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KDE 3.2.1 Released

Posted by michael on from the wh00t dept.

TheSurfer writes "The KDE project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.2.1, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.2.1 ships with lot of bug fixes since KDE 3.2 and is available in 49 languages (now including Bengali, Icelandic, Japanese, Lithuanian, Low Saxon, Latin Serbian and Tajik). Sources and contributed packages are linked on the KDE 3.2.1 info page."

73 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Aha by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we know why the government needed that 2.5TB chunk of RAM.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:Aha by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Funny

      YOu mean they run emacs?

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  2. another link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    another lews link with coverage here

  3. Low Saxon by guacamolefoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    You know, I've really been holding out on using KDE because it didn't support Law Saxon. What a relief.

    --
    Lots of petrified grits
    1. Re:Low Saxon by kfg · · Score: 5, Informative

      For the record, Low Saxon is an extant language used every day in parts of Germany and the Netherlands.

      It may be a somewhat obscure language, in the sense that Icelandic is an obscure language, but just as is the case for Icelandlic it is not an obscure, dead language.

      KFG

    2. Re:Low Saxon by Chalybeous · · Score: 4, Funny

      They're still waiting for biometric logon features, namely voiceprint-based passwords.
      "Speak 'friend' and enter!" ;-)

      --

      "It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork

    3. Re:Low Saxon by Vlad_the_Inhaler · · Score: 2, Informative

      You too can be a volunteer - you can add the language support. I am sure the KDE crew would welcome your input.

      --
      Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
    4. Re:Low Saxon by kfg · · Score: 4, Informative

      Bantu is a language group, not a language. Like Semetic. The most important of the Bantu languages is Swahili, which many people who have a great deal of use for KDE speak as their first language.

      The clicking language of Namibia is not part of the Bantu group.

      By the way, Zulu is already supported by KDE, and a Swahili translation project is underway.

      I also have a sneaking suspicion that in the heavily industrialized, educated and rich portions of western Europe where Low Saxon is spoken they have a good deal of use for KDE as well.

      KFG

    5. Re:Low Saxon by wild_pointer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, stop making fun of our language!!! Icelandic is spoken by about 300.000 people... yeah ok, I get your point ;)

    6. Re:Low Saxon by cjellibebi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For more details on Low Saxon, see this page. There's even a link to a map of the areas where it is spoken.

    7. Re:Low Saxon by kfg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      However, it is difficult to deny that in the realm of classical literature your people loom much larger than their mere numbers.

      The importance of a language goes far beyond such trivialities as how many people speak it. What they have to say is also of great social and political import.

      Oh Lord, won't you buy me. . . .OW! Sorry. I'm better now.

      KFG

    8. Re:Low Saxon by Frizzle+Fry · · Score: 4, Funny

      You omit the critical distinction that while Icelandic is merely an obscure living language, Low Saxon is an obscure living language with a funny name.

      --
      I'd rather be lucky than good.
    9. Re:Low Saxon by vegetasaiyajin · · Score: 3, Informative

      They're still waiting for biometric logon features, namely voiceprint-based passwords.

      This security scheme would be very weak. Someone can record you while you say 'friend' and later use the recording to log on. Old-fashioned passwords are better.
      Worse, you can change your password if someone steals it, but you can't change your voice, or fingerprints. If you want more security you have to consider three elements:
      1. What the user knows. That is, the password. This is the most versatile.
      2. What the user is. You use biometrics for this.
      3. What the user has. You can use smart cards or RFID tags or similar.

      If you can only afford one of these, you have to pick good old-fashioned passwords.
      I think there are free PAM modules for smart-card authentication. Check MUSCLE for more info. Don't know about biometrics PAM modules. Since KDE login screen uses PAM for authentication, it shouldn't be too hard to support combined password, biometrics and smartcard authentication.

      --

      My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
    10. Re:Low Saxon by CheeseTroll · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Thanks for the link! I also found this which goes into a bit more detail.

