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KDE 3.2 'Rudi' Beta Released
An anonymous reader writes "The beta of the next version of KDE, billed as 'the premiere Open Source desktop', has been released. Read the announcement at KDE.org. Notable features include a big clean up of the interface and menus, Improvements to KHTML from Apple, better accessibility and hardware support. There are also new applications such as JuK (a music player similar to iTunes), KDevelop (a graphical IDE), Kontact (an integrated communications package like Outlook) and more. Download it here and since this is a beta, report any problems or bugs you have." Also, nukem996 points out "The counter-terrorism unit on TV series '24' went KDE this season, too."
Why does everything have to be PREMIERE? I swear, it's been 5 years since anything mediocre was released. There must be amazing advancements made in every field on a daily basis.
Maybe it should be more clear and say that the beta of KDevelop 3.0 is out now, perhaps?
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As much as I like KDE - and I do, I use KDE - there's plenty of times I find myself needing to use non-KDE apps such as Openoffice, Mozilla, and others to do the things I need to do. The interface for KDE is easy enough to use and powerful enough, after many years of development, that instead of adding eye candy, it would be more worthwhile to improve the included applications. I like KDE, but there's still room for improvement. Unfortunately, I don't think the KDE developers are as much concentrating their efforts on the areas that need it. Note that I think KDE is also already more useful than Microsoft Windows, because it looks better, it's more secure, and the included apps are far better than what you get with a Windows installation - unless you want to pay a few hundred dollars for MS Office and the other apps you'll want.
SEARCHING FOR SIG
SIG NOT FOUND ERROR
READY.
For the record KDevelop is not a new application. Maybe the submitter was referring to the newest beta version being included in the KDE 3.2 beta?
Hello... a KDE announcement on Slashdot? Cooool!! ;)
Now that we've been politically correct for a little bit, let's go back to Gnome reporting.
Can you hear me, Major Tom? I'm not the man they think I am at home...
cuz terrorists use gnome... this is a new phase of the kde vs gnome battle
gnome, the new axis of evil.
MY EYES, MY EYES
Seriously, how did they build a good looking iTunes clone with THAT colour sense?
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Mandrake users can download RPMS here:
http://www.n9nu.net/linux/kde.php
I have been using them since Friday and they work great!
No, i don't like sigs...
I highly doubt it. SuperKaramba is a very buggie application that was written on a whim and not with much structure. Though it is very cool, it sure isn't ready for any form of the spot light yet.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
This is another site that talks about 24 using KDE, since the link in the article seems to be /.'ed, or just dead to begin with. I didn't notice this on 24... how cool is that?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It's good to notice that KMidi is dropped from KMultimedia. It's a pain because of the old Timidity engine (which is KMidi's back-end) still uses the old ALSA 0.5. It causes compilation problems if you compile KMultimedia with ALSA yourself. And KDE people decided to get rid of it at the moment and cited that it's not an easy fix.
It's too bad because AFAIK that's the simplest program for MIDI playing using synthesizers (albeit not that good). Other programs are geared toward compositions... Any suggestions?
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
I spent an hour searching google for what SMTP server meant
Okay it's one thing to now know what an SMTP server is. Fine. Plenty of people are in the same boat.
But to use "Sir Haxalot" as your sig and not know? Go back to talking about Britney or the latest UT aimbot on IRC. That is if it's not past your bedtime.
Hey maybe there's a new l33t desktop wallpaper on kde-look? I'm sure that'll bring all the answers. Heck I bet someone like you could hack the Gibson.
Sheesh.
... Kontact (an integrated communications package like Outlook) ...
...?
Just exactly how much "like Outlook"
God help us all if it's very much like Outlook!
-kgj
It's not ready. Not even it's backing developers are suggesting inclusion in KDE yet, so it is not up for discussion.
.*karamba war for KDE 4.0.
I am smugly waiting for the kicker vs slicker vs
I'm seriously beginning to question the ability of any open source project to challenge Apple on the user experience front. Come on, look at these JuK screen shots and compare to iTunes screen shots.
Now, I will fully admit to never actually using JuK, but just from its appearance, I don't want to. I do use iTunes extensively (on a Mac, I only use UNIX-based OSs). So, on iTunes, I have 3 control buttons, a pretty status meter, and a search field. That is it. Now look at JuK. There is a crapload of buttons making the interface completely suck. Why is there a save button? I never save in iTunes, when changes get made, they automatically are propagated through the library. Easy. Why are there cut and paste butttons? Do they need to take up screen space. Leave them buried in a menu. How often are they used in the main interface screen? In iTunes, I rarely go to the menu's. About the only time is when I want to create a new smart playlist. The three buttons and the search field take care of 98% of what I want to do on the interface. This is what makes Apple user friendly and pretty to look at.
