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KDE Success in the Enterprise
Arandir writes "Is UNIX ready for the desktop? Display Works Inc. thinks it is! They adopted KDE as their official desktop environment over a year ago, and KDE::Enterprise is running an interview with IT manager Tim Brodie over their experiences. This is a very good interview that covers why KDE was chosen, user migration, and wish lists for KDE. Quote: "I now see KDE taking the lead in polish and professionalism on the desktop"."
An interesting article; not only this, it addresses the issue of inexperienced or job-only computer users using KDE - hitherto not really mentioned in linux-promotion material (apart from obvious examples, eg. lindows). Quite a feather in kde's cap, I'd say.
:)
Or certainly a good sign.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you
Let's face it, for well over five years the KDE team has slaved away forging a complete and total desktop solution for not just linux, but the intire UNIX platform. No small feet, that. Along the way, they've had to make some hard choices. Abandon the closed-source QT license or petition to have QT opened? Work on the linux frame buffer potential, or expand their prescence over into the *BSD projects? While GNOME was making critical mis-steps such as following in the footsteps of Microsoft, and using their FSF clout to force Redhat to hemogenize the redhat/linux desktop; KDE kept their focus almost to the point of obsession. Quality, and Nothing but. So, I say Huzzah to KDE! Truly, the GNU worlds' greatest example of the american dream -realised!
but what about countries besides Poland?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I now see KDE taking the lead in polish and professionalism on the desktop
:)
I bet those Polish people are happy...
It's a pretty small installation as these things go, but most business uses probably revolve around those sizes of networks.
:)
So good news.
And, if it turns out that it's bullshit, at least it's first-rate bullshit
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
We are operating a LTSP server with (at this date) twelve concurrent users. We also have another four stand-alone workstations used at some of our other sites.
Without wishing to be overly critical 12 users does not constitute Enterprise level. Yes its nice to see a success story but do we really need to get a story on every KDE/GNOME deploment in the universe ? Can we maintain some perspective with the headlines please.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Yeah, and i see hot chicks. But I still spend saturday night alone, reading slashdot, and jacking off.
that when he wants to develop an in-house program that isn't going to be distributed anywhere else, the GPL doesn't require him to release his sources to the public, so he didn't need to be really concerned about the licensing issue.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Did Picard endorse this?
-------
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Much as I hate all Macromedia products (grr!), there is a Flash plugin for Netscape-compatible browsers that is for Linux. Go here.
It's hard to say anything bad about the latest release. Works great for me.
And I've set several first time LInux converts up on it and they not only like it, they have a fairly easy time adjusting from windows to Linux.
It's really a good thing.
Thanks KDE guys, you got a good thing going!
Yeah, I think so.
You can go back to sleep now.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Wow, that's a lot of conjecture and speculation you're spouting, yet you haven't given any solid proof of any of your arguments. Most of it is objective (X is better than... Y is faster than...).
There are also quite a few flaws in your diatribe. (i.e. Ximian's Red Carpet is NOT part of "official" Gnome)
Anyway, for the real beef on KDE myths and facts, go here.
Why the Polish...I mean come on...what about us! =)
I personally find KDE to be better than Explorer for me. Of course windows on a whole is still far more user friendly when one considers program instillation, learning curve, and generally things working. However if one were to consider the desktop environment of windows compared to KDE I do find KDE to be superior.
Configurability: KDE hands down, the Control Center simply allows so much to be configured, my system is currently set up to respond precisely how I want it. Windows respond to mouse overs after the time I specified, right number of desktops with the correct visibility of other apps, themability also a big plus. Don't know if XP has themability or to what degree but I don't consider it a major function.
Look & Feel: Used to give it to Windows but now I think I like KDE better. Basically a function of familiarity of the system combined with actual looks, themability helps KDE here.
Usability: Both have a fairly comprehensive start menu. I'll discount the points I could give KDE for a greater amount of software initially since this isn't necessarily a long term effect as you'll fill both with software you need eventually. However I do prefer the KMenus method for listing large numbers of programs as a heirarchy, when Windows tries to list 3 full columns at once it's much too slow especially since you probably already know the location of the item you're looking for. Also KDE gets points for multiple desktops, yes I know that you can get programs for Windows to mimic that but it doesn't work as well, most notably it simply hide apps so that cycling through apps in one desktop gives you apps for all desktops. The file manager for windows is generally nicer but the combination of file manager and CLI built in for KDE should give it the advantage there but I'll call it a tie.