      Most of my ancestors are from the northwestern part of Germany (Oldenburg, Hanover, etc.), and my grandparents spoke "Low German" here in America until 1917, when English suddenly gained in importance. Whenever I asked my grandparents if they still remembered much German, they would say something like, "Oh, sure, but it's just that Low German." I never really understood what they meant by that - I figured they were just being their usual overly-modest selves.

      --
      A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
    11. Re:Low Saxon by mOdQuArK! · · Score: 2, Interesting
      This security scheme would be very weak. Someone can record you while you say 'friend' and later use the recording to log on.

      Maybe you can use the public key-like "challenge-response" setup - where the security tells you some random stuff to say, you repeat it and the security analyzes your voiceprint to figure out if the right person is saying it. (Of course, if the security accidentally gives you a tongue-twister, maybe the way you screw up the words is also part of your "voiceprint"...)

    12. Re:Low Saxon by kfg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      More to the point, perhaps, is that Low Saxon doesn't even have its own defined orthography, so I'm at a certain loss how it can be supported as a written language.

      Still, someone considered it important enough, perhaps for sociological reasons, to make the "translation." Much as a Welshman might be perfectly comfortable in English, but prefer to conduct himself in Welsh at times.

      KFG

    13. Re:Low Saxon by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, but they are rich and educated sheep.

      KFG

    14. Re:Low Saxon by DataCannibal · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Low Saxon ?
      My wife is a german scholar and teacher and she grew up speaking Low German (or Niederdeutsch or Plattduutsch) und "Ick kunn ok een betten platt schnacken" despite the fact that I'm English, who are supposed to be the worst people in Europe at learning foreign languges

      My wife always refers to it as low german in English and in German academic texts it is always refered to as "Niederdeutsch". I have never heard of it referred to as Low Saxon

      Lower Saxony is one of the states (Laender) of Germany and Low German is spoken in parts of it, particularly in the countryside. Maybe someone from there is the KDE translator and has decided to hijack the name of the language :-)

      It's a very interesting language with a long history. It was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. There is no official orthography for Low German although it is generally spelled phonetically using modern german pronunciation of the letters ( a bit like writing "parlay voo" as a phonetic english spelling of "parlez vous"). It is almost impossible for "normal" or High German speakers to understand someone speaking Low German. Funnily enough, I come from a part of England where the local dialect is strongly influence by scandinavian and germanic (North East England) so that because I could speak High German and the traditional dialect of my region, I had very little problems understanding Low German the first time that I heard it. In fact some words are exactly the same. For example we pronounce water as "watter" and low germans say "vatter". For going we say "gannin" and they say "ga'an".

      I think that there are still some pockets of Low German speakers in the USA.

      So there you go, a quick introduction to Low German.

      Keek mol weder een !

      --
      No but, yeah but, no but...
    15. Re:Low Saxon by kfg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, in Germany it has been known as Low German for many years, primarily due to political/sociological reasons in denying it to be anything other than a variant of German, rather than a language in its own right.

      Although there may be pockets of speakers in Lower Saxony I doubt it was anyone from that area that had anything to do with this, since neither the "Low" or the "Saxon" have anything to do with Lower Saxony. Low Saxon is the Saxon language of the Low Countries. In other words the coastal region. It seems more likely to me that the originators of the translation come from one of the port cities.

      And yes, there are pockets of Low Saxon speakers here in upstate NY (heavy colonization by people of the low countries), which is where I first became aware of the language (my SO's grandparents being German immigrants).

      KFG

  4. They'll never get into the schools though, until: by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    It supports Elvish.

    Klingon, however, has already been determined to be "silly."

    KFG

  5. The Mandrake curse? by Akai · · Score: 4, Informative

    Poor Mandrake, seems like every time they go gold on a release one of the major components gets a major upgrade :)

    --
    Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
    1. Re:The Mandrake curse? by Simon · · Score: 5, Informative

      Except for the fact that 10.0 has heavily patched KDE 3.2.0 packages which are almost 3.2.1. My KDE here is at package version 3.2-70mdk, 70 meaning that it is the *70th* version of this package. i.e. it has been patched and rebuild roughly *70 times.

