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Review: KDE 3.2
Anonymous writes "Today I installed KDE 3.2, third major release of the award winning KDE3 desktop platform, on my Fedora box. I have been using KDE 3.2 RC for the past few days and the final version from today. My first impression is 'wow.'"
Wow, sucide by Slashdot.
Philip
Philip
Signatures are broken
...they included screenshots in their review? And then submitted it to Slashdot? Server suicide, anyone?
Mirror of article, other peoples impressions, would be most welcome.
There is no dark side of the moon really, matter of fact it's all dark
Ahhh. I love the smell of fresh rpms in the morning...
Not that KDE 3.2 isn't distributed in other formats besides RPMs. But, man, I love new desktop environments. Gnome is nice and stable, but KDE is quite configurable.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
What awards has KDE3 won?
I like KDE much better than Gnome, personally, but that's because I like have a well-designed API. When it comes to window programming, object-oriented is the way to go. QT gets this, so does anyone using wxwindows (a good rewrite of MFC/OWL). But the Gnome folks stick to their procedural programming style APIs which are fine for simple programs, but for larger programs it just means that the programmer has to reimplement the OO overhead.
I have been pwned because my
His second impression was, 'Noooo... my poor server, what have they done to you...'
Now, will you stop lurking and tell us something about the site, you bastards!?
--Leo
Full-sized screenshots that are resized smaller in the HTML! Wonderful!
http://freecache.org/http://fedoranews.org/krishna n/review/kde3.2/
Because of early reports of slashdotting:
KDE 3.2
by Krishnan Subramanian
Today I installed KDE 3.2, third major release of award winning KDE3 desktop platform, on my Fedora box. I have been using KDE 3.2 RC for the past few days and the final version from today. My first impression is "wow".
KDE 3.2 provides an integrated desktop along with various applications to carry out common desktop tasks such as web browsing, email, instant messaging, multimedia, graphics, etc. Some of the impressive features which you will notice include
* Increase in speed evident from faster application startup time
* Improvements in usability and performance
* Better appearance through interface refinement
* Browser performance boost evident through better webpage rendering
Upgrading to KDE 3.2 is a breeze. If you are a newbie and want to learn how to do it, you can refer to my HOWTO. I started my installation and within few minutes I am logged into my new KDE 3.2 desktop.
The desktop is very polished and you can configure it in any way you want by right clicking on the desktop. You can setup your desktop background as a slide show so that the background picture changes at predetermined intervals. The style and window decorations are very refined increasing the overall appearance. I love plastik for style and window decoration. A better icon set is also available. Now that you can find a wide array of themes and icon sets in www.kde-look.org, you can customize your KDE desktop in any way you want. In fact, you can even select the KDE splash screen (which appears when you login) from the available choices.
The K Menu is better organized now. It is grouped into "Most Used Application", "All Applications" and "Actions". Even the applications are grouped in a much better way compared to earlier version.
The new KHotkey feature is really hot. You can create keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures for various tasks. This comes very handy. People used to such features in Microsoft Windows environment will love this feature. It is really cool to press the "Windows" key in your keyboard and see KMenu pop up in your screen.
The control center is well spruced up and better structured in KDE 3.2. Some of the tabs like background, window decoration, style etc. are redesigned.
Some of the welcome addtions to control center are
* Splash Screen - where you can select a KDE splash screen of your choice
* Wireless Network - where you can configure your wireless network. You can save upto four different configurations.
* Vim Component Configuration - where you can configure Vim to use inside KDE
* KHotkeys - where you can specify keyboard shortkeys and mouse gestures to lauch applications in KDE
* KDE Wallet - where you can configure KDE Wallet to store your internet and local passwords
* Sony Vaio Laptop - where you can configure the hardware for this laptop
KDE 3.2 has more countries under Country/Region. Also these countries are better organized. This is a very positive step in the internationalization efforts of KDE.
Another welcome feature in the control panel is the "Font installer". With this, installation of new fonts is a breeze. This is very useful for people who want to install their regional fonts and other extra fonts (many fonts are available in kde-look.org). The best aspect of the font installer is the instant preview available with it. I feel this is one of the greatest additions to KDE.
Many new applications are added and some of the existing applications have been upgraded. It is quite impossible to discuss all the applications available in KDE 3.2. I will just discuss some of the applications based on my preferences.
Konqueror: This is the central part of KDE environment. it is a web browser, file manager, network browser and so on. Konqueror has finally matured as a web browser. I feel, though many would disagree with me, that rendering of sites is somet
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
Mods should read this.
This is about the state of SuSE and their kde strategy
This is about Qt and its licence.
This is about the G word
Mod the gnome/anti-qt trolls down before suckers bite!
Now *that*'s funny.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Wow! That's it? That's the entire review? No offense slashdot editors, but this is pretty insubstantial. Hell, a Gene Shalit movie review is more insightful. Why not just a link to download the new KDE?
Damn, there goes my already diminishing karma.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am a debian user
You should go to a debian rehab clinic...
I always get my KDE for Red Hat (and Fedora) from the kde-redhat project. The project's lead Rex Dieter is doing an awesome job of keeping the latest KDE packaged as rpms that are available via apt-get with all dependencies worked out. Upgrade is as easy as
that during this cold, frigid season that he will be able to bask in fire that is his server after being /.ed
RPM's eh? you sure you're using Debian?