If open source wants to be the peoples' desktop, they have to start considering the interfaces they design. There is a reason why people like to use Macs and proclaim the interface as the superior solution: it is. There are things to be learned here, but time and time again, with each new release of a new program, the user interfaces continue to suck.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Hey, at the risk of replying to flamebait and subjecting myself to a mod down, why don't ya send us all an e-mail when they release a Linux (or a Mac for that matter) version of Winamp?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No.
And that's a feature.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Can I use the fast, non-scripted close source apps that you build like I can use freeware? Or do I still have to pay some kind of price tag for an end user license?
Windows fan: "It still doesn't look and behave exactly like WindowsXP and is therefore not ready for the Desktop!"
Linux fan: (Score: -1, Flaimbait, Troll, Anger in the ass)
For a music player with a good GUI and lots of functionality XMMS is the Linux king. Unfortuantaly it doesn't do everything and I can't buy music through it, but its fast, supports more sound and image plugins then you can shake a stick at and has a sharp, skinnable GUI and works better then anything I've been able to use on my Windows pc here at work.
Xmms is a shining example of OSS quality software and like I'd imagine iTunes is, its a real pleasure to use.
Quack, quack.
You heard wrong. Apple kept the development of Safari secret, so the improvement to KHTML was not integrated right away, but when they announced Safari, they sent a rather large patch to KDE that took too long to integrate to make it for KDE 3.1. Since then it has apparently worked smoothly (I am not a khtml-developer though).
I, for one, appreciate more alternative music players on the *nix side of the world. While setting up my music server (with video output to the TV), I tested a variety of applications to see what might work best. My requirements included:
- The ability to be controlled from an LIRC remote control
- The ability to interface to an LCD screen for song info (haven't set this up yet, but it was a consideration)
- Large, easy to read playlist
- Large buttons that are easy to manipulate by the somewhat awkward mouse on my wireless keyboard
I tried xine (along with derivatives like the gtk version), and found the playlists difficult to manipulate easily. xmms works decently, but I had to double size the top screen and those unfamiliar with it's interface (or winamp) would have a more difficult time adding songs because the "add" and "remove" buttons are practically unreadable on the TV. Though I found a decent theme, xmms is not designed for full screen usage with large buttons. Because of this, screen real estate is not devoted to things like easy-to-find switching of playlists along with other features I'm sure could be incorporated.
I would love for Juk to become a full featured sound program which could perform a variety of functions seamlessly:
- Ability to manipulate playlists on any other computer given appropriate access (without using remote X or VNC). Sharing of music between clients is not important to me, I have my music mounted from a central location within the network
- creating playlists by the meta data (like "smart" playlists on iTunes).
- Pop in a CD, have it show up as a separate playlist, and preferably be able to rip the tracks into OGG or FLAC on command
- Burn mix CDs based off the playlist (not as important, but shouldn't be too hard if code is shared with koncd)
- Interface doesn't need to be skinnable but should be usable at a variety of resolutions. Keyboard shortcuts should be available for just about everything.
Looks like some of those features already exist in Juk, and I look forward to using it once it's released with 3.2 stable.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Let me get this straight. You're complaining because you want to write closed-source apps (presumably for money, why else would you close the source), and TrollTech won't give you the library for free?
How ridiculous. If you're in business, you're in business. Quit whining for handouts. You won't give away the apps you write, so why complain about others?
One of the things I like about the so-called 'viral' open source licenses is that it creates a clear boundary between Free and non-Free. If you want to write non-Free apps, then get your hands out of the Free cookiejar.
http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-3.2beta1 .php
Can I build fast, non-scripted, closed source apps for KDE like I can for GNOME? Or do I still have to pay the 4 digit price tag for a commerical QT DEV license?
Last I checked, yes you can. The requirement from Qt is non-commercial, not open source (QPL licence, GPL/QPL dual licenced...). If the question was "Can I take Qt, use their work for free in my application to make me money?", then the answer is "No, you need to pay us a licence fee for the way our work has helped you earn money on your work."
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
why JuK (another music player)? because there wasn't a good playlist centric, simple to use player that integrated well with KDE. now there is. the winamp/XMMS interface is horrid compared to the JuK/iTunes style... of course, for those who prefer XMMS or Noatun, they are still there. i would also suggest using JuK before saying it isn't a good music player. it's actually quite kick-ass. (yes, that's a technical term ;)
why another email app? in this case there isn't since Kontact uses KMail as a component. there isn't any email code in kontact itself, it's all in KMail which already existed. and why does KMail exist? because there simply aren't any other decent GUI mail clients for KDE.
the answers are similar for word processing, IM client, etc. the apps in KDE 3 integrate well and offer a good number of features. you'll notice that, by and large, there aren't many duplicated KDE applications. there is usually one, and occasionally two, KDE apps that fill any particular need.