      Try:

      rpm -q -changelog libkdebase4 | less

      Oh, Mandrake hasn't gone gold either. The boxed version will go gold in May as I understand it.

      Mandrake's luck isn't _that_ bad. :) They're even coming out of Chapter 11 too.

      --
      Simon

    2. Re:The Mandrake curse? by imr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They didnt go gold, only the comunity went out. Not that it means that kde3.2.1 will be in the final. It Would be a nice move tho', since some of those bugs are really bothering.

    3. Re:The Mandrake curse? by phoxix · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Poor Mandrake, seems like every time they go gold on a release one of the major components gets a major upgrade :)

      Not true:

      First, Mandrake 10.0 was NOT the final release, it was the community release. The final release of Mandrake 10.0 (due soonish) will have all the fixes and whatever else is desired.

      Secondly (don't quote me on this), but I believe many of Mandrake's KDE 3.2 packages have the various patches needed to make it a better desktop all around.

      Sunny Dubey

  6. And here come the flame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes
    Please don't put such things on the main page, we have enough boring flame wars already...

    1. Re:And here come the flame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do you mind? We're in the middle of a vi versus Emacs debate here.

    2. Re:And here come the flame by Shut+the+fuck+up! · · Score: 5, Funny

      Please don't put such things on the main page, we have enough boring flame wars already...

      Oh, so you're one of those holier-than-thou anti-flamewar fanatics, huh? Well, I personally think flamewars rock. We need more of them. I could use a good mysql flamewar right now.

    3. Re:And here come the flame by bogie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why not? Free Software isn't allowed to do any marketing? What so the people at KDE shouldn't be proud of their work? They should say "one of many Desktop Environments but really Gnome might be better?". Gimme a break pal.

      KDE has every right to say their software is the best. By all rights it IS the best Free Desktop for GNU/Linux or any Unix. I'd even argue its superior to the closed source OS X but that's a whole other ball of wax.

      It isn't a flame from the KDE camp, its A)marketing and B) mostly based in fact. Don't like it? Tough cookies.

      --
      If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
  7. Woohoo a maintainance release!!! by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hail from every rooftop!

    Some bugs are fixed!

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  8. Hmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I bet the person who posted the release was all like , "3.....2.....1.....NOW!" when he posted it.

  9. Now /. covers maintenance releases? by JohnGrahamCumming · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I can understand it being front page news if a significant project like KDE releases a significant release, but seriously why does a maintenance release make it to the front page?

    I released POPFile v0.21.0, perhaps I should have submitted a story?

    And while we're it at, could we stop with the posturing "the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux".

    John.

    1. Re:Now /. covers maintenance releases? by RoLi · · Score: 3, Interesting
      For Linux, a KDE point release is the equivalent to a Windows-service pack. And those get stories on slashdot, too.

  10. Debian has it already by Gandalfar · · Score: 5, Informative

    And most of it is already in unstable branch. Great work KDE and Debian KDE team! :)

    1. Re:Debian has it already by dzym · · Score: 2, Funny
      go debian kde team!

      you guy(s) rock!

    2. Re:Debian has it already by calc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, I was waiting to upload KDE until 3.2.1 came out. The reason KDE 3.2.0 was never uploaded to sid was that it was far too buggy in important areas such as kmail eating email. Even with KDE 3.2.1 several major bugs have already been found since its release to packagers last week. But users who always complain that KDE in Debian is outdated will have their shiny full of bugs release.

  11. Well then! by Loki_1929 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You know, I always thought KDE was a bloated, ugly, slow GUI, but now that it's available in Icelandic; well I guess it's alright!