Either way overall I prefer KDE but after a certain level it comes down to familiarity. I used to use Windows alot and prefered that but recently I've almost entirely switched over to Linux, just found that the things I did alot were just as good and easy in Linux. Actually it's mostly multiple desktops that gets me. Frankly Gaim still isn't up to par with Trillian and Evolution isn't as nice as Eudora but the entire environment is nicer to work in. But either way that isn't directly pretaining to the Window Manager.
I stole this Sig
Give me a break, I have friends with more computers and servers in their homes than this company. No matter how bad KDE was, that Sysadmin could walk around to each desk and teach everyone in the company how to work with KDE in one day.
KDE is indeed very polished, snappy and comfortable, arguably more so than Gnome (apart from Red Hat's excellent Gnome). However, Gnome & GTK is a more future-proof *platform*, since you can develop a toy application with it, and if it is succesful, you can release it with whatever license you/your employer wants to use. With KDE & QT, your application will only be GPL, unless you cough up the money for QT license *before* you start developing your app.
For example, I develop Python applications in my current job. There are some python libraries that can't be released under GPL, by any means (the will of the company, not mine). In those cases, I just can't import those libraries when I develop a GUI application if I use PyQT. However, with PyGTK, I can release anything I want with any license I want.
So, the main point is that even if your application could be GPL, all the libs that the application would use can't necessarily be so. Of course one can use CORBA etc. the insulate the non-GPL portions, but it's a drag and I'd much rather use GTK. The code that uses GTK can be deployed everywhere without worries, with QT you have to keep vigilant that you don't accidentally GPL'ize anything.
In my view a library is not a "commodity" until its use is absolutely free of strings. That's the reason I avoid proprietary libraries, and GPL libraries. Liberate the infrastructure!
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Aww come on chaps.
As an individual story this is kinda cool. As a slashdoy headline of "KDE success in the enterprise" it's just sad.
And I would imagine all the Apple users raised an eyebrow at "is Unix ready for the desktop".
Like some business somewhere uses KDE on their desktop... so what? You not see how desperate it is to be going nuts over this rather small instance... how many desktops exactly are involved here?
There have to be better examples than this.
After reading comments that there should be more examples, and a larger amount of clients would add credibility, I would say there is:
m ai n/0,14179,2860180-1,00.html
. sh tml?tid=19
How about 450 thin clients running KDE with 800 users? All running from one Linux server box. Now that sounds good!
Articles:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/
and the follow up:
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/12/04/2346215
His mention of building KDE reminded me of my recent FreeBSD install experience. After getting pissed off at RedHat constantly locking up my USB mouse (I don't know why I keep trying Linux distros. I must be a sucker for punishment or something.) and failing to support my NVidia card (Your kernel is too old, update. Oh wait, now it's too new, downgrade. RPM compile? I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that) I decided to try building a trusty FreeBSD box instead. I figured, "if Linux is here, BSD must already be there too!" Well, I was right and wrong at the same time.
:-)
My first attempt was to build a Gnome desktop similar to RedHat. FreeBSD 5.0 itself installed cleanly, and with the help of a FAQ I was able to build NVidia drivers for 5.0. (One kernel module! You hear me Linus!!! One module for every friggin' kernel! BTW, for anyone who wants to do this, 5.0 is not officially supported by NVidia. The module will not install by default! You need to modify the header to remove the 5.0 checks and use the new AGP stuff.) So far, so good. I begin the build of Gnome. It built and installed cleanly. Unfortunately, the desktop was a little sparse and didn't look like the RedHat desk at all.
So I began tweaking it. I added Bluecurve to replace the hideous default theme and then tried attacking the problem of installing programs. It soon tells me "Only root can add to the foot menu". Fine. So I log in as root and modify the menus. Come back as the user and none of the new icons show up! Is this a sick joke? Even worse, I cvsuped and upgraded to Nautilus 2.2. Suddenly, I have no way to change the Nautilus theme, it looks like crap, and all my icons are "unknown documents". On the bright side, I can sample the beginning of an MP3 by mousing over. Swell. A search on Google Groups tells me that a *lot* of people are having this problem with Nautilus (both Linux and BSD) and noone has yet found a solution. But don't worry! They'll have an XML config file in the next version that will fix all this. Couldn't they have done this in the first place? This goes on for awhile, with the desktop getting worse the more I tried to tweak it. Oh, and it's impossible to copy desktop settings between users. Apparently, these config files are tailored to individual logins. They look like serialized objects or something. Bonobo perhaps? Finally I give up and install KDE.
