KDE 3.2.0 Released

Quique writes "KDE 3.2 has just been released. The official announcement is available at the KDE site and the source tarballs are being replicated to the mirrors. There are already binary packages for a few distributions. Besides the usual bugfixes and new features, this release has been highly optimized and runs way faster than previous versions. This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop."

Comments

yes!

[SQLz]

Transparent kicker, how have I longed for you!!!

Re:yes!

[Dave2 Wickham]

Hey, don't pick on kicker and leave kdontchangethehostname alone!

Re:yes!

[ajs318]

What are you smoking? "Expensive to develop for" ? No it isn't. The necessary libraries, and even the compiler, are distributed under the GPL. That means you can get them for the cost of the media.

Of course, you have to release whatever you developed under an open-source licence. But then again, you should anyway -- source-hoarding is 21st century slavery. Other people wrote that software, and they wrote it for everyone to use. Put it this way: don't stab in the back, those whose backs you have ridden on.

Re:yes!

[Peaker]

A closed-source license.

Qt is also distributed under the GPL.

Re:yes!

[JohnFluxx]

uh probably best not to compare it to slavery. It's not on the same magnitude of seriousness at all.
(Same with music copying and priracy).

Re:yes!

[EastCoastSurfer]

From poker:

Kicker
An unpaired card used to determine the better of two near-equivalent hands. For instance, suppose you have AK and your opponent has AQ. If the flop has an ace in it, you both have a pair of aces, but you have a king kicker. Kickers can be vitally important in hold'em.

Re:yes!

[hummassa]

At least to me, this does not work very well. As icons "dance" from left to right in kicker (as in systray events -> add icon, delete icon), they maintain the background for the old position...

Re:yes!

[ajs318]

Funny you should ask that.

I am just about to release the Linux Digital Camera Starter Kit, a set of utilities to detect digital cameras / slot readers, download photos and generate HTML indices with thumbnails. This is to be released under a modified BSD-like licence with an extra sentence that says if you release binary versions you have to honour any request for the source code, in perpetuity*. I would have used the GPL; but I figured that if most of the tarball was taken up with the licence, it'd be (a) poor value and (b) possibly rippable-off under fair dealing provisions {some scrote could claim that the code was less than x% of the package, and they were allowed to copy that little verbatim}.

As they're written in perl, with an installer in bash script, it's kind of an academic point about binary-only releases, but I was covering my behind. I don't want somebody stealing the work I gave to the Linux Community.

* Actually I said until copyright lapses or the work otherwise enters the public domain. But it's pretty much the same thing.

Re:yes!

[jaavaaguru]

Some education for you:
Piracy is "The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material".

Re:yes!

[JohnFluxx]

Yes. I'm sure that when they first talked about software piracy they were refering to that defintion, and not comparing it robbery committed at sea.

Re:yes!

[denlin]

must be from l.a. county.

Re:yes!

[ajs318]

I still say that closed source software is every bit as socially damaging as slavery. The users of closed source software are beholden to the corporate developers, therefore they are not Free. If you use Outlook, you have no way to be sure that Bill Gates cannot read every single one of your e-mails. And any attempt to create a system wherein Open and Closed Source software can co-exist will be doomed to failure. If Microsoft were forced to publish the Word document specification, you still could not be sure they would not bend the rules with their own software. How long has the .sxw format been documented? So why hasn't Microsoft released a patch to allow Word to read and write .sxw files? Answer: because if Word could read and write .sxw files, it would instantly be redundant.

Once someone has got locked-in to proprietary software, they are as helpless as a heroin addict -- it takes a big effort to get clean for good, but it's less effort just to get another fix that will wear off after a few hours. {Of course, most addicts are already the wrong side of the break-even point}. Distributing closed-source software at no or low initial cost and to people who so not fully understand the alternatives is a lot like giving cheap heroin to schoolkids in the playground.

Closed source software is just inhuman. I have nothing nice to say about it, because I honestly believe there is nothing nice to say about it.

And about your sig: it's not actually illegal in the UK to create MP3s. The law quite clearly authorises you to take "any necessary step" in the process of listening to the music you have bought and paid for. Copying from CD or LP to cassette is a "necessary step" in listening to your music on a car cassette player or walkman, for example. Similarly, encoding from uncompressed PCM to MPEG-1 layer 3 would be a "necessary step" if the device with which you have chosen to listen to it can play MP3 but not PCM audio.

Re:yes!

[JohnFluxx]

I follow what you say, but disagree. I think that even if you think that, you should perhaps not jump to saying it. It makes people nervous that you might be an extremist.
It can also offend people.

In regards to the second point, you make an interesting argument. But I can think of lots of "necessary steps" that I might have to take to listen to my music. (decrypt it to listen to it - against the dmca (well equiv in the uk)., or going extreme, what about the necessary step of stealing some speakers because I can't afford any?)

Re:yes!

[True Grit]

1. Qt is also distributed under the GPL

Not to put too fine a point on it... well, I guess thats exactly what I am doing :), but Qt is only under GPL on the Linux and Mac platforms, *not* Windows. In fact, TT's only non-commercial version for Windows is now out-dated, officially unsupported, and only available for MS's compiler, in addition to being only free-as-in-beer. If you want your apps to run on the Windows platform, then Qt is NOT free at all, whereas Gtk has been ported to all 3 platforms and is, of course, free-as-in-freedom on all 3.

TT has the right to do it that way (keep it non-free on Windows), its their code after all, and if you're only concerned with Linux, there is no problem, but Qt is not a real option for many cross-platform, open-source projects because of the absense of a free Qt, even just a free-as-in-beer one, on the Windows side.

Re:yes!

[jaavaaguru]

When they first called it "software piracy", they probably were making a comparison to robbery committed at sea. But langauge evolves. Lots of new words and meanings make it into dictionaries each year. Maybe when more people realise this, we'll get less posts on here about people using the wrong word in particular situations.

I only learned that last year, so I'm passing on my recently gained knowledge :-)

Re:yes!

[JohnFluxx]

you just learnt this? wasn't it obvious?

but either way, you are admitting that people used the word software piracy to compare it to robbery committed at sea. My argument holds.

Re:yes!

[jaavaaguru]

I suppose the only thing they have in common is that they're both theft.

As to what I said I've just learnt... I was talking about the fact that this meaning of "piracy" is now recognised in the dictionary. Up until recently, wasn't it just a term that people used for copyright theft, rather than an official use of the word "piracy"?

Re:yes!

[JohnFluxx]

Even the 'theft' is a bit overstretched.

1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property

When you 'steal' music, you aren't depriving the artist of the thing you steal. The second one doesn't really fit either.

Re:yes!

[ajs318]

Sometimes, for some people, some things are more important than not offending people. And I would hope that the whole closed source ideology would be more offensive in and of itself than anything I could say about it.

Re:yes!

[JohnFluxx]

An interesting point of view. Personally I believe that it's the people as much as the software that sells something. So you don't want to come across as an extremist. Instead come across as someone who has thought it through and come up with the right decission.

This is the political game that for example greenpeace had to learn (well, until they screwed things up, but that's another story.)

Fedora - RedHat ?

[SilverSun]

KDE 3.2 is a real step forward. Well worth installing. If they only could provide easy access (apt/yum) to binary packages for RH9 or Fedora C1...

Cheers

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[marvin2k]

You can get RH 7.3/8/9/Fedora packages here: http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net
The 3.2 release isn't available yet but I'm sure it will be soon. (I'm running the last beta right now)

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[jergh]

According to a posting to fedora-list you won't have to wait long:

From: Than Ngo <than redhat com>
Subject: Re: kde-3.2 released!
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 14:12:33 +0100

KDE 3.2.0 for FC1 will be available on ftp.kde.org tomorrow ;-)

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[edbarrett]

KDE runs on how many platforms now? It's not up to the KDE organization to make binary packages for RedHat whatever... That's what a distro is for. RedHat says "this set of packages work well together" and they haven't said that about KDE 3.2 yet. If you're going to complain to anyone, complain to RedHat.

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they only could provide easy access (apt/yum) to binary packages for RH9 or Fedora C1

That's the distro's job. The KDE project make it very clear they don't consider binary packages to be their job.

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[ajs318]

You want binary packages? You get them from a distributor. That's what distributors do. They take .tar.gz packages; they compile them, setting options in a way they consider sane; they package them up in a binary package; and they offer it for download.

KDE just provide source packages, which will compile -- with perhaps a little tweaking -- on any setup which is computationally complete enough. Out of the goodness of their own hearts, they link to binary packages that other people have created; but the job of making it easy for non-programmers to install software falls to distributors. Think of it this way: the KDE developers are like farmers, growing basic food ingredients. Meat, milk, eggs, veg, grains. You can get really fresh ingredients from a farm, but you still have to prepare them before you can eat them. And that takes hard work. The distributors - Debian, Red Hat / Fedora, SUSE and so forth - are like chefs, taking those ingredients and preparing them in a ready-to-eat form. Sometimes that limits your options as a consumer; but nobody is stopping you buying fresh ingredients and preparing and cooking them your own way.

If you really can't spell make you could just keep pestering your distributor to provide you with .rpm packages. But you'd do as well to just download the source tarballs and compile them yourself, taking notes as you go along. Distributors will take your requests much more seriously if you can show you've tried something. In my experience, source .tar.gz files are the way to install software; more reliable and more configurable. You could even -- shock, horror -- create your own binary package from the source you downloaded and compiled!

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[SilverSun]

Fact is, that they provide binary packages or at least links to binary packages for some distros and not for others.

Fact is, that debian, SUsE, etc... binary packages are available at the very same day that 3.2 is announced.

Fact is, that I will probably have to compile myself (which is a no-brainer with 'konstruct') or wait for a day or maybe even _several_ days ;-)

Cheers

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[GerritHoll]

RPM's are available from ftp.kde.org, at ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/3.2/RedHat/Fedora /

Unfortunately, the download rate sucks (15 Kib/sec), so you can better wait till the mirrors have them.

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[GerritHoll]

Here is a clickable link of the download site.

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[Kethinov]

If you really can't spell make you could just keep pestering your distributor to provide you with .rpm packages. But you'd do as well to just download the source tarballs and compile them yourself, taking notes as you go along. Distributors will take your requests much more seriously if you can show you've tried something. In my experience, source .tar.gz files are the way to install software; more reliable and more configurable. You could even -- shock, horror -- create your own binary package from the source you downloaded and compiled!

Am I the only one here that is struck by the elitist attitude of this (the final) paragraph? It's as if to say, if you don't compile all your software from source manually, you're not worthy of open source. It's the distributor's job to create easy-to-install packages for the end-user, which is what I thought was the point you were trying to make, but I guess not. It's attitudes like these that are making it so hard for Linux to compete with Mac and Windows as a desktop OS.

Though the system itself is flawed. People who write software for Mac and Windows (in most cases) are both author and distributor. If I wrote a major piece of client software for Linux, I would never release it until I had an apt-get binary package, an ebuild, and an RPM all made up as well. The simple fact is that the vast majority of Linux users are split between Debian (and other distros which use apt), Redhat (and other distros that use rpm), and Gentoo. So this release essentially means nothing to any of the people using those distros until their package manager accomodates them.

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[ajs318]

Let me say first off that I do not think there is anything wrong with what you call "elitism". Some people can do some things, some people can't, anyone can learn and that's just the way the world works. If you aren't prepared to learn to help yourself just a little bit, then other people are less likely to want to help you. Freeloaders will be Disappointed.

When a set of Sources is released, the fact is advertised first to Distributors. Now some people can't wait for a distributor to pick up on the Latest Thing, and go to the trouble of learning how to compile and install stuff from source just so they can have it. The Free Software community does not object to anyone taking the "wholesale / kit form" version, but if you'd rather have a "retail / ready built, tested and painted" version, then you're not the target audience of the announcement. As we're beginning to see even now, distributions are starting to package KDE 3.2.

Let me also say that compiling packages from source is not hard, and should not be shied away from. The command line is nothing to be afraid of. I for one get really annoyed by attitudes like "oh no, I could never do that - that's far too hard for me" and the other excuses people make for not trying. If you have really got some kind of phobia, I'm afraid I can't help you.

I never said there was anything wrong with using ready-built packages; I just don't think it's that big a deal. After all, many people have given freely of their time to create this software. You might not have to part with money to get it; but does that make it unfair to expect you either to make just a little effort to get it to work, or to wait until someone else does so? I'll say it again: Freeloaders will be Disappointed.

And I also don't think it's a big deal that the authors and packagers are not the same people. In fact, in some ways it's better; because someone who is bad at packaging can just concentrate on developing applications, and someone who is not necessarily a brilliant low-level programmer can concentrate on the packaging side -- probably even on just one distribution's take on the file system.

Re:Fedora - RedHat ?

[juhaz]

You want binary packages? You get them from a distributor. That's what distributors do.

Be prepared to wait few months for them, though.

Distributors (well, those whose products one would actually use, at least) do not just get new tarballs from KDE, compile them and whip new packages to errata list.

This is a major update and so requires quite a bit of work (especially testing). You probably won't get update packages of this magnitude at all, instead expect it to hit next version of distribution.

Excuse me?

[graveyardduckx]

*Raises hand* Excuse me, when is it "not" a good time to switch from Windows?

Re:Excuse me?

[I confirm I'm not a]

Friday night:

(a) Even geeks need a social life.

(b) Best time to wreck your social life by trying to evangelise Linux ;)

Re:Excuse me?

[Dark Lord Seth]

When you own a Mac?

Re:Excuse me?

[Grech]

Tellow Dog seems to be the most popular of the Mac-specific Linux Distros, so you too can join in the fun. Pick up your plush penguin to the left, your empty pizza box to the right, and your random piece of bizarre hardware you can't live without but no one you know has ever heard of through the door labeled "Keep Out".

Re:Excuse me?

[Thyrhaug]

Sure, there are games for linux.
The point, however (as far as I can imagine), is that there's a lot more games available for Windows. There's no way you can argue with that.
Besides, of all the games available for linux there's only one or two I'd ever consider bying. For Windows and Mac there's a lot more.


You can Troll as much as you want, Linux is still not good enough supported when it comes to games.

Re:Excuse me?

[bluGill]

Oh come on. Geeks find friday night the perfect time for installing KDE 3.2. What else are you doing to do? Wine already runs mydoom[1], and if you are a true geek you don't have much else to do while waiting for the next interesting project.

[1]Something a couple of us did at wineconf last weekend. grabed a copy of mydoom, put it on a linux machine and traced the run. Examined all the files is created/modified (mostly garbage), set the local machine to www.sci.com and watched is try a DOS attack on ourselves. (loopback is well able to keep up). Then we found the magic sequence that the port accepts. We didn't actually finish, dinner got in the way when I left, but we were close.

That is what real geeks love to do in a socal setting.

Re:Excuse me?

[Kidbro]

works out of the box (possibly given a visit to Windows Update),

If we consider pre installed machines, so does Linux. If you don't - well, I had a lot easier time installing Knoppix than I had installing Windows XP.

autodetects all your hardware (some Linux distros do this yes, but not nearly as well),

A (the only) valid point.

does NOT get you rooted because the security is there if you know how to use it (and not use IE/Outlook),

What you're saying is "If I do all the right things, and keep patching all the time, it's fairly secure.". Please name a modern OS this isn't true for.

does play all the latest games and software which I need (the alternatives suck, try comparing Photoshop with GIMP),

Silly comparison. Adobe costs $650. GIMP is free. For most people $650 is a bit too much to cough up. So yes - most (far from all) software is available. Paying for all the software I need however, would consume most of my income.

does have free and competent technical support available which does not have "STFU NOOB" in its vocabulary,

Again, a silly and very subjective statement. I've found technical linux support extremely helpful and accessible. I don't know where you look, or how you behave, to be treated like that - but I can assure you that similar places can be found when looking for Windows help.

does not require me to devote a significant amount of my free time just to get it installed and working semi-well.

Well, this is pretty much reiterating your first point (sure looks better with a longer list though). But please, tell me how much amount of your free time is consumed by inserting a boot CD and then asking it to install the working system to HD. Granted, if you're on the net Knoppix does ask for some IP config parameters - so that's more than a two step procedure...

I don't have the patience to bother with Linux, so I don't use it, simple as that. People who think everyone can and should switch today are idiots and don't deserve a +5 moderation.

One could of course argue that people who have so strong opinions about how something works, even though they they admit that they don't use it are idiots too... :)

Re:Excuse me?

[axbat]

it depends on, you know? My wife considers the best of the games Afterstep tuning on the home FreBSD box ,) A french programmer in his book wrote 'He who writes games himself enjoys twice'.

Re:Excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very hard to do when your keyboard or network does not respond.

Re:Excuse me?

[Killswitch1968]

Oi, you don't need to attack each point to get the jist, so I'll boil it down:

For Grandma and Grandpa Windows simply WORKS. They can one-click install everything they want, they don't need to go hunt through forums or command lines, and can get burned copies of all the software they need. Linux may be infinitely more stable, but if you can't get it to do what you want all the stability in the world doesn't matter. It may as well be a rock, literally.
Unless you can meet XP's user friendliness it will NEVER be ready for the desktop.

Re:Excuse me?

[be-fan]

Eh? Since when is installing Windows software one click? From what I remember, its an eternity of hitting "next" over and over and over again...

Re:Excuse me?

[W2k]

If we consider pre installed machines, so does Linux.

How is the operating system "out of the box" if it comes pre-installed? What I mean is that given a PC, I can chuck a WinXP install CD in, boot from it, and be somewhat sure that I will have a working system when the install finishes. In my experience, this is rarely true for any but the most newbie-friendly of Linux distros. Though I admit RH9 was a huge step forward in this regard.

What you're saying is "If I do all the right things, and keep patching all the time, it's fairly secure.". Please name a modern OS this isn't true for.

It is exactly as you say. However, Linux proponents regularly call Windows insecure because of this fact, completely forgetting that Linux is the same.

For most people $650 is a bit too much to cough up.

Come on. Noone actually pays $650 for Photoshop. Everyone who needs it professionally gets a license from where they work (or a heavily subsidized price). Everyone who doesn't just gets it off their favourite warez network. So how much a certain piece of software costs is really irrelevant when comparing features, because to many users, price is not an issue anyway.

I'm going to skip over the "STFU NOOB" bit because I intended that one as a bit of a joke.

But please, tell me how much amount of your free time is consumed by inserting a boot CD and then asking it to install the working system to HD.

Last time I wanted to try Linux, it took several distros before I found one that would even install and boot without errors. Each one took roughly as long as Windows (some longer) to install. Once I had found one that worked, it was a pain getting everything looking and working the way I wanted, and installing software, mostly due to a great deal of the configuration having to be done through text files, and many drivers only being available as (broken) sources that I had to edit manually to compile. That, and Galleon kept crashing... So installing Linux, especially for a first-timer who is used to getting stuff working without outside help (as I have always been able to in Windows, at least for common tasks like installing software and drivers), can really be a HUGE waste of time.

One could of course argue that people who have so strong opinions about how something works, even though they they admit that they don't use it are idiots too...

I don't currently use Linux, but that doesn't mean that I haven't; in fact, I have. Then I stopped using it for reasons partially mentioned above. I do however work in technical support at a university where we do have to support Linux, so I'm "forced" to deal with it on a daily basis even though I don't run it on any of my own PC's.

Re:Excuse me?

[Killswitch1968]

Sorry, 'double-click' on the install icon, followed by clicking next a bunch of times. Easy as pie, and no command lines in site. Does Linux have a double-click install for 99% of its apps?

Re:Excuse me?

[Kidbro]

Last time I wanted to try Linux, it took several distros before I found one that would even install and boot without errors.

This, I think, is the real problem. You look at linux as something homogenous - and then you attribute the problem of <any distro> to them all.
I personally run Debian, because it's what I'm comfortable with. I would probably not suggest that to anyone who hasn't got a lot of unix/linux experience. What I believe that you ignore (or simply do not know!), is that there are a number of Linux distributions out there that solve these problems. I mentioned Knoppix, as it's the only one I've ever tried. There are sever others - and according to second hand knowledge, some are even better.
The only problem, I'd say, is that it's not obvious to most people which distro to use, and picking the wrong one is sure to end in, as you say "a HUGE waste of time" for first time users. This is unfortunate, but it doesn't really equal "Linux is unusable for everyone who isn't a programmer".

I do find it interesting that someone working in tech support at a major university condones piracy, but I'm not going to deny that you have a point there. OTOH, non technical users seldom have the knowledge to locate pirated copies of the software they'd need (if they even know the software exists!), so I honestly think the point (disregarding the fact that it essentially says "You have to be a criminal to use Windows - but that's alright") is disqualified anyway.

Re:Excuse me?

[Kidbro]

Damn well put and me without mod points.

I prefer a comment (especially a positive one:) over moderation any day, so that's quite alright.

Thank you :)

Re:Excuse me?

[LilMikey]

Last time I wanted to try Linux, it took several distros before I found one that would even install and boot without errors.

A lot's changed since you've used it apparently. I played around with RedHat 6, 7, and 8 and I agree, they had enough shortcomings to honestly make the 'easy of use' claim. Finally with 9 I installed it permanently on one of my machines. Now I'm running Fedora or Knoppix on every machine I own. The little lady is even using it without any problems. I just finished setting up my mythtv box and I had to compile nothing from source (barring the NVidia drivers, but they compile themselves). Granted, you'll want to install synaptic before handing the PC over to granny but I'd rather see her picking from a list of software than sending her to the Best Buy vultures. In that vein, that Linux install that took about the same time as the Windows install also gives you a complete office package, a number of games, photo editing, and all that geeky crap Joe User doesn't really care about.

Everyone who doesn't just gets it off their favourite warez network

OK, well if ripping off software is your thing, you can pirate a copy of Crossover Office and run just about any decent Windows program. IIRC Photoshop 7 even runs under naked Wine now.

so I'm "forced" to deal with it on a daily basis

Judging by your comments and opinions, your university Linux installations must be dated. That's understandable though. The university I attended had miles of red tape to cut through when upgrading a machine's OS. I, however, am stuck developing on Windows machines 8 hours a day. I get full reign over my machine (within the walls of Windows XP of course) and I'm pretty confident when I say security on linux... better. There are only a select few that would even claim otherwise.

Almost any time I hear people criticizing Linux a good portion of their opinion is based on outdated "I used it once upon a time" information. It does have it's shortcomings... but unless these people are claiming 'games', 'AOL', or 'Visual Studio' (WooHoo, Gideon is here) one can guess they're probably opinions formed on bad data.

Re:Excuse me?

[Pengo]

>> I don't have the patience to bother with Linux, so I don't use it, simple as that. People who think everyone can and should switch today are idiots and don't deserve a +5 moderation.

5-6 years ago when kde 1.0 was out, a friend of mine told me it was good enough to replace most of the stuff you do on windows. Of course he was far from right, but because that person pushed so hard, I gave it a try.. today I am not using linux on my desktop, but because of me my company has switched all it's server platforms to linux from windows and I use linux on my workstation for java dev at work.

Maybe because of my work on linux 2-3 other engineers I work with know a bit more about unix and see it as an option other than windows.

Who knows, you never know where someones zelotry will get. But, because my home computer is more an entertainment device than a development workstation, i too use windows at home. I like to play games, and I just can't play the games I want on Linux (or mac for that matter). If it wasn't for the games, the other tools I use have equivilant and acceptable alternatives on Linux.

Re:Excuse me?

[jusdisgi]

I don't know where you got these fantastic notions...but I can tell you that it's obvious that you did not get them from using either Windows or Linux. So I'll do the point-by-point.

works out of the box (possibly given a visit to Windows Update)

Look, I've installed, configured, administered, and run every version of Windows since 3.1, and not a single one of them ever did anything useful "out of the box." XP is closer than the others have been, mostly because it has a more comprehensive set of builtin drivers....but it's not anywhere near complete. Not to mention the outrageously long/large Windows Update you so dismissively mention...I pity a dialup user who wants to do a fresh XP install. And then there's the antivirus software you'd better go get unless you're crazy. And since you say not to use Outlook/IE, I guess that means a download of some other browser/email client. And since you say Windows is secure (you really mean "securable") I guess that means you expect us to take the time to turn off and tweak a bunch of services.

What was that about "out of the box"?

autodetects all your hardware (some Linux distros do this yes, but not nearly as well)

So...I guess you've never installed Windows? And you're proving that you haven't ever installed Linux. Or at least that you haven't within the last 3 years.

I, on the other hand, have. I can't speak for all hardware, but I can speak for the 25 or so fresh installs I've done in the last 6-8 months, on very standard hardware. I can tell you that I had to go get drivers from someplace roughly 5 times more often during Windows installs. As a matter of fact, I only have 3 devices that required any manual configuration at all in Linux; two video cards and a wireless card. And I'm being kind to windows; I would say that 15 driver downloads is pretty optimistic really. That's only about 1 per install. Seriously, if you want to keep spewing this, take the Pepsi challenge. Grab five systems at random and throw a couple Linux distros on, see what hardware works "out of the box", and then try Windows XP. You'll be damned surprised.

does NOT get you rooted because the security is there if you know how to use it (and not use IE/Outlook)

Now, look...you can have it one way or the other...but not both. Either Windows works out of the box, but gets you rooted, or it doesn't get you rooted, but doesn't work out of the box. Sorry, but that's the breaks. The last time I installed XP on a machine that wasn't behind a firewall, it took less than 30 seconds to acquire a worm. A real pain in the ass, especially since the updates take so long. And also, it's funny that you specify here that you need to install additional software to replace Lookout and IE...

does play all the latest games and software which I need (the alternatives suck, try comparing Photoshop with GIMP)

First off, I'm not going to talk about games. If your computer is a toy, it's ok by me if you want to run Windows. Matter of fact, it's ok with me if you want to run Windows no matter what you do (well, except things like airplane guidance, or nuclear power plants). But the software stack is there for Linux. And quit dissing the GIMP; it's good enough for every single major movie production house. Think Sony Dreamworks would settle for a second-rate image editing program? No, not likely. Truth is, the GIMP lacks only a few features found in Photoshop, and mostly not very important ones. And it includes many features that Photoshop lacks. Methinks you have the same problem here that you have with Linux; you've used Photoshop a long time, and now the GIMP is worse because it's different.

does have free and competent technical support available which does not have "STFU NOOB" in its vocabulary

Whatever. Don't try to push this crap off on me or anyone else who has been hand-held (and who has held hands) on IRC with Linux problems. Sure, there's a few folks who will

Re:Excuse me?

