately found a loophole and continued their old practices into the Clinton administratoin. The Clinton DOJ action against MS was primarily over bundling Internet Explorer within Windows 98 in order to kill Netscape. In the previous instance we see MS leveraging their monopoly to kill off distribution of other OSs with any and all PCs. In the latter case we see them leveraging their monopoly to kill a secondary application and development environmet which threatened to commoditize Windows through open standards and platform compatability.

Without a doubt, once Bush took office and Ashcroft took the DOJ we had a new policy of dropping the case at all costs. The DOJ settled with defendant that had previously convicted. When have you ever seen that by a prosecutor? Extremely strange, and obviously political. This is not a Democrat vs. Republican thing, it's a Bush II policy issue, the effects of which are in the public record.

Cheers,
--Maynard

ho hum by djeaux · 2003-02-20 02:28 · Score: 1

IBM has been thrashing around in the tar pit for years. Rebranding another manufacturer's device with the IBM logo is not innovation. I view this as IBM's final admission that it's not a player in the real-world PDA market. I also view the recent push for tablet PCs as Microsoft's admission of the same. When Sony went with Palmsource, the handwriting was on the wall. Let's face it, Sony leads IBM & Microsoft in the quest for world domination. Proof of concept? Count the Sony products in your home. Then count the IBM & Microsoft products. Add up the cost. 'Nuff said.

--
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)

Re:So, why hasn't KDE been converted to Qt/Embedde by Roberto · 2003-02-20 02:44 · Score: 1

a) Moritz is not the one who is writing about dropping X for Qt/E, so in any case he lacks the courage of someone else's convictions, which is a pretty smart thing to lack.

b) Check kdenox in KDE CVS.

Low UID #s are meaningless by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:28 · Score: 0

With folks selling low UIDs on ebay and such, it just doesn't matter. Anyway, it should be what one contributes, not how long (s)he's been a member, that makes a user stand out. JMO. :)

Best,
--M

Rebootless "reboots" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:49 · Score: 0

Enable the Magic SysRq key in the kernel and then press it accordingly if you feel stuck...

As for remote, Unix was made for remote in mind. If you have one box, well, then there's no need for remote operations. But if you have two or more boxes lying around, it's very handy. You can run e.g. LyX from your older box with all the fine-tuned configs and such.

Re:So, why hasn't KDE been converted to Qt/Embedde by g4dget · 2003-02-20 05:50 · Score: 1

Check kdenox in KDE CVS.

Well, let's hope that those efforts get accelerated. The sooner KDE stops using X11 the better as far as I'm concerned.

Re:So, why hasn't KDE been converted to Qt/Embedde by Roberto · 2003-02-20 05:59 · Score: 1

Well, I would rate the odds of KDE dropping X as its primary platform, barring unforeseen unexpected developments, at between none and zero.

But for specific KDE apps, it can be done, if there is enough interest. Most of the KDE code doesn't require X at all.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Re:Linux footprint too genera... by AnonymousCowheard · 2003-02-20 09:18 · Score: 1

What part of general-purpose do people not understand? I didn't say Linux wasn't modular. I implied that Linux's flexibility comes at a cost of disk usage AND I am speaking in the scope that the average commercial-retail distribution of Linux comes with drivers that will not be used. Hence, there is reason for companies to research monolithic operating system/environments that have a more marginal footprint with features that aren't exaggerated marketing hype. Yes, multi-tasking was received by the world as marketing hype; slandered by Microsoft Windows 3.x. HINT: my gzipped linux kernel image is about 1.75MegaBytes, not including the modules outside of it and pre-built with only a couple platform dependant drivers that I require to boot (serial.o, tulip.o, framebuffer, ncr???.o;scsi). When was the last time someone checked RedHat 8.0's linux kernel footprint? Compare that average footprint with Debian's, SuSE's, SlackWare's, Mandrake's, Lindows', then eCos, then RTLinux, then finally compare that footprint (overhead) with another operating system kernel's footprint such as QNX/BeOS/PalmOS/Plan9/or_what_have_we.

Please forgive me for not responding sooner, someone on my subnet or perhaps a slashdot bug, has triggered slashdot to make me wait 24hours to post a reply.

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But I'm sure you already Gnu that.

SO WHAT??? [nvws] by NaveWeiss · 2003-02-22 03:51 · Score: 1

This means nothing! I want to see devices who use Qtopia. And I want to see nice applications too, and not those ugly ones (sorry) that you can see.. bah! Freshmeat doesn't even have a QT/embedded category! Shame on them!!!!!!!!!!

Btw: I am looking for a girlfriend.

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Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss

Qt is _NOT_ GPL. It's LGPL. was Re:Go Trolltech! by CoolVibe · 2003-02-28 07:50 · Score: 1

First: Qt is LGPL'ed not GPL'ed. There's a big difference.

Second: s/Linux/X11/ on that comment

Seriously, there are more *nix-like operating system that can use LGPL licensed Qt. As long as you use Qt with X11, it's fine. Even if you use Qt under X11 under Cygwin (under windows) and GPL your code, you can use LGPL'ed Qt.

It's the native win32 port and the embedded Qt which are going to set you back a couple of bucks if you choose to use those.

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IBM Picks Qtopia Over PalmOS And PocketPC

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