I Love Alberta Beef
The article basically starts off with the _really_ important stuff:
"You can setup your desktop background as a slide show so that the background picture changes at predetermined intervals."
Yes! This was the one missing feature I was waiting for! Finally, I can switch to KDE!
Urgs...
I didn't know you had to win awards to be infamous. Anyway, here you go:
it's just a KDE fan boy with screenshot reiterating the change log
This is not a review. It's just a rehash of some parts of the kde3.2 announcement enhanced with a few screenshots and personal comments.
Yes, I could turn off anti-aliasing. But I've used it in Konsole since pretty much always and have never seen this problem.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
>The style and window decorations are very refined increasing the overall appearance.
That's what KDE has the Gnome doesn't. More appearance, please. I just can't get enough.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Add these lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list to get experimental DEBs for Debian Unstable:
./ ./
deb http://people.debian.org/~ccheney/kde-3.1.95
deb http://people.debian.org/~bab/kde-3.2
These packages currently conflict with openoffice and koffice, I would uninstall them first.
Whenver something breaks in Gnome. Since I live on the Debian unstable branch, that's about once every 6 months or so. It's gotten a lot better from the last time I used it. It's a lot faster and doesn't feel nearly as awkward as it used to. Their default window manager also seems pretty smart about focus handling and stuff. It's also very pretty. All in all I'd say I could just as easily go either way on the desktop these days.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's not bad as such, but it didn't help me much either.
Most people are confused about desktop enviornments and Window managers, thats why you often get people saying KDE is big and bloated, when its not. KDE, does by the way have its own window manager, its just that it is transparent to the user, and in KDE 3.2 it has a really good one.
You will find oozes of new features and fun in the new Window manager, such as kool keys, fat borders, Window below others, and much much more. My favourite one is the abillity to have borderless Windows. But don't worry, you can get them back by pressing alt+f3.
So give it a whirl if you like managing your windows by right clicking any window title bar in KDE 3.2.
Of course, the elegance of the result is still debatable, but fortunately, there are lots of language bindings available.
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
You mean there are still people programming in low level languages like C and C++? ;)
I use the GNOME libraries from Ruby (via the excellent Ruby-GNOME2 bindings)-- and I've never heard anyone assert that Ruby is less OO than C++. Oddly enough, no one seems to be making Qt or KDE-lib Ruby bindings (probably has a lot to do with the C++-based FOX bindings already existing as free software on both Windows and Linux). And just in case people care: the gtk++ parts of Ruby-GNOME2 work on MS Windows, too, via the Dropline Gtk++ runtime for Windows.
For other scripting languages I can't speak as confidently, but doesn't Python have bindings for both gtk++ and Qt? Not remotely so sure about Perl, since most Perlers seem pretty happy with Perl's forked Tk library.
Now don't anybody get me wrong, I think the KDE project is very impressive and has a lot to be proud of. Especially of note is the wide range of native utility applications.
I do not have a signature
It's only fair since Nat and Miguel started their rumors here to post this. This is big news folks. Apparently SUSE has a much stronger say on the Novell Desktop than what we were led to believe by Miguel and Nat.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
A couple of days ago, I emerged KDE 3.2 on my Gentoo system. Aside from a wierd ALSA bug that I had to fix, the upgrade from 3.1.5 was pretty painless.
Anyway, my thoughts on the latest iteration of my chosen desktop. Let's just say that KDE 3.2 should raise eyebrows in Cupertino and soil pants in Redmond. There are numerous small eyecandy improvements, plus tons of little usability-enhancing features in common areas of the system (for example, Konqueror has a vastly improved file-manager sidebar that gives idiot-proof access to local partitions, printers, and even network shares). Some of the new applications debuting in this release are truly excellent, as well (like the slick iTunes-clone JuK or the lovely multiproticol IM client Kopete). Finally, some rather extensive optimizations seem to have taken place throughout the system, as KDE now seems more responsive than in the past (true, some of these optimizations are "cheating", like the option to keep an instance of Konqueror preloaded, but it's still a nice option to have).
Anyway, congrats to the KDE team on an excellent release, and thank you for proving once again that UNIX on the desktop isn't just a wild fantasy, it's a real-life joy.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
It appears that Mandrake has their distro-specific 3.2 RPMs up as of yesterday.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
This review reads like a lot of fanboy reviews of games, sci-fi flicks, and superhero comics: A bit of hype ("award-winning" - Why is this relevant to your review?), overly-broad praise ("you can configure it in any way you want by right clicking on the desktop" - You mean I can configure it to work just like OS X?), and missing-the-point criticisms ("I don't understand the need for three editors" - Maybe it's provide people with the choice of their favorite?).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Infamous is when you're more than famous. This desktop KDE, he's not just famous, he's infamous.
Wow. I'm impressed that the entire page actually loaded, instead of just timing out. So the server was able to at least send me a couple bytes every second to keep timing out, that's impressive.
... those "thumbnails" on the review page? They're not; they're just the pics they link to, resized a bit using img width= height= ... I didn't know people were still that stupid, especially given that at least one was full desktop sized.
... they were kind of boring. Everything was of empty windows; a little data to make things look, um, real would have been nice :3 It also hit me that KDE seems to have more K-programs than GNOME has G-programs now, which is just ugly.