[TKinias]

scripsit LilMikey:

IIRC Photoshop 7 even runs under naked Wine now.

Photoshop runs under naked wine? Is it just me or does that sound like anti-Bayesian spam text....

Re:Excuse me?

[GreyPoopon]

Does Linux have a double-click install for 99% of its apps?

The method for installing new software is distribution-dependent. Lindows has 1-click installation. Since starting on Linux (with Slackware), I've seen pretty much everything, including tarballs that need to be compiled and installed by hand, self-extracting archives with built-in installer, and package-based installers. Most of the package-based systems have a graphical installation tool that allows you to browse a catalog of packages and select the applications you want to install. The rest of the work, including dependency checking, is done for you. To me, this is at least as easy as double-clicking an install icon because I can be sure that any dependencies that must also be installed will get the most up to date version available.

On one of my machines, which is running Gentoo, I perform my installations from the command line, but that's as easy as pie. To install Mozilla, I simply type 'emerge mozilla' and it calculates all the dependencies and installs everything needed. And it even gives me the option of installing a pre-compiled (binary) package or compiling from source (which I usually choose because this machine is slow and needs every bit of optimization it can get).

Re:Excuse me?

[Billly Gates]

When you work with VB apps and your boss thinks it saves him money by using a fully integrated platform only offered by one company. Shudder.

Re:Excuse me?

[Brandybuck]

Other people have replied from the Linux side. Now my turn from the FreeBSD side...

works out of the box (possibly given a visit to Windows Update)... autodetects all your hardware (some Linux distros do this yes, but not nearly as well)

FreeBSD works out of the box on the three primary systems I use (work, home, laptop). Two of these are less than six months old with current hardware. Everything that is supported is "autodetected." The only exception to "out of the box" is sound, because that's turned off by default. Enabling it is trivial.

What is interesting is the laptop. Since I repartitioned this to support multiple operating systems, I couldn't use the disk image recovery disk. So I had to reinstall Windows XP. FreeBSD supported all of the laptop's hardware, while Windows still required an update plus some manufacturer supplied drivers.

does NOT get you rooted because the security is there if you know how to use it (and not use IE/Outlook)

You have to perform significant post-installation administration to get any level of security in Windows. FreeBSD is secure "out of the box". Not as secure as OpenBSD, but pretty damned close.

does have free and competent technical support available which does not have "STFU NOOB" in its vocabulary

Windows has this kind of free competent support? I didn't know that! Usually I'm stuck on hold with Dell...

Anyway, you can get professional support for FreeBSD, but like with any professional support, you have to pay for it. Free support is available in numerous places, but like the free online Windows IRC help channels, you're going to have to put up with some rude comments. But the freebsd-questions list is quite good.

does not require me to devote a significant amount of my free time just to get it installed and working semi-well.

If you're willing to read the Handbook, and understand the basics of UNIX administration, then it won't take a significant amount of time to install and administer. I can get a FreeBSD box up and running, with the configuration I want, in about an hour. Then I never have to touch it again.

The reason you hear stories about the hours it takes to tinker with Linux, is because people who like tinkering with stuff are attracted to Linux. But it's not a requirement of Linux, nor is it of FreeBSD.

Re:Excuse me?

[HiThere]

When the distribution is at a x.0 release.

Personally, I'd wait a month before suggesting a newly released package to a newbie.

Re:Excuse me?

[HiThere]

But it is still a long way behind Deneba Canvas...
PhotoShop? Adobe has a big advertising budget. Deneba Canvas is my choice for nearly all graphic uses. (When making animated gifs, I rely on theGimp to set the frame rates after I export it from Canvas.)

Unfortunately, they don't make a version for Linux, so I need to keep a Mac around.

OTOH, I can actually *DO* everything but the vector graphics in theGimp. It just takes a lot longer. (Still, I've used it for years less time.)

Unfortunately, SVG (well, svg really) is one of the big things I do. Line drawings are more common than pixel based images. And none of the Linux graphic programs that I've tried come near to the capabilities that I expect.

What you need depends on what you do. Most of the graphics I do is expected to be repeatedly scaleable to various degrees, and is line based. Pixel based images just don't work well in this area.

Now Deneba Canvas is basically a SVG style editor, but has a bit-map editor component that's nearly as powerful as the Gimp, and far easier to use (which may be practice). But note that the bit maps are a component of a scaleable vector graphics editor. (Canvas handles the rescaling problem by always maintainging the original bit map, and figuring the scales as a stream of modifications [filters] that are applied to that original bit map.)

Now if SodiPodi or one of those others could improve their ability to handle SVG, and could use theGimp as a component after the way that a spreadsheet might be used in a word processing document (I haven't actually tried this!), then it would have something that might be what I need. Provided it could export to numerous different file formats, probably with some loss, though postscript should be able to take things in an essentially lossless manner.

Re:Excuse me?

[jusdisgi]

Thanks a lot to both of you who replied to me; the above has lots of good information, and I notice that indeed, GIMP has added CMYK, which slipped past me, since I don't use it.

Re:Excuse me?

[HiThere]

It still sounds to me like you are saying:
"Since people are unethical slimebags, Windows is a good system."

I do acknowledge that many users of MSWind pirate software. But very few Linux users do. They don't feel compelled to.

Personally, I have never pirated software, and the desire to use software in a reasonable way without pirating it was a part of why I switched to Linux. (Mostly it was total revulsion with the MS EULA.)

That said, if we are talking about the experience of non-tech users, why are we even considering installation? If we are talking about installation, why throw in the non-tech users. It seems like intentional confusion.

And THAT said, I've installed both Linux and MSWind (95 & 98 only. I wouldn't install 2000 even with making someone else click the EULA.) 4 years ago it was harder to install Linux, but not difficult. 3 years ago it was about the same. Since then, most versions of Linux have been easier. (For Debian, I prefer to install it via LibraNet. A straight Debian install is too much work.) OTOH, if you have a USB mouse or keyboard, I believe that was causing trouble up through the middle of last year. I know for a fact that USB connections to the HPG55 printer/scanner weren't working properly up through then on the distributions that I tried. (At that point I went back to a serial connection, so I don't know the current status.)

But did you notice that I mentioned a specific device? There are definitely hardware and hardware configurations that aren't properly supported by Linux. They've gotten rarer, but they still exist. If you have one of these, then you are correct, you have a situation where Linux won't work. Your choices are to change the situation, or to accept that you can't use Linux. Personally, my choice is to change the situation, as I don't find MSWind to be a reasonable option. But I can understand if you make a different choice. That said, I can't install MSWind on my Mac, either, but I don't bad-mouth MSWind over THAT. And it's about the same situation. And last I checked MSWind wouldn't talk to my AppleNet. (N.B.: I didn't say LocalTalk. I'm talking about the original Mac network.) MS has had multiple DECADES to get things right, and MSWind machines still won't talk to it!

You say that's not the fault of MS? Join the club. Devices that won't make Linux drivers, and won't publish specs aren't the fault of Linux, either.

Re:Excuse me?

[Axoiv]

> Windows simply WORKS

Really? How come setting up a modem internet connection doesn't "simply work" then?
Gosh, Microsoft has had like 10 years and billions of dollars to get that "simply working".

Well, I guess, if you've done it (eventhough it's a mess) like 100 times before, it might just seem to "simply work".

Re:Excuse me?

[Axoiv]

> it took several distros before I found one that would even install and boot without errors

several distros? That means that you tried different OS:s. With the Linux core in common.

So if I take the windows kernel. Add some hacks here and there and a bunch of weird installation-options, would that make Windows in general super-unfriendly?

Re:Excuse me?

[Kjella]

does play all the latest games and software which I need (the alternatives suck, try comparing Photoshop with GIMP),

Silly comparison. Adobe costs $650. GIMP is free. For most people $650 is a bit too much to cough up. So yes - most (far from all) software is available. Paying for all the software I need however, would consume most of my income.

Well, yes and no. What if you can do well with all the other free apps, but there are one or two commercial programs that you really need? Linux could do well to have more commerical programs, because it is more choice, not less. Sometimes the lack of apps like Photoshop is the showstopper keeping people from using all the other free apps.

Kjella

Re:Excuse me?

[labratuk]

...does play all the latest games and software which I need (the alternatives suck, try comparing Photoshop with GIMP),

That's funny because it shows that you are obviously not a graphic designer. And if you are, you're a really bad one. One wat was just told wat buttons to click to get teh perty pictures.

Re:Excuse me?

[Kidbro]

[...] but I will argue that the large amount of time it takes to get [some distro of] Linux up and running can make Linux unusable. There is a treshold; any user, no matter how committed, will stop trying to get Linux working after N hours of trying and failing, where N varies with the individual.

Obviously. My point is that there are distros around nowadays that drop below this number N, for most users. This is of course entirely subjective, but I can say for sure that there are definately (this I know from personal experience) distros around where this time is lower than it is for Windows XP. So, the user who wouldn't have the patience to install said Linux distro, wouldn't have the patience to install Windows either.

Anyway, I don't think we're getting anywhere. You are obviously a happy windows user (puzzling as it is), and there's no reason you should stop being that. I believe we're starting to repeat ourselves (I more so than you, I'm afraid), and that's usually a good time to drop an argument ;)

Re:Excuse me?

[King_TJ]

I'd say you're pretty much correct in your points for Linux (and against Windows) on the desktop.

One small point of contention might actually be the need for anti-virus software, though. More and more, I'm finding that the most popular, commercial Windows anti-virus packages cause numerous compatibility issues, slow down the machine considerably, and *still* don't even catch many of the newer trojan horse programs and virii! It's becoming arguable that if you're a reasonably competent computer user (don't open every email attachment you get without question, etc.), you'd be just as well off to skip the anti-virus software on Windows and take your chances!

Now, what I *would* do is download a freeware program like SpyBot and run it regularly to cleanse any ad-ware/spyware that might have gotten on your PC. That's the stuff that many people mistake for a virus, and which is more likely to wreak havock with your Internet access and system itself.

For the record, I have one Windows PC over here that's been running for over a year with no anti-virus software on it - and I just recently put some on it and did a full scan, and it found absolutely nothing. This machine is used daily, connected to a full-time DSL connection, and my wife even playing mult-player online games on it regularly. So yes, it's quite possible to run Windows and not "instantly get a virus".

Re:Excuse me?

[forgotmypassword]

How is the operating system "out of the box" if it comes pre-installed? What I mean is that given a PC, I can chuck a WinXP install CD in, boot from it, and be somewhat sure that I will have a working system when the install finishes. In my experience, this is rarely true for any but the most newbie-friendly of Linux distros. Though I admit RH9 was a huge step forward in this regard.


You have got to be kidding. I just installed Windows on this computer and from the install it didn't support
my network card (tulip)
my modem (hayes)
my scanner (epson)
my printer (epson)
either one of my sound cards (creative and via)
my cdrw

The only thing it had a driver for was my video card. All of this hardware was supported by debian testing.

I will admit that hardware is much easier to install in Windows and that the drivers for all of this stuff did exist somewhere online (all in different places though), but as far as hardware support in just the installation, then Windows is a fucking piece of shit compared to any modern Linux distrobution.

Re:Excuse me?

[oohp]

I bet a Mac would work better for your grandparents. Windows problems can make people 10 years older.

If you don't like KDE...

[mgebbers]

check out this alternate free desktop

Way faster??!

[plams]

And I thought KDE tried to provide (among other things) familiarity for people with previous expirience with windoze.

Trollish comment in the article

[mirko]

This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop.

Not everybody is a geek, neither do they want to turn their goods consumption into a political fight.

OK, so they are using Windows, most probably because it came preinstalled and optimized on their new Dell/Gateway or HP computer.

When they want something it exist on their platform, so how should they perceive the need for switching to a Free desktop ?

BTW, if it's just about the desktop, will it run over Windows kernel ?
I guess this comment was not that useful.

Neither is mine, maybe but hey, let's increase its value :
Will these optimizations be ported to Qtopia, so that my Zaurus finally becomes sufficiently fast ?

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Tim C]

OK, so they are using Windows, most probably because it came preinstalled and optimized on their new Dell/Gateway or HP computer.

Some of us geeks actually chose to buy Windows XP, as at least some of the software we run only runs under Windows. Sure, some of it has Linux equivalents, but not all, and until it is all of it, we need Windows.

Yes, it's a catch-22 situation - no software means no users, means no software. One thing has to give before the other will, but I'm afraid that that thing won't be me.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[mirko]

Same for me : Cubase would not run under Linux.
I since switched to OSX which is a nice compromise between hackability and mainstreamdom.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[timmarhy]

optimized? dell/gateway/hp? are you the same fool who thought up the "designed for microsoft windows" stickers you see on shit?

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[edbarrett]

Qtopia:Zaurus :: KDE:GNU/Linux (for the case of Linux)

Qtopia is a set of applications built using (IIRC) the QT2 widget library. KDE 3.2 is a set of applications built using the QT3 widget library. This is where the GNU/Linux designation really comes into play:

• Linux makes the hardware useful.
• GNU (among others) interfaces with the user.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[mirko]

Your comment is interesting but totally bogus.

Zaurus is a Physical device.

So, you'd rather have written :
Qtopia:Embeddix :: Qt:GNU/Linux

Embedix is nothing else than a GNU/Linux (currently 2.4) port for ARM32 embedded devices.

Now, Qtopia is based upon Qt/Embedded, so if Qt version is increased, so is Qtopia API, hence my question.

It's not because 2 morons modded me as a flamer and a troll that I am.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Moraelin]

Bingo. Unless it actually runs on Windows, or it has some emulation in it that actually runs _all_ Windows programs without hassles, I can't see the point in switching from Windows to KDE.

Let's face it, the only value of an OS or computer is running the software _I_ want to run. And the desktop is little more than a very superficial interface to the OS.

The whole thing is like saying "now, see, we can give you a dashboard for your car that looks exactly like an airplane dashboard." Uh. And the point is? It's still a car, and it still can't do what an airplane does. Nor viceversa.

A car is for people who need a car. An airplane is for people who need an airplane. They're not (yet) completely interchangeable. Think about it a bit.

The same applies to Linux vs Windows. Repeat after me: putting a Windows desktop manager on Linux, doesn't make it a Windows substitute. And viceversa, putting CDE (or a clone thereof) on Windows, doesn't make it a Unix workstation.

But even if we're discussing desktop makeups: does Linux now have CUA guidelines? Did people start actually sticking to the same behaviour for their widgets? Did people actually start testing their interfaces with 100 dpi fonts? Etc.

Because changing the desktop means very little, when Joe Average's day still involves dealing with 10 different programs, using 6 fundamentally different widget sets, 8 fundamentally different keyboard shortcut sets, and 4 different ways of even persisting his preferences.

A lot of Windows's or a Mac's appeal doesn't come just from the way the desktop looks, nor from their particular flavour of widgets. It comes from the fact that everything running on it has the same standardized interface.

The way a Windows scroll bar or file open dialog works isn't perfect. (I actually prefer the Motif scroll bars.) But you can learn to use it _once_ and then apply that knowledge instinctively in all programs, from now until kingdom come.

Basically what I'm saying is: KDE is good and fine, and optimizing it doesn't hurt, but... IMHO what would really do Linux a world of good is enforcing a consistent interface across _all_ widget sets. Drag the good Qt, KDE, Gnome, Motif/Lesstif, GTK, etc people into a room, and don't let them out until they can aggree on a common interface standard ;) That'll do Linux a world of good.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless it actually runs on Windows, or it has some emulation in it that actually runs _all_ Windows programs without hassles, I can't see the point in switching from Windows to KDE.

Depends, maybe you would like to use software not available on Windows? Or maybe you already found all the linux replacements. The KDE application base is huge.

Besides that, I'm really frustrated with peaple like you. KDE 3.2 is out. It has many improvements, but no... it's not finished. That's propably why it is not called KDE Final. OSS on the desktop, for that matter, is not finished, thank you for pointing out.

Many of your critisisme are valid in some way - I would go into that disucssion - but please, try to see the way OSS has come and be a little bit more gratefull. I'm not talking to you personally, but also to all those people that can't stop hammering ad perpertuum on all those things they think are wrong, while there are many progressions already made. If you don't like it, fine; use windows or something else that thinks is better.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Speed Racer]

I must know, why XP? I find no compelling reason to use it over Win2K.

I felt the same way for a while but I found out that the support for laptop power management in general and especially support for ACPI states like S3 (Suspend to RAM) and S4 (Suspend to Disk) is significantly improved in XP. That alone was enough to compel me to drop Windows 2000 and move to XP. If I was only using a desktop computer then I probably wouldn't have made the switch.

There are other niceties that have been added to XP like ClearType and Wireless NIC management. They are useful and appreciated but they aren't enough of a reason to make me switch.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Avakado]

Drag the good Qt, KDE, Gnome, Motif/Lesstif, GTK, etc people into a room, and don't let them out until they can agree on a common interface standard

If the KDE people agrees on a common interface, and completely ignores the existence of all other toolkits, how does this not fix your problem?

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Peaker]

Bingo. Unless it actually runs on Windows, or it has some emulation in it that actually runs _all_ Windows programs without hassles, I can't see the point in switching from Windows to KDE.

Maybe your purpose in using a computer is running Windows apps, most people want to get their work done.

Let's face it, the only value of an OS or computer is running the software _I_ want to run. And the desktop is little more than a very superficial interface to the OS.

The value of an OS is letting you do what you want to do. That may or may not involve running specific software.

The whole thing is like saying "now, see, we can give you a dashboard for your car that looks exactly like an airplane dashboard." Uh. And the point is? It's still a car, and it still can't do what an airplane does. Nor viceversa.

Huh? KDE is not trying to be Windows, its trying to be a useful desktop. One factor in being a good desktop is being able to look like Windows, so that many people will find it less difficult to switch - but its not its purpose.

The same applies to Linux vs Windows. Repeat after me: putting a Windows desktop manager on Linux, doesn't make it a Windows substitute. And viceversa, putting CDE (or a clone thereof) on Windows, doesn't make it a Unix workstation.

KDE is not a Windows(TM) desktop manager.

A good desktop is a substitute for Windows.

But even if we're discussing desktop makeups: does Linux now have CUA guidelines? Did people start actually sticking to the same behaviour for their widgets? Did people actually start testing their interfaces with 100 dpi fonts? Etc.

In the Free Software/Open Source world - such tests come for free. People use the software with all sorts of configurations and report problems.
Not to mention Qt (And other modern toolkits), unlike Windows, uses pure logical layouts and handles font sizes/etc very well.

Because changing the desktop means very little, when Joe Average's day still involves dealing with 10 different programs, using 6 fundamentally different widget sets, 8 fundamentally different keyboard shortcut sets, and 4 different ways of even persisting his preferences.

That's exactly the purpose of KDE. Creating a consistent GUI to do all those things. KDE is slowly getting rid of the GUI concept of "application", integrating capabilities to run software in contexts of all apps and windows (KPart/IOSlave technologies). KDE also has a very consistent default keyboard shortcut setup.
KDE is not about Gtk+ integration and consistency, but about internal integration and consistency (even though some projects to similarize do exist).

A lot of Windows's or a Mac's appeal doesn't come just from the way the desktop looks, nor from their particular flavour of widgets. It comes from the fact that everything running on it has the same standardized interface.

KDE is now more uniform and consistent than Windows and the vast amounts of inconsistent 3rd party apps. As for Macs, I haven't tried - but its probably hard to force UI guidelines/etc on 3rd party companies as you can force them with Free Software (simply modify any inconsistent application to follow the guidelines).

The way a Windows scroll bar or file open dialog works isn't perfect. (I actually prefer the Motif scroll bars.) But you can learn to use it _once_ and then apply that knowledge instinctively in all programs, from now until kingdom come.

Oh, I haven't seen my KDE scrollbar changing across applications.

Basically what I'm saying is: KDE is good and fine, and optimizing it doesn't hurt, but... IMHO what would really do Linux a world of good is enforcing a consistent interface across _all_ widget sets. Drag the good Qt, KDE, Gnome, Motif/Lesstif, GTK, etc people into a room, and don't let them out until they can aggree on a common interface standard ;) That'll do Linux a world of good.

You can always use themes and such to make Gtk+/KDE look and behave similar. However, you're really supposed to be able to get along with just one of the toolkits - not having to worry about such inter-toolkit consistency.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[jeffkjo1]

Because changing the desktop means very little, when Joe Average's day still involves dealing with 10 different programs, using 6 fundamentally different widget sets, 8 fundamentally different keyboard shortcut sets, and 4 different ways of even persisting his preferences.

I dual boot XP, and I fail to see the validity of this argument. While applications by microsoft tend to have the same keyboard shortcups, very few others do.
Widget sets? Oh man. First of all, you're forgetting back in the 95 days when many people still ran 16 bit applications from 3.1 alongside 32 bit ones. While windows could change the titlebar, the properties and particularly the save dialog box still looked straight out of 3.1. (Who doesn't remember getting used to longer file names and then having to use that 1 old application which would force you to change it back to an 8 character name?)

More currently there are dozens of popular windows applications which do not use standard windows widget sets. MusicMatch, Winamp, and iTunes all come to mind. Each of those all also have fundamentally different ways of preference settings.

I will agree with you that Windows may have more programs that you would like to run, but for many people, Linux is a viable alternative.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[edbarrett]

QTopia is QT for embedded devices. It contains all of qt, but can be run in cut-down profiles. The main difference between QTopia and "regular" QT is that it bypasses X and writes directly to framebuffer devices.

Well then somebody clear this up for me, because I just don't understand. My impression was that the software stack was this:

• Qtopia - analagous to a window manger, apps, user-level graphical stuff.
• Qt/Embedded - approximately analagous to the X Window system with QT built in.
• Embedix - the Linux kernel and (maybe?) non-gui user apps.

  It just seems to me that if Qtopia was the widget set, Opie wouldn't exist, because (AFAICT) Opie is about open PIM apps and synchronization, not replacing QT widgets.

  I'd love to be pointed in the correct direction, because I'd love to be able to get GNUton in a useable state.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Moraelin]

Maybe your purpose in using a computer is running Windows apps, most people want to get their work done.

Indeed. Windows does _one_ thing very well: running Windows software. It's damn good at it. And there's one helluva lot of Windows software out there.

And all I'm saying is: before taking a running leap to conclusions like "now more people should switch to Linux", please also base it on whether they'll still be able to run their old software. Or a reasonable clone thereof. Not just on how the KDE desktop looks.

That kind of leaping to conclusions is really the only thing I have a problem with there.

The value of an OS is letting you do what you want to do. That may or may not involve running specific software

Unless what you want to do is heating the room, or such, it does involve running software. Even if all you do with your computer is compiling the kernel and running a proxy for your home network, you're already depending on some very specific software: gcc, make, squid, etc.

Switching to a system which doesn't have those, nor something which is _very_ close to a clone, would mean a lot of inconvenience. Even if just for the learning curve. Even if the desktop was an exact clone of your KDE desktop, these programs would still be pain enough.

In the Free Software/Open Source world - such tests come for free. People use the software with all sorts of configurations and report problems.
Not to mention Qt (And other modern toolkits), unlike Windows, uses pure logical layouts and handles font sizes/etc very well.

I'll admit that Qt does handle font sizes very well. Other toolkits and programs don't. And much as I'll want to believe that every possible configuration was already tested and debugged by millions of volunteers, in practice for most programs... well, they must have been tested and debugged by people who love 5 pixel tall fonts ;)

However, you're really supposed to be able to get along with just one of the toolkits - not having to worry about such inter-toolkit consistency.

That is a good and noble ideal, but I just can't see it happening any time soon. Most often than not, whatever program I really wanted to use, chances were that it used a whole different toolkit. Sometimes its very own.

E.g., the Gimp was still based on GTK last time I've tried it. If there's a KDE clone or port, it must be newer than that. E.g., sometimes the easiest to use for what I needed (e.g., just making a dumb dungeon map on a square grid) was xpaint, and AFAIK it's neither Qt nor Gnome.

E.g., while both KDE and Gnome come with their own terminal apps, the one that worked the best (or was the easiest for me to get working) with some apps was xterm.

E.g., Netscape 4 always was a Motif application. (Yes, I know, I should have used Mozilla. Never worked that well for me, though. And it also used its own widgets, it wasn't Qt.)

I.e., it's not that your KDE scrollbar changed between KDE apps. It's that at the same time I'd have apps on the screen with: KDE scrollbars, GTK scrollbars, Motif scrollbars, plain old xterm scrollbars, and some 2-3 custom scrollbars. Each acting differently.

I.e., again, this is not against KDE or Linux as such. I'm just saying that it would be nice if enough people could sit together (even if virtually on a mailing list) and work out a common set of guidelines.

Just, you know, a wish.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[swv3752]

Optimized is a laugh. Those that have a clue are concerned about lock-in. Many have experienced problems importing old Office files into new versions of Office and grow concerned that problems will get worse. Many also have had problems where their new computer had Works or some other Office suite other than MS Office and have even greater difficulties accessing thier old documents.

I believe KDE will run through cygwin. Primarily it needs an Xserver running.

BTW, OZ 3.3.6-pre1 is quite fast. It is compiled with GCC3.2. there are some caveats, so research it first.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Games. XP is far more useable than 2K in this respect (although not even close to 98). XP is a nice compromise between the two.

Also driver support (can't get drivers to run bizzaro hardware under 98 anymore).

And you can tweak the display to resemble 2k, and disable most of the crapware (although I haven't found a way to get rid of media player).

And I got my copy for $5 #). No activation required.

If it weren't for the fact I tend to change hardware quite a bit, I might have bought a legal copy of XP (I did for 95 and 98). As it is, a bootleg was more attainable then explaining all of my hardware changes to MS (imagine getting "permission" to reinstall 'cuz I found a SCSI card and wanted to try it out).

