KDE 3.2 Release Candidate 1 Debuts

danalien writes "Before a early Feb. release of the (stable) KDE 3.2, KDE has today announced the first 'Release Candidate', and hopefully the last pre-release, for its 'Open Source graphical desktop environment for Unix workstations'. Get it from download.kde.org, or use Konstruct if you don't feel like calling configure by yourself."

Comments

KDE most impressive open source project - ever

[tljohnsn]

The progress that these guys have made in 5 years and the sheer volume of quality code is simply amazing. What are these guys doing right as compared to all the other projects? They even stick to their development and release schedules better than most commercial companies. And despite everyone calling for the death of C++, KDE is the shining example of what can be accomplished in that language. I seriously doubt it could have been constructed in any other language and produce as quick and relatively error-free code as these guys have produced.

Re:KDE most impressive open source project - ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be curious to see what would have been different if they had choosen Objective C instead of C++.

Re:KDE most impressive open source project - ever

[RoLi]

Starting from scratch is actually more the Linux-philosophy than the Windows-philosophy which is more like be-backwards-compatible-at-all-costs.

Re:KDE most impressive open source project - ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that. Kde even has an official no-politics policy.

With all the FOSS politics flying around, it's hard to find projects that thrive on pragmatism and try to avoid lots of politics.

Gentoo is another shining example of this - it aims to make things work, and avoid making political statments like "we'll rip out all GFDL docs" and "we wont even try to support smelly binary-only kernel modules".

Re:KDE most impressive open source project - ever

[Karn]

I really like KDE, I think it is further along than GNOME in many ways that are important to me, but their disregard for licensing issues is probably why many big names aren't touching it, and will ultimately not succeed in its goal to become the Linux Desktop.

Sun: Gnome. UserLinux: Gnome. Redhat: Gnome. If IBM ever did a desktop, it would probably be based on Gnome.

Sorry, but if Gnome (or a project like Linux) isn't proof that licensing is more important than features in the long run, then I don't know what is.

Compared to Windows, KDE used to suck, but it is getting better every day right? The same will happen with Gnome: it will improve until the gap between itself and KDE is insignificant, and then licensing will be the only issue.

I know I'll get flamed for claiming that 1.) UserLinux will be significant and 2.) that corporate backing is important, but I think corporate/community harmony is critical for Open Source software whose goal is to become mainstream (which is true for KDE.)

Re:KDE most impressive open source project - ever

[javahacker]

I like Linux because of the license. I use it because it is better/more stable/doesn't catch the latest virus!

In terms of the companies using Gnome, just look at your list again. Sun - Now there is a company that can pick winning user interfaces (is CDE ugly or what). UserLinux - In spite of what they say, it is a religious issue with them. RedHat - One of more of the primary Gnome developers works for them, don't you think that has some effect. IBM sells (among others) Suse linux, which has long been a KDE supporter.

Commercial software developers, the only ones that need to pay to use QT to develop software, care about profits, not developer toolkit cost. If it makes them more money, it is an investment, not an expense. What do you care about them, since you aren't going to buy their software anyway, as you feel the license is more important than the functionality of the software. You won't like their license, you aren't their customer, and they will make their choices for their own reasons.

If you want to see a good looking, easy to use, smooth running application, look at K3b. It looks better than any Windows based CD burning software, better than any GTK based CD burning software, and it is free (as in freedom) software written for KDE. I guess they wanted to release free software, so they picked the license they wanted, and got to use the QT toolkit for free (as in beer and freedom).

P.S. I'm a long time Mandrake Linux user, and KDE user, so I'm not unprejudiced here. I also develop software for a living, and know how I look at tools.

The Developers

[GenomeX]

I have to also say how impressed I am with the guys developing KDE. We once picked up a bug somewhere, mailed them with the problem,ect. Within a half an hour I think, they posted a patch for that specific problem. Amazing.

Re:The Developers

[be-fan]

Heh. I remember once that I complained on an OSNews or Slashdot post about disliking the dotNET style's missing corner pixels. C.Lee read it and posted a reply saying he'd added an option to enable square corners! These guys are *seriously* dedicated, and props to all of them :)

Why Open Source for Linux Only?

[ewanrg]

Seems to me that one way to spread adoption would be to come up with a version of KDE that could run in place of the Windows UI but still give you the core Windows code. Meaning you can move your users that much closer to an MS free existence without losing much compatibility.

Of course, I'm a bit known for tilting at windmills

Re:Why Open Source for Linux Only?

[The Bungi]

You can do that with today to a certain extent. You can run KDE3 within Cygwin in full-screen mode (Cygwin includes a fully functional X port), but it's... just not right. I mean, it's not nearly the same as running the real thing and although it's kind of cool it eats up way too much memory and is a bit jerky for my tastes.

Writing a complete shell for Windows is not a particularly easy thing to do and I doubt that somehow porting KDE is viable. There are lots of shell replacements out there (Aston, GeoShell, BackBox and so on). Some are free and some are not. I've tried just about every one and for some reason or another I keep going back to Explorer after a while. It's really the little details, like not being able to open a folder view directly from the shell's Run command because the shell extension (Explorer) happens to not be loaded or the way minimized windows are managed. If you're curious you should try Geoshell. In my opinion it should be what other shells aspire to be, but even as good as it is it's still not quite there. For one thing, the entire configuration is registry-based.

