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Qt/Mac KDE Call for Help
aqsalter writes "Benjamin Reed of Fink fame is calling for help porting KDE to Mac using Qt/Mac. Interested parties should swarm the KDE-Darwin mailing list. KWrite for Mac here we come!"
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Usually it's MacSlash that posts topics from here several days later. This time it's apple.slashdot that is behind the curve.
GNU-Darwin almost seems to be hindering the entire Mac OSS unix community. It's only logical that the community should be centered around the PPC. Especially now that the G5 is on its way. This is where OpenDarwin and Fink are pouring all of their porting energy into. GNU-Darwin on the other hand has strangely abandoned the PPC in favor of x86 compatible chips. I believe the spokesman "proclus" said that they had to refuse to work with Apple over some free software issues.
This almost surreal splintering can do nothing but harm the overall effort of ported OSS software for the Mac. If we can't agree that the PPC is the heart of the Mac, than what can we agree on?
I know I'm sacrificing karma on this but I'll ask the question anyway...why? Though I love linux as much as the next guy, OSX is probably the best GUI around. Why not concentrate efforts on making KDE the best GUI possible...better than OSX...before trying to port it? It'd be like Microsoft porting IIs to Linux. Who'd honestly use it?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Is it Qt/KDE for Mac, as in Classic/OS7-8-9 I can use on a Color Classic or a IIfx?
Or is it Qt/KDE as in "the same features as what was the Mac desktop in 1990, but with the expections it will run on what was then a big fucking Cray." style today's desktop ?
Please God forbid us the ugliness that will come in 13 years, from Microsoft in particular, to make this post more insightfull than just a plain dull troll.
OpenDarwin is a project launched in April 2001 which works towards porting BSD-style software to Darwin, and features a crown jewel of DarwinPorts. OpenDarwin was founded by Apple, although they now have no control over the project's operation. Jordan Hubbard is one of many Apple employees closely associated with the project.
Virtually no-one in the Macintosh community cares about GNU-Darwin.
GNU-Darwin is a project founded by a person that goes by the name proclus. This proclus character spends a fair majority of his time replying to valid criticism of his project on sites such as Slashdot and MacSlash. Unfortunately, this time would be much better spent working on the actual GNU-Darwin project; GNU-Darwin has nothing to offer that hasn't already been done better by either OpenDarwin or Fink.
What splintering? GNU-Darwin is totally irrelvant.
GNU-Darwin are not even involved with Metapgk, an alliance formed between DarwinPorts, Fink, and Gentoo. All the major packaging groups in the Macintosh community are part of this alliance.
That GNU-Darwin isn't going to exist much longer.
DarwinPorts is going to be a part of Panther, and OpenDarwin is assured of a bright future. Fink and Gentoo are part of Metapkg, so all porting work that OpenDarwin does will help those projects as well.
GNU-Darwin is totally insignificant, has virtually no support in the Macintosh community, and is let by someone with a warped view of reality. When it inevitably disappears, no one will care.
You're an idiot.
It's written "Mac", not "MAC"; it's an abbreviation of Macintosh, not an acronym.
Now, you say that Mac OS X's GUI "falls completely short" when power users look for "real functionality", and then suggest Windows.
Ha. Haha. Hahaha.
Do the poster feel so unsure about his sexual orientation that he has point his computer is NOT gay? Maybe so far your computer's been your only sexual partner so far?
KDE is great if you want to spend about half your time configuring it. You can really customise KDE. It's got more options than the next California election. What's the point, though? In the end, you're still getting the same stuff done. I really don't think someone with a fanatical need to configure their desktop is really a power user. I'd call them more of a nerd with a god complex. The real power users are the people who know how to get stuff done... have a solid understanding of unix, know how to script well, and actually use that knowledge. The real power users would rather customise their shell than their GUI. Apple actually gives the user a lot of control over how the OS works, just very little over its appearance. In my opinion, that gives you a lot more power. I used to run KDE on my iBook. It was neat to watch the OSX dock pop up over the KDE dock when I scrolled down, and it was fun to play around with it, but it never actually made it easier for me to do anything or gave me any more realy power, just nerd empowerment, which is a very different thing. What I would find useful however, is the ability to run more GNOME and KDE apps independently. I was thinking about the differences between various the various *NIXes and Windows. It seems to me that Windows tries to obfuscate the user experience - they hide things from you so that if you want to do anything more than a few basic tasks, you've got to go get Microsoft Training. The names of system files are meaningless, every directory is deep within some bizarre structure, and the only way to find anything is through the copious use of shortcuts. Unix (and Linux) makes it much easier to get at the power of your computer - I mean, it's easier to more fully understand a Solaris install than Windows - but they throw it at you all at once, which makes it difficult and intimidating to get started. Using KDE (I haven't used GNOME) I find that you have the benefits of Unix that I mentioned, and you've got this GUI on top, but that the GUI, like Windows, hides things from you. It's better than Windows, but it still doesn't really expose you to how your computer works. My experience with OSX, although others' may be different, is that it draws you into Unix. You find yourself understanding the underlying system intuitively, and being drawn into it. It seems to sort of trick you into learning Unix. You don't need the terminal - but inevitably you're drawn to it. The thing about Macs is that non-technical Mac users often turn into power users without thinking about it.
A friend of mine has an i-book. ;-)
He got rid of the osx and installed debian.
And guess what, KDE runs fine.
No porting needed
Yes, a fairly balanced view (ie I largely agree with you). But I'd like Apple to bring back the attention to detail they once had. It's amusing to note that just as Windows figured out that you place newly created folders at the point where you right-clicked to issue the command, the Mac OS has lost that feature. OK, we have the sick Unix robustness and standardness and it's welcomed, but can we have our superior user experience back now please? I hope they've done some of that work in Panther.
And although they may be drawing you in to Unix, they need improve integration. Like file aliases and symbolic links. Unix ones show up on the Mac side, but not vica versa. Why not! (I'm sure there's a good technical reason ala the APIs but I don't give a shit).
KDE for Win2k/XP? That would totally rock the house. I could have all the game playing of windows with all the nix of KDE. Then when I reboot to real nix it would look almost exactly the same.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Don't have me because I'm beautiful.
What part of "I am a homosexual" do you not understand?
Unless your name is Harry Rodman, please go away.
The GUI library (Qt) is already ported, so they just need to get it in shape and then fix the K apps to no longer use direct X11 calls. Then we too can have free alternatives to Office.
KWrite? *yawn*
KDevelop? Woohoo!
This is not true.
The point of KDE customizing is so that people that want one or two things to be a very specific way can make it that way and be happy.
Very few people customize every last thing on the desktop. But many people customize a few things, and for different people, it's different things they want changed.
You don't have to customize everything to appreciate KDE's deep and broad customizing options. All you have to do is customize a couple of GUI features in a way that other DE's don't allow, and you'll see the benefit immediately.
'cause not a single Qt app does so far
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
when I go to the panther website, this is all that I see:
Panther will include a final X11 window server for Unix-based apps, improved NFS/UFS, FreeBSD 5 innovations as well as support for popular Linux APIs, IPv6 and other important acronyms.
It would be nice to hear from someone that has the beta of panther installed that is using the this X11, (if it is available).
I agree with the sentiment, but you'd have to be a fool to think the game developers are going to listen to a pathetically tiny fraction of their audience. Particularly when Direct3D has new effects and other fuckery to show off.
Newsflash - OpenGL is extensible WITHOUT releasing a new version, and they do update fairly often.
Note that our Slashdot Lord John Carmack writes all of his engines (which many a game then proceed to license) in OpenGL. So don't tell me that OGL doesn't have new effects and fuckery.