XP is solid. By far the best thing MS has done, although with all the crap moving down the pipe, I find myself hoping for a port of Wavelab that will run on Linux (don't tell me equivalents, I like Wavelab).

That, better driver support, and something inbetween Lindows and Debian (I want it to just work without being as constrained as I am with XP), and I would use Linux in a heartbeat (as well as my friends and family since I am their technical support).

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[LizardKing]

Cubase would not run under Linux.

The latest versions of Rosegarden (http://www.all-day-breakfast.com/rosegarden/) have proved as stable as Cubase in my experience[1], and the feature set is getting very impressive. Well worth checking out.

[1] Rosegarden is officially unstable, whereas Steinberg ship unstable code as full customer releases.

Chris

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[edbarrett]

Your comment is interesting

Thanks!

but totally bogus.

Aw, shucks :)

So, you'd rather have written :
Qtopia:Embeddix :: Qt:GNU/Linux

Embedix is nothing else than a GNU/Linux (currently 2.4) port for ARM32 embedded devices.

I was under the impression that Linux was at 2.4, and that GNU/Linux designates the combination of GNU apps running on a Linux kernel. Let's just say we're both wrong about the analogy here. I think what I should have written was Qtopia:Embedix :: KDE:GNU/Linux.

Now, Qtopia is based upon Qt/Embedded, so if Qt version is increased, so is Qtopia API, hence my question.

But QT/Embedded 1.7.0 is based on QT 2.3.7. QT/X11 is at version 3.3b1. It's changes to QT/Embedded that would affect your Zaurus (and mine!), not QT.

It's not because 2 morons modded me as a flamer and a troll that I am.

So why are you a flamer and a troll?

:)

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Killswitch1968]

Saying normal users should switch to free is redundant. For most at-home users XP was: 1. Pre-installed 2. Pirated/installed from a burn I have never seen a legitimate XP disc. Price isn't the attractice comparative advantage for desktop users, use that angle for businesses.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[mirko]

Thanks Chris, but it still is not compatible with my hundreds of recorded Cubase projects.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[mirko]

Okay, I think we both got carried to supposedly opposite interpretations of the same points of view.
Have you ever SSH'ed to your Zaurus ?
You'll see it runs over a complete GNU/Linux environment, really :)
Now, over this there is a Qtopia port which consists of a DirectFB'ing port of Qt (not sure it uses the Genuine DirectFB, though...).
Hence my point and yours.
Now, of course, I do not have the evidence that Qtopia is not (yet) supposed to be made after Qt2.x.y only, hence my answer.
I am sure I'll be alive when Qtopia/Qt3.2 is out :)

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[zamokzam]

Why XP? Because, in my case, much of the Chinese-language software I use (encyclopedic dictionary, OCR) wouldn't work on 2000 at all but runs just fine under XP without Chinese-enabling software. On my old system I had to dual-boot Win98SE and Win2K. And, no, I know of know GNU/Linux equivalents for the dictionary or the OCR software.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Moraelin]

Actually, my comment had nothing to do with KDE as such, nor with the progress made by it. My main issue is mainly with the extrapolation "now KDE is better, therefore more people should switch to Linux."

KDE is no doubt a mighty fine OSS effort, and making good progress. It's never been my desktop manager of choice, but, nevertheless, it's a mighty fine piece of software. Kudos to the people working on it.

What I'm pointing out is that it's only _one_ piece of the larger equation. Regardless of how good KDE is, IMHO one can't say that the desktop alone is all that's needed to justify a move from Windows. It's an important step, yes, but it's far from being the only factor.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[bonch]

KDE is now more uniform and consistent than Windows and the vast amounts of inconsistent 3rd party apps.

Are you actually going to prove this and cite examples, or just claim it and pretend it's true?

I once had someone fire up Xine, and it took them 30 minutes to figure out how to open something. Turns out, there's some button called "://" with a tooltip of "MRL Browser." That's absolutely insane. Even Windows freeware doesn't get away with that.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[BoysDontCry]

Xine isn't a part of KDE.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[10101001 10101001]

>>The value of an OS is letting you do what you want to do. That may or may not involve running specific software

>Unless what you want to do is heating the room, or such, it does involve running software. Even if all you do with your computer is compiling the kernel and running a proxy for your home network, you're already depending on some very specific software: gcc, make, squid, etc.

You misread what the parent was trying to say. His point was that users really want to get something done. Using gimp is only a means to that end. For that, any good substitute for what one does with gimp works. So, the claim that users want/need to use *specific* Windows software is often misplaced.

The larger truth is most people are willing to put up with the insecurity, the crashes (win 9x users as well as people stuck with crappy drivers), and the whole package of paying more into the system because either the cost to do such is less than it is to find and relearn what they want (and possibly replace that winmodem with a hardware modem) or they don't realize the cost to do all the above is less than switching to another system (a Mac, or Linux, or FreeBSD, or OpenBSD, or John's Custom OS). At least currently, not everything is doable in Linux that is doable in Windows (the basic definition of Windows having more software). The process of this happening was years of people writing custom Windows software.

Making Linux able to do anything Windows software can is a matter of either rewriting or porting existing software or switching to a new solution.

For businesses, this might just never be done (businesses still use COBOL because it works well enough, so why rewrite the whole thing?).

For desktop users, it's really only a question of having commercial software companies and do-dad (sp?) houses producing software. The former is needed for the trust factor, and that latter is needed for the home user who likes little toys. Given how things are, maybe the commercial Linux companies will be the commercial software companies and things like karamba will be the little toys.

But, I digress. I think more people would be better off switching to Linux than realize it. The biggest problem, to me, is not being an arogant marketer who pushes people into Linux. So, the next time you think of pushing Linux, do it for the person, not for yourself.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[unapersson]

Xine is not a KDE app, so that's not a particularly good example. I tend towards Gnome applications and normally use Lumiere, which is extremely usable.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Moraelin]

What seems to go unnoticed is that everyone does have little programs that they actually need very speciffically.

E.g., my mother plays Microsoft's silly little ActiveX games (like backgammon) on their site. Much as I'd like to see her get rid of IE, it's not gonna happen as long as no other browser can run ActiveX. (And if any did, they'd be just just as inherently insecure as IE, anyway, so still no point changing.)

It's already a very specific program and very specific requirements. It does that, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, that's that.

E.g., speaking of which, a lot of people play games. Maybe they're not the kind of hardcore gamer that _I_ am, but they'll still play some freeware pacman clone or some internet web-based game that relies heavily on client-side VBScript.

Getting Windows games or even normal apps to run under Linux is still more pain than it's worth. I wouldn't recommend that any computer-illiterate person starts recompiling WineX and/or system libraries and/or X to get the latest game to run. Maybe.

It's not really a fault of Linux, of course. In all fairness, Windows doesn't natively run Linux games either.

But nevertheless, see my comparison between the car and the airplane. Neither of them is really at fault for not being the other. But still, you can't recommend a car to someone who needs a plane, nor viceversa.

I.e., before insisting "switch to linux" for their own good, I'd first make sure that it is indeed for their own good. E.g., that I have a very good idea of what programs they use, and how close an equivalent do they have available in Linux.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Peaker]

That's why there's a KDE wrapper to mplayer, as well as kaboodle, noatun and maybe others - all of which are KDE and follow KDE guidelines.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Peaker]

You should actually read the line, and not try to read between the line and itself. You might notice that I did not even imply that Windows doesn't get work done but merely that people don't necessarily care about specific Windows apps. People want general capabilities from their apps - capabilities they can find in KDE as well as Windows.

With KDE, though, people can copy the code to their neighbour, change the code, learn from the code - without being called pirates or being jailed.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[True Grit]

1. I'm just saying that it would be nice if enough people could sit together (even if virtually on a mailing list) and work out a common set of guidelines.

To a certain degree this is happening, these folks, for example have become something of a nexus for the disparate groups to agree on some common infrastructure for desktop operations on unix-like OSes running X.

On the other hand, if you are saying "all widget libraries should look and act the same", then I would have to disagree with you. I moved to Linux not just because it was a *nix look-alike, and I was interested in that, but also because I didn't want one company/person/organization telling me how I should be able to use my computer, and I don't want that kind of thinking to start with Linux. I *want* there to be competing desktops, and multiple widget libraries, because in the *long* run we all win with variety and competition. For the people who don't want to have to make these decisions and actually think for themselves, they can have someone else make the decisions for them, like MS or Apple, or even the various consumer-oriented Linux distros (present and future), but I WANT THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE, thank-you-very-much. So, please repeat after me, "CHOICE IS GOOD", "CHOICE IS GOOD"... :)

P.S. I don't care for Gnome *or* KDE, they both feel too heavy to me, especially since none of the apps I currently use are specifically written for any desktop paradigm, thus I get no advantage out of all that massive internal plumbing that both systems have. For me the choice is Xfce. Light-weight, but easy to configure, themable, and functional. Not too little, not too much, its just right! :)

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[Tukla]

Sounds like you didn't so much "choose" to buy Windows as you "had" to buy it.

Re:Trollish comment in the article

[TPFH]

Not everybody is a geek, neither do they want to turn their goods consumption into a political fight.

But geeks do exist, as well as people who wish to turn everything into a political fight.

Another reason is, computers eventually get old. Some people like to tinker, even if they aren't a geek. When your computer gets old, buy a new one with the "latest and greatest" MS OS, and use your "obsolete" computer for fooling around with that Linux thingy everyone is talking about.

Why not if you're just going to junk it anyway?

Or hey, donate it to Free Geek and they will install the free OS and give it to someone who otherwise cannot afford a computer. Get a good tax write-off too.

(Posting randomly through Meta-Moderation.)

Let's not forget

[Anonymous Coward]

the best desktop of all........

Major release

[Judas-Priest]

I've been using the "unoficial" .deb's for a while now, and I gotta say that it really is a major release. Many bug fixes, faster than ever, I haven't seen kde running so smooth since kde1... Now since I had been using it on a teste machine, now all I have to do is wait for it to come in to debian sid to have it on all my desktops! Great job by a great team.

Re:Major release

[PatrickThomson]

Now since I had been using it on a teste machine

shouldn't there be two of them?

Packages for Debian??

[Pyrosz]

Packages for Debian??

If anyone knows where/how I can get them, please reply.

Thanks

Re:Packages for Debian??

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the debian kde wiki for info on where to get the packages.

http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianKDE

It should be going into sid fairly soon. There have been lots of CVS commits on the 3.2 branch and the matainers have made nosies about having a version ready for sid on time for the relese of 3.2.0

Re:Packages for Debian??

[Dr. Crane]

I've been fetching my Debian kde packages from the same place for ages. Add this to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://download.kde.org/stable/latest/Debian/ stable main

Then:

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

Re:Packages for Debian??

[uthar]

too bad these conflict with "official" debian unstable packages. don't know how they act with "official" stable release.

Re:Packages for Debian??

[CedgeS]

Thanks. I've been wondering that for a while.

KDE 3.2.0 Released...

[itallushrt]

Of course it is...I only spent the mandatory 2 days last week compiling 3.1.5.

Well here we go again.

Re:KDE 3.2.0 Released...

[beef3k]

1. Drop your Gentoo/LFS install, and install a distro that comes with a binary packaging system and releases bleeding edge software updates (Fedora)

2. Wait 1 day instead of 2 for the new packages to be released.

3. ???

4. Profit!!!

Re:KDE 3.2.0 Released...

[LearnToSpell]

export myconf="--enable-final --disable-debug --enable-fast-malloc=full" && emerge kde

takes 6 hours for a full emerge on an XP 2000+, half a gig of good RAM. And look into distcc. It doesn't work too well with KDE, but it certainly speeds everything else up. Everybody whines about how Gentoo sucks because you have to compile everything, but that doesn't matter too much when you have a 6.4 GHz processor.

Is it worth upgrading?

[armando_wall]

I want KDE 3.2 in my system!

However, I spent quite some time tweaking my KDE 3.1 settings, and right now it works flawlessly (at least, for my needs)... apparently, there's no need to upgrade.

So, I don't know if I should compile/install KDE 3.2 myself, or wait until my distribution includes it in its next release (I'm using Slackware).

What do you guys think?

Any bug reports so far? (I know it's just released, but that's the wonder of Open Source.... many eyes!!!).

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[klaasvakie]

slackware packages are already available at:
http://download.kde.org/download.php?url=stable/3. 2/contrib/Slackware/9.1/

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[AntEater]

"So, I don't know if I should compile/install KDE 3.2 myself, or wait until my distribution includes it in its next release (I'm using Slackware)."

Slackware packages are already available for 9.0 and 9.1. I've been running the last release candidate on Slackware 9.1 with no real problems since it was released. Yes, it is worth the upgrade.

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[0bjectiv3]

If you use Konqueror, you'll certainly want to upgrade. Apple's Safari team has committed substantial changes to KHTML. It's easily the fastest browser in KDE.

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[mst76]

So, I don't know if I should compile/install KDE 3.2 myself, or wait until my distribution includes it in its next release (I'm using Slackware).

What do you guys think?

You don't need to wait for the next Slackware release. Just wait until it shows up in your slackware-current/slackware/kde/, download from there, and use upgradepkg (or removepkg and installpkg) to install on your current system.

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[datadriven]

You should get it when it shows up on swaret --list -u Usually anything of interest is available within 2-3 days of its release. & if you don't have swaret, you need to get it.

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[ernstp]

Wait until theres binaries for your distro.

Maybe there already is?
http://download.kde.org/stable/3.2/contrib/Sl ackwa re/

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[sisukapalli1]

You can use konstruct for installing the system in a personal directory (to get a sense of how it runs), without touching your main directory.

Bugs... I noticed that my screen locking (KDE and also xlock) doesn't work at all with 3.2 RC1 :(

S

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[ananke]

Along with other packages. lots of stuff in -current is compiled against -current libs, and he'll have to also get those. Packages from -current are NOT always ready to be on the stable releases.

Re:Is it worth upgrading?

[Tukla]

If you're happy with 3.1, don't bother. I upgraded to 3.2 (well, 3.1.95) simply because I wanted the (vastly) improved tabs in Konqueror. Unfortunately, I had to wipe my old configuration because 3.2 kept choking on it. 8-(

Re:Gentoo E-build?

[bc90021]

Gentoo already has this, but it's masked.

Go to /usr/portage/kde-base/kdebase, and there is an ebuild for it:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7922 Jan 18 23:35 kdebase-3.0.5b.ebuild
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3971 Jan 13 12:40 kdebase-3.1.4.ebuild
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3630 Jan 29 08:42 kdebase-3.1.5.ebuild
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3084 Feb 2 07:26 kdebase-3.2.0.ebuild

You'll have to unmask it, so see The Masked Packages FAQ at Gentoo.org.

Best Feature - Kontact

[MadX]

I am really looking forward to Kontact - I think that this is a great addition to the KDE Desktop !!

Great Job !!

Re:Best Feature - Kontact

[danimo]

It's *not* talking MAPI, and never will. Exchange >= 2000 can WebDAV for that purpose, that's also what Ximian uses. And it's just well documented at MSDN. We just lack people that actually use Exchange and are willing to volunteer. If we had them, thing would be likely to go a lot faster.

Daniel

Re:Best Feature - Kontact

[Brian Blessed]

Unfortunately the link to supported servers on that page suggests that *no* servers are currently useable.

It would be nice to use standard protocols: IMAP/LDAP/iCalendar, but I think that the server components must be integrated. For example, Exchange stores one copy of an attachment that users send around and in places I've seen where email is the way they give each other multi-megabyte files this is a vital feature.

- Brian Blessed.

Migrate

[Rutje]

"This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop."
Again?? I believe last week there was a good opportunity too... had something to do with a virus.

Re:Migrate

[bfischer]

Yes, but some people have a clue and though they may use windows, the virus did not affect them (anymore than to get unwanted, virus-laden messages).

Re:Migrate

[osewa77]

For each well publicised 'opportunity' to switch, a handful of people will switch. If only we had enough 'opportunities':

"Mozilla for Unix gets ActiveX support"

"Free, bug-free 100% Windows-compatible Desktop environment created for WIndows"

"Microsoft throws its weight behind Linux, goes into Movie/Musin production!

- Seun Osewa

slashdotted already

[spectrokid]

They gonna have to run these servers with X disabled I'm afraid...

Delay This Post !

[danalien]

*idiot's linking directly to the root source, moorons* and larger shame on CmdrTaco for not haveing common sense to check the mirrors aren't up to date yet ... see?

so be kind, and delay it from the 'hords of slashdot' ... atleast for a few hours...

Re:How faster?

[10Ghz]

So, your desktop-usage consists mostly of starting, restarting, restasting and restarting you GUI over and over again? You can't wait for few seconds for the GUI to start?

To each on his own I guess...

More free?

[Mr_Silver]

This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop.

This isn't meant as a troll but don't the Gnome folks lambast KDE for being less "free" than it?

Personally, I use Gnome only because I tried KDE about 3 years ago, didn't think much of it, switched to Gnome and have never been bothered to go back and try it again.

Hey ... at least I'm honest about it.

Re:More free?

[10Ghz]

This isn't meant as a troll but don't the Gnome folks lambast KDE for being less "free" than it?

KDE is absolutely, positively 100% free software as defined by the FSF/GNU.

Re:More free?

[GrenDel Fuego]

This isn't meant as a troll but don't the Gnome folks lambast KDE for being less "free" than it?

Not anymore.

Initially KDE was a fully GPLed desktop enviroment that used a proprietary toolkit (QT). Since then, QT has been released under a dual license (QPL/GPL), and is considered to be Free Software, so that particular issue is resolved.

I'm personally glad there were licensing issues intially. It's the entire reason Gnome was even created, and competition is always good.

Re:More free?

[perplex79]

This isn't meant as a troll but don't the Gnome folks lambast KDE for being less "free" than it?

Yes, but in the sense that the GPL (KDE) is less free than the LGPL (Gnome) for creating closed source applications.

Re:More free?

[flatt]

A lot has happened in three years.
Perhaps now is a good time to go back and try it?

Last time I checked, KDE was free enough for me... and probably everone else for that matter.

Re:More free?

[StressGuy]

I think that, once upon a time, the Qt license was not GPL compatable. I'm assuming that this is what you mean by "less free". Nowadays, the Qt license is GPL compatable and there is a "Qt Consortium" or something along those line to insure it stays that way. More info on the KDE website (www.kde.org).
.
Gnome's a good desktop and continues to evolve. However, 3 years is a long time and KDE might be worth another look. On the other hand, I understand there is a push to get the two desktops to "work and play well" with each other so it will probably ultimately boil down to personal preferance.

Re:More free?

[JanneM]

Not quite, actually. Miguel de Icaza started Gnome without regard for KDE; he just wanted to try out some different ideas on how to build a desktop. But Gnome got its initial surge of new developers when the qt license thing blew up, that is true.

Re:More free?

[Roberto]

Nice history rewriting there.

Miguel has said (in public) the following:

* KDE is what convinced him that a Linux desktop was doable

* He wanted GNOME to be 'just like KDE'

Both in interviews around 1997-1999, IIRC. Feel free to search for it, but my memory of the events is clear.

Re:More free?

[10Ghz]

Freeloaders are not supported. Either you pay with your code, or with your money. And it seems that there are lots and lots of people/companies who think that Qt is well worth the money (it's not THAT much!), so I fail to see the problem here.

Re:More free?

[10Ghz]

Nowadays, the Qt license is GPL compatable

It's not just "GPL-compatible" it IS licensed under the very same GPL we all know and love!

Re:More free?

[dubious9]

Oh, except for the Qt library, which is only free for open source purposes (free-as-in-beer). Not that I don't like Kde, but you can't say that's its completely software libre. Yes I know that kde doesn't develop Qt, but it does use it in most of the GUIs.

Re:More free?

[10Ghz]

Like I said elsewhere: freeloaders are not supported. I have zero sympathy for people who want to take the hard work of others, use it for their own gain, and not contribute one damn thing back. But the fact that you have to pay for Qt in order to write closed-source apps doesn't seem to be scaring companies away. It seems to me that there are more commercial Qt-apps than there are commercial GTK+-apps. Maybe it just really is worth the money?

Yes I can say it is free software (both as in speech and in beer). It uses THE license used by the Free Software Foundation, what more do you want??

So say it's "not free" is simply wrong.

Re:More free?

[10Ghz]

fuck you mang, not everyone has over a grand to spend on a single fucking license.

Then use a different toolkit! It's not like it's forced down your throat. And if you can't afford the license, then you should really re-examine your decision to write software for profit.

notice how there are better [Linux] apps that use GTK+ than use Qt? hmmm.. I wonder why?

There are? I use use Qt/KDE-apps and I think they kick ass. Of course there are good GTK+-apps, but there are also good Qt-apps. Your personal opinion is not a fact. It's just that: an opinion.

I'll write my closed source apps for Gnome and you KDErs can suck my fucking dick.

Well good for you

Not everyone wants "free as in not free" software.

No, you want software that you could use for free to write software for your own personal gain. Like I said, I have zero sympathy toardds freeloaders like you.

Re:More free?

[dubious9]

I have zero sympathy for people who want to take the hard work of others, use it for their own gain, and not contribute one damn thing back.

I incorporate some free software systems into a propriety product (apache,libxml both MIT like licenses). Any changes I make to the open source stuff I'll contribute back, but I'm not going to open my whole, unrelated, specialty product.

To me (at the current moment) open source software is meant to commoditize utility software (OSes, toolkits, office suits, editors etc.) to help writers of speciality software produce higher quality code. I'd say that this is a primary driving force to develop open source software. To say that I could free the software and just provide services just isn't an option for me right now. Any utility software I create, I'd open source, but doing so takes time, and therefore money. There may come a time when the business model of producing GPLed software becomes more tested and could apply to us. But not right now.

Also what would the benefits to us be? We only have a few thousand users, and 99% of those are non-programmer types. And it's not like it would be useful to just anybody, it meant to be used in a very specific type of plant and is useless elsewhere. The thousand users that use my product are probably a significant fraction of the people in the world who would derive use from it.

Should open source software not be available to me as a writer of commerical closed source software? Should MIT, BSD, Apache and lGPL licenses be destroyed?

Re:More free?

[perplex79]

Freeloaders are not supported. Either you pay with your code, or with your money.

No objection here. It's just that for example UserLinux brought this kind of "KDE's unfreeness" into discussion. Personally I also think that it's great enough to have a commercially developed and supported toolkit GPL'ed, that's more than you can ask for. And if you're going to sell your software, you hopefully have some money to spend on licenses anyway.

Re:More free?

[bonch]

Come now, competition is not "always good." Everything should be examined on a case-by-case basis. Think of all the efforts wasted through being spread across two competing desktops instead of merging into one major Linux desktop long ago. Imagine what we might have right now. But for some reason, everybody constantly wants to reinvent the wheel.

Re:More free?

[quixoticsycophant]

Not anymore.

You must shell out lots of cash for a Qt license if you wish to distribute a commercial application for KDE/Qt. There is no such license fee for Gnome/gtk. So, in this sense, Gnome is still "more free".

Re:More free?

[10Ghz]

It's people like you trying to spread your GPL herpes everywhere that make the open source community look bad.

Only way you could get that "herpes" is by using GPL'ed code in your products. And since no-one is forcing you to use GPL'ed software, I fail to see the point of your whining. No-one is stopping you from writing your own alternative to some GPL'ed piece of code.

Have you considered that I am not writing software for profit? But I don't want my software infected with GPL herpes. Hell, I can't even release BSD-licensed software using GPL

Of course not. Since BSD-license allows the code to become unfree, whereas GPL is specifically aimed at stopping that. If you could re-license GPL'ed code under the BSD, it would mean that freeloaders could leech GPL'ed code. All they had to do is to re-license it under the BSD-license, and then leech that now BSD'ed code in to their own products, and not give anything in return.

I will not support software that calls itself "free" but does not truly give the user freedom

Then I guess you are not using the GNU-toolchain (you know, GCC and the like)? I mean, according to your definition, most of that software is not free either!

Re:More free?

[Brandybuck]

So where are all the proprietary GNOME/GTK applications? Just off the top of my had I can think of five proprietary KDE or Qt apps, but no GNOME or GTK apps. Why is this?

Re:More free?

[quixoticsycophant]

Perhaps I missed something, but your response appears to be a complete non sequitur.

How does counting commercial GNOME/GTK applications verses commercial KDE/Qt applications change the fact of their underlying licenses?

Re:More free?

[Brandybuck]

The standard underlying argument over LGPL-GTK versus GPL-Qt, is that proprietary software developers are scared off by the GPL. But the reality shows that there are few or no proprietary GTK apps, but plenty of proprietary Qt apps.

That's the general argument. Your specific argument related to shelling "out lots of cash" for a commercial Qt license. Is this a problem? Again, the reality says no, since there are more proprietary software developers willing to shellout lots of cash, than there are willing to use free beer GTK.

In summary, Qt is free-as-in-free for all Open Source developers, but proprietary for proprietary developers. The people most affected by the latter seem to be the ones least concerned about it.

Re:How faster?

[Louis Guerin]

How often do you have to start it? Shouldn't you be more concerned about performance once it's running? And what's another 15 seconds on top of a linux boot anyway?

Not to diss your choice of XFCE4, though - that's my choice, albeit on 1997-era hardware :)

L

How did this got modded up ?

[phoxix]

If it still takes some 15 secs to startup even on high-end machines, it'll not be faster enough for me.

XFCE for me...

Being that KDE (GNOME, etc) have different aims than that of XFCE, I think its totally resonable that KDE and friends take a bit longer to load.

Sunny Dubey

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[Dr. Manhattan]

"A bit longer to load"?

It feels like my machine (2xAthlonXP@2GHz, 1GB RAM) is straining to get KDE going. I'm slowly working on getting my wife to switch over from Windows, but until that happens I must dual-boot, and I don't want to be sitting around for an extra thirty seconds. Windomaker startup is practically instantaneous on this box - I don't get 30x the functionality from KDE for my more-than-30x-the-startup-cost.

I always curse the first time I sign on an account and forget to set the window manager to something sane. Then I twiddle my thumbs while those little icons blink.