    (relax, it's called a joke)

    --
    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    1. Re:Well then! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, you can install in on a BSD. That way you could use a dead OS with a dead language.

  12. Latin Serbian!?!?! by LenE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That should read Croatian. Serbian is Cyrillic. Unless, Croatian is already a supported language, then this would be more like a redneck dialect.

    -- Len

    1. Re:Latin Serbian!?!?! by 198348726583297634 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Related to a serb by marriage...the language indeed is written using cyrillic letters, but is also commonly written using the roman alphabet. I see a lot of hand-written things around my sister's house that use my native alphabet but that I can't read--and I can read russian. the cyrillic alphabet the serbs use indeed has a few characters different from the russian alphabet.

      probably too much useless info, though...

    2. Re:Latin Serbian!?!?! by emir · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nah you are the one that is wrong :)

      It is latin serbian. Once long time ago (before 1991) there was a language called Serbo-Croatian. It was one of three official languages (beside slovenian and macedonian) in Yugoslavia. When Yugoslavia vanished in 1991 so did the serbo-croatian. In Croatian it is croatian, in Serbia it is serbian, in Bosnia it is bosnian. It could be argued that all these languages are still one same language but as people prefer to have "seperate" languages they should be allowed to do so. Differences are not that great but generally differences are following: prefered way of writing:

      Bosnia: latin
      Croatia: latin
      Serbia: cyrillic

      (note that you can write serbian in latin if you want and croatian and bosnian in cyrillic if you want)


      amount of foreign words (notably of turkish origin) in serbia and bosnia are much greater than in croatia. thus neighbour would be spellt as.
      Bosnia:komsija
      Croatia: susjed
      Serbia: komsija

      susjed is proper word of south slavic origin. (note that there are people in serbia that say susjed, but majority use komsija. and vice versa for croatia)


      other big difference is that people in croatia and bosnia use so called "ijekavski" dialect while people in serbia use "ekavski" dialect. Difference is that some 1000-2000 words in serbia are spellt and pronounced with only e while in croatia and bosnia they are spellt with ije. Kinda like color and colour in american and brittish english. Example:

      English: flower | milk
      Bosnia: cvijet | mlijeko
      Croatia: cvijet | mlijeko
      Serbia: cvet | mleko
      (note there is even third dialect that is spoken in some part of croatia which is called "ikavski". where cvijet would be pronounced and spellt as "cvit" and milk as "mliko")


      Third difference is heavy use of h in bosnia.

      English: rotten | coffe
      Bosnian: truhlo | kahva
      Croatian: trulo | kava
      Serbian: trulo | kafa



      There are other small differences but they are too small to be mentioned here. Thus it should be called latin Serbian, if you use all words and spellings that people in serbia usually use but spell it with latin.....

      --
      -- http://electronicintifada.net --
  13. Fixed?! by contrasutra · · Score: 4, Funny

    KHTML: fix animated GIFs not looping (#72953)

    Oh c'mon, that was my FAVORITE bug! Who was the dork who filed this bug report? ;-)

    KMix: Properly save volumes on exit so volumes are correctly restored on next login.

    Wow, that seems like a pretty big bug. I wonder how people lived with their volume not staying the same.

    1. Re:Fixed?! by KingJoshi · · Score: 4, Funny

      KMix: Properly save volumes on exit so volumes are correctly restored on next login.

      Wow, that seems like a pretty big bug. I wonder how people lived with their volume not staying the same.

      Can you imagine, logged into KDE on your laptop in a lab or library somewhere in the back, taking a break, watching some porn with the volume off. So, next day, you think the volume is still off and when you start the video, the whole room hears some girl screaming, "Yeah, fuck me harder!" again and again.

      And you think this isn't an important bug to fix? :)

      --
      In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
    2. Re:Fixed?! by foonf · · Score: 2, Interesting


      KMix: Properly save volumes on exit so volumes are correctly restored on next login.

      Wow, that seems like a pretty big bug. I wonder how people lived with their volume not staying the same.