Now, I didn't install KDE to begin with, because the 2.x UI was kind of flakey. It wasn't that it didn't work, it just kind of flashes and resizes in a very ugly fashion. None the less, I figured that 3.1 couldn't be any worse than Gnome. So I cvsup and begin a "make install". It begins building. And building. And (this thing is huge!) a day later I have a KDE desktop installed. No install problems to report. I booted up my brand new desktop, and.... WOW, IS IT EVER BEAUTIFUL. Well, save for the fonts. I had to tweak those a bit. 12 pt. Arial looked too thick on the screen. Later I loaded my TTFs from my NTFS partition. Cheating, but hey. Nice fonts are nice fonts.
Anyway, I just started *using* my KDE desktop. There really wasn't all that much I needed to tweak. I got Russian keymappings set up for my wife (a seemingly impossible task under GNO-it doesn't work-ME), installed KDevelop (nice IDE!), Netbeans (I love how unixes don't touch the swap file), and FreeBSD OpenOffice 1.1 (Side note: needs a full install per user. Yuck.). Worked like a charm. Even my wife, who usually hates these experiments, really loved this desktop. She soon was browsing the web, checking email, typing letters, etc. without my help. And she absolutely *loved* the action sounds.
So here I sit. One KDE desktop on the nicest OS known to man (maybe save for OSX) and I am happier than a clam. The really great part about KDE was that everything *just works*. Like with BSD where sendmail works from the point of install, KDE never needed my help to get working. I just had to tell it my preferences, plus enable KDM and I was good to go. No hassle, no idiot scripts to
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I use NetBSD every day. I use Mac OS X every day. They're both UNIX as far as I'm concerned, regardless of how many Erdos points they are removed from their AT&T ancestry.
You know what the Mac Window Manager is? It's a UNIX daemon. You know what Mac OS X "Web Sharing" is? It's Apache. You know what the core compiler of ProjectBuilder is? It's gcc.
Perhaps my definition of "UNIX" is too broad for some, but I see no reason to split hairs about something built around the same foundation and principles. However I will happily agree that Windows NT is not UNIX.
-- thinkyhead software and media
The cost of a QT license amounts to roughly the same money it takes to have a decent developer working for a week or two. And this is ONLY if you're going to sell the end result. This could hardly be a problem for any serious product development company.
May we live long and die out
1. KDE 2. BSD 3. OS X ...oh wait. That's only two.
A couple of Slashdotters argued:I understand what you're saying, and I understand what Trolltech wants, but I don't understand how anyone thinks they got there.
GPL: You can distribute internally. Anyone who get the binary has the right to request (and receive) the source. Not a problem; that's all internal.
Qt commercial license: Some number of developers are licensed to build with the Qt framework and distribute the result with a non-free license.
So what prevents a shop from having a bunch of internal developers who only distribute their results internally, plus one licensed person who builds the "gold disk"?
P.S.: According to the URL above, you're supposed to: Seems to me the GPL gives you the right to do that. How does Trolltech expect to enforce the clause quoted above?
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
This is just the sort of snobby elitish pedantism which gets Linux into trouble, consistently. Lets see, how about we call your company "too small" to be called a "company" ...
... Linux *is* ready for most enterprises...
The word 'enterprise' is not a 'class' of business nor does it imply any 'size of business'.
The word 'enterprise' simply means "A business organization." as opposed to an educational institution, or personal user.
Please learn to use a dictionary, and especially work on your 'marketing dreck filter 101' language skills.
Whatever Microsoft (or IBM) may have done to this word, getting Linux installed in this budding enterprise is a damned fine thing. Hats off to to the entire crew of the Display Works crew for proving that yes
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
.... Forcing someone into a choice of licence for their end-product because of a choice of GUI API is retardedly counterproductive......How much of a fuss would people be making if Microsoft Visual C's EULA dictates how you use, licence and distribute programs generated by the compiler
.net development EULA's also forbid gpl development.
.net does for Windows in terms of simplying things and hiding complexity.