Maybe it's SUSE's version or something, or maybe I'm just not the target audience, but KDE's speed, or lack thereof, is what keeps me away. I'll look at this new version, but it's going to have to be a major improvement for me to change my mind.

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[Klanglor]

this is why linux cannot fight the evil gate,
the linux communty is just plain too geeky.
Gate is a marketing guy, he lissen to what USER wants. If they want fast boot, fast shutdown, they shall have it. And common user do not have a server or download around the clock. people like my parents shutdown the computer when they do not use it, because the joy of the rumming fan is not exactly melody to their ears.

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[BlackHawk-666]

Windows XP delivered on their promise of a faster startup alright...right up until the time I installed all my other software, then it was back to being as slow as Linux and Windows 2000. Gates delivered all right, but only if you are purely using the tools provided by the OS i.e. winword.exe for word processing (hahaah), notepad for editing, etc.

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[jone1941]

Yes, KDE 3.1 is painfully slow to start up. However, I tried out the 3.2 r1 not too long ago and rest assured it starts up MUCH faster than before. I was plesantly surprised. To me a first boot ok kde starts up just about as fast as Gnome when you do a cached re-login (you know cached libs and all). Just my $0.02.

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[afd8856]

I think you are wrong. From my experience KDE 3.1.4 is faster than Gnome 2.4 (on Mandrake 9.2) on an Athlon 1.2 Gb with 750 Mb RAM, running 8 different X sessions (multi-user environment, with X terminals) at the same time, also running OpenOffice. So, obviously, you think you know what you're talking, but you don't.

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[Klanglor]

exaclty, my moms computer just use internet explorer and ie plugins. :P
Again, this is why Gate richer than the IBM executives. He understand perceived value of the MASS.
And you have to get the MASS to make standards, once locked in theire is no alternatives. (evil)
Even for non computer business it works the same,
lets take the airline industry. "New" commer southwest took over the goliath of the airline industry by convincing the mass to hope in with low fairs. Providing the basic A-to-B fair, no thills.
What Common desktop user want, fastboot/fast shutdown. pre-installed common app. Eye friendly/candy presentation. Adding more stuff will slowdown the machine; it is acceptable price. Starting with unwanted things is not!

FYI: Most people waste their money to buying WORD, (no because of oo) because wordpad is affuly enougth. a big fat percentage of people just don't know how to use word processors: BOLD/ITALIC/UNDERLINE/FONT/LEFT/RIGHT/JUSTIFY is all what they use.

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[Fiveeight]

Wordpad (at least the Win2K version) doesn't have a spellcheck. Which is kinda important for most people who don't want their letters to look like Slashdot posts. MS Office *is* horribly overpriced crap though, I don't know anyone who actually bought a retail box of it.

Re:How did this got modded up ?

[mingot]

Most people don't have to. If you company has a copy of it running on your work machine you're actually allowed to run a copy on your home machine, legally.

And if your company does not have office MS Word can be had for as little as 49 bucks (OEM Works Suite 2003 includes Word XP)

Flamebait ?

[mirko]

Why is this a flamebait ?
I coded 2 Qtopia apps, "ZooZ" and "Wine(!)", and I sure know Qt as well as my fellow KDE-ers.
I *love* the API : it is really nice to code.
But I am not the average Joe 6pack, hence my comment.

How does this make the above a flamebait ?

What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[timmarhy]

I see a lot of foolish comments about not being able to do anything useful with a KDE desktop. the only thing you cannot do just as well with kde3.2 compared to winXP is play games. thats it people, nothing more no arguements accepted. so in the corperate areana windows can put it's head between it's knees and kiss it's ass goodbye

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[zpok]

Don't you just love a snitch? An AC snitch?

You leave the outing to others, you hear girl?
What'd he do to you, broke a nail?

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[spronk]

*sigh* While it's true that there are Linux equivilants for many/most windows apps there are reasons why you might want to use Windows over it. Off the top of my head: X apps tend to lack polish when compared to their windows counterparts. App installation and uninstallation requires either compiling by hand, or using tools that require root access. Lack of consistancy between apps and their UI. Driver support still is not there. Try comparing Ninvidia's latest Linux offering with their Win32 for example. Now before you slam me or mod me as flamebait bear in mind that I use Linux on all MY home machines. My wife and daughter use XP and will continue to do so until they can sit down and USE their computers without having to futz around with the OS.

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[flez]

you apparently don't work..
The desktop environment has little to no bearing in the corporate world. Companies need integrated PLM, ERP and every other 3 letter acronym that linux can't do well right now.

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[blackmonday]

Unfortunately, you don't understand the differences between Linux and Windows. Nothing more, no arguments accepted. How about the online banking sites that only support Internet Explorer, banking applications that only run on Windows and are so archaic they will never be supported by Wine, I could go on and on. You demonstrate why Linux fails in some areas: The geeks just don't understand what businesses need, and whining about how they're not as cool as you will never change that.

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[Fiveeight]

How does banks having bad web developers mean that "the geeks don't understand what businesses need"?

And legacy software didn't stop them switching from mainframes to unix to windows in the first place, so why's it different now?

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[phasefx]

The archaic application I see most often on windows is 3270-flavored telnet. :D

-- Jason

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[SQLz]

I see a lot of foolish comments about not being able to do anything useful with a KDE desktop. the only thing you cannot do just as well with kde3.2 compared to winXP is play games. thats it people, nothing more no arguements accepted. so in the corperate areana windows can put it's head between it's knees and kiss it's ass goodbye

Finally, someone who knows what the hell is going on. There are ALOT of companies out there with thousands of employees who basically sit there are enter bits of data into a single app, or take customer service phone calls, or maintain basic spread sheets. What do these non skilled people need Windows for? They are not installing apps on their own anyway. Why pay MS $100+ per seat when more often than not they can deploy Linux thin clients or basic systems for what could be massive savings.

Well boss, instead of upgrading all the hardware and the software we installed Linux. Its faster, more secure,free, and we were able to reuse most of our existing desktop systems. We saved the company millions of dollars. With the desktop hardware we could not reuse we made backup SMTP, DNS, and web servers..once again, with no cost to us for software or hardware. All we have to do is hire 1 or 2 competent people to maintain all this stuff. Of course, we'll have to pay them slightly more and give them good parking spots because they actually come with a friggen clue.

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[Luscious868]

There is one reason why many businesses will stick with Windows for the time being and will be very, very happy to do so. It's because now many companies have finally gotten interoperability between their various business systems and it could be very, very costly to suddenly switch to a different operating system on the corporate desktop. Here's an example from one industry. The company I work for sells Windows based construction accounting, estimating and project management software to mid to large sized construction companies. The parent company has acquired the various smaller software companies over time and has had their development team integrate the various acquired packages. It used to be that your accounting system was separate from your estimating system which was separate from your project management system. Today, all of these systems are integrated and work together. There are also several third party applications out there developed by third party vendors that integrate with the packages that we sell to bring things like service management, property management and material management to the table. As computers became more and more mainstream, various systems were put in place to handle various aspects of the operation but these systems rarely worked together or worked together well. We are finally approaching a time in the industry where small to mid sized business can automate almost all of their business processes and can integrate their various systems just like the big boys with a large IT staff and big IT budget have been able to do. The smaller guys who have been stuck using an amalgam of various different business systems that didn't integrate very well together finally have a range of affordable, integrated solutions to choose from. The vast majority of these solutions run on Windows. So basically we've got a series of customers that finally have estimating that is integrated with accounting that is integrated with project management. Service management, property management and material management is also integrated. All of this is done on Windows. To throw Windows out the door and migrate to Linux is simply not an option for most of them until Linux has viable packages that integrate well in the areas I've mentioned above. To move to Linux otherwise would be a huge step backward for these customers. The cost of the operating system on desktop machines pales in comparison to the costs of having several different business systems that are not integrated.

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[hogger]

>>App installation and uninstallation requires either compiling by hand, or using tools that require root access

tools? what tools? apt-get? urpmi? rpm? Are those tools confusing? Would you prefer that software installs itself like bonzi buddy, gator, etc?

>>Driver support still is not there.

try plugging a two-year old webcam into a mandrake 9.2 box. Odds are it will be auto-detected and a link to gnome-meeting will be put on the desktop. Plugin a thumbdrive, automatically detected and mounted. Plugin most any printer, drivers will already be there. Mandrake 9.2 seems better at autodetecting and configuring more devices than any other OS I've ever used, from DOS all the way through XP.

>>Try comparing Ninvidia's latest Linux offering with their Win32 for example.

Haven't seen what their drivers look like for Win32, but they work just fine in linux. I don't really see how they could be any better other than opening up the source.

>>My wife and daughter use XP and will continue to do so until they can sit down and USE their computers without having to futz around with the OS.

My wife (uses fluxbox), my 2 yr. old son (still using KDE til he grows up a little more and learns to type), my 5 yr. old daughter (uses fluxbox), and my 15 yr. old daughter (uses fluxbox) have been making it fine in linux for over a year. No dual boot, no VMWARE, just linux.

People generally perform to fulfil expectations. If you expect them to use linux, they'll probably be able to use it just fine. If you give them XP and a set of crutches and tell them "you're not ready for linux yet, it's too hard", then you're not doing them any favors in my opinion.

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[timmarhy]

umm and how are windows apps consitant any more than x apps??? i've seen LOTS of shitty layouts from 1/2 baked programs witten in VB

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[debest]

Your company is following the exact same business plan as Microsoft: provide a set of tools that become indispensible to a business, and lock them in to your applications by making it impossible to migrate their business processes off of your software. Hey, for the companies that have signed up with you, that's great news: you are likely to be receiving their money for a good while.

However, you have forgotten a critical thing here. All of the applications that you have mentioned (accounting, project management, estimating) are particularly well suited for a server-based networked environment, which Linux just happens to be better suited for architecturally than Windows. The only reason that, as you say, "the vast majority of these solutions run on Windows" is because Windows runs on the vast majority of business desktops right now. You can bet your bottom dollar that as potential new customers of your company reject your solutions because they only run on Windows, or your current customers start inquiring about running them on Linux, that your company should start creating a new version of your apps to run on Linux! This may not be happening right now (it might), but it will certainly be happening in the not-too-distant future.

This effort that is being put in to provide an alternative on the desktop is not bearing fruit quickly, but it will eventually. As I said in another thread, it is the beauty of Free software: there is no company who owns the code to go bankrupt while waiting for the software to become popular. We can afford to be patient, waiting for the rest of the computing world to use the software that the community created.

It won't happen because KDE is better than Windows UI, it will happen in a slow manner as many people and companies find that there is more advantage in switching to Linux than in staying on Windows.

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[ssstraub]

Heh. That was great. It was even more great because it's true!

Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others?

[timmarhy]

yes i do work, and it's with lots of little fiddly gadgets. yet some how my IT department manages to survive. oh yes and we do it on less then 1% of the annual budget. try that with an ms solution

Re:Windows already comes with a free desktop

[Deusy]

It's included for free with the Windows kernel.

Correction, [windows desktop] is included at no extra cost with the Windows kernel. It's not free, you have to pay for it if you plan on acquiring it legitimately.

Your 'bastardisation' of the word free shows that the world of advertising has been a complete success. "Buy one get one free!" No, you get two for the price of one, but one is not free. You still have to pay. Anything which requires an exchange of something is not free.

So, technically, you're using a bastardised definition of the word "free".

Also, it's worth noting that Free Software is a term (note the capitalisation) used in relation to, well, Free Software. So the usage of the word Free in the context of Free Software like KDE makes perfect sense and is not a bastardisation of the word "free", but more alike the usage of a word describing a product. Like Windows: I have lots of windows but I never use Windows.

Screenshots?

[Lispy]

Can anybody think about the screenshots? ;-)

Re:Screenshots?

[twener]

The KDE Wiki links to several screenshot galleries.

Re:Screenshots?

[Lispy]

yes, now I remember THAT was the quote i wanted to post...

Let me also point out...

[arvindn]

that work on integrating kde with OO.o is moving forward. This isn't just a look-n-feel thing, mind you, its much deeper than that. Details in the link.

Re:Let me also point out...

[Cid Highwind]

"Integrate OO.o into KDE" "Integrate OO.o into Gnome" "Integrate OO.o with the Windows desktop". Yuck. Who thinks this crap up?

Here's a better idea. Take that lame dog StarOffice out behind the barn and integrate it with a bullet through the skull, then implement the features you want into KOffice or Gnome-office. It'll be faster, more integrated, less ugly, and easier to use.

Re:Let me also point out...

[quantum bit]

I just want a way to force OO.o and all GTK apps to use the KDE file dialog. I know there was that Qt event loop thing posted a while back, but it required some fairly intrusive changes to the source of the programs.

Re:Let me also point out...

[quantum bit]

If you really want these GTK apps, why don't you just switch to GNOME and use that for all applications? Then you will have a consistent desktop and will not be bothered with different file dialogs in your applications. And you will not have to change the source of the programs.

Go home, troll. Hint: It's not inconsistent dialogs that bother me, it's the fact that the GTK file selection dialogs SUCK royally.

Let's see... Crappy dialogs in the 3 gtk programs I use (gimp, audacity, gnucash) vs. crappy dialogs in EVERY program, I wonder which I'll choose. By the way, I use a lot more native KDE apps than GNOME apps. Gimp and Audacity aren't even GNOME programs at all -- they just use gtk. I hear GnuCash is working on separating the backend from the UI. Maybe we'll see a Qt port and I can finally delete all that GNOME baggage.

And FWIW, I was a die-hard GNOME user as of version 1.4. 2.0 was a serious regression in functionality and usability. It was so bad it drove me to KDE. When 2.2 came out I tried it to see if it was any better. It got quickly removed.

Re:Let me also point out...

[Tukla]

pretty screenshots

All I've seen so far is numerous different mockups, but then, it's been a couple of weeks since I've looked.

Re:Gentoo E-build? No files to be seen. Yet.

[iturbide]

Yes, unmasking is easy, but the files aren't there yet:

emerge -u kde
Calculating dependencies ...done!
>>> emerge (1 of 17) kde-base/arts-1.2.0 to /
>>> Downloading http://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/distfiles/arts -1.2.0.tar.bz
2
--14:28:58-- http://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/distfiles/arts -1.2.0.tar.bz2
=> `/usr/portage/distfiles/arts-1.2.0.tar.bz2'
Resol ving ftp.easynet.nl... 195.86.128.57
Connecting to ftp.easynet.nl[195.86.128.57]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
14:28:58 ERROR 404: Not Found.

Sit back and watch it try all the mirrors it knows. Noone has them. Yet.

Re:You can get them

[Maresi]

Yada, Yada

Sid has some of the most recent packages and is definetley more up-to-date than Suse, Redhat and the likes (and is still "Debian").

Uh, sorry, I forgot: Dont feed the trolls!
My mistake...

--

Article Text

[digitaltraveller]

Why the submitter linked to a php script is beyond me:
(announcement starts)

Announcing KDE 3.2

DATELINE FEBRUARY 3, 2004
KDE Project Ships New Major Release Of Leading Open Source Desktop Environment
Splash

February 3, 2004 (The Internet) - The KDE Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of KDE 3.2, the third major release of the award-winning KDE3 desktop platform. KDE 3.2 is the result of a combined year-long effort by hundreds of individuals and corporations from around the globe. This diverse team has been working successfully together since 1997 to make KDE the leading Open Source desktop software for Linux and UNIX.

As with previous KDE releases, version 3.2 provides an integrated desktop and a comprehensive set of applications that combine to create an environment that is usable for a wide variety of tasks right out of the box. In addition to the many new applications making their debut in KDE 3.2, the veteran applications have been refined and augmented generously. By installing some or all of these applications common desktop tasks such as web browsing, file management, email, personal information management, instant messaging, software and web development, multimedia, education and entertainment can be accomplished quickly and easily. This impressive collection of software is complemented by a recent update to the KOffice integrated office suite.

Reflecting its international team and focus, KDE 3.2 is currently available in 42 different languages. Partial translations into 32 other languages are also available, many of which are expected to be completed during the KDE 3.2 life cycle. With 74 different languages and full localization support, no other desktop is as ready to serve the needs of today's global community.

KDE 3.2 also provides improvements in usability and performance. Noticeable speed boosts in application start up times and webpage rendering together with many interface refinements make KDE 3.2 the most usable and performant KDE ever. Attention was also paid to ensuring that KDE is accessible to those with disabilities. Several accessibility related applications are included with 3.2 and work on integrating accessibility technologies directly into KDE's foundations is ongoing.

KDE has earned a reputation for quality and a comprehensive feature set among its global user base that is estimated to number in the millions. KDE is also proud to be the default user interface for several operating systems including Ark Linux, Conectiva, Knoppix, Lindows, Lycoris, Mandrake Linux, SUSE Linux, TurboLinux and Xandros. KDE is also available as a part of Debian, Free/Open/NetBSD, Gentoo, Libranet, Red Hat Linux, Slackware and Solaris, among others. In addition to these operating system vendors, more and more companies are offering commercial support for KDE, some of which are listed in the business directory of the KDE::Enterprise website. With the release of KDE 3.2, the KDE Project looks to enhance and grow this ecosystem of users and supporters.
Highlights At A Glance

Some of the highlights in KDE 3.2 are listed below. .

* Increased performance and standards compliance
o Lowered start up times for applications and hundreds of optimizations make KDE 3.2 the fastest KDE ever!
o Working in concert with Apple Computer Inc.'s Safari web browser team, KDE's web support has seen huge performance boosts as well as increased compliance with widely accepted web standards
o Increased support for FreeDesktop.org standards in KDE 3.2 strengthens interoperability with other Linux and UNIX software.
* New applications
o JuK: a jukebox-style music player
o Kopete: an instant messenger with support for AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Jabber, IRC, SMS and WinPopup
o KWallet: providing integrated, secure storage of passwords and web form data
o Kontact: a unified interfa

Re:Article Text

[Cronopios]

Why the submitter linked to a php script is beyond me

Maybe because so does KDE's main page?

Or am I missing something?

Re:Article Text

[Delirium Tremens]

If you are karma-whoring, you could at least do it in HTML...

(Score:-1, Troll)

Now, honnestly ... What's the probability that this flaimebait post be moderated twice as a Troll?
Overrated, yes. Flaimebait, yes.
Troll? No.
Or maybe only in the minds of clueless moderators who either worship article mirroring habits (' cause that's how they got their own Karma ;-), or enjoy slaughtering someone's user id as a Troll.

I mean, writing a Troll -- by essence -- must be a voluntary act, right? Otherwise, it's just flamebait. Well, then, get this: I didn't mean to troll, I meant to flame.
Now, off course, maybe I am a nature-born Troller and I don't know about it...

<flamebait/>

Thank you!

[wasimmer]

How about a shout-out to everyone who contributed to the development of KDE! Thanks for your fine work guys, keep it up!

Re:Thank you!

[Lindy]

How about a shout-out

WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER TH....Damn kids are getting to me.

Re:Thank you!

[Tukla]

ABSORBENT AND YELLOW AND POROUS IS HE!

They ran a marathon not too long back. Gaargh.

Re:Dude...Not cool.

[dreamchaser]

You are obviously humor impaired, your replied to a joke knocking Windows for being slow with a Gnome bash?

Hint: Have your morning coffee before you post next time ;)

MOD GRAND PARENT DOWN....

[twoslice]

Obviously you have your head up your ass.

My friends, he is talking out of his ass....

Re:Windows already comes with a free desktop

[Axoiv]

Maybe you think you can get Internet Explorer for free as well?

Well, consider this:
Somebody has to be working on coding the Internet Explorer, and they definitely get paid.

Where do you think the money comes from?
Conclusions? That's right, you don't get it for free.

KDE is great!

[Tofu]

Thanks KDE developers and team! My girl friend recently had tons of troubles with her windows box. I put linux on it and without KDE and OpenOffice she would be wanting to switch back! I know the new version will make her even happier!

windows users NOT

[cinnamon colbert]

tried to get it last week; could not make head nor tail of the "instructions" at he download site.
I mean, where is the button that says "click to install on windows"...and that is all you need to do.
I went to the "source tarballs" - what on earth is all this garbage ?? YOu dont seriously expect me to wade thru this list do you ?
this is not a flame or a troll: I just think you dont want or understand what people like me want or expect (programming for users..)

Re:windows users NOT

[CoolVibe]

Buy Lindows, install it on your PeeCee, quit yer whining.

Re:windows users NOT

[BlackHawk-666]

Stop posting to slashdot under assumed names Mr Gates.

Re:windows users NOT

[Avakado]

KDE does not distribute binaries. Complain to your Windows distributor.

Re:windows users NOT

[IANAAC]

this is not a flame or a troll

Whatever. I'll still reply:
You DO realize that KDE isn not a Windows program, don't you?
You don't "click to install on windows".

Re:windows users NOT

[Mad Leper]

"This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop."

Errr, don't Windows users need to migrate to a free OS first ? Don't confuse the Windows users !

Re:windows users NOT

[Cro Magnon]

Joe Sixpack can get it with the next release of RedHat/SuSe/Mandrake. No source tarballs required.

Re:windows users NOT

[zpok]

Wait until someone posts BINARIES. The source files are for programmers (and SCO lawyers).
Installers is too non-technical a term for most geeks...

And wait until manuals and help-sites are up to date.
A linux program is finished when it compiles (after doing the required voodoo).

So compared to Win or Apple apps, you just wait a month or so after it's anounced "available" and you'll have a smoother ride from there.

Weird, but that's the way most current users seem to enjoy it - the same ones wondering why oh why we don't join them in their desktop revolution ;-)

Oh and btw, a tarball is a compressed file or archive. A zip.

Re:windows users NOT

[fafaforza]

Most regular users who choose, for whatever reason, to use Linux will rely on the installation process to set up the windowing system. So when all distros include it as one of the choices in a few months, regular users will be able to benefit from this.

The other market of regular computer users is the business/corporate users, and if they want to, I am sure their IT staff can compile KDE for them.

Other than that, people who would download and compile KDE already know a bit about linux, and how its software is distributed.

Re:windows users NOT

[quantum bit]

this is not a flame or a troll

Every troll says that. Kind of like, "This is not spam", or "this is not a marketing call"...

Re:windows users NOT

[cinnamon colbert]

re replies..ur all programming for programmers..glad to c u dont get it..since programmers are ~ 1% of total market, u will get ~ 1% total dollars involved.. I will be handing out cookies at dept of employment security

Seriously: what if GM said you had to adjust the fuel injectior timing when the weather changed, and that this was a superior feature, and quit your whining for a car u cd just start..I'm sad, cause i hate windows more then u (i have to use it!!) and, for whatever reason, you just dont go the extra 5 steps to make it easy, sort of like there is some moral superiority in spending extra time to install software. Think about your 401-K plan: are lots of options a good thing ? If you are over forty like me, are lots of choices at the supermarket a good thing ?

Re:windows users NOT

[amitshah]

Check the kde-cygwin project for KDE on Windows. Check the KDE3.1.4 and QT3.2 packages in the download area. Get the .exe's and install them.

You'll need cygwin too, get it first if you don't have it already. (Make sure you install XFree86 packages from cygwin).

KDE3.2 for Windows should be available in a few months' time... :-)

Re:windows users NOT

[zpok]

I'm not criticizing Linux, its ways and its distro's. I was replying to a windows user and was trying to be helpful instead of bashing him on the head as others were.

Having said that, if you can't make a KISS installer, your programs WON'T SPREAD outside the technical community. It's that simple.

If you insist on using technical terms, your programs will only be used BY TECHNICIANS.

And also: if you want the programs/OS to be picked up by non-technical people, provide clear links to the binaries (and KISS installers) first and foremost. Programmers and contributors will know where to find their precious tarballs.

Every technical website should have a clear link to a KISS distribution or website(s) for non-techies.
That is, if you care about picking up first time users. It's a jungle out there, and it's a bewildering place for first timers.

Disclaimer: I don't care, really, the only reason I've started giving this type of comments was when userlinux, desktoplinux and those other buzzwords were seen as reality. I think Linux is super cool in every way possible. I don't care about its shortcomings or geekyness. I don't. And I totally respect every Linux programmer who says thing in the vein of "I don't care about general users, I care about specific users, the ones I develop for, starting with me." I think that's very OK, and I apologise for walking on your turf.

But the snottyness of a lot of linux users (maybe not the same people as the programmers and contributors, I don't know, really) when confronted with LEGITIMATE usability concerns by the other 98% of computer users is pathetic.

Either you want your programs and/or even the whole OS to be adopted or you don't. If you do, you might make some concessions to non-engineers. If that hurts too much, don't bother.

The amount of Linux people who've migrated to OS X lately (whether they feel guilty or not) should tell you something. What it means is: even if you CAN do it in 20+ steps, isn't it nice to do it in just one?

Me, I'm totally enthousiastic that some programmers are now trying to get KDE programs on OS X without the need of even X. Isn't that great? Millions of people will be able to try out OSS in a (for them) stress free environment. That's the kind of experience that might win converts. I've checked out the installer, it's WONDERFUL. It's totally OS X compliant, which means people will trust it. And it looks very professional, which also means a lot for people who can't judge programs by the content of tarballs...

That's the way to talk to people. If you don't like that, fine. But don't expect people to walk your way by bashing them on the head or ignoring them.

Cheers!

Re:windows users NOT

[CmdrGravy]

Are you wanting to install KDE on Windows ? If so I imagine this is a less than straightforward process and you would have to do a lot of reading to understand how you could do it.

If on the other hand you want to install it on Linux then it is easy and a lot of people have gone out of there way to make it easy for you do it.

First of all you should avoid compiling the packages from source code unless you know what you are doing because this can be problematic depending on your setup. The tar.gz packages on the KDE Download site are source code which means they are only text files containing the text of the program. In order to turn these into a working version of KDE you will need to compile them into executable binary program but in order to do this you will need some extra programs and libraries which the compilation process will rely on. Although most of the necessary stuff should already be most current Linux Distributions you may need to track down and install various other libraries etc yourself which is why this technique is not recommended for casual users.

The easy way to install things like KDE is to use a package management system, if you have one of the major distributions of Linux such as Red Hat, Debian, SUSE or Mandrake it will have a package management system. All you need to do then is find the KDE packages for your distribution, download them and click to install. Because KDE is so large there will be more than one package you need to install the whole thing so the only thing you will need to be careful of is installing the packages in the right order, your package manager will tell you if you have not got things in the right order.