I was kind of shocked to see what they were doing with the screenshots though
That having been said, I didn't find the screencaps even particularly flattering; not that I dislike KDE (though I don't use it), but
The Microsoft accusation is also, nonsensical, BTW.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
But the Gnome folks stick to their procedural programming style APIs which are fine for simple programs, but for larger programs it just means that the programmer has to reimplement the OO overhead.
... ... which means it runs on a larger number of platforms than that C++ of yours you only barely stop short of calling a silver bullet. ... and wrappers for other languages can be written more easily.
You don't know what you're on about.
1. Gnome and GTK are both object oriented APIs.
2. C is for Compatability
3.
4.
Gnome developers chose C because it works. Everywhere.
And don't forget stepping up to C++ leaves C developers out in the cold - especially if you make any sort of use of templates. That goes for moc too.
Even wxWindows has a GTK port. Where's the KDE/QT port?
So stop laying shit on the "Gnome folks".
it's not OSNews doing the 'reporting'.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
QT is as free as the Linux kernel since they are both under the GPL. In fact, it's even more "free" because you can make closed-source programs with it (even if it means paying someone) while you don't have that option at all with just the GPL.
Now however if you're talking about BSD free, then no QT is not free. But then again under this definition neither is Linux (the kernel), gcc, etc. either. So if you're going to dump QT for not being "free" to be fair you have to dump on practically all of Linux as well.
I'll shut up now.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Does anyone know a good way to install a binary version of KDE in Gentoo (x86)? I love Gentoo, Portage, and the community, but the three day compile to update KDE is starting to kill me.
Any chance at a kde-bin ebuild in the portage tree?
--
Njovich
I to, have installed KDE today. I also installed it yesterday, the day before, and I probably will still be installing it tomorrow.
Next time I wait for the RPMs.
"oh, by the way, if you want a UI, don't forget to also download such and such at website t46."
Stop spreading FUD. I've got a Taiwan flag in mine. I'm using Gentoo and compiled source straight from KDE. If RedHat removed it like another poster said, then it sounds like you need to stop using RedHat.
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
I've been using unofficial KDE 3.2 CVS debs for about 4 months. I'm loving it. For all those who are wondering about Debian/KDE, 3.2.0 will enter unstable when 3.1.5 enters testing. First, however, 3.2.0 will be in experimental. If you can't wait, however, fear not. At the Debian/KDE FAQ there are instructions to get KDE 3.2 whether you be on stable, unstable or (for some fool reason) testing. It only involves adding one or two APT sources and dist-upgrading. If you run into problems, come to #debian-kde on irc.freenode.net and ask around. The folks there are really helpful.
I can't believe all the corrections you're getting..
To Anyone else who wants to correct the poster: before you hit "submit", sit down and watch The Three Amigos.
wxwindows (a good rewrite of MFC/OWL)
That's oxymoronic. You cannot get a good rewrite of something so lacking as the MFC, and OWL is hardly better.
Don't believe me? Then why don't MS use the MFC themselves? For they don't - for all practical purposes they've shunned it all along, and with good reason.
I don't really believe the KDE people patterned their work after Microsoft's anyway; and as for 'procedural programming' in Gnome needing C constructs to achieve object orientation - well, if Linus himself says it can be done and done efficiently, then that's two voices who say so - at least.
I am not touting Gnome - on the contrary. And I am not touting KDE by any means - I've seen the code and it gives me vertigo. For you cannot achieve OO with C++ anyway. It's far better to use straight C, and then you don't have the overhead.
Whatever - if you want OO, use Objective-C. It's based on Smalltalk, and that's the only viable paradigm we've ever had (Simula/C++ just don't cut the muster, not by a long shot), and there I'll quote Alan Kay himself, thank you.
Finally, there is never any 'overhead' in OO any programmer has to 'reimplement'. OO is a way of looking at programming assignments - 'organisms' as Alan Kay saw it. It has nothing to do with orientation, or reimplementation, or any of that.
All of which might be too 'developer oriented' for this discussion, but you brought the topic up (and clumsily), not I.
READ the story on internetnews.com they talk to KDE people and SuSe development internetnews.com Here's one of my fav lines in the piece... "KDE 3.2 is very important for many people because it offers a nice set of new features," said SuSE's Schlaeger. "It's not a revolution as it used to be in the early days of KDE, when it brought something completely new to the Linux world that wasn't there, but I think the KDE project is making steady progress."
Bittorrent link or ftps: ftp1 and ftp2
I was taken aback by the significant speed improvements. 1st time I've ever done a KDE upgrade and really noticed the changes. The Plastik Style is finally a pleasant, harmless change of pace, the bouncing activity icons are actually cool this time. I still find the file manager far more versatile than the one found in gnome. Overall well worth the install. I just did a wget on a mirror for SuSE 9 RPM's ,removed some of the development RPM's I didn;t need and did an RPM -Uvh *.rpm. Worked great. I'll admit, it's the superficial thinbgs I like and notice, ie better looking penguin icons for the kdm login manager and a cool choice os splash screens, etc.
I'd been running Slack 9.1 for a long while with Dropline Gnome, still the most beeyootiful Desktop environment, but it doesn't have the functionality of KDE. I like both projects thhough, hopefully Novell can give each the room to do their own thing, even if KDE gets the nod as the preferred Novell/SuSE desktop.
PyQT
PerlQT
Sorry not in your language of choice.
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
I'm sorry, all credibility goes out the window with "award winning". It seems to me there's a whole lotta KDE astroturfing goin' on.