      Standard behavior for most distributions is to save/restore sound settings at system halt/startup in the init scripts. So it is not exactly normal for the desktop or any other program to handle this itself, and I would guess that only a small minority of KDE users actually require KMix to work in this way. Which is probably why nobody caught the bug in the first place. Personally I use KDE and don't even have the mixer app installed.

      --

      "(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
  14. KDE 3.2 well worth the upgrade! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am running KDE 3.2 right now on my Gentoo Linux box. A really good upgrade from KDE 3.1. Its like switching from Jaguar to Panther in Mac terms, or Windows 95 to 98 in Windows terms. It looks mostly like KDE 3.1, but its so much faster and the GUI has been cleaned up a bit (no more bloated interfaces, but still with all the features, what do you gnomers say now?)

    Fluxbox fans will like that you can now configure kde to switch virtual desktops in kde by using the scroll wheel, and the new Plastik theme looks good. I use it for my Window Border, but I still like the kermick style better. So if you are stuck using KDE 3.1 or less, then get your distro to upgrade. I will probably be emerging this release tomorrow.

    1. Re:KDE 3.2 well worth the upgrade! by trtmrt · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use kde and really like it but the speed issue is not fixed yet. I was hoping to see this great speedup in 3.2 but to be honest for me it runs the same as 3.1. Startup on login takes the same time. There is some noticable improvement in startup times for some applications but nothing spectacular. Everything else though is great. The menus are cleaned up and there are many small usability improvements.

  15. Re:But wait! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, there is a project for Esperanto. It is only 40% complete though, so go and help!

  16. Re:Now I just need... by Chalybeous · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think his karma just ran over my dogma ;-)

    --

    "It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork

  17. Re:Speaking of which by chowells · · Score: 4, Informative

    i18n.kde.org

  18. Re:They'll never get into the schools though, unti by shystershep · · Score: 5, Funny

    You have apparently not heard of the KDE Klingon Translation Team. According to them, the K in KDE actually stands for Klingon.


    Gee, I wish I had that much time on my hands.

    --
    The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
  19. Vapourware and the impact on advertisement by MavEtJu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    announced the immediate availability of

    What is the difference between the "availablility" and the "immediate availability" of a product?

    Is it like the "closing down sale" and the "genuine closing down sale"? Or like the "additional 20% discount on top of our normal 30% discount"?

    If it's available, it's immediatly available. If it is not immediatly available, it's not available.

    --
    bash$ :(){ :|:&};:
    1. Re:Vapourware and the impact on advertisement by ElGuapoGolf · · Score: 2

      Availability can be taken to mean either immediate or pending availability. For example, Unreal Tournament 2004 will be available in stores March 15th. KDE 3.2.1 is available immediately from your preferred mirror.

  20. ugh...more compiling! by GirTheRobot · · Score: 3, Funny

    I just finished updating my Gentoo box to the current release....now another 2 days of compiling!!! oh well, i love watching the text scroll by anyway...

  21. Re:Most advanced and powerful? by SmilingBoy · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I think Gnome is better. But even better than Gnome is MacOS X.
    What is it with OS/X?

    I used Windows for a long time, but then switched to Linux (Mandrake with KDE). I had no major problems whatsoever regarding usability - everything worked more or less like in Windows, but there were more nice things you could tweak and adjust. That's why I love KDE.

    Now (for the first time, I admit) I had to use a Mac, with OS/X. I had a hard time. Everything was different - hell, there wasn't even a freaking right mouse button!

    I didn't have to spend much time with it, and maybe, if you grow up with a Mac, it's great, but for someone used to Windows or KDE, it's a nightmare.

    Don't mod me Flamebait, I am dead serious. What is it with Mac OS/X?

  22. KDE (fake) Changelog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    1) Now free of SCO-patented /* Komment Tags */

    2) For additional speed, Kuickshow now opens images you thought you wanted to preview.