Right now Linux is just as easy to use and configure as Windows the only thing which may hold you back are specific Windows games or niche applications because almost everything else is available on Linux and just as easy to install and use as it is on Windows.

Re:How faster?

[10Ghz]

Are you following me around or something??

And the rest of you, use these mirros:

[danalien]

ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/ kde/stable/3.2/src/
ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/ftp.kd e.org/pub/kde/stable/3.2/src/
ftp://ftp.rhnet.is/pub/kde/stable/3.2/src

They are at least up and fast...

Re:Already slashdotted?

[tackat]

No, it's just MyDoom.K ;-)

Re:USB 1.0

[Roberto]

a) KDE has no fucking clue what a mouse is, so you are a moron to blame KDE for it.

b) Support for USB mice has been working for about three years. I know I have one since 2002.

Re:Gentoo E-build?

[md17]

These packages are actually masked in /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask

<snip>

# new kde versions mask - will clean up shortly
# these will all be removed very soon (02-02-04)

=kde-base/kde-3.2.0
=kde-base/kde-i18n-3.2.0
= kde-base/kdeaccessibility-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdeadmi n-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdeaddons-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdea rtwork-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdebindings-3.2.0
=kde-ba se/kdeedu-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdegames-3.2.0
=kde-ba se/kdegraphics-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdesdk-3.2.0
=kde -base/kdetoys-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdeutils-3.2.0
=kd e-base/kdemultimedia-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdepim-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdenetwork-3.2.0
=kde-base/kdelibs-3. 2.0
=kde-base/kdebase-3.2.0
=kde-base/arts-1.2.0

</snip>

Just comment out those lines and you should be able to emerge kde-3.2.0

Hey man, this is Slashdot

[Gothmolly]

we don't want to hear about your girlfriend's "box" troubles...

Re:Hey man, this is Slashdot

[Tofu]

Ha! If that box ran windows I would not date her! :)

DONT LOOK AT THE SCREENSHOTS !!

[tdhdeep]

The pics above make goatse look like a joke !

Re:USB 1.0

[pandrijeczko]

I have no problem with people arguing a contrary opinion, provided that it's valid. Unfortunately, yours isn't.

USB 1.0 support has been in the Linux kernel since about version 2.0 while USB 2.0 support came in the 2.5 development kernels and is now in the 2.6 release kernels.

If you had said that some USB devices are difficult to get working under Linux, then there would have been some validity to your statements and we'd have been given some indication that you knew what you were talking about.
However, by the same token, if you knew anything about Linux and kernels, you would understand that as long as hardware manufacturers keep their hardware specifications closed and do not provide Linux drivers for their hardware, then driver development for Linux, which is reliant on the kernel community, will always be behind. What really annoys me is you seem to have this attitude that this is something the Linux community should be ashamed of rather than being proud, as we are, that the kernel driver people work damned hard to backwards engineer drivers to get some degree of functionality under Linux.

Oh, and finally, nobody cares whether you personally use Linux or Windows XP. Use whatever OS you feel comfortable with because you'd be a complete hypocrite trying to switch to alternative system purely as a fashion statement.

Just remember that hardware gets supported under Windows because manufacturers work with Microsoft to get drivers written so do not treat this as a Linux failure.

RDP support?

[Malc]

The web sites crawling so I can't find out. What do they mean by RDP support? They integrated an RDP client, or it runs an RDP server?

Of the three remote protocols I'm forced to use at work with Windows (RDP aka Terminal Services, pcAnywhere and VNC), RDP is by far the best. Internet problems left me with nearly 700ms of latency for a while yesterday... but RDP was still usable. The same can't be said for the other two protocols.

Re:How faster?

[10Ghz]

Not everyone can leave their computers on all the time. Unfortunately, due to high power taxes in Brazil, I can't leave my home Linux box on all the time, at least not for now (as my financial situation improves, I'll be able to afford an increased tax). But maybe I'm just a little impatient, especially given that my Windows XP box takes 1/5 of the time to boot (as in usable state). Granted, the Linux box has some crappy SCSI disks that I plan to replace ASAP, but even if it had decent disks, and I was using KDE, it would still be worse.

So you can't wait for 10-15 seconds it takes to get to the GUI? What are you doing with your computer if you are in a such a hurry?

It seems from your post that your Windows-machine and your Linux-machine doesn't have identical hardware, so you are comparing Apples to Oranges.

From my experiance, it takes about the same time to get to my Linux-desktop than it does to get to Windows-desktop. Of course, after reaching the desktop, Windows still loads services and add-on software, so it's not yet usable. And while running, my Linux-desktop is faster than the Windows-desktop.

Re:How faster?

[R.Caley]

If it still takes some 15 secs to startup even on high-end machines, it'll not be faster enough for me.

15 seconds once a month is hardly a problem.

What? you boot your machine more often than that? Are you some kind of windows deviated prevert?

[in any case, what's the point of these bloatware projects? If twm and emacs won't do the job, it's not a job I want to do]

Re:USB 1.0

[Mmm coffee]

Still no support for USB 1.0...which I understand is a shortcoming with the kernel, but who cares.

How old is the distro that you tried? I'm using a USB mouse just fine, and I'm running SuSE 7.3! (Read: ancient version no longer even supported) Back when I installed it the first thing it did was detect the mouse automatically. Plus my very new HID complient gamepad worked, all in a 1 1/2+ year old distro.

KDE STILL refuses to work with my optical mouse. No endless editing of config files has fixed this.

Methinks your distro sucks the dogs' balls.

I am not going to write a chipset driver to get this OS to work.

No need to. USB has been part of the kernel for years.

Switching to a P/S 2 mouse fixes the problem, but I am not willing to swap mice just to run Linux.

Fair enough, get a recent distro. If my distro that shipped with the 2.4.10 kernel can use it, then your distro either sucks or is horribly outdated.

Maybe in 5 years Linux and KDE will be good enough to supplant my XP install.

KDE doesn't touch the hardware, nor is it really part of the OS. It's just another program, one of a very VERY large number of programs thrown together to create the great clusterfuck that is a thousand different distrobutions. If you try Linux on one distro and it sucks, then it may just be that your distro sucks. Try another distro. Hell, go grab a copy of Gnoppix or SuSE live eval or something, I'm willing to bet that your mouse will work perfectly from the get-go.

And who's the schmuck that modded the parent as troll? Due to GNU/Linux's design (kernel from here, compiler from there, toss that desktop on it, etc), such issues are not only going to happen but are bound to be semi-common. That's not a troll, that's a guy who tried it, couldn't use a basic part of his system, got confused by how "not like Windows" it is, and said "screw it". People with such experiences not only exist, but are very common. Either way, welcome to Slashdot, where anything remotely negative about our favorite little son of a Fin is automatically a troll.

Fundamental Question

[adamvjackson]

"This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop." As a relative Linux newbie, what are the fundamental differences between Gnome and KDE? What makes one better than the other, is it the bundled applications? The overall stability of the environment? The eye-candy? Seriously, I am not trolling or trying to fan any flames, but I am just curious.

Re:Fundamental Question

[Findus Krispy]

I am biased towards KDE so I am not the best person to ask. Then again, I used to be biased towards Gnome, and almost everyone is biased anyway, so here goes.

KDE Pros:
1. KDE is far easier to use for home users with no commercial technical support. Things like sharing a folder on your network, sharing your desktop, accessing your peripherals, etc are easy to do -- in Gnome they need setting up by an admin but are simple after that.
2. KDE has better enterprise management tools (Kiosk Mode) allowing multiple machines to be configured from a central location.
3. KDE has much better development tools and is easier to develop programs for.
4. KDE is far more complete and mature.
5. KDE is far more configurable and allows you to set it up exactly how you like it.

Gnome Pros:
1. Gnome is simpler on the eyes and less cluttered, making it easier to use for newbies in the areas where the Gnome environemnt is present.
2. Gnome has a *much* better image editing program, and slighly better Office suite.
3. Gnome is all about simplicity and straight forwardness, and it shows.

That basically sums it up for me. The remaining question is style/look. Gnome used to look *much* better han KDE, and felt more sophisticated and less like a toy. Nowadays whether you prefer the look of KDE or Gnome is definitely a more personal thing. They both look good to some people and not others.

KDE is more cartoony, and Gnome tries to be more slick. On the other hand, Gnome looks more old fashioned, and slighly DIY-ish, whereas KDE looks more professional, although still cartoony.

In any case, it changes everythime a better theme comes along. IMO, KDE has recently leapfrogged Gnome with the Plastik/Crystal SVG combination. Gnome will probably soon take back it's crown though. We'll see.

Re:Fundamental Question

[teprrr]

2. Gnome has a *much* better image editing program, and slighly better Office suite.
Argh, don't say you mean Gimp? Since when it's been a Gnome app?

Re:Fundamental Question

[Findus Krispy]

Yes I'm afraid so!

Okay, so it's a Gtk app -- the fundamental Gtk app -- and not a Gnome app, but it still looks more at home on a Gnome system, for the time being at least.

Apart from Mozilla, IE/Wine and The Gimp 2.0 I use a 100% KDE system, and Gnome sticks out the most; more than Mozilla and IE even!

RDP Client

[brunes69]

It means that krfb supports RDP, to connect to Windows terminal servers and whatnot. PS: This has also been in 3.1 for awhile now. There is no RFB server, though I am sure you could find one if yous earched around a bit.

Re:RDP Client

[arendjr]

Almost good. krfb is the server which, as you already pointed out, doesn't support RDP. krdc (KDE Remote Desktop Client) is the client which does support RDP (using code from rdesktop)

NO, WRONG SLASHDOT!

[reality-bytes]

Now would not be a good time for 'Windows users to migrate to a free desktop' because even if they tried to, they wouldn't be able to get to the now almost slashdotted kde.org.

The most galling thing is that it is probably people trying to gawp at screenshots that are causing the bandwidth hit rather than people (like me) that actually wanted to download it.

Re:switch to linux NOW you say?

[pandrijeczko]

Erm, so does that mean you object to glossy adverts in magazines trying to sell you Windows XP or the latest Microsoft product?

Just because Linux is free doesn't mean that there's not someone out there wanting you to give it a go...

Sure, you have a choice but that's meaningless unless you actually try and exercise that choice.

Maybe some help on the way

[Chuck Chunder]

Seems like Robert Love is looking into getting X/GNOME up faster (skip to after first picture). Obviously he's focused on GNOME but with any luck the techniques he uses and general X bits can be pushed to or KDE directly for wider usage.

using it on a teste machine

[wiredog]

Gotta be a climax to the day, huh?

should read

[Chuck Chunder]

"can be pushed to freedesktop.org or KDE directly for wider usage"

Re:Delay This Post !

[phoxix]

*idiot's linking directly to the root source, moorons* and larger shame on CmdrTaco for not haveing common sense to check the mirrors aren't up to date yet ... see?

This is nothing new

Slashdot's editors have been doing this for *years* with little regard for the project/software/etc at hand.

Its stupid shit like this that makes me wonder if slashdot editors ever read their own threads. And if they do, do they choose to remember them ? Or do they take such criticism with a grain of salt?

Additionally, why on earth do news posters do this ? It seems that there are people who are just desperate and want a story posted ASAP.

Sunny Dubey

Re:You can get them

[phoxix]

Sid has some of the most recent packages and is definetley more up-to-date than Suse, Redhat and the likes (and is still "Debian").

Yeah, I wonder why people choose to run woody and engage in "debian backport hell" ...

Sunny Dubey

What about this Kiosk mode I've been hearing about

[StressGuy]

Got a couple of small children and this would be useful. My three year old already uses KDE (that I've set up to limit his access). Kiosk mode would be even better since I can control websites, etc.

BTW - I actually set up a Linux box for him because of gcompris (which is buggy at times, but pretty neat). Although, his favorite games are Frozen Bubble, Tux Kart, and Tux Racer.

Re:How faster?

[Mmm coffee]

466mhz Celeron, 256mb ram, 2.4.x kernel, KDE 3.14 built from source, a lot of things installed to make KDE prettier but not necessarily faster, and a ton of stuff loading during boot. Total time to go from off to mucking around in KDE - ~35 seconds. Total time to go from bash prompt to clicking on pretty icons and stuff - ~10 seconds.

Time it took to go from off to clicking on pretty icons in Win2K on the same machine: Well over a minute, possibly two. Can even play movies with mplayer without a skip that would be unwatchable in Windows.

More than fast enough for me.

Now would be a good time to convert

[HarveyBirdman]

Harvey Birdman: Hey, Windows using feind- I mean, friend. Why not convert to Linux? The new KDE is out. It's really Windows-like, and you can get away from Microsoft and blahdy blahdy blah, etc.

Windows Using Friend: What do I do?

HB: You download the tarballs and-

WUF: That tar whats?

HB: The tarballs and-

WUF: The what balls?

HB: The tar balls and-

WUF: The what whats?

And so on and so forth...

Re:Now would be a good time to convert

[CoolVibe]

HB: Screw this, here's a nice CD, put it in your machine and restart your computer.

WUF: What's that?

HB: It's called a knoppix CD. You can run linux and use that KDE thing you hear me blabber so much about without installing anything on your harddrive, and if you like it, you can install it anyway.

WUF: Wow, I'll try that. Thanks!

Re:Now would be a good time to convert

[aliens]

You forgot a step

HB: If nothing happens, reboot again go into your BIOS and change the boot order of your drives so that your CD-ROM boots first, it might be called HD1 or HD0 depending on your setup.

WU: The Bio-who?

Re:How faster?

[bwy]

I agree. If they want to penetrate the Windows market, some things have to change.

Windows XP starts up faster than any "modern" OS I've ever seen. XP looks okay once you turn all the fisher price theme stuff off and it generally works pretty darn good. And it can be had for the price that some people spend on Starbucks coffee every month. Not bad for something you use every single day.

Linux users will say that you only have to boot your machine once a month so startup doesn't matter. How real is this? I've used my share of modern distros and I can tell you unless you are an expert you'll end up rebooting so that certain config changes will take effect because you don't know what grep/ps/kill/stop/restart statements to use to restart the right processes. The average user will also reboot to remedy common problems- you can't expect them to know how to fix problems any other way.

I run several Linux servers at the office as well as a server at home. It just isn't mature enough for desktop use yet though. I don't care what people say, I've seen "user-friendly" Mandrake 9.x distros installed fresh just plain lock up. That $129 or whatever for XP Home ends up not being that much money when the average user had tried to deal with all these issues- stability, speed, hardware support, etc. Okay it was free- but I'm wasting how much time every day?

I use XP daily for application development and can tell you I've yet to have a blue screen type event. And with the Mozilla suite to replace Outlook, IE, etc., it becomes even more attractive. I use OS X on my iBook and it is great as well. Linux is a hell of a server platform. But we have to be realistic here about desktop use. Being realistic will help let people like the KDE folks know that we're not there yet... good job but keep working on it.

(from KDE Site) US Mirrors - Not all updated yet

[Anonymous Coward]

ftp://ibiblio.org (28 hours)

ftp://kde.us.themoes.org (11 hours)

http://mirrors.isc.org (14 hours)

http://ibiblio.org (28 hours)

http://mirrors.midco.net (8 hours)

http://ftp.us.kde.org (10 hours)

ftp://kde.pandmservices.com (11 hours)

http://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu (11 hours)

ftp://ftp.rutgers.edu (9 hours)

ftp://ftp.oregonstate.edu (24 hours)

http://ftp.rutgers.edu (9 hours)

http://kde.oregonstate.edu (24 hours)

http://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu (13 hours)

ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu (11 hours)

ftp://mirror.xmission.com (29 hours)

ftp://ftp.us.kde.org (10 hours)

ftp://mirrors.midco.net (8 hours)

Free? No, not really...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop

The desktop might be free but my time isn't. See, I already own Windows. It's installed, working fine, and arranged just the way I like it. It doesn't cost me a thing as it's already paid for.

If for some reason I was dissatisfied with my Windows experience I would have to get and install a new OS, install this updated free desktop (assuming it didn't come with the distro), download the apps I need to be productive (as a Java developer I could pretty much continue to work without impact), and learn to use the new OS/desktop combo.

All this adds up to money. I have a salaried day job and I do hourly contract work at night, with more hours than I can handle on the contract. Any time setting up a new environment (for no reason) is money directly out of my pocket. And it may even cut into my bzFlag playing time!

Windows XP is quite stable and secure. We've never had any problems in our house. Of course, the hardware router, AV software, and Windows Update help.

On a tangential note, I'm about to dump OpenOffice. What a dog. I gave my wife my copy of Office XP and I've been using OO for the occasional letter or spreadsheet. Even for that limited work I find its performance to be unacceptable. Another driving factor - through the Microsoft Home Use program in conjunction with my day job I can get the latest Office (professional version) or Project for $20 each. Full retail? I wouldn't switch. $20? Oh yeah, I'll pay $20 for improved performance.

Guide for Windows users!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a rumour that migrating to Linux from windows is hard, scary and for geeks only. But it cant be further from the truth.

In fact, If you have a BroadBand internet connection and a CD burner, than Linux very easy to install. Even if you dont, linux cds can be bought from most good computer shops, can be often found on linux magazines in your local news agent and libaries and bookshops often sell Linux books that come with Linux cds! Since Linux is legal to copy, you can ask a freind who has Linux to borrow their cds. I have lent mine out to several of my freinds.

The best places to download linux are
Linux iso
Distribution Watch.

The best distributions out there are Mandrake, Fedora, Knoppix and Ark Linuk.

Most downloaded Linux distributions come in .iso format. Think of an ISO as a virtual cd. Most CD writer software can use iso files. So from your writer software, select the option that says something like Write ISO image. Once you have made real cds out of the iso files it is time to install Linux. If you have made several cds, write their number on the disk so you dont mix them up.

The 1st cdrom is a "magic disk", that is that they dont need an operating system to run. Unfortuantley they cant be ran from windows. So if you are running Windows, you will need to restart your computer, by going to Start > Shut down > Restart. Your computer will now restart itself. Make sure your first disk is in the cd drive. If it is successful then you will be greeted with an installation screen for Linux. Press the enter key to start installing. If it doesent work, then your computer may not be configured to read magic disks. You will have to go into your BIOS setup and make sure that the CDROM drive is the primary boot device before the hard drive. If you have an older computer then it may not support booting from the cdrom drive. Dont worry though, most distributions have a soloution. Most offer the chance to create a boot floppy, and 99.99% of computers are capable of starting from a floppy!

Once you have seen the installation screen and pressed enter, the installer will load and you will be greeted with an installer program. Follow the intructions from there. Here is some help for the most common questions

Partitioning. Linux needs at Least 5GB of space for it to run well, so resize your windows partition using the tools or delete it althoghter. If you are going to resize, make sure that you have ran scandisk and defragmented your disk to minimize the risk of data loss, of course, make sure you have enough disk space.

If it asks you about packages, you will generally want KDE, Office Suite, Games and Internet tools. I recomend personal desktop if you are installing Fedora, KDE workstation if using mandrake.

If you have an error installing packages, your CD-R or CD-RW may be dirty or scratched. For best results, I reccomend you buy the offical editions of disks as the CDROMs are more resistant to scratches.

In most cases your hardware will be detected automatically. Again, the offical editions often have more drivers as they can licence drivers from companies.

If the installation is successful then eject your disk and restart your computer. If you have opted to resize windows, you will see a menu offering you the chance to load either Linux or Windows. Choose Linux. Chances are that you will never want to select the Windows option again!

I hope this information will help Windows users who want to migrate to Linux operating systems. Remember than KDE 3.1 is currently the prevailing desktop, you will have to wait a few months for Linux distributions to start being installed with KDE 3.2. Mandrake 10.0 will be out soon, and that will include KDE 3.2, I reccomend that version.

If you have any problems, then you should

• Consult the instruction manuals that come with your distro, this is often known in

Re:Delay This Post !

[danalien]

>It seems that there are people who are just desperate and want a story posted ASAP.

nothing wrong with that, but, if you try to be a 'fresh-news-asap' outlet, atleat take some reponsibilty on your sholder, and don't cripple the 'source'.

eg., do a 'mirror backup' prior to the post, offer Bittorroent links to large files (such as these)... and take other helpful measures aswell.

and no, I don't think such measure are unrealistic, heck, it might even give a good name to 'slashdot', both 'source' and 'readers' would get what they want; 'source' doesn't get crippled, 'readers' get the news instead of a "ERROR 404 ....(and such)"....

Re:Windows already comes with a free desktop

[haeger]

Where I live (Sweden) You are not allowed to use the word "free" (or gratis which is the translation) in an ad without really giving it away.
Free (gratis) means no strings attached here so if someone sais "Buy one, get one for free" You can actually go in and ask to have the "free" one and they can't deny You that. If You know your rights.

Naturally noone in their right mind uses the word "gratis" in ads anymore here. :-)

One could only hope that our government would disallow more bastardisations of words (and standards).

.haeger

Cool!

[Lobo_Louie]

Debian stable should get it in 2005! (Just joking, I'm a Debian Unstable guy)

Migration Question

[djeaux]

This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop.

Wouldn't Windows users have to migrate to Linux first? Unless I missed something, KDE is not a desktop environment that replaces the Windows GUI on Windows boxen.

Considering that the vast majority of computer users are going to barf at the thought of reinstalling their OS & that most are doing very well just to apply a "recovery disk" to restore their system to its original, store-bought state, I don't think that a pretty new desktop for Linux will do much to encourage the average Windows user to migrate to Linux.

Re:Migration Question

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a KDE for Windows project that runs using cygwin. It is pertty slow (and a little buggy) but the fact that it runs at all is nothing short of amazing and a testiment to how far the Cygwin project has progressed.

I'd personally like to see how much of a speed boost (if any) they could get from running under SFU since Microsoft makes it freely available now.

Re:Migration Question

[tr0llb4rt0]

KDE runs adequately under Cygwin on win 32.

There is even a KDE ports tree for cygwin sitting on sourceforge http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

Not running 3.2 yet tho.

Good intro to KDE for win32 users :-D

Re:Migration Question

[Anonymous Coward]

One man's "runs adequately" is another man's "runs slower than a snail on barbiturates". Cygwin coulda been called Pygwin, IMO.

Re:Migration Question

[tr0llb4rt0]

Never said it was quick. :-D

How's about Slugwin???

heh Snail on barbituates is gonna keep me grinning for a while. :-)))

Re:Migration Question

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

I've got Cygwin running on my desktop (the best way to make Windows usable) but I can't stand running any KDE apps. If you don't have KDE running, trying to start any KDE app takes a minute or two to launch because of all the back-end plumbing. If I do run the KDE desktop, it takes up too much memory and tends to get in my way. From a technical point of view, getting it to run at all is pretty amazing though.

I do run the occassional GNOME app on Cygwin, inclusing the Gimp Startup times are slow, but manageable. Not a flame, just my experience.

Re:Migration Question

[Yonder Way]

Wouldn't Windows users have to migrate to Linux first?

This is a false assumption. KDE runs great on OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Darwin, etc. and that is just on the x86 platform (since Windows only runs on x86 anymore)

Re:Migration Question

[tryfan]

> Wouldn't Windows users have to migrate to Linux first? Unless I missed something, KDE is not a
> desktop environment that replaces the Windows GUI on Windows boxen.

Actually, you DID miss something (rather important).
KDE is EXACTLY a desktop environment, somewhat comparable with DOS-based Windows.
Don't mix it up with X, which is "just" a protocol that makes it possible for the environment to communicate with the kernel.

* Linux tells the computer what to do
* X tells Linux what to do
* KDE (or other environments) tells X what to do

So, you DON'T have to migrate to Linux first. A reasonable distribtuion will give you everything in one go - whether you choose to use KDE or GNOME (or something else).

Re:Migration Question

[Nailer]

Unless I missed something, KDE is not a desktop environment that replaces the Windows GUI on Windows boxen.

Actually, it can be. This is what I was thinking of when I read that comment.

On reflection, though, it was probably just boring advocacy.

Quite Right

[glpierce]

Most importantly, people don't spend much time working with their OS. I check email, browse the web, create text documents and spreadsheets, and listen to music. None of those are any easier in Linux (I'm using Firebird, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice, for the record), and NIS/NAV keeps my machine quite safe. Do I tweak Windows? Certainly, but that doesn't mean I'm interested in learning to use a new OS which doesn't increase functionality. Running XP isn't costing me a dime (I got it years ago), so there's no cost saving.

Re:Quite Right

[RoLi]

First of all, KDE/Konqueror has sessionmanagement and Mozilla has not (neither on Windows nor Linux), meaning that all your Konqueror-Windows reappear on the respective desktops, meaning no more temporary bookmarks.

Secondly, multiple desktops allow you to run much more apps at a time and allows you to switch between tasks much more easily and faster.

Thirdly, all the viruses and security problems make WindowsNT/2K/XP a pain. (ironically we have never seen such huge problems like MS Blaster on Windows 9x, even though most people believe the contrary, security has become a lot worse with WinNT/2K/XP although stability improved)

Re:GNOME is still *more* free.

[Bigman]

Yeah, GNOME is great for debugging too, I mean you can see it draw every pixel...
Seriously, Gnome is a bit heavy on the CPU and mem, but not more so than KDE3.x .. If the new KDE is more efficient, then thats great.
I use GNOME because it was the first desktop with transparent Term windows that I could get working, and I haven't been bothered to change since.

Re:How faster?

[AssClown2520]

I use XP on a daily basis. And I really don't have anything bad to say about it from a stability standpoint. In fact, I think XP is a huge step in the right direction from what was the NT nightmare for me.

I use a laptop, that I haul from work to home each night with dual boot. At work it is almost always Windows, at home almost always Linux w/KDE. And I must disagree with your statement that Windows comes up faster that Linux. Maybe the login comes up faster in Windows, but from power on to where I can actually do something is just as long in Windows as it is in KDE.

And beyond that, I have an older system that I couldn't even get XP installed onto that is running Linux/KDE. Granted, boot up time is about 2:45 but it boots and is useable. (On a side note, the exact same machine boots to xFCe in about 1:45)

Re:Gentoo E-build? No files to be seen. Yet.