I see. Seems to me there's a whole lotta Microsoft shills that got modpoints, today (parent was modded '5 Insightful' at time of reading).
As a matter of fact, KDE has won numerous awards, year after year. And I wouldn't call it "astroturfing" to express celebration over a release of a new KDE version in an article announcing the release of a new KDE version.
I think it looks better than Windoze - classier, a polished, consistent look - but it's still a Windoze lookalike.
Get rid of that Teletubbie thing...
As far as I'm concerned, we're way past the time where C developers should be left out in the cold when it comes to UI programming.
I don't care if the OS and Kernel stuff is written in C for speed, whatever, but don't force an obviously OO concept (UIs) to be implemented in a procedural language...
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
He installed KDE 3.2 earlier today and already have a review ready? How is it possible to get an impression of such a big piece of software as that so fast, and still have time to write a review?
A piece of advice for future reviewers: Being fastest isn't the point with reviews -- thouroughness and being informative on behalf of the customers is.
Why did they do it in C when there is a object oriented C++ right available?
Several reasons:
- At the time of gnome's creation C++ was slow (wrt compiled code) and unstandardised (wrt source). Well, there were standards, but the popular compilers didn't pay all that much attention to them, and in fact, the MS compilers still don't pay much attention to them. As a result, a C++-based project had an immediate speed and portability hit.
- There was and still is no C++ binary abi. When you upgrade to a new compiler, you have to recompile all your libraries just to compile a new app with it. This is ugly.
And finally and most importantly:
- The gnome programmers were all C fanboys. They didn't know C++, and didn't want to learn it. Better to go with the devil you know than the devil you don't.
It doesn't really matter nowadays. GNOME uses hacks to implement OO in C, KDE/Qt uses hacks (the metacompiler) to implement signalling in C++. Both are a bit of a kludge. And both work well. Though generally I find KDE's architectural design cleaner and easier to get into. But then clearly either can be learnt and learnt well.
God, I hate that about Windows. If I ask my computer to open two windows of the same folder then it should do it! Windows assumes what I want and tries to second guess me (oh, you don't really want to open that folder again, do you?). KDE does what I tell it to do, which IMHO is what a computer should do. It is not the computers job to read my thoughts and try to figure out what I "really" mean.
Here's a situation where this particular "feature" annoys me. Since the default explorer file manager doesn't have view splitting it is necessary to have many folders open in order to drag and drop files. If I have "my documents" open and I'd like to drag something to a subfolder I'd like to open up a second copy of "my documents", navigate to the subfolder, and drag my files. Windows won't do this, I have to navigate away from "my documents" in order to open a new copy, which disrupts my workflow and is irritating. Of course, all of this is totally unnecessary in Konqueror, where view splitting and tabs make life so much more enjoyable.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
Here's a mirror, folks.
People, when you mirror things for Slashdot, your home cable modem probably won't work very well....
|/usr/games/fortune
Umm, the GNOME APIs are very well-designed and extremely object-oriented. As far as raw speed goes, gtk signal propagation is many times faster than QT's signals and slots mechanism.
Gnome/Gtk apps are not procedural. They are event-driven and object-oriented, just like QT. There are many apps written in the C++ bindings of Gnome. The idea that Gnome is fine for small programs but not large programs is false, if not stupid. Please do your research before posting such an obviously unresearched opinion.
As for overhead, C++ is, in many ways, simply syntactic sugar. As I said, there are awesome C++ bindings for Gnome and the Gnome object model (implemented in C) is very good. Programming overhead to do objects in C is minimal and there are great tools for generating objects. Also the switch to using XML primary to describe the guis makes Gnome GUI generation very easy and in just a few lines of code. In my experience your argument about reimplementing the OO is largely moot.
Also wxWindows is hardly a great example of an OO gui api. It's very much like MFC, which uses a event message mapping system, unlike QT and GTK which use signals and callbacks that can be dynamically created and conneccted together. I've never liked MFC, and I don't like wxWindows. I do like QT and GTK, though, particulary GTKMM.
I Installed it and I (old one was 3.1.4). Takes longer to load and the fonts are ugly, again!. Everything else seems much the same except Konqueror which ROCKS! Starts really fast and does not crash as much as the old one (not that it was that bad). I Have not tried Kontact yet. I hope it's good as the review says because I do not like Evolution.
It's chock-full of bugs, seriously...I'm grappling non-stop with problems. 3.1.4 was a FAR more stable release...I'm sorry I upgraded. Buggy, buggy, buggy. It really breaks my heart to see KDE at this phase...I have such high hopes for it.
As a total non-geek GUI user here are my questions on KDE's usability. /home/username/*. That include all your settings too.
I would say so based on the questions, but..
1) KDE (for as long as I can remember) has had a kappfinder that locates programs on your disk. You can run it then check off the apps you wanted added to the KMenu.
2) Just drag a file and drop it somewhere, a context menu will appear and ask if you want a "copy,move, or shortcut (link)."
4) Depends if the app was written correctly. UT2003, Savage, etc. all do this then put a link in ~/.kde/share/applink/* which is your KMenu entries.
5) You can create links (shortcuts) that way. KMenueditor (right click the K menu icon, kde start button) and then do all your editing.
6) Not that I'm aware of, but you can drag-drop a folder on the panel then either add shortcut URL to that dir OR a quick browse tray like you described.