    3) Konqueror now has strings-searchable "Internet Explorer coders are weenies" easter egg.

    4) KDevelop now Kompiles with the option to make klean instead of clean.

    5) Renamed the "Local Area Network Manager" to KLAN

    6) GUI Konstruct-Icons now replaced by Dinobots

  23. Isthay issespay emay offay by ColonelPanic · · Score: 4, Funny

    Erewhay isay Igpay Atinlay?

    --
    "Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
  24. Re:They'll never get into the schools though, unti by ImTwoSlick · · Score: 3, Funny
    They'll never get into the schools though, until it supports Elvish."

    That's OK. I can write a patch that changes all system text to "Fa La La Lally" for them.

  25. Insensitive clod (Re:Low Saxon) by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tajikistan is a populous -- if poor at the moment -- nation.

    Hopefully, the horrible legacy of the USSR will diminish with years and the country will prosper. If someone from there found the time and translated parts of KDE to Tajik -- they should be applauded, rather than mocked.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  26. Re:New languages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Short Saxons perhaps?

  27. Re:They'll never get into the schools though, unti by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Funny

    But how are they handling error messages? Are they doing a literal translation, or will it be more along the lines of "This application has shamed itself with a segmentation fault!"?

  28. bug flood by Marco+Krohn · · Score: 5, Informative

    And with this new release a new flood of bugs coming in

    KDE weekly bug report summary

    Please double check when reporting a bug that it really isn't a duplicate. Also be sure to send in backtraces only if you have compiled with debug information. Every bad bug report just costs the developers valueable time which is badly needed for all the features coming with 3.3:

    KDE 3.3 features
    KDEPIM 3.3 features

    If you want to help with an even better 3.3 your help in the KDE Quality team is welcome!


    KDE, rock on :-)
  29. Re:Most advanced and powerful? by minus_273 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Having switched from linux over the summer i can say these are a small sample of things the things that make it great:
    1. its a Unix clone.. comes with all the strengths
    2. It has a very well designed, clean and consistent UI
    3. Its so intuitive that your ganma can use it (try it..)
    4. It allows you to run MS office, Photoshop , dreamweaver and tons of other commercial apps alongside your Unix apps like apache, smb, namp etc.
    5. You can run X windows apps but turn it off when your dont need it and can run pretty much any (non hardware dependent)app linux can.
    6. OSX boxes can emulate i386 very fast the reverse does not exist yet
    7. All development tools are free (gcc) and very easy to use GUIs(Xcode)
    8. The development API (cocoa) is open and cross platform (GNUstep, openstep)
    9. Very good 3rd party hardware support.
    10. Fantastic applications like ilife apps, itunes etc that make windows users gawk.

    For an example of the last point, have granma install a digital camera and import pics on a PC (drivers, reboot, 3rd party apps etc) then do it on a mac (plug it in) or granma rip a cd, burn a cd burn picture cds etc. (get the point)

    in the end my mac is rock solid, fast and i dont have to think about anything other than the task at hand when i am using it (saves lots of time)

    in the end, calling it "the best of both worlds" (linux+win) is an understatement but close to what it is.

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
  30. Re:Most advanced and powerful? by mst76 · · Score: 5, Informative
    In a recent interview, Jef Raskin remarked that he thinks the one-button designe of the original Mac was a mistake.
    As for the one-button mouse, I'd observed at Xerox Parc which had a 3-button mouse, that people were very confused as to its use and when I was designing the software for the Macintosh, in designing the interface, I figured that if there was only one button, there would never be any question on what you have to press the number of ways of using a one-button mouse. I think this was probably a mistake, in fact there is an appendix in my book which discusses why I think this was a mistake and what I think I should have done. One of the reasons I made the mistake is that there is a certain school of industrial design dating back to the Bauhaus which says that designs have to be simple, uncluttered, and clean. In particular, don't put writing on it except for brand names or logos. If we had had a multiple-button mouse with two keys, labeled something like "select" and "activate," it would have been much easier to use, but the idea of putting writing on keys did not occur to anybody, including me. So if I was designing one today, it would have two buttons and they would be labeled.
  31. Re:They'll never get into the schools though, unti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    [23:37] Graham: :wtf: One of KDE's supported languages is "Low Saxon"
    [23:37] Jon: LOL
    [23:37] Graham: what next? Klingon?
    [23:37] Jon: "today is a good day to compile the kernel"
    [23:38] Graham: "oops, I just chopped the keyboard in two with this ceremonial deathblade"
    [23:38] Jon: lol
    [23:41] Graham: OH SHOOT ME http://www.unixcode.org/kde-i18n-klingon/
    [23:41] Jon: HAHAHAHA

