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KDE 3.2.0 Released

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the get-your-gui-on dept.

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."

111 of 650 comments (clear)

  1. yes! by SQLz · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    1. Re:yes! by Dave2+Wickham · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    2. Re:yes! by JohnFluxx · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

  2. Fedora - RedHat ? by SilverSun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

    --

    KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing

    1. Re:Fedora - RedHat ? by marvin2k · · Score: 4, Informative

      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)

    2. Re:Fedora - RedHat ? by jergh · · Score: 5, Informative
      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 ;-)
    3. Re:Fedora - RedHat ? by edbarrett · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Fedora - RedHat ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    5. Re:Fedora - RedHat ? by ajs318 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!

      --
      Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
  3. Excuse me? by graveyardduckx · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Excuse me? by I+confirm+I'm+not+a · · Score: 5, Funny

      Friday night:

      (a) Even geeks need a social life.

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

      --
      This is where the serious fun begins.
    2. Re:Excuse me? by Grech · · Score: 2, Funny

      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".

      --
      It may not be just, but it is fair, and that is more important.
    3. Re:Excuse me? by bluGill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Excuse me? by Kidbro · · Score: 5, Informative

      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... :)

      --
      May we live long and die out
    5. Re:Excuse me? by Killswitch1968 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      --

      Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
    6. Re:Excuse me? by W2k · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
    7. Re:Excuse me? by Pengo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >> 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.

    8. Re:Excuse me? by jusdisgi · · Score: 4, Informative

      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

      --
      Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
    9. Re:Excuse me? by GreyPoopon · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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).

      --

      GreyPoopon
      --
      Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

    10. Re:Excuse me? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    11. Re:Excuse me? by King_TJ · · Score: 2, Informative

      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".

  4. If you don't like KDE... by mgebbers · · Score: 4, Funny

    check out this alternate free desktop

  5. Way faster??! by plams · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  6. Let's not forget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

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

  7. Major release by Judas-Priest · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Major release by PatrickThomson · · Score: 3, Funny

      Now since I had been using it on a teste machine

      shouldn't there be two of them?

      --
      I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
  8. Re:Trollish comment in the article by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    --
    It's official. Most of you are morons.
  9. KDE 3.2.0 Released... by itallushrt · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    Well here we go again.

  10. Is it worth upgrading? by armando_wall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!!!).

    1. Re:Is it worth upgrading? by klaasvakie · · Score: 5, Informative

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

      --
      # ssh -l neo the_matrix; killall -9 agent_smith
  11. Re:Gentoo E-build? by bc90021 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    libertarianswag.com
  12. Best Feature - Kontact by MadX · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I am really looking forward to Kontact - I think that this is a great addition to the KDE Desktop !!

    Great Job !!

    1. Re:Best Feature - Kontact by danimo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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

  13. Migrate by Rutje · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.

    --

    I want my karma, and I want it now!
    1. Re:Migrate by bfischer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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).

  14. slashdotted already by spectrokid · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    --

    10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

  15. Delay This Post ! by danalien · · Score: 4, Insightful
    *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...

    --
    I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
  16. Re:How faster? by 10Ghz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  17. Re:Trollish comment in the article by mirko · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
  18. Re:How faster? by Louis+Guerin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  19. How did this got modded up ? by phoxix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  20. Flamebait ? by mirko · · Score: 2, Informative

    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 ?

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
  21. What do you mean 99% useless to others? by timmarhy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    1. Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others? by spronk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      *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.

    2. Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others? by Fiveeight · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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?

    3. Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others? by SQLz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:What do you mean 99% useless to others? by Luscious868 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  22. Re:Windows already comes with a free desktop by Deusy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --

    Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary

  23. Re:More free? by GrenDel+Fuego · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  24. Let me also point out... by arvindn · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Let me also point out... by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "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.

      --
      0 1 - just my two bits
  25. Re:Gentoo E-build? No files to be seen. Yet. by iturbide · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  26. Re:You can get them by Maresi · · Score: 3, Informative

    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...

    --

    --
    The checkbox said "Requires Windows 98, NT, or better. And so I installed Linux
  27. Article Text by digitaltraveller · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

  28. Thank you! by wasimmer · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  29. Re:Trollish comment in the article by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  30. Re:Windows already comes with a free desktop by Axoiv · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  31. And the rest of you, use these mirros: by danalien · · Score: 3, Informative
    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...