[iturbide]

Im beg to differ. You apparently haven't tried it yourself. When trying to get the source, you will find emerge start with it's usual mirror (a dutch one in this case), and then successively try others, such as ftp://download.us.kde.org, none of which seem to have the files.

So, rather than me not knowing what I'm talking about, you may have revealed a certain lack of knowledge mistakenly compensated with an excessively judgemental attitude yourself.

I use GNOME but...

[Pecisk]

I anyway happy to see KDE team develop and tweaking their software. As I put my emotional and free time investiment in Gnome, I wish them luck too :)

And please people - don't flame each other. We have no so large user base. We have to coorporate, at least in some level, exchange ideas, etc. I like that fact that we can choose - KDE or GNOME.

Oh, yeah, you will say simple user don't care. No, some of them don't, but some of them really do. Some of them are much smarter than you think. And some of them really prefer KDE over GNOME, but some - vice versa.

Re:I use GNOME but...

[fault0]

> And please people - don't flame each other. We have no so large user base. We have to cooperate, at least in some level, exchange ideas, etc. I like that fact that we can choose - KDE or GNOME.

Indeed.. and there is a subconscious copying of good features between KDE and GNOME as well. KDE 3.2, for example, includes the transparent panel feature that's been in GNOME for a while, and GNOME 3.0 (2.8?) will include a new IPC system that closely mirrors that KDE has been doing for a long time.

Re:How faster?

[R.Caley]

There are plenty of good reasons why somebody might want to boot more often than once a month.

However, most of them also apply to freezers, the answer is to fix the reasons, not to keep turning the freedzer off.

More importantly, if a Strangelove quote doesn't cue you to a comment not being entirely serious, you better get a friend to hit you with the big foam clue bat quickly:-)

I did mean it about emacs+twm though. Of course you need a C compiler to customise twm, but what's wrong with that?

Is Kopete equal to Trillian?

[jonatanw]

One thing that i noticed is their instant messaging application - it seems to be a bit like Trillian on windows.. Has any of you experienced this and can tell the difference?

Re:Is Kopete equal to Trillian?

[fault0]

Yeah, Kopete and Trillian are quite similar in terms of feature set and functionality. Trillian Pro however does a few things, like RDF feeds, email checking, that Kopete doesn't do (yet..).

The main difference between Kopete and Trillian is the interfaces. Kopete tries to be HIGHLY integreated with the KDE desktop, and thus doesn't support skinning. It strictly ahears to the KDE style guide. Trillian on the other hand, looks quite cool with it's skinning, but it doesn't try to blend in with the rest of Windows.

Re:Is Kopete equal to Trillian?

[lokki]

Having used both (and Gaim, for that matter), I'd say Kopete beats all comers, hands down. The improvements and bugfixes in 0.8 (that's the version in KDE3.2) bring it well to the fore of the IM consolidator field. IMO, of course. :)

Re:Is Kopete equal to Trillian?

[jonatanw]

So, you can skin KDE itself, right? In terms of skinning I want nothing more than a customized skin that covers all applications. Currently that is only true for Trillian..

Re:Is Kopete equal to Trillian?

[sirReal.83.]

KDE is fully themeable - two major components. "Styles" cover things like buttons, scrollbars, etc... all that. "Window Decorations" are titlebars and borders. They are separate, but most decent themes have matching styles/windecos. All KDE apps will respect these theme choices. Oh yeah, and there are color schemes that apply to styles, and you can change font sizes, etc...

Switching from Windows - Guide

[nikster]

This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop

i wonder if that is true. all windows users use windows for a variety of reasons - and none of them are "we love windows".

for instance, here is what i need in order to switch:

[x] web browser.
[x] email program that works.
[x] java.
[x] Eclipse running.
[x] Word substitute. OOo is nice.
[-] support for my hardware (Centrino Laptop). problem: networking doesn't work, basically rendering the entire machine useless (tested with Knoppix 3.3)
[-] graphical interface for WiFi.
[-] point and click install of software. (general feeling that that doesn't really work)

Ad point and click: i always read about different installs for different linux distributions, which sounds kind of scary. sounds like "just post the question to a newsgroup, and 4 hours later, you are there". same goes for kernel recompiles / patches. sounds like "waste lots of time getting the system to run".

is this a good time to switch from windows? i have no idea. maybe? it depends on individual needs.

what is needed is a general windows-to-linux switching guide and FAQ where all these questions are answered.

Re:Switching from Windows - Guide

[fault0]

> [-] graphical interface for WiFi.

KDE 3.2 includes that now.

> [-] point and click install of software. (general feeling that that doesn't really work)

depends on the distro

> is this a good time to switch from windows? i have no idea. maybe? it depends on individual needs.

yes

Re:Switching from Windows - Guide

[porter235]

[-] point and click install of software. (general feeling that that doesn't really work)

Try out Klik

Re:Switching from Windows - Guide

[pandrijeczko]

You don't need to stop using Windows and suddenly start using Linux.

Make some free unpartitioned disk space (some distros will make space for you from existing Windows partitions, possibly Mandrake does it) and install a distro. It'll recognise your Windows installation and create a dual booting menu for you.

The installation will be no more difficult than a Windows one and you can they play with Linux and decide for yourself whether it meets your needs.

You lose nothing (apart from a few gigs of disk space and a little time) by just trying it out...

Re:Switching from Windows - Guide

[beef3k]

[-] point and click install of software. (general feeling that that doesn't really work)

OK, so do you really mean that:
1. Find a site that hosts the software
2. Download the installation .exe
3. Run it and click your way through a mostly useless installation wizard

and for upgrades:
1. Remember/keep track of all software you've got installed.
2. Check webpages for updates.
3. Repeat the above, possibly uninstalling older versions

is so much easier than typing:
1. yum install [package]
or
1. apt-get install [package]

and then getting automatic updates without lifting a finger?

Re:Gentoo E-build?

[packman]

I'll stick to gentoo, and not for it's "optimization", but for it's transparancy in configuration, superior documentation, and fast package updates. Also the freedom to choose is there more than with any other distrib, I mean, Debian with KDE? Wow man - debian-fanboys look at you in a very frightning way... ;)

The installation can take a while (well - if you use the pre-compiled cd's it's just as fast or even faster than Debian) - that's true, but even if you put a noob behind it with the docs, he should get a working system after a while (though maybe his "windows" may be vanished :p) I tested this with my sister, and she had to ask me a couple of things, some things not very clear to any newbie (partitioning, what filesystem to choose, ...) I actually didn't hear from her anymore till her machine started flipping (bad ram...), and that was 4-5 months later...

I tried a lot of distribs, started with Slack (back in '96), then tried SuSE after a few years, went back to Slack, tried Debian (installation simply sucks), went back to Slack, tried Mandrake somewhere in between (in VMWare) - and then decided to try Gentoo, and I'll stick to that...

KDE 3.2 packages will be "masked" in portage for a few hours prolly cause the package maintainer is asleep I heard :D

Btw - when can we expect "official" debian/slackware/... packages?

mirror of feature list

[Newtonian_p]

Slashdotted alreay?

Here are some of the new features:

* Increased performance and standards compliance
o Lowered start up times for applications and hundreds of optimizations make KDE 3.2 the fastest KDE ever!
o Working in concert with Apple Computer Inc.'s Safari web browser team, KDE's web support has seen huge performance boosts as well as increased compliance with widely accepted web standards
o Increased support for FreeDesktop.org standards in KDE 3.2 strengthens interoperability with other Linux and UNIX software.
* New applications
o JuK: a jukebox-style music player
o Kopete: an instant messenger with support for AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Jabber, IRC, SMS and WinPopup
o KWallet: providing integrated, secure storage of passwords and web form data
o Kontact: a unified interface that draws KDE's email, calendaring, address book, notes and other PIM features together into a familiar configuration
o KGpg: providing an easy-to-use KDE interface to industry-standard encryption tools
o KIG: an interactive geometry program
o KSVG: a viewer for SVG files
o KMag, KMouseTool and KMouth: accessibility tools for KDE
o KGoldRunner: a new riff on a classic game
o ... and many more!
* Thousands of incremental improvements and bug fixes
o During the development of KDE 3.2 nearly 10,000 bug reports were processed via the KDE Bug Tracking System
o Approximately 2,000 feature requests were also processed, with hundreds of requested features added to KDE applications and components
o An improved configuration system that opens the door to new installation management possibilities, improved roaming support and many improvements to the "KDE Kiosk" environment management system
o Inline spell checking for web forms and emails
o Improved email and calendaring support
o Powerful tabbed interface for the Konqueror file manager and web browser
o Support for Microsoft Windows desktop sharing protocol (RDP)
* Improved Usability
o Reduced clutter in many menus and toolbars
o Many applications, dialogs and control panels reworked for clarity and utility
* Enhanced appearance
o Plastik, a tastefully understated new look, debuts in KDE 3.2
o Hundreds of new icons improve the consistency and beauty of KDE
o Tweaks to the default look including new splash screens, (optionally) animated progress bars, styled panels and more!
* New Tools for Software Developers
o Comprehensive API documentation extended for 3.2
o Language bindings for ECMAScript (aka Javascript), Python, Java and Ruby
o New versions of the powerful KDevelop IDE and Quanta web development suite
o Umbrello brings UML modeling for 11 different languages including C++, Java, SQL, PHP, Python and Perl to KDE

What does it do that's so special?

[Hoplite3]

I don't want to troll, but I'm actually curious why people choose KDE (or gnome for that matter). I mean, the audience here is a cross-section of power users. I've used Gnome and KDE (2.4 and 3.0 respectively) and found them to be slow to start and bloated with widgets and effects I didn't need.

That's inflamitory, so let me explain: I use windowmaker. It's small, easy to configure by hand or by program, and I can trim out all of the visual fat that I don't need. That means no "start bar". If I want to run something, I click on a free spot on the desktop and up pops my menu. My running applications appear in the "window" menu with a quick right click. No fuss, no clutter. Desktop icons are redundant. I'll be using an xterm to do just about everything anyway. Scrollbars are likewise unncessary in most applications if you have a wheel or a good touchpad driver.

So what does KDE do you for? Do linux people use the right-click-drag-and-drop model from windows? I remember being addicted to it long ago, but I've since found CLI to be faster and more powerful.

I know, I know, the joy of linux is that you can have your desktop manager and I can have mine. But I'm curious what KDE does for you.

Re:What does it do that's so special?

[pandrijeczko]

If I have the time, I usually install Gentoo Linux from scratch and, provided I'm installing on a reasonably fast machine for myself, I'll compile and install a minimal Gnome installation as my desktop.

If I'm installing Linux for an interested Windows user, I'll generally install Mandrake Linux and give them a KDE desktop, purely because it gives a "familiar" interface to them plus similar types of apps that they're accustomed to in Windows.

KDE is quite bloated and has lots of additional apps that I will never use. But it is "pretty" and acts as a good way to "sell" newbies the concept of Linux.

Re:What does it do that's so special?

[Lobo_Louie]

Ok, if you have 3 apps running on full screens, how do you start a 4th app? click... minimize 1st app click... minimize 2nd app click... minimize 3rd app click on free space, open 4th app (or perhaps I'm missing a magic windowmaker shortcut (desktop managers are a holy war in themselves) :-)

Re:What does it do that's so special?

[BenjyD]

a few points:

• why does it matter how long it takes to start? I just switch my computer on in the morning and off in the evening, so I only see the startup time once a day.
• Everything in KDE is configurable. Can you see a taskbar in this screenshot?. I have a window list bound to alt-X.
• The CLI is still there for when you need it. Transparently sftp connecting using konqueror to remote servers is useful and faster in most cases than a sftp in an xterm. If the CLI is faster for you, then use it. I think in many cases people just say that because it make them feel more 'l33t'.
• The apps in KDE are excellent - I like Juk, KMail and konqueror (as a file manager). All well integrated into the desktop.

I used to use windowmaker a lot - then I realised how much easier and faster to use KDE is.

Re:What does it do that's so special?

[Hoplite3]

Let me answer:

why does it matter how long it takes to start? I just switch my computer on in the morning and off in the evening, so I only see the startup time once a day.

Becuase I use two personal computers plus departmental computers with NFS homes. If I want to show my advisor something, I log in on his desktop, if I want to check my mail, I log in to a shared computer. Print something? you guessed it. I log on and off alot. To keep all of my desktops looking to same, I use the same manager on all of them.

Everything in KDE is configurable. Can you see a taskbar in this screenshot?. I have a window list bound to alt-X.

Everything in WM is configurable too. Better yet, it's really easy to do advanced things. The default config files are basically walking examples to help you edit in your own ideas. My windowlist comes up with F11.

The CLI is still there for when you need it. Transparently sftp connecting using konqueror to remote servers is useful and faster in most cases than a sftp in an xterm. If the CLI is faster for you, then use it. I think in many cases people just say that because it make them feel more 'l33t'.

Elite or not, it depends what you do. when I sftp, I mostly move tarballs around with scp. Since I just created the tarball, I might as well send it with the cursor in the same ole terminal than switching desktops or aps. Besides, I use a laptop about 50% of the time. The touchpad isn't exactly a precision pointing device. The keyboard is much easier. I write small C programs, run gnuplot, look at stuff with gv, etc. I don't do things that require manipulating lots of files in a directory individually (something that konqueror is very good at). Still, most people aren't me. They're developing larger projects, doing multi-media stuff, or playing games. I'll take your point that KDE provides good support for this stuff.

The apps in KDE are excellent - I like Juk, KMail and konqueror (as a file manager). All well integrated into the desktop.

Many of the KDE apps are quite good, especially kdvi. But I can run these in WM just a well as anything else with the right libraries. Still, the list of X apps I use regularly is quite small and doesn't include any K* apps. As far as I can tell, "Desktop Integration" means that the file browser works as it should, launching a default app or popping up a list of possible browsers for a given document. Not that useful if you aren't using a FM to begin with

I used gnome and kde for a while, then I came back to windowmaker for speed and simplicity

Re:What does it do that's so special?

[vurian]

A minicli with autocompletion is what makes KDE more useful to me than WindowMaker, which _has_ a minicli but without autocompletion. Oh, and a whopping great framework that makes writing new apps a lot easier, and a filebrowser that can browse nearly anything and a host of other applications that work well together.

Re:What does it do that's so special?

[Brandybuck]

So what does KDE do you for?

In comparison with Windowmaker:

1) The core of the desktop (any desktop, BTW), is the file manager. Everything in the file manager is an object you can manipulate. Click on it to open it, drag it over to an application to open it, drag it onto another open object to insert it, etc. Ripping CDs? Just insert the CD and drag-n-drop your MP3s to wherever you want them.

2) Everything is integrated. Someone sends you a photo in email, you simply drag the photo out of your message to save it. Ditto for other attachments. Browsing the web and see a link to a file? Just drag it out of there! In Windows, Mozilla is not integrated, so you can't do this in an easy way.

3) Even the command line is integrated. Open up a konsole panel in the file manager and start doing all sorts of wonderful things. Control application behavior at runtime through the command line.

Not everything is drag-n-drop. I typically work with several konsole windows open. But why ignore the mouse? It's another tool you can use, so use it. Heck, you're already using it in Windowmaker, so put it to more use, instead of always moving your hand back and forth between the keyboard and the mouse. The CLI is more powerful and faster... if you're using all those handy command options I'm sure you have memorized. But for simply launching a GUI application, why not use the GUI?

I'm an XEmacs guy, personally, but with KDE 3.2 I'm going to start trying out Kate, simply because XEmacs isn't integrated into KDE. And I really do wish a native image processor like Gimp would show up for KDE for the same reason.

I do like Windowmaker, but it's not a desktop. Maybe combined with a near future release of GNUstep it might be. But not quite yet.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

No, I love Linux, on the server. In my day job we're working with a cluster of Linux boxes (Dell 2650 + 3 Dell 1750s, all dual Xeons). I was just responding to the statement about now it's time to switch for Windows users...

free desktop for windows

[Squiddl3]

there are free desktops for windows available.

And with litestep no Linux WM can compare, cause it's real customizable.
And maybe kahakai can compare, when it has more snipplets to make things easier.
Geoshell is from the Programmer of the Explorer, because he need something to debug the Explorer during development. And the concept of bars is just like the concept behind gnome.
There is also a blackbox port for windows.
And there is much more.

just my 0.02

Re:free desktop for windows

[pandrijeczko]

And with litestep no Linux WM can compare, cause it's real customizable.

Litestep is based on After Step which is a WM for X-Windows. X-Windows (XFree86) provides the Linux GUI.

It's a good Windows front end but in the Linux world we have BlackBox, FluxBox, FVWM, FVWM95, Enlightenment, etc., etc. all of which are equally customisable or more so... believe me.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[pandrijeczko]

The desktop might be free but my time isn't. See, I already own Windows. It's installed, working fine, and arranged just the way I like it. It doesn't cost me a thing as it's already paid for.

Let me requote the line you opened up your post with:

"This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop."

The first line did not say:

"Fuhrer Linus Torvalds & the rest of his Linux-loving Nazi Brownshirts demand that you scrap Windows & install Linux now."

If you like XP, stick with XP - you have a choice. But don't criticise the Linux community for publicising its own good work.

If for some reason I was dissatisfied with my Windows experience I would have to get and install a new OS, install this updated free desktop (assuming it didn't come with the distro), download the apps I need to be productive (as a Java developer I could pretty much continue to work without impact), and learn to use the new OS/desktop combo.

So you feel that you have to justify to us why you've chosen to stick with XP now...

On a tangential note, I'm about to dump OpenOffice. What a dog. I gave my wife my copy of Office XP and I've been using OO for the occasional letter or spreadsheet.

Now this is an interesting comment. You gave your wife a copy of Office XP which implies that you went against the terms of Microsoft's Licensing Agreement. Hmmm, okay, let's read on a little more, shall we?

Even for that limited work I find its performance to be unacceptable.

And presumably you sent a communication to OpenOffice.org telling them why you didn't like the software? As an open source development team, they need to know how to improve their software based on feedback from users. If you don't tell them what's wrong, they can't fix it.

Another driving factor - through the Microsoft Home Use program in conjunction with my day job I can get the latest Office (professional version) or Project for $20 each. Full retail? I wouldn't switch. $20? Oh yeah, I'll pay $20 for improved performance.

Yes, you get use of Office and Project for $20 each but does your wife? I believe that under the terms of the Home License Agreement, if your employer has Microsoft Licensing then you can be granted Home Use, as you rightly say. If you gave your wife a copy of Office XP, she must therefore work for your company also (in which case why did she not just get the CD from your office herself?) or must also have her own Home Use License.

In future, please compare "like-for-like". If you're going to compare OpenOffice to MS Office, please remember that OO is free whereas MS Office is not free unless you are using a very restrictive MS License or are so used to not paying for your MS software, that you are using it illegally anyway.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a professional developer, you should jump at the chance to learn a new operating environment and new API. At the least, it's another buzzord on your resume. It might give you a head start working with similar APIs in the future.

A programmer who won't learn is the sort whose work is most easily outsourced to a $3/day coder in Bangalore.

Re:How faster?

[aonaran]

Second, 3 months ago, linux switched from using a 32-bit integer to count uptime to a 64-bit one. Previously, linux would always crash after 9 months of uptime.

I call bullshit.
I've had a Linux Cobalt Raq2 that had an uptime 3 days short of a year once, and would have been longer had my junior co-worker not rebooted it to try and fix a problem. I could have killed him.
(not only did it spoil my attempt to make it past the year mark, which would have been used well for marketing, but he took the thing down in the middle of the day putting dozens of customers at a serious inconvenience.

Re:Delay This Post !

[SubtleNuance]

Creating a .torrent would be the right thing to do. They dont have to worry about serving the load themselves, and you dont crush the original-host.

Really, Taco, shouldnt this be 'policy'?

Re:Free? No, not really...

[10Ghz]

Windows XP is quite stable and secure.

Then what's the deal with all those viruses?

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[matdodgson]

I hope you're not discounting the terrific effort of the Gnome/Gtk team?

Gnome/GTK is no less a desktop environment than KDE/QT and it permits the development of non free software without the requirement of a developer license.

If Linux is to replace Windows everybody must come on board, including enterprises with internally developed software that don't want to release source code.

I've been using it for the past week

[iplayfast]

AND IT ROCKS!!!

It's fast, and it seems stable. I honestly don't know why people use MS windows when there is such a good (better) alternative.

I especially like the spelling checker, which if I was using my home system right now could check the spelllling of this entry. Also on kmail (which MS doesn't have without MSoffice).

My favourite apps are konqueror,kdevelop (and all the tools that it uses), kmail, and knewsticker.

Re:I've been using it for the past week

[pandrijeczko]

I've not used KDE much recently but I recall Konqueror could be quite temperamental as a browser.

It may have improved recently but if you find it is a problem, I can thoroughly recommend Mozilla Firebird.

Re:I've been using it for the past week

[fault0]

Konqueror in 3.2 has been vastly improved..

- rewritten tab support
- a lot faster
- better standards compliance (many patches from Safari)

It's replaced Firebird as my main browser. I can't say that Konqueror renders as many pages as good as Mozilla yet, but it's getting there. Hopefully with Apple's Safari/Webcore 1.2 coming out in a few months and more syncing between KDE and Apple, Konqueror in KDE 3.3 is going to be great.

Re:I've been using it for the past week

[Axoiv]

> Konqueror in KDE 3.3 is going to be great. Or maybe we just have to wait for the 3.2.x series...

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[matdodgson]

>why do these "kde is not free trolls" keep raising their idiot heads?

I'll ignore your insult. I am informed on this topic and I know QT has a dual license.

I stand by my original rant. If my company wants to develop software for KDE/QT internally and not release the source code, I must buy a QT dev license (not cheap). If I use Gnome/GTK I do not require a dev license.

If Linux is to replace Windows everybody must come on board, including enterprises with internally developed software that don't want to release source code.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[SubtleNuance]

Bill, is that you?

Crack is also free the first time Bill -- its kicking the habit that is really liberating. Sure, it dosnt cost much at first, but in the long run, you'd be surprised at what things cost you.

Re:Delay This Post !

[Anonymous Coward]

The announcement is up on the KDE site and /. picks up on that, yet the packages haven't propagated to the mirrors yet. If you want to blame anybody, blame the KDE team for making a premature announcement.

Re:Gentoo E-build? No files to be seen. Yet.

[hyperstation]

...or just download them from ftp.us.kde.org and put them in /usr/portage/distfiles

Re:Delay This Post !

[Rogerborg]

Let me guess: you clicked on the link to leech it, found the servers overloaded, and came over here to bitch at everyone for doing exactly what you just did.

Re:How faster?

[bwy]

but from power on to where I can actually do something is just as long in Windows as it is in KDE.

Is this a default distro type install, out of the box, or have you customized some things and turned a bunch of stuff off or something?

I'd honestly like to know- because if I could get a Linux box to boot quicker that would go a long way towards making reasonable for me to use in other places. It does seem that a simple DHCP workstation with minimal services shouldn't take that long to boot.

Re:Delay This Post !

[Rogerborg]

Don't be a muppet. The "editors" here were replaced with very small shell scripts years ago.

Re:How faster?

[SubtleNuance]

You leave your computer running while your away from it?

I shut my computer off any time I know I'll be away for more than 20-30 minutes. I dont want to burn energy which costs $$$ and tonnes of pollution for nothing.

So, yes, I appreciate a quick start/stop, because i do it many times a day... BUT I'm willing to wait 15 seconds just to gain the piece of mind in knowing Im not an energy-wasting-prick.
Oh, btw, I dont kick puppies, I dont steal money from tip-jars at restaurants, and I always pay for apples at the road-side stands by putting money into their can... so spare me the "your wasting your time" line, Im trying to be a good person...

Re:Now

[FubarPA]

Wow, I guess I should tell my wife she has too much time on her hands, and quite possibly might be a computer programmer.

Working Web Mirrors of www.kde.org

[twener]

http://kde.oregonstate.edu/
http://www.at.kde.org
http://kde.pandmservices.com/
http://kde.typhon.net/
http://www.se.kde.org/
http://kde.fredan.org/

Integrating OO.o with KDE

[Twister002]

Doesn't integrating KDR with OO.o really go against the Unix principal of having lots of smaller programs that do one thing very well?

I mean I've got to deal with enough "integrated programs" that crash my OS at work.

Re:Integrating OO.o with KDE

[be-fan]

Its not that kind of integration. It doesn't mean building OO.o into KDE, like IE is built into Windows. It means getting OO.o to use KDE's file selection dialogs, look, feel, etc.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Rogerborg]

You are one funny zealot. The guy was explaining to you - using short easy to understand words - why free isn't good enough, and you sneered at his opinion. You are the reason why people still prefer MS on the desktop. Yes, you personally. It's your fault.

On your last point, in future please go to hell. If you are honestly incapable of undestanding why someone would rather pay for MS Office than use free OO, then your head is so far up your arse that you should be able to lick the back of your own tonsils.

you seem to be missing the point.

[sirReal.83.]

since programmers are ~ 1% of total market, u will get ~ 1% total dollars
They're not in it for the money. KDE is Free Software. Among many, many other things, it means you can get it free of charge. KDE is made for everyone, not just coders. The thing is, it's in active development... new features being constantly added, bugs being constantly fixed. KDE is not the type of organization to rush a half-assed product with, say, 40,000+ known bugs to market. And yes, they know they're going against the grain of the big moneymakers. Their aim is to make good software, not money. And they know it's not perfect yet, so don't be a dick about it. You want features, tell them about it. They like new ideas, and you may actually have some decent ones (even if you have a hard time spelling them).

Re:you seem to be missing the point.

[cinnamon colbert]

I'm sorry if I sound peeved, but I really think the Open community has made a major error in thinking: you dont get lazy people like me to switch by saying, hey,its better, but you have to undergo some pain and suffering, because pain and suffering are good for you. Yes, linux is like spinach: eatup because you need to learn about tarballs or whatever. So, I'm really frustrated, cause i hate windows, but i think the open com. for whatever reason, refuses to do a few minutes extra work that would make a LOT of people more inclinded to try their product..