7) You can use ANYTHING you want. But what's wrong with konqueror? Hate to tell you but Windows does the SAME thing with ie. You're viewing your files in a webpage locally.
8) Of course, this is dependant on your OS. But Linux or UNIX clone has all files by default in
9) Yes, KDE has had "LISA" for a long time. It's a samba network browser for KDE.
10) I don't use Mac so can't say anything about it, but you need to look at the KDE "Control Center" and the GUI tools.
Not sure, but you almost sound like a troll. I mean KDE isn't TRYING to emulate Windows/Mac/etc. They are out to just be a great desktop environment. KDE 3.2 goes a long way towards this. I suggest you try it and spend some time using it before you pass judgement on it because it doesn't have feature 'X' or 'Y'.
I'm not usually a licence zealot, and I've never actually bothered to comment about these sorts of comments before, but there is something I just don't understand. I'm sorry if you think this is a troll or flamebait - it's not, I just get frustrated when I see uninformed opinions of this nature.
The above complaint also applies to the Linux kernel and we are all perfectly happy to call that free (as in speech and beer). The same applies to QT - free speech and beer if you abide by the terms of the GPL. In fact, a large amount of open source software is exactly the same, but apparently some people have redefined "free" to mean something different.
So you can't use the free version of QT to make proprietary software. Big deal. Get over it.
Rant over.
I agree, doing object orientation by ideom is really ugly. But there is something called gtkmm that puts a true objectoriented wrapper around the gtk libraries. That ought to improve the situation. Gtkmm uses pure C++ instead of some language extensions requiring preprocessing like QT.
But even so, I feel more at home using QT, but that is perhaps just me.
Anyway, I wish that the KDE people could get their act together on usability. As they
clearly have a technical edge over Gnome this is
really sad they they doesn't do better in this area.
Look at the navigation toolbar of Konqueror and compare that to Epiphany or Mozilla. In KDE the toolbar looks crowded. Some icons are very similar to each other. E.g. they use looking glasslike symbols for both search and zoom functions. Why not use a pair of binoculars for the search function instead.
The icon for changing fonts is an image of two T:s close together that looks like an antenna. Of course the T stands for text. But in how many countries is text called something that starts with T? I would guess that a picture of an "A" would be better as it have a more distinctive form, and it is also used in many other desktop environments to denote font changing facilities.
It would also make it less likely that the symbol with the two T:s close together refers to true type fonts only.
If the toolbars are crowded, the context menus are even worse. E.g. in the right menu button menu of the konquerer file manager you have both a "Move to trash" and a "Delete" item. Wouldn't it have bin better to just have a "Move to trash" item, and then configure the trash to perform the correct action this would have bin more in line with the desktop metaphor. On the your normal desktop you put things you don't want in the waste basket, and then you decide when to empty it.
Even if most things regarding usability is as bad as they used to be in KDE, there is at least one major improvement in KDE 3.2. The menu that pops up when you drop a file over a folder now gives you the alternatives "Move Here", "Copy Here" and "Link Here" and "Cancel" instead of "Copy Here", "Move Here"... This great since move is a much more common operation than copy for most people.
A positive side effect on changing the order in this menu is that the lack of icon for the "Move Here" item doesn't look so bad on the first item as it did when it was the second menu item.
The menu still have a dominating red cancel button. That button is probably the first thing the user sees when he drops a file over a folder, and the menu pops up. To me its somewhat unclear why this menu needs a cancel button in the first place, all other menus seam to be able to do without it. And second why does it have to be that eye catching. After all in most of the cases "Cancel" is not what the user is most likely to do.
So, if you need a lot of functionality but doesn't care about usability KDE is for you. In a way this is in true Unix tradition, there is no limit to what you can do, if you just could find out how. In my opinion there is few if any desktop environment that can rival KDE in configurability and number of functions.
Even though the usability could have bin better KDE 3.2 contains a lot of improvements and it is well worth the trouble of upgrading if you run some previous version of KDE.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
Oh my ! ... I agree with you that all the mirrors should have been updated before the release annoucements. But I do not understand your complaints. You have to be pretty dedicated to KDE to rush on it the first day of release. I did the same (though KDE is for my wife), but I found the german servers that were ready, and dealing with the load very well : yes, there were mirrors ready with the source files at least, and I downloaded at full speed from them, the first hour after release. So, I think your complaint is a lot emotional, because it is clearly stated in the announcements that you SHOULD use the mirrors. KDE is from Europe, and most top developers are germans, so search the german mirrors first. That's a hint for next time.
;) so I didn't know if the kill feature was working well.
Did you download Slackware packages ?
Because my eexperience is very different from yours.
First, you go, the day of the release, to the servers
On first load, I was impressed by the speed, compared to the KDE 3.1.4 I had before : it was nearly two times faster on my main box (the longest part being the session restore).
So I think the Slackware packages have a problem. I do not say it should be as fast as here (I have a bi AMD 2200+ here, but 3 desktops are running on it simultaneously), but 20% slower shows something is wrong. I am on a 2.6 kernel, so, perhaps, if you are on 2.4, that could be an explanation.
Nothing crashed on my box yet
As for media associations, nothing happened to them here after the upgrade from source, so, the Slackware packages are definitely wrong I think.
Try aterm. It does pseudo transparency as well.
Quack, quack.
