Preview of KDE 3.4

comforteagle writes "In this month's KDE: From the Source George Staikos details what is to be expected from the upcoming 3.4 version of KDE. An Alpha release is due any minute so you might as well know what you're in for if you're a loyal K head. Some changes include major rework within KHTML & Konqueror, Subversion support, and Apple's Rendezvous."

Comments

Rendezvous?

[LEgregius]

I believe Apple changed the name for that. The internal name is ZeroConf.

Re:Rendezvous?

[Sc00ter]

No. Zero Conf is an opensource project that has been around since before Rendezvous.

Rendezvous is apple's version of ZeroConf.

More info on ZeroConf

More inof on Rendezvous

Re:Rendezvous?

[podperson]

Just to clarify the preceding correction:

Rendezvous and Zeroconf are the same thing, the latter being the Open Source release of the Rendezvous technology.

The ZeroConf page is maintained by Stuart Cheshire, who is the engineer at Apple responsible for Rendezvous.

Re:Rendezvous?

[xirtam_work]

Apple have stopped using the name Rendezvous in favour of 'OpenTalk'. ZeroConf is the another name for the same protocol used by the open source version of the project.

Another company owns the trademark on the work Rednezvous when used in relation to networking.

Article text.....

[B5_geek]

Incase of slashdotting:

KDE 3.3.2 was tagged today, so we should see a new bug fix release of KDE in the first or second week of December. Earlier this past week, the plans for a KDE 3.4 release were also finalized. This will be the last major KDE 3 release before KDE 4. KDE 4 will make use of the Qt 4 library which promises to be quite a revolution for KDE and all Qt applications, but will break binary compatibility with previous releases.

The release schedule for KDE 3.4 plans for an alpha release December 3, a beta release January 7, and a final release March 16 2005. The 3.4 release will bring a large number of features and functionality enhancements over previous KDE 3 releases. Here are some of the features already implemented:
Hardware Support

- Support for special keyboard keys on Dell Inspiron and ASUS laptops.
- A new battery monitor (under development).
- media:/ addition to the KDE I/O subsystem to list devices on the system.
KHTML and Konqueror

Konqueror

- KHTML has undergone major work lately, though much of it will appear in KDE 3.3.2. Merging with Safari fixes continues, alone with new work and fixes by KDE developers. Site compatibility continues to improve, stability is very much improved, and KWallet no longer blocks Konqueror while waiting for a password.
- Support for multiple site logins with KWallet (for all protocols, but not HTML form completions yet) added.
- A notifier was added to visually indicate when user-agent spoofing is active.
- KHTML plug-ins are now configurable, so the user can selectively disable ones that are not used. This does not include Netscape-style plug-ins.
- Netscape plug-in in CPU usage can be manually lowered, and plug-ins are more stable.
- Over the past couple of months, confirmed KHTML and Konqueror bug reports have been on a significant decline as bugs are fixed more rapidly and fewer are reported.
E-Mail and Personal Information Management

- Major improvements in synchronization, including support for synchronizing between two PCs.
- Enhanced support for groupware servers, including Exchange 2000, OpenGroupware, Kolab 1 and 2, SLOX, Groupwise, and eGroupware.

SLOX

- XFace support for associating faces with mail and news articles.
- Blogging and journal support.
- KMail supports KWallet.
- Client-side IMAP search support.
- Improved drag and drop in KMail.
- Improved anti-spam support in KMail.
- Uncountable other e-mail, organizer and address-book enhancements.
Kopete

- Novell Groupwise and Lotus Sametime protocol support added.
- Support for adding URLs to bookmarks.
- Drag and drop of files and contacts.
- The NetMeeting plug-in now allows the use of arbitrary applications to start a chat.
- Support for incoming MSN messages that are handwritten.
- An adium look-alike chat window style.
KPDF

- KPDF includes new numerous new features including:
- New rendering engine.
- Optimizations and enhancements for zoom, search, and thumbnails.
- Better printing (using Postscript directly).
- Support for password protected PDFs.
- Image extraction support.
- Nicer user interface in general.
Libraries

- QCA - A complete cryptography architecture.
- Usage of GCC 3.4 symbol visibility functionality for much improved application startup time.
- Optimizations of various styles and other components.
- Cleanup and reworking of KJSEmbed to make it much more functional.
- Password dialog gives feedback on the relative strength of new passwords.
Desktop / General

- KDM theme support.
- Numerous window manager enhancements, including indicators for remote applications.
- Major Kicker panel reworking, with support for hiding tray icons.
- Empty password support (password-less wallets) in KWallet.

KWallett

- Support for setting the clock with NTP.
- Completely redesigned, more flexible trash system.
Other Cool Things We Might See

All of these feature

I hope...

[strredwolf]

...they fix alot of old bugs with KDE, including no auto-refresh!