(Well, assuming you've a spare Altix 3000 or two, for a graphics processor.
Seriously, the graphics processing code for the UI is getting silly. If I want raw speed, but with a decent widget set, I invariably turn to Open Look. I use KDE and Gnome when non-geeks are around, so that they can be suitably impressed and indoctrinated in the Ways Of The Penguin.
The best GUI engine developed, IMHO, was InterViews, which used a version of Postscript for everything. Postscript gave you the benefit of totally scalable graphics, so you could enlarge or shrink with zero loss. It was standard. It was also the same language other devices used, so translation from device to device was unnecessary. And it supported more than simple vectors.
The problem, as I see it, is that we've wound up with a bazillion amazingly powerful GUI front-ends, none of which do appreciably more than InterViews, all of which are amazingly heavyweight, and none of which enforce scalability.
If I get twice the resolution, I want to be able to choose four times the clarity or four times the content, or anywhere inbetween, but not have the choice imposed on me by the system. That's not an advance, that's just stupid.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
See my newsgroup thread (KDE seen in Alias episode 11 (A Higher Echelon)) from January 2003.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Hey, for what it's worth, I'm the guy who started writing the core code for slicker; except when I started it back on the gentoo forums I called it CardDesk ( no puns, no excess Ks ).
h ig hlight=slicker
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=29746&
(Sorry, the screenshots are long gone.)
I was really excited at first, because what I really wanted to do was to implement MacOS 9 Folder tabs for KDE. Then, everybody and their uncle wanted in on it. I just wanted to write code. So I let them have it, and I continued to develop the core for a while. I suspect 75% of them gave up when they realized XFree just won't do true transparency (yet).
The thing is, 2 things happened. First, I started it in the first place simply because I wanted folder tabs, and a quick break from my real work. Second... I got a mac, and ported my real work over, and haven't looked back since.
Oh well!
I hope the guys who took the helm are treating my little baby well. I'm sure I wouldn't even recognize 90% of the code at this point.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
I'm running Alpha 2, and it is great. Many UI bugs fixed, like now they shrink tabs instead of making you scroll around when there are lots of tabs open.
I miss "view source" in the context menu on a webpage, and I'm still patiently waiting for some mid-mouse AutoScroll, Opera and Firebird seem to be able to deal with this as meaning "paste" when on a textarea, "scroll" when on plaintext, and "open in new tab" when on a link. I would love to see this in Konq. Konqeror is still my primary browser anyway.
I like music
Jack (and the good guys at CTU) have Macs.
You need Mythtv setup with at least Mythmusic (screenshot). It's perfect for this and it was designed to be easily used with a remote and a television monitor.
It will play/rip/visualize/navigate your music collection and if your using Debian or Mandrake is just a quick apt/urpmi away (for Mandrake configure urpmi to use Thacs RPM's first, as described on the site).
Quack, quack.
dot.kde.org's news entry claims
There is no such thing as "a public domain license". Putting a copyrighted work in the public domain means forgoing all copyright power for that work. Licenses, by contrast, tell you what you what the terms are for activities regulated by copyright law. Licensed works are still under copyright.
When I read the KDE art site pointed to by dot.kde.org's article, I can't find the phrase "public domain". There is language that suggests the copyright holders tried to do something similar ("The images inside this directory are COMPLETELY FREE for commercial and non-commercial use." emphasis theirs). To be clear, when you mean the work is in the public domain, say the work is in the public domain. The Creative Commons makes doing this easy now (if you're talking about US copyright law).
Digital Citizen
> What are these guys doing right as compared to all the
> other projects?
Yes, this is an -excellent- question.
My take on it is:
1) They consistently pick the best tool for the job, regardless of ideology (see Qt);
2) They put a considerable amount of engineering work in under-the-hood infrastructure design;
3) While others bicker or troll, they code.
Simple as that, really. I'm very, very happy that they proved and keep proving that good engineering is how you make the damn best software out there. In this world of quick hacks and half-assed kludges and people who think themselves programmers because they got their VB project to compile, this is quite comforting for old asses like me...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Use Konstruct to easily install KDE (including betas).
http://www.kubuntu.org/
DAMN YOU VISUAL PERSISTENCE!
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