Re:you seem to be missing the point.

[sirReal.83.]

It's actually not that hard. With Debian, installing apps is just a simple "aptitude update; aptitude install [package name]." For starters, get a copy of MEPIS Linux which is based off Knoppix, but makes for a cleaner, closer-to-Debian install. Dig around on the website - they want you to pay, but you can get an ISO free of charge. Burn it, boot it, you'll have an off-CD KDE 3.1.4 environment on kernel 2.4.22. When KDE 3.2 hits the "unstable" distro, you'll have it when you do a "aptitude update; aptitude dist-upgrade". KPackage is a decent GUI to APT, if you prefer. But the command line is much faster. Before you can install any apps, though, you've got to install on your hard drive. The MEPIS Installation Center will help you. You can set up your partitions with QTParted from there. Once you've got an installation, feel free to screw around. Don't worry about it, just try it out. If you don't feel like installing right away, you can use many, many apps right off the booted CD. Any questions, I hang out in #debian and #debian-kde and #mepis on irc.freenode.net as sirReal.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[debest]

Your points are entirely realistic. If there is no reason to switch an existing computer from Windows (if the switch will inconvenience the user more than Windows already does), then it shouldn't be done.

For many here, the effort is the reward itself. This is not an argument that will win many converts from Windows. For others, who have the ability and attitude to accept change very quickly and not be locked into a set way of doing things, making the change may very well be worth it, as they may find (at least I do) that I get things done faster using Linux. No, not the tweaking part (that can consume days at a time!), but the everyday tasks that I use my computer for. But this is STILL a very small cross section of the total desktop users out there.

The fact remains, however, that Linux, KDE, etc. provide a very good desktop experience once installed properly, and it is free. These may not be good enough reasons for virtually anyone to convert over an existing machine, but it sure sounds like a recipe that will lead to pre-installations on new computers. THIS is where all this effort will eventually bear fruit. Corporate environments (where security, customizability, and lack of vendor lock-in are becoming big pluses) are where Free software will certainly continue getting more wins. Plus, a fully functional PC that can be sold without the Windows tax can start to look attractive to home users, too.

Think new PCs, not existing ones. Still, this won't be common anytime soon (I'd say at least a couple more years) before your average computer user will seriously be comfortable buying a new machine with something other than Windows on it. But it will come in due time.

In the meantime, don't let the trolls bother you. For your needs (and frankly most people's needs), Windows is still the correct OS for your computer. Thankfully, this will not be the case for much longer ;-)

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Killswitch1968]

"If you're going to compare OpenOffice to MS Office, please remember that OO is free whereas MS Office is not free unless you are using a very restrictive MS License or are so used to not paying for your MS software, that you are using it illegally anyway." Is this an excuse? Is OpenOffice an inferior product and that is why it costs less? Remember for AT-HOME DESKTOP users illegal or legal is not the issue, it's competetion. Paying for XP/Office is insanity, every copy I have ever seen is a copy. While it may be 'immoral' it doesn't preclude that OpenOffice must still compete, in the users mind, against a free product.

Thanks

[Quantum-Sci]

Thank you KDE developers!

Windows isn 'free' in a sense.

[Killswitch1968]

As far as most Windows are concerned they have XP either by:

1. Having it pre-installed for a reduced rate lumped into the initial purcahse
2. Getting a pirating copoy.

As far as at-home users are concerned, price is not an issue. I have never seen a legit copy of Windows, but MANY burned ones. The validity of this argument isn't compromised just because it's 'legal' or 'illegal'. In the users mind, KDE is competing against free already. My my wallet isn't currently in being in jeopardy of losing $180. The price argument can only be used for businesses, not for at-home desktop users.

Re:Windows isn 'free' in a sense.

[pandrijeczko]

Now let's pretend that every MS user takes the same attitude and pirates their Windows OS and MS applications...

Microsoft go bankrupt...

No more Windows or MS Office development...

No new drivers for all that lovely new hardware coming out...

Hardware becomes obsolete and unusable unless you install another developed OS...

INSTALL LINUX! Hoorah!

-------------

Ah, apologies. Sorry, I didn't see the rest of your argument. What you're saying is it's perfectly okay for businesses to subsides your illegal Windows use by them paying higher licensing costs..

This means businesses have to spend more money on IT...

More businesses look at cheaper alternatives...

INSTALL LINUX! Hoorah!

Re:How faster?

[R.Caley]

You leave your computer running while your away from it?

Yep, my freezer and my central heating boiler too! And my wallclock! Oh my god! I'm a monster! And my doorbell! Shoot me now!:-)

I dont want to burn energy which costs $$$ and tonnes of pollution for nothing.

Clealy you need to find more things for it to do.

[actually, apart from simply maintaining my state when I quit for the day in the middle of working on something, the main reason my machines are on overnight is backups.]

Re:What about this Kiosk mode I've been hearing ab

[Tomah4wk]

Should give him pingus to try as well, great game. My friends 3 year old daughter loves tux paint too.

Re:How faster?

[AssClown2520]

Hi.

The distrubution that I am using is Slackware 9.0. It is not greatly customized, but I have commented out script files to not load things I don't need, ie sendmail, apache, etc, etc.

I don't want to give you the wrong idea either. It may be that my XP could be made more efficient, but I have noticed this with several installs of XP as well as 2000.

I think Microsoft has worked hard on boot up times in 2000/XP. But, I also think that some of it is appearances. The logon screen comes up extremely quick. But it is still loading services for quite some time after that. If I log on to quick, it does not map my drives, because the networking drivers/protocols are not loaded by the time it comes up. I then have to map them individually by hand.

Out of the box, I think that XP is pretty quick, but as you add applications, etc., it seems to get slower and slower.

Anyway, I have never held a stop watch to them. It is hard to measure, because I can have XP up, but the services are still initializing and even clicking on a start menu has about a 5-10 second delay before I see the menu.

Re:Gentoo E-build?

[sirReal.83.]

I mean, Debian with KDE? Wow man - debian-fanboys look at you in a very frightning way... ;)
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? KDE in Debian unstable is 3.1.5 currently, and will be 3.2.0 within a couple days. I've had unofficial packages of 3.2b2 and 3.2rc1 since the official trees were tagged. They work great. I will, however, be lurking in #debian-kde@freenode so I can get the news when the packaging is done.

tried Debian (installation simply sucks)
The new installer is much better. It's not graphical (it shouldn't be) but it's easy as pie. Also, there are numberous LiveCD installers for Debian - none are official however. Some are faithful to Debian standards, some have trouble but are still okay.

I'm a Debian user, but my fanboyism belongs to Free Software. So use your Gentoo if that makes you happy. Just don't bullshit about other distros.

Re:USB 1.0

[lmfr]

"USB 2.0 support came in the 2.5 development kernels and is now in the 2.6 release kernels."

And has been backported to the 2.4 series (at 2.4.19 or before).

Regards,
lmfr

Re:Gentoo E-build? No files to be seen. Yet.

[md17]

Or apparently did try but knew enough to go to a kde mirror manually download the files and put them in my /usr/portage/distfiles dir. Have fun waiting for the gentoo mirrors to update.

Qt (mostly) Not GPL

[dubious9]

From doc.trolltech.com/3.3/license.html

The Qt Free Edition is distributed under the Q Public License (QPL). It allows free use of Qt Free Edition for running software developed by others, and free use of Qt Free Edition for development of free/Open Source software. There is more information about the QPL at the Trolltech web site.

Note that the Qt/Embedded Free Edition is not distributed under the QPL, but under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

For development non-free/proprietary software, the Qt Professional Edition is available. It has a normal commercial library license, with none of the special restrictions of the QPL or the GPL.

Re:Qt (mostly) Not GPL

[10Ghz]

You are wrong. IF you want accurate inforamtio, click here. I quote:

The Qt Free Editions contain the same code as our Commercial Editions, but are governed by licensing terms that are entirely different.

Released under the open-source licenses GPL (GNU Public License) or QPL (Qt Public License), these licenses are for developers who want to build free software for Unix/Linux.

The Qt-toolkit used by the KDE-project is 100% free software. It is dual-licensed either under the QPL or GPL. Additionally you can buy a commercial-license as well.

Windows Migration

[RKone2]

"This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop."

So it has a one click install then?

Re:Free? No, not really...

[pandrijeczko]

You are one funny zealot.

Ah, so you're defining "zealot" as somebody who cares about the fact that when people comment on Open Source software, they do so from a valid opinion rather than FUD... You're the one throwing out the abuse and expletives, one might view that as "zealot" behaviour.

The guy was explaining to you - using short easy to understand words - why free isn't good enough

No, the guy took the attitude that he was being forced to switch from Windows to Linux purely because the original poster described this as an "opportunity". Again, he's the one displaying "zealot" behaviour.

You are the reason why people still prefer MS on the desktop. Yes, you personally. It's your fault.

Hey, guess what... I don't care!
Software is a tool to get a job done, use the tool that best does the job.
All I do is try to let people know what types of tools are available they may not already be aware of. What they use is their choice.

On your last point, in future please go to hell.

Hmmm... abuse, huh? Are you really sure I'm the "zealot"?

If you are honestly incapable of undestanding why someone would rather pay for MS Office than use free OO

No, I am not incapable of understanding this. I am incapable of someone who criticises a free tool, has the ability to feed his/her opinions about that tool into the developers but does nothing apart from sitting back and whining about it.

However, my original comment still stands. If every user of MS Office had no choice but to go into a computer store and pay several hundred dollars/pounds/euros for it as they should be doing legitimately, then OO would be compared on much more favourable terms.

your head is so far up your arse that you should be able to lick the back of your own tonsils.

Possibly, but I can also get my point across and express myself coherently without resorting to direct abuse. That gives me one over you, my friend...

Re:Free? No, not really...

[vigilology]

Oh come on, don't be pedantic. If I gave you a sandwich for free, you'd argue that it is not "free" because you have to use up energy extending your arm to pick it up.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[zsau]

You don't own Windows, you've only licenced it.

'Licenced' was spelt thus on purpose.

kde & smb shares

[oohp]

I wonder how to get KDE see SMB shares in a painless way. Remember, the blonde secretary can't/won't mount a smb share from Konsole! On a SuSE 8.1 box it would work with smb:// but as soon as I start a transfer the progress bar freezes in a dead position. I wanted to test it in a business environment to see if it's ok to migrate some users from Windows to Linux but as long as thins doesn't work.. I tried LISA server or whatever it's called but no luck.

Re:kde & smb shares

[iplayfast]

I've used fish. (as in fish:smb.com)
If you've got ssh setup it can even be automagically and transparently secure.

It's fun dragging pictures from two different servers across the country.

Re:What about this Kiosk mode I've been hearing ab

[StressGuy]

Yea, tux paint is a good one. I *should* try pingus, my son is big-time into penguins (I think largely from using linux).

Nothing like...

[sethadam1]

...a good Futurama reference to spice up your KDE download.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[pandrijeczko]

Is this an excuse? Is OpenOffice an inferior product and that is why it costs less?

No, it's a fact.
Whether OpenOffice is inferior or not depends on what you expect an office package to do. I certainly made no comment on whether OO or MS Office was better, I just asked for the comparisons to be made based on the fact that one is a free product and the other costs money if you use both legitimately under the terms of their respective licensing agreements.
If you need about 90% of the functionality of MS Office then it's a better product because it costs no money, runs on multiple OSes, is downloadable free from the Internet, etc.
If you need Visual Basic support and 100% compatibility with all MS (proprietary) formats, then OO cannot help you.

Remember for AT-HOME DESKTOP users illegal or legal is not the issue, it's competetion.

Keep that one back to use in front of the judge if and when you're ever caught for using software illegally.

Paying for XP/Office is insanity, every copy I have ever seen is a copy.

You've kind of defeated your own argument there. You've said that you use MS Office because you can get it free. Does that mean that if you had to pay for it, you would do so? Or would you look at alternative packages? Or would you simply stop creating documents, spreadsheets & presentations?

While it may be 'immoral' it doesn't preclude that OpenOffice must still compete, in the users mind, against a free product.

So if you and I sat down to play chess, for example, and I knew you were the better chess player, it would be perfectly fair of me to insist that you play the game without your queen piece, would it? According to your logic, it would be...

If you, or anyone else, is going to compare to pieces of software against each other, then do so on a level-playing field, that's all I'm asking.

Most people use 10-15% of the capabilities of MS Office in which case OO serves a perfectly good, stable alternative while also being truly free.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

First, let me be pedantic and tell you you're using pedantic incorrectly. Your point is wrong too. I didn't complain that I have to use CDs to hold the Linux distro or electricity to power the computer. I focused on the big picture: loss of productivity. Here's your sandwich analogy back at you:

I'm just getting ready to sit down to eat a sadwich. The food is on the table ready to be eaten and mmm mmm, it's a sandwich I like.

You walk in with the ingredients for another sandwich that you want to give me for free. It is not clear that your sandwich , that I must make, will be better than or even as good as the sandwich I have. Still, you want me to switch sandwiches because you're giving me one for free while the one I have I purchased from Quizno's, a large chain of sandwich shops.

Re:Now

[jusdisgi]

Right....sure thing. I pity the poor fools who modded this "insightful."

1)It is true that a "typical user" is not ready to install, configure, and administrate a Linux computer. However, they aren't ready to install, configure, and administrate a Windows computer either. Now...given a properly installed/configured Windows system as it arrives from Dell, most users will be fine. And given a properly installed/configured Linux system as it arrives from one of the Linux hardware vendors, or from your local geek (assuming he/she's good) most users will be similarly fine.

I know this because I have set up several "typical users" on Linux systems, and they are fine.

2)Also, Mr. Insight, did you pause to consider the audience for the statement that now might be a good time to try a free desktop? You know, the slashdot audience?! This was not a statement directed at "typical users."

Re:How faster?

[bonch]

Heaven forbid a desktop not take a minute to start up in the morning. It's annoying, day in and day out.

Contrib Packages for 3.2

[hashinclude]

Since nobody has (yet) taken the pains of posting the mirror list (yea, yea, I know, this is /.) -- here it is:

Hmm .. I wonder if the /. lameness filter was designed so that people couldn't post whole mirror lists themselves. Telling me that I don't have enough characters per line. I think I'll just ask the KDE people to create a static fast-serving no-css page full of mirrors for KDE whenever a release happens. That way, at least some amount of trouble would be saved. Goes off to mail KDE team ...

(pulled from KDE Mirror List)

WARNING: VERY BAD FORMATTING to get around the lame lameness filter.

mirrors.isc.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ibiblio.org. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu. . .
mirrors.midco.net. . .mirrors.midco.net. . .ftp.oregonstate.edu. . .kde.oregonstate.edu. . .download.uk.kde.org. . .
download.at.kde.org. . .download.at.kde.org. . .ftp.eu.uu.net. . .ftp.tiscali.nl. . .ftp.du.se. . .
ftp.solnet.ch. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .ftp.rutgers.edu. . .kde.uk.themoes.org. . .kde.us.themoes.org. . .
ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.de.kde.org. . .ftp.gwdg.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de. . .
ftp.uni-kl.de. . .download.au.kde.org. . .ftp.roedu.net. . .ftp.fi.muni.cz. . .ftp.fu-berlin.de. . .
ftp.tu-chemnitz.de. . .sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de. . .filepile.tiscali.de. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .ftp.tuniv.szczecin.pl. . .
sunsite.icm.edu.pl. . .sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch. . .ftp.se.kde.org. .

Re:Gentoo E-build? No files to be seen. Yet.

[md17]

Still waiting for those gentoo mirrors?

I'm not....

$ sudo emerge -f kde
Calculating dependencies ...done!
>>> emerge (1 of 27) dev-libs/libpcre-4.4 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: pcre-4.4.tar.bz2 MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) pcre-4.4.tar.bz2
>>> emerge (2 of 27) kde-base/arts-1.2.0 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: arts-1.2.0.tar.bz2 MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) arts-1.2.0.tar.bz2
>>> emerge (3 of 27) kde-base/kdelibs-3.2.0 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: kdelibs-3.2.0.tar.bz2 MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) kdelibs-3.2.0.tar.bz2
>>> emerge (4 of 27) kde-base/kdebase-3.2.0 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: kdebase-3.2.0.tar.bz2 MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) kdebase-3.2.0.tar.bz2
>>> emerge (5 of 27) app-crypt/gpgme-0.3.14 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: gpgme-0.3.14.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) gpgme-0.3.14.tar.gz
>>> emerge (6 of 27) app-crypt/cryptplug-0.3.15 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: cryptplug-0.3.15.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) cryptplug-0.3.15.tar.gz
>>> emerge (7 of 27) dev-libs/libmal-0.31 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: libmal-0.31.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) libmal-0.31.tar.gz
>>> emerge (8 of 27) kde-base/kdenetwork-3.2.0 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: kdenetwork-3.2.0.tar.bz2 MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) kdenetwork-3.2.0.tar.bz2
>>> emerge (9 of 27) kde-base/kdepim-3.2.0 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: kdepim-3.2.0.tar.bz2 MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) kdepim-3.2.0.tar.bz2
>>> emerge (10 of 27) media-sound/mpg123-0.59s-r1 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: mpg123-pre0.59s.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) mpg123-pre0.59s.tar.gz
>>> emerge (11 of 27) media-libs/libfame-0.9.0 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: libfame-0.9.0.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) libfame-0.9.0.tar.gz
>>> emerge (12 of 27) media-libs/flac-1.1.0 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: flac-1.1.0.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) flac-1.1.0.tar.gz
>>> emerge (13 of 27) media-libs/xine-lib-1_rc3-r1 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: xine-lib-1-rc3a.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) xine-lib-1-rc3a.tar.gz
>>> emerge (14 of 27) media-libs/musicbrainz-2.0.2 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: libmusicbrainz-2.0.2.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) libmusicbrainz-2.0.2.tar.gz
>>> emerge (15 of 27) media-libs/taglib-1.0_beta2 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: taglib-0.96.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) taglib-0.96.tar.gz
>>> emerge (16 of 27) media-video/xanim-2.80.1-r4 to /
>>> Previously fetched file: xanim2801.tar.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> Previously fetched file: xa1.0_cyuv_linuxELFg21.o.gz MD5 ;-)
>>> Previously fetched file: xa2.1_iv32_linuxELFg21.o.gz MD5

Re:Delay This Post !

[MFA.at.DK]

HEAnet (ftp.heanet.ie) is (of course) running well, 4 hours old mirror... got to admire that server (well, 2 servers but anyway) Yet Denmark (were I come from) is really old... approx 140 days... thats why I always download from HEAnet... damm I like that mirror... If only it could use it as an emerge-mirror...

Slashdot and mirrors

[bonch]

As a rule, Slashdot has never linked to mirrors or taken into consideration the bandwidth concerns of any site they link to. Bitching about it falls on deaf ears, and the editors shrug it off as though they have nothing to do with it. It's strange that they ignore it.

Re:How faster?

[MikeCapone]

If it still takes some 15 secs to startup even on high-end machines, it'll not be faster enough for me.



I prefer XFce too, but for other reasons; startup time isn't a big deal since I usually start X once every few weeks.

Re:read the post

[10Ghz]

So, Windows XP is "quite stable and secure" only if you use some additional tools? Wouldn't that mean that XP is not secure by itself, only if you beef it up with virus-scanners and the like it would be considered secure?

Since 1998

[bonch]

so in the corperate areana windows can put it's head between it's knees and kiss it's ass goodbye

So I've been hearing since 1998...

Re:Since 1998

[timmarhy]

your a moron and have been modded accordingly as you can see

Not everyone can compile

[nurb432]

Remember KDE is a huge project and not everyone has the resources to compile such a beast.

Its sort of like telling them to do 'make world' and laugh as their machine goes up in a puff of smoke..

Re:Not everyone can compile

[ajs318]

Now there's an idea for a benchmark :) Of course, actually running KDE needs a fair bit of horsepower, unless you turn off some of the bells and whistles, so I'd guess that most of the machines people would want to run it on would be up to the job. And it's not as if you can't leave the compilation to get on with itself. {Just make sure you have plenty of credit on your electricity meter before you start}.

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[10Ghz]

I stand by my original rant. If my company wants to develop software for KDE/QT internally and not release the source code, I must buy a QT dev license (not cheap).

So, you want to develop an in-house software, right (that's what I assume the "internally" means)? In that case you do NOT have to buy Qt-license! The GPL says that code that is not released to the public (in other words: in-house software) do not have to have it's code released!

If I wrote a Qt/KDE-app that me and my GF would be using, I would have NO obligation to release the source! Likewise, if you write a piece of software that will be used internally at your company, you do NOT have to release the source! Therefore you can use the GPL'ed Qt just fine!

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[10Ghz]

If Linux is to replace Windows everybody must come on board, including enterprises with internally developed software that don't want to release source code.

Serious question: are you really that ignorant or are you just trolling?

Re:How faster?

[FooAtWFU]

Startup time? Let me put it this way. It takes longer to *shut down* Windows than to start up Linux, and longer still to start up Windows.

Windows sure gets the login screen faster, but then it takes forever to load all the additional junk that Windoze needs.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[addaon]

See, I already own Windows

You mean, you already license it.

As shown in the URI

[hummassa]

these are for Woody (stable), not Sarge or Sid.

You took the comment out of context.

[MAXOMENOS]

What the parent stated is:

KDE is extremely expensive to develop for, unless you intend to produce GPL software.

As far as I know, this statement is true.

Re:You took the comment out of context.

[ajs318]

Yes. But if there is one thing better than getting a return on your own investment, then it is getting a return on someone else's investment. And whenever anyone invests effort in improving Open Source software, everybody who uses it benefits. You get to keep everything you added to it, plus you get to keep everything anyone else added to it.

Re:You took the comment out of context.

[MAXOMENOS]

Have you ever heard of the term "Return on Investment"? Apparently it is quite useful.

Your return on your investment of $0 for GPL Qt is experience and (if you're good and lucky) recognition for an open-source project, plus whatever you can sell from packaging, documentation, support, etc.

If you're looking to make money on your closed-source application, then buy a license from TrollTech. Or use another package besides Qt. Trolltech seems to be making enough money in this economy, so someone out there must believe that the steep per-seat costs are worth it.

Re:You took the comment out of context.

[be-fan]

Except its not. You can produce BSD-licensed software, LGPL-licensed software, MIT-licenses software, etc. And even for closed-source development, Qt isn't "extremely expensive." Rational Rose, is *extremely* expensive, yet professional software companies think nothing of buying copies. Qt is much cheaper, and a much bigger productivity boost for programmers.

official packages

[drewness]

Btw - when can we expect "official" debian/slackware/... packages?
Official like official from debian? Or like official from KDE? KDE already offers packages of 3.2 for Debian stable, as well as Slack 9.0 and 9.1. And I'm sure that 3.2 will show up in unstable in a day or two in the official debian repository, and in testing in short order after that. Not to mention, 3.1.5 has been in testing for a long time, so it's not like we're using KDE 1.0 or anything. (Well, I'm using GNOME 2.4, but the new installer actually installs KDE 3.1.5 as the default and you have to get GNOME yourself.)

Re:official packages

[packman]

That wasn't the actual intention of the question - it really was a "btw" - was too lazy to check if they were already present, have to upgrade the "family" pc that still runs debian (and no complaining about that btw), and it runs and keeps running (KDE 3.1.5 btw) :) Also still have a slack running somewhere, and a SuSE also, maybe a good time to upgrade :)

Gentoo ebuilds now unmasked

[Visceral Monkey]

Emerge sync and have fun.

Re:PLEASE STOP WITH THE K-PREFIX CRAP

[Cronopios]

stop with the Ks--it's not cute, funny, or intuitive!

But it's kute, kool and koherent :-)

Re:Delay This Post !

[Cronopios]

*idiot's linking directly to the root source, moorons* and larger shame on CmdrTaco for not haveing common sense to check the mirrors aren't up to date

Don't blame the submitter. The story clearly states that the tarballs are still propagating to the mirrors.

Re:How faster?

[bwy]

XP should go pretty quick post-login unless you have a bunch of TSRs or something. Most users have TSR overkill... a coworker's system tray is full of crap that all has some sort of background process tied to it. Totally unecessary shit too. Does a person need Winamp, Winzip and MS Office agents always running? I think not.

I guess you'd have to compare apples to apples. Assemble two boxes (XP and Linux) as closely as possible... i.e. DHCP workstations with a similar number of services. Part of the problem may be that the default install from most distros give you WAY too much crap. Sure you can turn it off but for novice users it would be nice to have a super-thin workstation option that just gives you a single browser, mail client, etc. Most non-developer/non techie folks won't need 5 web browsers. XP out of the box actually loads pretty thin. Its when you start adding apps that take over your system when the problems start.

Point-by-point

[glpierce]

What does sessionmanagement have to do with my post? My bookmarks, windows, and desktop are all fine, so I'm not sure what "problem" you're referring to.

I don't need to run many apps at a time (see parent).

I haven't had a virus/security problem in years. Keeping NAV/NIS up to date and configured intelligently is easy and effective.

Today, not tomorrow

[glpierce]

Installing Windows is extremely easy, and no major administration or configuration is necessary for a typical user.

There was no implication that /. readers were the sole target of the grandparent.

Most importantly, typical users are already familiar with Windows. There isn't any reason for them to learn an entirely new operating system when there is no real benefit (any security gains and cost savings are more than overmatched by lack of hardware support, documentation, and universality across distros, among other things).

Re:Today, not tomorrow

[jusdisgi]

Installing Windows is extremely easy, and no major administration or configuration is necessary for a typical user.

Maybe so, on your fantasy island. Here in the actual world, Windows installations require knowledge of computing just like Linux installations. You might just get lucky, and have all your hardware auto-detected, but you'll have about the same chance of that either way you go. And if you do have to go get drivers for your XP box, it will get over the head of a "typical user" in a hurry. And let's just hope that you didn't try to install XP on top of an old XP installation that you had upgraded to SP1...because if you did, your dialup networking won't work until you go through a registry hack that takes you 10 levels deep into the tree to delete two keys labeled with meaningless numbers. Heck, I even saw a Dell laptop ship that way once. No lie.