I'm no Microsoft basher, but I've always thought that opening up the shell would be the best thing they could do. After all, you'd still be running Windows underneath. But it's just too darn difficult to write your own. Explorer extensions (like the Google deskbar) are complicated, never mind a whole shell.

Mirrors out of date?

[BoldAC]

I have been wanting to setup a the mirrors site for a while... however, none of the mirror sites are updated. Now that I'm looking... several of the mirror sites never even posted the KDE 3.1.5 Release.

Why doesn't this mirror correctly?

New features?

[77Punker]

Anybody know just what is new in this version? Is it as big an upgrade from 3.1.5 to 3.2 as it was from 3 to 3.1?

Re:New features?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand, the most noticeable change is performance. Everyone who's used it seems to comment on that first. Essentially, KDE3.2 runs at KDE1 speeds (if you go back that far).

Other than that, Safari improvements in Konqui (maybe Konqui will finally be able to challenge Mozilla!), a whole new version of KOffice which is technically unrelated but I'm still very excited. ...and a whole host of small improvments you won't notice but will make the whole thing feel "nicer".

Many of the improvements you'll see, however, will actually be due to the new Qt, which has been out for a while now, but not widely distributed (apparently the new Qt conflicts with the old KDE in places).

I'd personally say it's like the difference between KDE2 and KDE3, but "way nicer feeling" wasn't enough reason for a major version change.

Konqueror changes from Apple?

[Tengoo]

Does anyone know how many of Apple's changes have made it into Konqueror?
It would be interesting to know how useful the Safari team's contributions have been.

Re:My Grandma just got confused

[prockcore]

You want people who know what they're doing to test it out, as they'll have a better chance to identify problems.

I'd rather have people who don't know what they're doing test it out.. that way you'll be able to identify usability problems.

Re:Next step - better apps

[be-fan]

Well, it really depends.

I like Konq better than Epiphany (Mozilla is not GNOME app, the GNOME project's PR aside) though Epiphany does have better rendering courtesy of Gecko. However, the gap is quickly narrowing, thanks partially to Safari's rendering fixes.

AbiWord and Gnumeric are great apps, but KOffice (the 1.3RC) is pretty competitive. And OpenOffice is to be KDE-ified in 2.x as well. That's the whole point of the NWF --- toolkit independent OpenOffice.

I'd say that Kopete is better than Gaim. Its got much better integration with KDE than Gaim has with GNOME. The only feature that's really missing is reliable AIM file-transfer.

The GIMP is not a GNOME app (as its developers repeatedly keep saying) so its irrelevent. Its UI is completely alien to both GNOME and KDE, so GIMP with the GTK-Qt theme is about as good as GIMP inside GNOME.

And don't forget about Quanta, the best graphical HTML editor on Linux, as well as Kate, which is a much better programmer's editor than GEdit.

In 3.2, Kontact should also give Evolution a run for its money. KMail in 3.2 has been getting a lot of very positive reviews.

To Rule, KDE Only Needs....

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE is by far the best engineered Linux GUI, however as Bill Gates proved the best is often not good enough for widespread adoption.

With Windows all you needed was to make it cheaper than the Macintosh and stifle all possible competition. In the open source community, you need to have the best software platform (KDE already does) and it needs to be acceptable to the community.

As I mentioned, KDE is by far the cleanest, most well-designed API/Software environment for Linux; however you need to please two more sectors to win the crown...

1) Users: It needs to be easy on the eyes and easy to work in. Its already easy to work in, but for god sakes get rid of that absolutely horrific Keramic theme. It looks like something you would find on a cheap, fake computer at Toys-R-Us. Just downright awful. PLEEZ, PLEEZ, PLEEZ use 'Plastic' or the nearest equivalent in the final release. This will make the users happy. It will make KDE look as good on the outside as on the inside.

2) The general systems integration, hardware and publishing community. I believe the real reason that KDE was not chosen for UserLinux is because (stay with me here) Canopy will benefit in a major way if QT becomes the default and preferred GUI library. *Not* because Canopy controls Trolltech or the KDE guys, but because the value of their stock will increase exponentially. Think! If software developers move over to Linux, it's going to be in a C++ environment. That means they initially need to re-package their class libraries and make their apps cross-compile to Linux and Windows. That means QT and the professional level of C++ code, documentation and support.

It's not that the general community doesn't want Trolltech to get a big reward for their excellent work, but they don't want Canopy to benefit at all. Not a dime. This was probably the deciding factor.

Message to Trolltech: DUMP CANOPY goddamnit. Don't you see that they are either acting as a parasite on Trolltech to make money off of Linux in some way (they don't deserve it) or they are acting as a poison pill so that the best GUI environment can't be assimilated. This slows down Linux on the desktop considerably. By splitting the Linux development resources in half and contaminating the best GUI they force desktop Linux/Gnome to re-invent the wheels that were already invented and done better in KDE.

Dump Canopy! They don't control you, but they contaminate you. Don't worry. In the end IBM will own those shares after all of Canopy and SCO's assets are forfit to IBM and RedHat. The worst part is if Microsoft buys SCO and Canopy before the trial is over as an escape hatch. Then MS will own a chunk of you until that battle is resolved. If MS owned a chunk of TrollTech no opensource developer would touch QT with a twenty-mile cattleprod.

Dump Canopy before it's too late.