Go use the Introductory or Academic edition of VC++? A dialog will always display saying distributed binaries are prohibited! Its printed in the EULA about how you can distribute binares. Infact the Windows mobile sdk prohibits GPL DEVELOPMENT!
"
How much of a fuss would people be making if Microsoft Visual C's EULA dictates how you use, licence and distribute programs generated by the compiler? The sooner someone re-writes KDE to not use QT the better"
FYI the $109 standard edition that you linked above is probably the introductory edition which will display the same message about distributed binaries. I do not know because I have not used it. Maybe someone reading this can answer that. It would not supprise me if any EULA is included telling you how to use the default binaries. Its rumoured that some
Troll Tech is no different from Microsoft in this regards. Ms does this to their products and are not as lenient as Troll Tech. If you want to use their services you got to pay. However they are nice enough to let thouse who can not afford it play with their product. Students can not afford it anyway and its great PR.
TrollTech has investors and bills to pay and the price is quite cheap compared to its competitors. It comes with alot of tools as well as the api's.
Keep in mind at the end of my earlier post I mentioned bussiness users are the ones who pay. $499 is dirt cheap because of the amount of money saved from decreased development time. Infact I say its probably worth 3x times as much! I am sure you paid more for your monitor and your computer then $499.
"Win32 is not that terrible, especially compared to X."
Yes X sucks but QT is there to make alot of it easy just like
http://saveie6.com/
You can download the old icons if you like from kde.org. FreeBSD has the Kde icons themes in the ports. Go look at themes.org or kde.org to download the themes pack. Its kind of hard to fine on the web. I do wish the KDE team would at least put some of the other icons in the theme folder.
I also find that kde 3.1 is getting a little cluttered and its not as clean as the 2.x series or gnome. It use to be the other way around in the past. Kde was always had a simpler interfact then gnome. However Sun has invested alot of R&D into UI development for Gnome and it has paid off. Maybe version 4 of kde will fix this.
PS trash Suse or any other
http://saveie6.com/
Having just installed RH8 (9 doesn't work with WebSphere yet) for a development project I was really impressed with how far it has come since RH6 and RH7. In fact, so impressed I'm having another go at replacing win2k on my notebook with it. Last time I tried, I had trouble working with people using MS Word etc. Openoffice initially looks good - time will tell if I can interoperate. Its great that KDE and Gnome are moving forward so fast - they really look like a viable desktop platform these days.
If you need speed (or extremely low memory useage), try icewm or blackbox. Personally, I find KDE is awesome on the desktop, but use ice on an old toshiba satallite pro.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
> Quote: "I now see KDE taking the lead in polish and professionalism on the desktop".
Yes, the kde internationalization team have done a truly fantastic job.
Oh... *polish*...
I'll get my coat.
Si
I have recently realized that People dont care about Real Multitasking, Threading, a easy to use shell. What people dont want is "Questions" to a normal user, a "question" is a mind bogggleing thing, even if its just to turn off a startup hint, they will dread reading it and ask "whats this mean" to the nearest IT person.
What windows does is it ignore's us geeks who like to decide what we want top do and just does it without asking. So really, you just need to remove "Questions" and you will have a suitable desktop/home system.
This is also why I feel that a lot of people dont like the debian installer (even geeks).
> All of that is available in Windows. Get TweakUI...
Microsoft Windows: making you redefine "available in" since 1995! *g*
> But with a little work [...] you can make Windows (XP) do
> everything that made you choose KDE over Windows.
Okay, two point here.
1) KDE does NOT require 'a little work'. It's already powerful and functionnal that way out of the box. No need for crutches of any kind.
2) Last I checked, the Windows GUI was still broken in deep ways. You can't move or resize an application window that is busy. Killing a dead explorer takes down the ENTIRE desktop. Sure, it respawns right away (if we can't make it stable, well let's sweep the unstability under the carpet, right?) -- leaving behind the application windows that are busy and not responding right at the time. Window folding still isn't there. Advanced features (virtual desktops et al) felt awfully awkward last time I checked, behaving mostly like a single desktop with some windows hidden -- compare with the seamless way it works in KDE.
Etc, etc.
There are a number of issues with Linux, a number of things that work more smoothly in Windows, but the desktop environment is no longer one. That battle is over, and Windows lost it majorly (mostly due to its own monolithic design, funnily enough). Get over it.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.