Real Window Managers

[SlashdotMirrorer]

I know I'll probably be modded down as flamebait for promoting alternative window managers in a KDE message thread, but I think it might be a good time for the every day user to take a look at how bearded terminal hackers are making things more efficient. Many "LINUX power users" are making their every day work more efficient by using and developing great window managers such as EvilWM, which I am currently typing this post up in.

Maybe a grassroots movement towards simpler window managers is in order. This would be a movement similar to what Bruce Perens trailblazed for GNU/Linux back in the early nineties to fight the onslaught of OS2 and Win 3.1. Now that we have a stable system to build upon after all of these years, we should concentrate on a good user interface. Not necessarily a Desktop User Interface, but a thin, lightweight interface that allows the user to more efficiently do their work without any messy cognitive analogies.

Re:Real Window Managers

[zenmojodaddy]

Good call. The problem I have with both KDE and GNOME is that some packages offered as part of the desktop are so dependent on various other components that they're unusable on their own. I don't use GNOME at all but have had to install the full shebang when I install Slackware, because working out the various dependencies for a few packages is just too much work.

If Microsoft integrates a browser with a file manager, or hints at integrating a media player or anything else in the OS, everyone cries foul, so why is that considered good practice in the major *nix environments?

I'd much rather see a truly modular system, so the the user is free to pick and choose a window manager, a file manager, a browser, a messenger etc. and have them all play nice together, regardless of whether they are part of KDE or GNOME or standalone projects.

For the record: Slackware, Fluxbox and ROX-Filer all the way, baby.

Re:Real Window Managers

[a_karbon_devel_005]

Bleh.

1) KDE != WM. Repeat after me: "KDE IS NOT A WINDOW MANAGER." It's a desktop environment and it does way, WAY more than a simple WM. God it's 2004 people, HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED THIS YET?

2) The IMMENSE proliferation of small, lightweight WMs has ALWAYS been active in the Linux community. EvilWM, IceWM, TWM, BlackBox, FluxBox, Waimea, Kahaki, etc. etc. etc. There is really NO NEED for any more WMs to "get back to basics" THEY'RE ALREADY OUT THERE. Most of them are damned good as they are. Real users want MORE features at this point, these kind of posts are just counter productive. It's 2004. People want to USE the 2.4Ghz 64 bit Athlon they just bought (for cheap). Mom doesn't want fluxbox, she wants her computer to put up a little CDROM icon when she inserts one into her computer. Congrats KDE team on making an efficient, fun, functional DE.

Re:Real Window Managers

[a_karbon_devel_005]

I'd much rather see a truly modular system, so the the user is free to pick and choose a window manager, a file manager, a browser, a messenger etc. and have them all play nice together, regardless of whether they are part of KDE or GNOME or standalone projects.

You can use a different window manager in KDE than kwin, as long as it's standards compliant.
You don't HAVE to use Konqueror in KDE.
You don't HAVE to use Kopete. You don't even have to install it.
MS bundles tend to be UNREMOVABLE from the system. That's the difference. KDE is just a collection of libraries. Some applications don't work all that well without certain other applications, but you're not FORCED to use/install most of them. And there must be SOME interoperability between the applications to get a smooth, polished DE. But really it's not as bad as you make out.

Re:Real Window Managers

[SyntheticTruth]

"If Microsoft integrates a browser with a file manager, or hints at integrating a media player or anything else in the OS, everyone cries foul, so why is that considered good practice in the major *nix environments?"

But KDE *does not* tie the browser to the OS, it ties the browser to the *desktop* and there is a *HUGE* difference in that. I can't think of any part of Konqueror that directly makes calls to kernel functions (though admittingly I have not dove deep into the code.)

MSIE is a beast that is *tied* to the kernel, uses kernel internals, and thus, is bad. I have yet to see *any* *nix desktop/window manager that does such a thing.

Re:Real Window Managers

[Daengbo]

You need to use nautilus --no-desktop. That should fix your problem with the icons.

Re:Real Window Managers

[rmull]

actually...

app load times in kde has historically been a big problem. It's due to the way the library loader works with c++ apps. The current solution is "kdeinit", which is kind of a hack, but the right way to do it is to have improved control over what exactly is exported from a library, which gcc 3.4 gives.

Re:Real Window Managers

[Hatta]

The problem I have with both KDE (which I use) and GNOME is that they both require that ancient bloatware package known as "The X Window System."

X is not bloated. It's the toolkits. Try running a lightweight window manager (fluxbox, icewm, etc). It's damn snappy. X can run on the most minimal machines and even PDAs.

How often do you need to run an X app across the wire?

Every day. X needs better network transparancy, not less. Keep in mind that for local delivery, X uses unix domain sockets which impose no observable overhead.