The work the KDE team has done is great, but... (*deep breath*)
Before you go off and mod this a troll, stop and think about the idea. Why are we mimicking Windows? Or anything, for that matter? By mimicking Windows, aren't we simply reinforcing bad habits that Redmond introduced 10 years ago? If we all agree that Windows' GUI is sub-optimal, why are we expending so much time and energy attempting to replicate it, point for point?
I'd be sort of interested to see the point in KDE's history where this debate took place, if it ever did.. It certainly should have.
It's just frustrating to see so much work go into being the desktop equivalent of an Elvis impersonator, when we could easilly challenge (or even trump!) the real Elvis.. We've built an enterprise-class OS from scratch...You'd think that a good GUI would be trivial.
Anyway, as far as I know, neither GNOME nor KDE's team offer a skunk-works forum to discuss and develop new and different ideas. Quite the contrary. New ideas tend to be ridiculed and quickly dismissed. It's sort of odd, given how many truly creative people there are working on these respective projects.
Bowie J. Poag
I switched from the spartan Flux/Blackbox a while ago, and I really like KDE as a WM, plus the panel. However, I much prefer Mozilla to Konq, OpenOffice to Koffice, and the same goes for any category of software I've tried (multimedia, graphics, editors,...).
What it looks like, there's no way of installing a diet version of KDE, without hundreds (ok, dozens) of programs I'll never use. Should that be necessary? I'm using Debian packages, but this doesn't seem to be much different if you compile it yourself. In this regard, KDE takes "bundling" to a new level, whipping Bill Gates' ass!
Switch to Gnome? Unfortunately I don't like that environment at all.
In fact, the MS compilers still don't pay much attention to them.
Their most recent compiler (VS.net 2003) is much more standards compliant than you give it credit. Besides compiler limits, there are only five noncompliant aspects of their compiler. Most complaints that people had with the lack of compliance in VisualC++ were fixed in the 2003 release.
GCC 3.3 isn't fully standards compliant either. Reading through the 3.4 changes it looks like they've been working on some of the same issues. C++ in general is a very complicated language. There are very few compilers that implement every aspect of the language. It's generally more important to fix the compiler bugs that affect real code than to implement the aspects of the language that are very rarely encountered.
And there are Qt bindings for it. Plus you can code for OSX.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Check out http://www.kde-look.org/.
Good even if you don't use KDE, they have lots of Linux related wallpapers for instance.
One app I have fallen in love with is
SuperKaramba, a clone of Windows XP Samurize. It enabels easy Python scripting of widgets on the desktop, enabling such things as weather forecasts, system information, Mac OS X style dockers on your desktop, or even some very beautiful themes complete with new toolbars, XMMS skins etc.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Yes it is.
(I'm not sure that that's a canon link. Ruby bindings are now in official KDE CVS, I've noticed. This may be a project predating that).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Full-sized screenshots that are resized smaller in the HTML! Wonderful!
Well Duh!
That way the user doesn't have to download two sets of images!
1. Have applications been consolidated into an Applications or Programs folder, or do I have to hunt for them scattered all over the place?
...
/home/username (with username being, err, your username). Konqueror defaults to viewing the contents of your homedir, but you can go up a level easely if you want to. The question is: what's the point. You don't need to view the rest...
Applications are nicely organised by theme (e.g. "Internet" which contains your webbrowser and email client, "multimedia" which contains your media player). I think this is *much* more user-friendly than Windows.
2. Can I make aliases, shortcuts or their equivalents by right clicking or modifier key dragging the original?
Yes you can.
3. Do applications have a unique icon identifying the executable, so I know what to double-click to launch the program, or what to make the alias from?
You don't have to ever touch an executable file if you let your distribution's package manager do the work. If you don't you can use KAppfinder to update your menu automaticly.
4. Can I install an application by dragging an icon of the application to the Applications or Programs folder, or by double-clicking an installer icon that I can download as a single file from a website?
Yes you can. Most distributions come with a package manager of some sort that enables you to search and install packages (and it's dependancies) with a few clicks. Packages you download from the internet work the same way. You really don't have to compile things if you don't want to...
5. Can I add and remove items from the start menu (or whatever KDE calls it) by dragging and dropping to and from the menus? (A dialog box would be an acceptable alternative.)
I don't know if drag&drop works in 3.2, but KDE comes with a Menu Editor.
6. Can I add a directory to the start menu and have its contents displayed heirarchically when I click on it from the start menu?
Yes you can. I use it to browse my music folder. It also gives you an entry to open it with your file manager or in a terminal.
7. Can I use a file browser aka Windows Explorer or the Mac OS X Finder instead of a stupid web browser window to find files on my computer?
Konqueror is not (only) a webbrowser. It's more like a frame that holds many applications, be it KHTML for webbrowsing, the file manager, the SMB browser,
I think konqueror in file manager modus is a nice file manager, and I read it was improved/cleaned up in KDE 3.2. But if you don't like it, there are a slew of other file managers you can use.
8. Are home directories put in a Users or Accounts folder off the root so that I can find them easily?
Your home directory is located in
9. Can I find Windows networked computers by double-clicking a Network neighborhood icon or its equivalent?
Yes you can. KDE has a SMB-browser for ages, and the new konqueror should make browsing for shares even easier.
10. Can I set up sharing on my computer, define workgroups, etc. using a configuration tool like Mac OS X's Network and Sharing preferences pane and the Directory Access utility?