    --
    I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
  32. Re:Packages for Debian?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  33. Hey man, this is Slashdot by Gothmolly · · Score: 2, Funny

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

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  34. DONT LOOK AT THE SCREENSHOTS !! by tdhdeep · · Score: 2, Informative

    The pics above make goatse look like a joke !

  35. Re:USB 1.0 by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Informative
    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.

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  36. RDP support? by Malc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  37. Re:USB 1.0 by Mmm+coffee · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

  38. Re:More free? by Roberto · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  39. RDP Client by brunes69 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:RDP Client by arendjr · · Score: 2, Informative

      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)

  40. Re:windows users NOT by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Stop posting to slashdot under assumed names Mr Gates.

    --
    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
  41. Re:windows users NOT by Avakado · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    --
    The world will end in 5 minutes. Please log out.
  42. Maybe some help on the way by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  43. Re:Trollish comment in the article by Peaker · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

  44. What about this Kiosk mode I've been hearing about by StressGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    A goal is a dream with a deadline
  45. Re:How faster? by Mmm+coffee · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  46. Now would be a good time to convert by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 4, Funny
    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...

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
    1. Re:Now would be a good time to convert by CoolVibe · · Score: 2, Informative

      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!

  47. (from KDE Site) US Mirrors - Not all updated yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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)

  48. Free? No, not really... by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  49. Re:Windows already comes with a free desktop by haeger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    --
    You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
  50. Migration Question by djeaux · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    --
    "Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
    1. Re:Migration Question by tr0llb4rt0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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

      --
      Worst .sig ever!
    2. Re:Migration Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  51. Re:windows users NOT by fafaforza · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  52. Is Kopete equal to Trillian? by jonatanw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Is Kopete equal to Trillian? by fault0 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Is Kopete equal to Trillian? by lokki · · Score: 2, Informative

      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. :)

      --
      I won't dance in a club like this...All the girls are slags, and the beer tastes just like piss! -The Specials
  53. Re:Gentoo E-build? by packman · · Score: 2, Informative

    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?

  54. mirror of feature list by Newtonian_p · · Score: 2, Informative

    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

    --

    There are 2 kinds of people in this world: Those who write in decimal and those who don't

  55. free desktop for windows by Squiddl3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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

  56. Re:Trollish comment in the article by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  57. Re:Packages for Debian?? by Dr.+Crane · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

  58. Re:Free? No, not really... by 10Ghz · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Windows XP is quite stable and secure.


    Then what's the deal with all those viruses?
    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  59. Re:Screenshots? by twener · · Score: 3, Informative

    The KDE Wiki links to several screenshot galleries.

  60. Re:I've been using it for the past week by fault0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  61. Re:Switching from Windows - Guide by porter235 · · Score: 2, Informative
    [-] point and click install of software. (general feeling that that doesn't really work)

    Try out Klik

  62. Re:Delay This Post ! by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't be a muppet. The "editors" here were replaced with very small shell scripts years ago.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  63. Re:Trollish comment in the article by LizardKing · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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

  64. Working Web Mirrors of www.kde.org by twener · · Score: 3, Informative

    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/

  65. Re:Free? No, not really... by debest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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 ;-)

    --
    Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
  66. Windows isn 'free' in a sense. by Killswitch1968 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    --

    Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
  67. Re:Now by jusdisgi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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."

    --
    Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
  68. Re:How faster? by bonch · · Score: 2, Funny

    Heaven forbid a desktop not take a minute to start up in the morning. It's annoying, day in and day out.

  69. Since 1998 by bonch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...

  70. Not everyone can compile by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  71. Re:Kde nothing but a way for QT to sell licenses by 10Ghz · · Score: 2, Informative
    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!
    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  72. Re:Free? No, not really... by addaon · · Score: 2, Informative

    See, I already own Windows

    You mean, you already license it.

    --

    I've had this sig for three days.
  73. As shown in the URI by hummassa · · Score: 2, Informative

    these are for Woody (stable), not Sarge or Sid.

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  74. Gentoo ebuilds now unmasked by Visceral+Monkey · · Score: 2, Informative

    Emerge sync and have fun.

    --
    *Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
  75. Excuse me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    or dicking around with a bad Windows emulator program,

    Hey! WINE is not an emulator!

  76. Re:Three things... by jusdisgi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
  77. Re:Today, not tomorrow by d_i_r_t_y · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  78. Re:Free? No, not really... by debest · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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 :-)

    --
    Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!