  32. Re:Most advanced and powerful? by chill · · Score: 2, Insightful

    OS/X suffers from the same fatal flaw as WinXP -- it is a lot easier to learn if you have no prior experience. It is really good for people with no computer skills.

    However, if you've been using computers for a while and are familiar with something else, both seem like a royal pain and are confusing because everything isn't where it was.

    But, again, for people with no prior computing experience it wins hands down.

    -Charles

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  33. Motivate KDE developers! by Marco+Krohn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except helping in KDE Quality Team or supporting it in various other ways there is a simple thing you can do within a couple of minuts which really help: write an email!

    Start one of the many good KDE applications, go to the "help menu" and click on the "about box"->"authors". Pick one or two of them and write them a short email telling them how much you like their application and that you really appreciate what they are doing for us, the open source community.

    It's easy and makes them very happy to hear from satisfied users--normally they just hear about it when something is wrong and sending some nice words really keeps them motivated. Thanks.

  34. Re:Most advanced and powerful? -1, Biased. by Enahs · · Score: 3, Funny

    GNOME is for furries.

    --
    Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
  35. Re:No right mouse button! by sneakers563 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Granted, it says great things about Apple that the most anyone can come up with is the lack of a 2nd mouse button. However, given that EVERYONE IN THE FREAKING UNIVERSE thinks that multiple mouse buttons are more usable, and has thought that way for, oh, the last 15 years or so, why doesn't Apple just swallow their pride and provide a mouse with a 2nd (or 3rd, this *is* UNIX after all) button? Why should someone have to spend $7 for a new mouse at Radio Shack when Apple could just include one from the get go? Apple users are like Porsche owners. It's only when the new model comes out that they can admit the glaring flaws in the old. For years Mac users talked about how stable the OS was. Then when OSX came out everyone was saying, "Finally, it doesn't crash anymore. OS9 had real stability problems." Admit it, the day Apple includes a 2 button mouse everyone will be talking about how the old mouse was dated and how Apple's pushed the Mac to new levels of productivity.

  36. Re:They'll never get into the schools though, unti by taniwha · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think they were just being culturaly sensitive ... there is of course NO room in the Klingon world for sillyness ....

  37. Re:They'll never get into the schools though, unti by void+warranty() · · Score: 5, Funny

    They'll probably kill the application's parent and siblings too.

  38. Re:Most advanced and powerful? -1, Biased. by Fancia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Funny, I'm a furry and I use KDE. ;b

    --

    Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
  39. Re:Most advanced and powerful? by kryocore · · Score: 2, Funny

    hell, there wasn't even a freaking right mouse button!

    Dang, I've been considering OS X for a while, but now my dreams are over...

  40. Re:Most advanced and powerful? by asdfghjklqwertyuiop · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Macintosh GUIs have been advanced enough to not need two mouse buttons since 1984

    You have a funny definition of the word 'advanced'. I mean, windows 3.1 was 'advanced' enough not to need a right mouse button in 1993...

  41. For you Debian users by LittleLebowskiUrbanA · · Score: 2, Informative

    This worked for me.

    apt-get -t unstable install kdebase

    --
    This guy is way out there