Yes you can.
I think you should play with KDE for a while. It does more than you think...
I don't believe that the parent post was intended as flamebait, saying that KDE has won no real awards, but that he may have been saying that it doesn't matter if any awards were won--it is a useful piece of software, and that is what matters.
Considering the GW Bush has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, can you really take many awards seriously?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Specifically, having tried many times to use Sun's (vastly faster then GCC) compilers to compile KDE and found that it's impossible due to a combination of GCC specific extensions or at least syntactic laxity and other GNUish bias I've had to give up.
:-)
I'm forced to compile the whole thing with the highly sub-optimal (for SPARC) gcc/g++.
I wish that programmers wouldn't depend upon the lax syntax of the world's favourite compiler and optimise their code specifically for systems which are already fast enough not to make much difference when it degrades performance on those which absolutely need the greatest acceleration to make them usable.
Sorry for the rant.
My compile of KDE 3.2.0 at work on the Sun Ultra 10 has been going for a day already and I've just got QT, arts and kdelibs compiled. I should have a working system by the middle of next week, assuming I don't find any show stopping Linuxisms (which I usually do during KDE builds).
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
Infamous is when you're more than famous. This desktop KDE, he's not just famous, he's infamous.
I'd say that KDE has a plethora of Options.
1. Gnome and GTK are both object oriented APIs.
... I know the arguments about how OOP can defined in a variety of ways are wide and varied. But C doesn't fit any of the definitions unless you just require it to be written in a programming language. The argument that gtk/gnome code is OO is just a bunch of C programmers feeling left out of the OOP craze.
Balderdash! C doesn't provide encapsulation, polymorphism, inheritence,
Not only that, but their approximation of OOP code is more painful than listening to Al Sharpton screaming his tripe in my ears. Horrible, horrible code.
--
http://cheeser.blog-city.com
Gnome developers chose C because they didn't know how to program in C++ but were too egotistical to admit it. That is all.
What do you care about which language the GNOME guys use to do their thing? If you just want to write GNOME apps, you can use C, C++, Python, or whatever.
One of the major reasons the GNOME guys chose C was to make it as easy as possible to use other languages to write GNOME apps. It's pretty easy to write language bindings for a C API, and much harder for C++. With C, it's easy to know what symbols the linker will see when you export things from your API. With C++, the compiler does "name mangling" and it's much harder to know what the linker will see -- and different C++ compilers do name mangling in different, incompatible ways, so you might have to modify your bindings for each platform you support.
And anyway, I don't buy the whole "C can never do OO" idea. The language doesn't natively have OO idioms, but you can write OO code in C if you want to; it's just not as pretty.
C++: foo.bar(a, b, c)
C: FooBar(&foo, a, b, c)
C++: foo1 + foo2
C: FooAdd(&foo1, &foo2)
You can still have a nice, tidy FOO object, with nice tidy operations you can perform on it. That's what OO is about.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Anyway, I wish that the KDE people could get their act together on usability. As they
/always/ been more useable than GNOME,a nd still is. So they haven't published a fancy guideline manual with all kinds of rules everyone has to follow. Big deal! The apps work, and importantly "just work", intuitively and as expected. The interface is cleaner and more consistant than GNOME.
/like/ GNOME, and I preferred it to KDE up through GNOME 1.2. After that it seemed that they started removing features for no reason, or little reason. Topical example: Right click the Epiphany toolbar. Nothing! What I EXPECTED is to get some contextual options. Right click the Konq toolbar: Aha! A menu. Low and behold! It allows me to configure what's on the toolbar! That makes sense! AND SINCE NORMAL USERS WOULD NEVER HAVE CLICKED, IT IN NO WAY DEGRADES EASE OF USE TO HAVE THE OPTIONS THERE. Options hidden in plain quickly-accessed sight is GOOD.
/really/ pisses me off.
/seperate/ "MOVE to trash" and "DELETE" options.
clearly have a technical edge over Gnome this is
really sad they they doesn't do better in this area.
II keep hearing this complaint, but I just don't see it. KDE has
Reading the rest of your post, I think I see the problem: You and GNOME people seem to equate "Useable" with "Feature-starved". Just because GNOME's epiphany can't be configureed does NOT mean it's more useable! I don't know who first introduced this "No options is inherently superior" doctrine, but I don't like it, and it is just plain wrong.
I used to
This "Too many small icons" arguement doesn't hold water. Maybe there are for YOU, so right click and change them! For GNOME, they've decided being able to suit your environmnt to your needs is BAD, so they give me what is acceptable to the LOWEST common user skillset. That's fine! But since they've also decided that users shouldn't be given options, I CAN'T CHANGE IT!
I really prefer C to C++ for a lot of reasons. Some things about KDE annoy me. But GNOME
Functionality != hard to use! Get it right, people!
If the toolbars are crowded, the context menus are even worse. E.g. in the right menu button menu of the konquerer file manager you have both a "Move to trash" and a "Delete" item. Wouldn't it have bin better to just have a "Move to trash" item, and then configure the trash to perform the correct action this would have bin more in line with the desktop metaphor. On the your normal desktop you put things you don't want in the waste basket, and then you decide when to empty it.