Point is, if you expect to hand your granny a WinXP box and a computer and say, "good luck"...you're insane. Why would you expect anything different from Linux?

There was no implication that /. readers were the sole target of the grandparent.

Uh....except for the (rather obvious) fact that /. readers were the only people reading the grandparent?

Re:Today, not tomorrow

[jusdisgi]

Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention...

1)Linux runs on lots more hardware than windows.

2)There is no shortage of documentation. And while I'm at it...where's this fabulous Windows documentation? Quit smoking crack, and quit talking about stuff you know nothing about.

3)Universality isn't a big deal, for a couple of reasons. First, since these are "typical users", they will just equate the distro they got from the hardware vendor or friendly geek to "Linux." So the universality issue doesn't affect them. And also, the differences between distros are not huge...certainly not anything like the difference between Windows 95 and Windows XP...

4)There are lots of real benefits for lots of real people. And don't be so quick to dismiss the costs; it's easy to say that Windows isn't that expensive, but once you add in Office and a couple other programs, the software costs more than the computer. It's funny that you mentioned the GIMP a while ago...that's one of the programs that brought several of my friends in. At least one of those was previously pirating Photoshop (and Windows...) because he couldn't afford it. He said he felt bad about it...so when I showed him something he could have legally, he went for it. Maybe the cost of software isn't an issue for you....but let me tell you, it is a serious issue for the majority of the world's population.

Re:Today, not tomorrow

[d_i_r_t_y]

Installing Windows is extremely easy, and no major administration or configuration is necessary for a typical user.

grab a mandrake install CD or 2, a brand new pc, and insert disc. turn computer on. choose all the defaults. reboot. use computer. you'll need to know your ISP's ADSL number and DNS, and be able to enter an administrator (root) password at the appropriate time.

it's just the same, and as easy, as installing windows.

Re:Today, not tomorrow

[Eric Damron]

Get a copy of Mandrake and install it. It is no harder than installing Windows.

"Learn an entirely new operating system." You really don't know what you're talking about. It's all point and click people! For the average user there is nothing to learn!

God. You Window's zealots just don't get it.

Re:Today, not tomorrow

[Tukla]

Installing Windows is extremely easy

When I installed XP, the first thing the installer asked was how I wanted to partition the hard drive and which filesystem I wanted to use. "Joe Sixpack" would already be lost!

(Don't even get me started on how it assigned arbitrary drive letters to the partitions and ended up putting the system on F: instead of C:. Funny how that HDD died soon after XP was put on it.)

Re:Today, not tomorrow

[llefler]

grab a mandrake install CD or 2, a brand new pc, and insert disc. turn computer on. choose all the defaults. reboot. use computer. you'll need to know your ISP's ADSL number and DNS, and be able to enter an administrator (root) password at the appropriate time.

Not really installing, but grab a Knoppix CD and simply boot. It has the best hardware detection I have seen (windows or linux). I've used it on old systems (pentiums, K6s) and brand new Dells, as well as single and multi processor. Has worked every time and I've never had to hunt for a driver.

Works pretty good for showing people how little they have to relearn to use linux.

Re:switch to linux NOW you say?

[anthonyrcalgary]

Actually...

I tried Linux a while ago, and while it was everything I needed for server stuff, I couldn't get a number of things working right, and one of those things was sound. I wanted Linux, and sound was one of the percieved barriers. When I found out how KDE handled sound with arts, it was one of the things that pushed me in the direction of KDE and removed a barrier.

When I got the machine I have now I got a free copy of XP Pro (legally with the MSDNAA) it lost the race with the Linux partition to a working system. The network drivers didn't work for my onboard network (had to use an old 3Com nic to bootstrap), and I couldn't get the thing to display at 1280x1024. Uhg. I was surprised it was easier with Linux.

I've found with KDE 3.1 that it's just got all the little refinements that makes it less of a PITA than anything else. I tried gnome, and it frustrates me because it's difficult to find things and set them up. Windows and MacOS frustrate me too, they take a more effort than KDE. And with Gentoo/Portage, it takes very little effort to maintain things...

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[10Ghz]

He has no insight. If you use GPL'ed software in-house in your own project, you do NOT have to release the source to the rest of the world. IIRC GPL requires that the users of the software must have access to the source, and since all the users would be employees of the company, it source would not spread outside the company.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[lafiel]

Incredible. A logical and well-thought out response to a Windows supporter's post. Thank you!

Re:How faster?

[Carnildo]

So, your desktop-usage consists mostly of starting, restarting, restasting and restarting you GUI over and over again? You can't wait for few seconds for the GUI to start?

Under Windows, it sure feels like it. I built my current computer one year and eight months ago. During that time, I've used it mostly under Linux. Even so, there are over four hundred entries in the Scandisk log, which works out to two crashes for every day that I've used Windows. With a track record like that, the two-and-a-half minutes it takes to start up is significant.

Re:Windows already comes with a free desktop

[Carnildo]

Your 'bastardisation' of the word free shows that the world of advertising has been a complete success. "Buy one get one free!" No, you get two for the price of one, but one is not free. You still have to pay. Anything which requires an exchange of something is not free.

There's a technical difference between "buy one, get one free" and "two for the price of one": "two for the price of one" means you can get one for half price, while "buy one, get one free" means if you buy one, it's full price.

Re:How faster?

[Zeriel]

Hrm, I don't tend to have these problems that you seem to be having, if only because KDE isn't duplicating the functions of other running daemons.

I hate to say it, but Linux distributions that include more than one window manager are what really causes the slowdown on boot/WM start. I just finished compiling KDE3.2 on my LFS box (okay, I'm never doing that again...life's too short for source packages =P) but it goes from cold to logged in ready to go in about 45-60sec on a 733Mhz P3, precisely because the only sound&video drivers/daemons I'm loading are associated with KDE.

It also helps if you use standalone drivers/libraries rather than letting KDE fill in the blanks in your driver toolkit.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Nice response, thanks. I do use Linux...in another reply I mentioned at work we have a cluster of Xeon dualies (1 Dell 2650 and 3 Dell 1750s) running Linux and other assorted open source apps. The trolls don't bother me. I've been here long enough to expect them to come out whenever I mention Windows.

You know why I won't switch to linux on my desktop? Games.

Re:(from KDE Site) US Mirrors - Not all updated ye

[gotem]

is that the time it will take to download and compile?

Re:How faster?

[mingot]

Scandisk? Fat drive? Eish, and what version of windows are you using?

Excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

or dicking around with a bad Windows emulator program,

Hey! WINE is not an emulator!

Screenshots?

[CosmicDreams]

Are the screenshots for KDE 3.1.x comparable to how 3.2 looks like?

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it...

[pNutz]

...six hours after I finish emerging kde 3.1.5.
It took 20 hours.

Shit on a stick.

Re:read the post

[10Ghz]

But that would be more or less like saying "Yeah. WinXP is 100% bullet-proof OS. There is NO WAY a cracker could compromise this machine! All I have to do in order to achieve that is to disconnect it from the network, put it in a locked safe and guard it 24x7!"

Like I said: WinXP is not safe. It's vulnerable to viruses and exploits. You can reduce the risk by using a firewall or virusscanner. But using those apps doesn't mean that XP itself is secure. The security is not due to the superior design of the OS or anything like that, it's because of the host of add-on software one must run.

Gentoo and the ebuilds

[spikedvodka]

Gentoo has unmasked the e-builds, and so far the download is going well.

some of the mirrors haven't been updated yet (Tue Feb 3 15:10:47 EST 2004) but so far there has always been at least one working mirror.

I just hope that I manage to finish downloading everything before the servers are slashdotted to mars and back by everybody downloading it

Re:How faster?

[Carnildo]

Scandisk? Fat drive? Eish, and what version of windows are you using?

Since I dual-boot Linux and Windows, I can't use NTFS for the Windows drives if I want them to be read/write accessible from Linux.

Three things...

[glpierce]

1. The typical user has several years of experience with Windows. 2. Most hardware will be autodetected and supported by Windows (typical users don't have cutting-edge technology). If not, the hardware typically has a CD and simple instructions. 3. A huge amount of discussion (maybe the majority) is about the effects of issues on people not reading /..

Re:Three things...

[jusdisgi]

The typical user has several years of experience with Windows.

So, when Windows was released, the typical user had years of experience with DOS. Clearly, no one should ever have switched to Windows. By the way, when you take out this argument, you don't have anything left...studies show that people who haven't used either system find Linux just as easy to use as Windows. Especially if you are a non-English speaker.

It is clearly true that there is more pre-existing Windows knowledge than Linux knowledge. That's why this would be a "switch." But saying, "there's no reason to switch, because we would have to switch" just doesn't make any sense. Come up with a real reason, or just quiet down.

Most hardware will be autodetected and supported by Windows (typical users don't have cutting-edge technology)

Most hardware will be autodetected and supported by Linux (typical users don't have cutting-edge technology)

A huge amount of discussion (maybe the majority) is about the effects of issues on people not reading /.

Perhaps. However, the head of this discussion says simply "This is a good opportunity for Windows users to migrate to a free desktop." And the great^x grandparent just says "when isn't?"...both comments are very obviously directed at this crowd...the crowd reading the comments. If it said "now would be a good time to run around installing Linux on as many neophyte-owned computers as you can get your hands on while they're not looking" your comments would be warranted. But otherwise, we expect you to look at the audience that is reading the suggestion. And they are not typical users.

Re:Three things...

[glpierce]

"...when Windows was released, the typical user had years of experience with DOS. Clearly, no one should ever have switched to Windows..."

The switch to Windows allowed people to do things they would not have been able to do, and wanted to. Games, internet applications, better word processing, etc. were all Windows benefits. Linux is an alternative to Windows, not a necessary upgrade. For the average person, the only benefit to switching to Linux is saving a few dollars and a bit more security. That's simply not enough to make them enter an unfamiliar environment.

"...studies show that people who haven't used either system find Linux just as easy to use as Windows"

I certainly advocate new users starting with Linux - my argument is against the reasons to switch right now.

"...saying, "there's no reason to switch, because we would have to switch" just doesn't make any sense. Come up with a real reason, or just quiet down.""

Switching is a major cost in itself. An entirely new operating system/interface has to be learned, different applications must be used (and learned), etc.. If you've ever moved (or considered moving) your residence, you should be well aware of the costs of moving itself as a factor in the decision.

Re:Three things...

[Eric Damron]

"The switch to Windows allowed people to do things they would not have been able to do, and wanted to. Games, internet applications, better word processing, etc. were all Windows benefits. Linux is an alternative to Windows, not a necessary upgrade. For the average person, the only benefit to switching to Linux is saving a few dollars and a bit more security. That's simply not enough to make them enter an unfamiliar environment."

ROFLMAO!

Sorry kid but I was there. When Windows first came out it ran on top of DOS and it was horrible!

All the types of programs you mention were available under DOS.

What windows did do is allow the illustion of multitasking. However at a terrible cost. Programming applications became nearly impossible and the system would hang... a lot...

So I guess we should all still be running DOS.

There are many advantages to switching to Linux that far exceed the downside. You want to talk about the cost of learning new applications?

Most people use word processors, spreadsheets, mail clients, etc. These are all available for Linux and there is no great learning curve. Point and click people, point and click.

Now lets talk about the cost of keeping a windows system secure from viruses, worms and the cost of constant patches due to other windows flaws. It's a LOT more than Linux.

So to sum it up. Linux doesn't have a huge learning curve for the average user and it is easier to keep secure.

Re:Three things...

[glpierce]

Yes, I "was there" when Windows rolled out, too. I remember when most games required Windows 3.1 and a double-speed CD-ROM. I remember WordPerfect for Windows, AOL 2.5, etc.. Don't treat me like a kid just because you don't like my opinions (although this isn't even a question of opinion). Windows was a huge step up from DOS, allowing far better graphics, multitasking, etc.. That isn't even debatable.

Web standards?

[greppling]

KDE's web support has [...] increased compliance with widely accepted web standards.

Translate: Konqueror has increased compatibility with widely accepted html standard-violations.

Re:How faster?

[mingot]

And that windows version?

Re:Gentoo E-build?

[morgajel]

there's one problem with what you're saying- it's in unstable.

I've had several bad exerpiences with people in #debian on freenode(*cough*mwilson*cough*) that say you should never ever run unstable unless your a developer and you're an idiot if you do and that they'll refuse to help you.
when you ask them "but then how do I install kdeX?" they give you shit about being a KDE user. At the time I was using testing because everyone told me it was more stable than unstable, but still had newer packages than stable. at the time, both unstable and stable had kde 3, and I couldn't get it for testing.

I'm backing the original poster on this- a *lot* of debian "fanboys"/supporters despise KDE.
(I had a horrible meltdown when I did try unstable to get kde, so I'm a bit biased.) I still run debian as a server on one of my machines because it's happily tugged along with occasional updates, but all my workstations(5 of them) run gentoo because it's ports-like system completely avoids the issues I was having with debian.

I wish I could explain it better, but I'm not that eloquent. I do agree with you tho- the new debian installer is nice. it's sad that distros are judged on something that you'll only ever use once.

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[Axoiv]

You might also consider the "Artistic license", which can be used with Qt, just choose the QPL license.

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[Axoiv]

> ...including enterprises with internally developed software that don't want to release source code.

You really believe this? And what do you think will happen in the end then? When commercial apps just take what they want without contributing back? Outrunning the free software competition. I can already see the next Microsoft a la Linux before my eyes...

Desktop is nice, but I need power management!

[InternationalCow]

I'll migrate when I get decent ACPI support in Linux - I have laptops only. Oh, and I will need EndNote or a comparable reference manager in order to be able to ditch Word. Those are the only things that keep me from migrating to an OSS solution for my computing needs.

Re:PLEASE STOP WITH THE K-PREFIX CRAP

[unborn]

Yes, because people prefer Volkswagen to the BMW because of its name.

Next time please a little later :)

[Frodo420024]

Got my binaries from a mirror which had not replicated competely yet. Missed out kdelibs and stuff. Didn't notice, *KA-POOF!*. Fortunately Opera works outside KDE and I'm getting the rest now.

We can live with having this posted just a little later to /. :)

Re:(from KDE Site) US Mirrors - Not all updated ye

[gotem]

hmm, yes, as funny. maybe I should attach a smiley s/$/\:\)/

Re:Delay This Post !

[danalien]

since 10:13 GMT, when I was announce I've been 'parting' /* and thank you very much, allready managed to get it home before the 'hords of slashdot' invaded the server(s) */

just, common sense, the harder the main site gets slashdoted the slower it takes for the mirroring to take place (sure, they'll mirror from the mirrors to other mirrors...but the faster users slashdot mirrors too that are up-to-date, the longer the whole proccess of updating every mirror takes...)

Re:Problem with images

[Explo]

On windowmaker, the default functionality for F12 is to bring up the application menu. Works finely on top of applications even if they are fullscreen.

If it happens to conflict with the keybindings of some application, it's configurable.

Re:USB 1.0

[Explo]

How do you think my digital camera with USB connection works with my Linux installation, if there is no support for USB1.0?

Likewise, an USB mouse works finely for me at work.

Re:What about this Kiosk mode I've been hearing ab

[teprrr]

Well, currently there is only this "document" and GUI will be in KDE 3.3.

Re:Gentoo E-build?

[vvizard]

You don't need to unmask those packages. You can instead specify the complete path to the ebuild to emerge itself. like this: "emerge /usr/portage/kde-base/arts/arts-1.2.0.ebuild"

And so on for the other packages.

KDE vs Windows

[master_p]

For people that argue that Windows has a consistent user interface, while Linux (KDE/Gnome) doesn't all I have to say is that on my Windows 2000 PC at work I have at least 5 different GUI toolkits:

1) old Win32
2) new Win32 - XP look
3) .NET
4) Java
5) Qt
6) Lots of apps with custom GUIs.

They all behave differently. The only consistent thing amongst them is cut and paste.

It is just a rumour that All Windows apps look the same.

Re:KDE vs Windows

[be-fan]

Don't forget that MS Office is one of those "apps with custom GUIs!"

Yep, it uses its very own toolkit. Wonder why Office 97/2000 looks nothing like an XP app?

I like my KDE3.2

[Schugy]

Thanks for that.

Schugy

Wow! You really don't have a clue!

[Eric Damron]

Have you ever run Linux? Have you?

Try it. Boot up a Linux box into KDE or GNOME. Looks a lot like windows huh?

Do you feel lost? If you do, let me help. Everything is point and click... Just like in Windows...

Now that wasn't hard was it. Why I'll bet even a "typical" user could do it with no problems.

You should really know what you are talking about or risk posting such a uninformed comment.

Re:Major release - apt sources line needed

[Wolfrider]

--I'm running Knoppix hdinstall and my apt sources.list is out of date for KDE - could you post the correct lines for this latest rev please?

--This is what I used to have, and had to comment it out cuz it stopped working:

# KDE 3
# deb ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/kde/stable/3.1/Debia n stable main
# deb-src ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/kde/stable/3.1/Debia n stable main
##deb http://ktown.kde.org/~nolden/kde stable main
##deb-src http://ktown.kde.org/~nolden/kde stable main

# KDE 3.1.1 add 2003.0416 XXX
#The line for KDE 3.1.1 stable:
##deb http://download.kde.org/stable/3.1.1/Debian stable main

# New KDE line: 2003.1106 xxxxx
deb ftp://kde.us.themoes.org/pub/kde/stable/latest/Deb ian stable main

# Latest KDE debs for woody. xxx 2003.0510
# xxx changed 2003.1106 woody to stable
##deb http://download.us.kde.org/pub/kde/stable/latest/D ebian/ stable main

--Knoppix is based on "testing"; if you have a line that self-updates, (symlink on the ftp site) that would be great. TIA

Re:How faster?

[spikedvodka]

So, your desktop-usage consists mostly of starting, restarting, restasting and restarting you GUI over and over again? You can't wait for few seconds for the GUI to start?

Actually, yes it does. For some reason that I can't quite fathom yet (probably an XFree86 issue) my laptop won't sleep in X, only when it's in the Command prompt will it sleep, and yes I've tried just having the console be at vc/1 while having X running, but that didn't work either, so a few seconds shaved off of the load time will be nice.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[ender81b]

It's not the system, it's who administers it.

I adminster over 250+ windows 2000 boxes. Not a single one has EVER been infected with any virus or worm and this is despite the fact that they are all public computers.

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[matdodgson]

Ok thanks for clearing that up. I'll do better research before I rant next time.

Re:Gentoo E-build?

[sirReal.83.]

"unstable" actually has nothing to do with how stable the OS is. It just means it's constantly changing. Ignore mwilson... he uses a command-line browser for everything. I use lynx sometimes too, but only when it's necessary. Fuck anyone who bitches about KDE. Many of the folks in #debian are quite helpful, provided you're not a lazy ass who asks first and thinks second. I'm in there a lot as sirReal, and I'm also in #debian-kde a lot. Those folks are *always* friendly, btw. You'll get a chance to talk to the maintainers as well.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Killswitch1968]

You've said that you use MS Office because you can get it free. Does that mean that if you had to pay for it, you would do so? Or would you look at alternative packages? Or would you simply stop creating documents, spreadsheets & presentations?

I would never pay MS prices for their software. If MS could (would?) enforce their copyrights (such that every XP was legitimate), it would be the best thing to happen to the OpenSource movement. Gates deliberately doesn't prosecute the simple at-home copyright infringer, just the ones that try and make a profit selling his wares.

So if you and I sat down to play chess, for example, and I knew you were the better chess player, it would be perfectly fair of me to insist that you play the game without your queen piece, would it? According to your logic, it would be...

I am trying to wrap my brain around this obscure analogy, but let's see if I got the gist:
OpenOffice and OfficeXP can't be compared because one has financial contributions and the other does not. Correct?
Once again I disagree. I'm not debating the fairness of this comparison, I am simply taking you through the users mind. "Should I get 100% functionality from product A for free, or 90% functionality from product B for free?"
That choice is obvious. Fairness and level playing fields are irrelevent to this mindset and the choice of the consumer. The threat of prosecution may be a threat, except Gates has never prosecuted a user for this infringement, and probably never will. Until this threat becomes real (as it has with the RIAA) people will gleefully consider the product 'free'. Until people ACTUALLY have to pay for their MS software (read: again, home users) this battle will always be won by OfficeXP.

Try state of the art X compression

[Nailer]

Check out NoMachine's X compression system. Performance is comparable to ICA. Its also Open Source, including clienbts for Windows. Get it here.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[debest]

You know why I won't switch to linux on my desktop? Games.

Excellent reason not to use Linux. Others are a need to run MS Office, applications that won't WINE properly, no hardware support for some hardware, and (as we already both know) using Linux can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

The beauty, though, is that all of your concerns will eventually be met satisfactorily by Linux in due time. I don't believe that any Free solution will ever be truly better than a proprietary solution for a typical end user (after all, catering to the unwashed masses is a time-consuming, very un-fun task: it'll be hard to get volunteers to polish Free software for noobs the way Microsoft et al can), but it will be good enough. Drivers will be released by most manufacturers! Native ports to Linux will be published by most big software houses. Linux will be properly preinstalled and configured on most boxen you choose to purchase that way. And, yes, most game titles will be released on both Linux and Windows.

It'll take time, as I said, at least a couple of years (probably more like five) before everything is "good enough" for most people. But it doesn't matter how long it takes: there is no company to go bankrupt as they wait for popularity. Nobody can make Linux go away as it steadily improves itself. (Well, I suppose software patents might, at least in the USA. I may be cynical, but even I have faith that they won't allow the only viable competition to a convicted monopoly be just legislated out of existance by asinine patent claims that are sure to come. But then I've always wanted to be more cynical :-)

The 3.2 release is missing something ...

[Kaemaril]

I've just looked at the announcement on kde.org, and something which should be there in large neon letters seems missing...

where are the lovely, lovely screenshots?

(Yes, I AM kidding)

Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses

[amitupadhyay7]

The GPL says that code that is not released to the public (in other words: in-house software) do not have to have it's code released!

IANAL, but as I understand your employees will have an option of demanding and releasing the source code as GPL. Am not saying its necessarily a problem, just that something you may keep in mind before taking related decisions.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[pandrijeczko]

I would never pay MS prices for their software. If MS could (would?) enforce their copyrights (such that every XP was legitimate), it would be the best thing to happen to the OpenSource movement.

I disagree. Firstly, what does the Open Source movement itself want? I don't believe that the prime goal of the OS movement is to displace Microsoft products but to maintain open standards - after all, even MS has every right to use Open Source software provided that any changes to it follow the license agreement - usually the GPL, but not always.

What I am trying to say here is that much of the Windows and Linux communities believe that there is some kind of war going on here when in fact it's a case of Microsoft waging the war against Linux - I don't even have a problem with that as a concept because any business has a right to protect its profits; unfortunately, the dirty way MS fights that war is the issue and no member of the Open Source community will simply sit back & let MS spread FUD and untruths. The Linux community is simply maintaining a defensive position.

From my own personal perspective, I really do not care whether people use closed or open source software. What I do care about is maintaining my basic rights of access to open standards and being left to do what I damn well like with my own data.

I therefore want to ensure that people know that by using MS software, they are essentially supporting closed protocols and DRM which ultimately hands over control of their data to MS and to whoever chooses to pay licensing to MS for their closed protocols. That's applies whether or not they pay for or copy MS software...

OpenOffice and OfficeXP can't be compared because one has financial contributions and the other does not. Correct?

No, they cannot be compared because you are not comparing "like-for-like". Read on...

Once again I disagree. I'm not debating the fairness of this comparison, I am simply taking you through the users mind. "Should I get 100% functionality from product A for free, or 90% functionality from product B for free?"

Okay, maybe you personally have a need for most or all of the functionality of MS Office.
Maybe you program VB stuff to link spreadsheets to documents, etc. etc.
Maybe you have complex work documents that you need to work on from home and need 100% compatibility, etc. etc.

All the above are valid justifications for choosing MS Office.

However, most people choose to go against the MS Licensing Agreement and use copied versions of MS Office that gives them a whole load of features of which they will never use 80% or so. (While I don't use MS Office anymore, I never used 80% of its features and I'm a fairly techie person.)

What I am saying to those people is that there is no point in them using MS Office - they're using it illegally (that's their choice, I'm not moralising here on the rights and wrongs of copied software) in which case MS do not care about those people having problems with that software, those people cannot ask MS for particular features to be changed or added plus they're allowing MS to impose on them closed standards that will ultimately take their control away from them - and make it difficult for the rest of us in the process.

Instead, those people would be better off using a OpenOffice where they get all the features they need, they can use it legitimatlely, their documents are saved in an open standard format and they can give their input on features and changes into the OpenOffice development team. In turn, the product gets better and more usable.

Fairness and level playing fields are irrelevent to this mindset and the choice of the consumer.

Of course they're not irrelevant! Many consumers think it's unfair that MS charge the money that they do for their products (yourself included). They consider it fair to copy those products and use them free of charge.

On the

Re:Free? No, not really...

[Killswitch1968]

You make some very good points. I think the primary one is basic consumer knowledge. People simply don't know the existence of OpenOffice (or what Linux even is). You blame this on Microsoft, consumers, businesses, whoever; but I have always firmly believed Linux's biggest failure is advertising.

And for those people with OfficeXP already installed, making a switch to (and I'm using this term lightly) a 'cripppled' suite doesn't make much sense. If they already had OpenOffice to begin with things might be different. But that's something marketers have always known; "The first one in wins".
This has been a very good discussion.

Re:PLEASE STOP WITH THE K-PREFIX CRAP

[Tukla]

One of my many pet peeves is people deliberately misspelling words

Yeah, that's why I use googol.com as my search engine.

Re:Free? No, not really...

[pandrijeczko]

This has been a very good discussion.

It's been a pleasure and great to have an intelligent argument with someone for a change :-)

Re:(from KDE Site) US Mirrors - Not all updated ye

[Perky_Goth]

why does anyone build from source? seriously! shouldn't most users just care about packages? what am i missing?

Rob Malda the KDE developer

[Rob Kaper]

647 comments and noone noticed Rob Malda contributed the token icons for Atlantik? Shame on you, /. readers!