No. On SOME people's desktops "trash, then delete" is the norm. Most people, however, when they want to delete something, they want it GONE, not hanging around and taking up disk space. Thus the very-clear, understandable, and
And, incidentally, being "in line with the desktop metaphor" is NOT a valid reason to configure a GUI one way or another. The desktop metaphor is merely a minor convenience, I practically guarantee that it is not how most people actually think of their computers. The technical people think differently because they know better, the nontechnical people don't think about it enough for it to make much difference whate metaphor s being used. If the goal is being easier to use, then the GUI should make things easier, not conform to a model which might, maybe, we HOPE, be easy to understand and relate to for some office workers.
The menu still have a dominating red cancel button. That button is probably the first thing the user sees when he drops a file over a folder, and the menu pops up. To me its somewhat unclear why this menu needs a cancel button in the first place, all other menus seam to be able to do without it. And second why does it have to be that eye catching. After all in most of the cases "Cancel" is not what the user is most likely to do.
The reason that the Cancel is in big and red is not that it is the most LIKELY thing the us
I want my Cowboyneal
I have been using the release candidate from http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net/, on Fedora FC-1, since it has native mp3 support.
It is very fast.
I managed to crash Ktouch (Typing tutor program) once, but couldn't reproduce the crash. I haven't found other bugs.
Konqueror now seems to offer integrated spell checking when writing on forums such as slashdot, which is nice, since English is not my native language. I think A-spell is used, so many languages are availably.
The "kde-wallet" is a very nice, and seemingly secure way to store on-line passwords and forms.
All in all, I like it a lot.
...by "mimicking" the tried-and-true operating system design concepts of UNIX.
On FreeBSD Unix, I portupgrade or install from the ports. On Slackware Linux, I slackpkg.
:-)
KDE 3.2 is available at your local FreeBSD and Slackware Linux mirrors. (As always)
This isn't the whole story wrt. VC++.Net 2003 (phew!). It still accepts many non-standard constructs (its treatment of typename appears rather odd), allows various pieces of invalid syntax, has very aggressive name resolution (namespaces, what namespaces, it'll find something) and does some things that violate the std (allowing non-const refs to temporaries for instance). This leads to all sorts of pain when trying to port code originally developed with VC++ to other compilers. It's a lot better than it used to be however and the next one will likely be closer again.
So, Gnome is written in C AND it is object oriented?
The Gnome developers coded objects/classes with C?
Thanks in advance for the info
Steve
I just think that wrapping up your objects into a nice OO layer makes UI development much easier.
So do that. www.gtkmm.org
Just because gnome is written in C, doesn't mean there aren't C++ wrappers for it.
(I try not to feed the trolls these days, but the odor eminating from that one was overwhelming. Infact, I passed out at least 3 times before I managed to get to the last line, and hit Reply.)
Troll,
I've done a number of things besides Propaganda, all of which are free for guys like you to use, and enjoy. I'm glad you at least remember some of it. Considering it's been like 2 years since i've made any concerted effort to make more "pretty backgrounds", the fact you remember them makes me think you like them. Thats cool. You're welcome to use and enjoy them.
I have never written an operating system. By saying "We wrote an entire enterprise-class OS from scratch", i'm referring to the entire Linux movement, et al. From the kernel maintainers to the app writers, from the documentation guys to the guys who paint icons. Out of curiosity, where do you fit in, exactly? Or are you one of those people that just sponges off everyone? You know, the ones that contribute nothing of value in return?
As for your allegation that I tried to "make Red Hat pay me for my backgrounds"... (Heheheh, God, where do you guys come up with this stuff!?) I never asked Red Hat to pay me cent. The images were then, and are now, free...Free as in beer. How could I have charged them for something I was giving away for free? Or charge anyone else, for that matter?
I was happy enough knowing Red Hat had an interest in my work..Interestingly, I didn't even approach them about including my stuff in their distrib. They were the ones who approached me, back in May of '98, asking me if it was OK to include Volumes 1-6 in their next release. I was shocked they even heard of me. I was very honored, both then and now, to be included. Infact, I remember buying a bottle of champagne that night, and uncorking it on my balcony with a few friends to celebrate. It made me really happy to know that somebody felt my work was good enough to include, and that tons of people were going to use and enjoy my stuff.
Does that answer your questions?
Bowie J. Poag
Well, there are a couple of good reasons (and I *do* wish that KDE followed Windows a wee bit less closely, a la GNOME).
* First, Windows has become ubiquitous in the past ten years. Everyone knows Windows. That's how they expect computers to operate. This has produced a barrier to entry for anyone that chooses a different method.
* Second, the approach is pretty good. Remember that Microsoft themselves chose to use Apple's design. It isn't perfect, but there *have* been significant improvements made in the KDE projects (some degree of accelerator rebinding functionality provided to users, though less than GNOME provides, tearable panes, support for multiple viewports...)
* Third, if nothing else, this can be treated as a transitional system to get people onto a platform where new ideas *can* be implemented.
May we never see th
While I agree that we shouldn't be mimicking Windows, what do you mean by this:
"You'd think that a good GUI would be trivial."
When in fact, it's not. Very rarely are UI engineers actually have any background in human factors, when they should be experts. UI engineers are more often software engineers, and may or may not have any knowledge of human factors or user interface design.
I assume that you do know that by mimicking Windows, these projects can get more traction with existing Windows users ? I really don't think that you're suggestion that both the GNOME or KDE teams should focus entirely on building a new and non Windows-like (or Mac, for that matter) UI....are you ?