How many times do you need to support multiple displays and screens

Again, every day. And again, if you don't use them, it doesn't hurt you any.

(OK, this is slashdot, so I know some of you do -- I have myself, but it's very rare).

What's next then? X is slow because of virtual desktops? Makes about as much sense as your other objections.

Re:Real Window Managers

[cortana]

An app that didn't make any calls to the kernel wouldn't be able to do much...

To see what system calls Konqueror makes, run 'strace -f konqueror'. This won't catch them all, of course, becuase KDE relies on other processes to do a lot of its work. You can start an X server with xterm as the only client, and do 'strace -f startkde' to see the lot.

Of course, one can always apt-get remove konqueror if one doesn't want it installed, the rest of KDE will not stop working. Try that with Internet Explorer. :)

WRT to MSIE using 'kernel internals': is there actually any documented evidence of when/where/why it does this? Internet Explorer probably uses the "Native API" *less* than a typical Unix process would use system calls; where Mozilla would open(2) a file, IE would call the OpenFile Win32 API, which would be handled by the Win32 server (csrss.exe, IIRC).

Re:Real Window Managers

[Coryoth]

The problem I have with both KDE (which I use) and GNOME is that they both require that ancient bloatware package known as "The X Window System."

What, exactly, is wrong with the X Window System? It's not bloat - X gets used on handheld and embedded devices. It's not that the network transparency slows it down - when connecting to a local server X uses shared memory on the machine and doesn't go through any network calls. Speed? Now we're talking implementation issues, but X has been getting better on that front since it finally moved on from XFree86 as the default implementation on Linux. More importantly, in raw rendering speed, X is actually faster than windows. Percieved lack of speed is more due to some lingering X rendering issues (which Keith Packard is fixing), and the toolkits that run on top.

Sure X isn't ideal - nothing is, but it is a hell of a lot better than most stuff out there, and it certainly has many advantages over Win32 GDI.

How often do you need to run an X app across the wire?

Every damn day! Just because you don't use this feature doesn't mean it isn't (a) immensely valuable, (b) used regularly by everyone else. It is not at all uncommon for me to have a desktop full of apps, where each app is actually running on a different machine. X lets me do that, and have a perfetly seamless desktop as if all the apps were running locally. That is a huge advantage.

I'd love to see a thin, fast, cross-platform replacement for X.

X is surprisingly thin - more so than Windows, which has Win32 GDI tied in to everything else. X runs on embedded devices - how slim do you want? X is fast - run some raw render benchmarks for yourself. X is cross platform. I've run X servers on Windows, on Mac, on Linux, on Solaris, on AIX, and on BSD. They all connect to each other happily with no complaints. Show me Win32 GDI doing anything similar.

Jedidiah.

Re:Real Window Managers

[Raphael]

How often do you need to run an X app across the wire?

Every day. X needs better network transparancy, not less. Keep in mind that for local delivery, X uses unix domain sockets which impose no observable overhead.

I will grant to the grandparent post that X adds some overhead for the applications that have to send a large amount of rapidly-changing data to the display (e.g., games). The problem is that even if relatively efficient techniques such as unix domain sockets are used, updating the display frequently does require several context switches between the client application, the kernel and the X server.

But this only applies to a small number of applications. For most of them, the overhead is probably less than 1% of time taken by the application to do other stuff. And for the applications that require fast display updates, then there are several X extensions that have been specifically designed for that (e.g., DGA). Of course, using these extensions require more programming effort beyond what is provided by the common toolkits (Qt or GTK+) and you lose the cross-platform nature and network transparency of X, but it is possible to write fast applications based on X if you need to.

Re:Real Window Managers

[Grishnakh]

I think you're a little confused. As others have pointed out, MSIE isn't tied to the kernel, just to other things in the OS.

The real difference between Konqueror/KDE and MSIE/Windows is that Konqueror and KDE are optional, and can be removed from the OS without affecting other (non-KDE) applications. Windows can't be pared down like this.

If I want to build a small embedded computer that uses a simple nonstandard GUI on a touchscreen, it's fairly easy to do that in Linux. Just don't install all the KDE/Gnome stuff, and it won't be wasting either disk space or (more importantly) memory. That's not possible in Windows, where you're stuck with IE and everything else that a normal desktop user would want. (And before the Windows fans start yelling) Yes, it is possible to get a special "embedded" version of windows that is customizable, it costs big bucks, and is only available to developers. I can download the latest full-blown SuSE or Red Hat version, and during the install choose only the minimal packages I need, leaving out all the bloat. The bottom line here is "modularity". Linux has it, Windows doesn't.

the Devil is in the Details

[DarkSarin]

which is what this article lacks. Don't get me wrong--there is some cool information there, but I want to see screenies of the entire desktop--has that changed much or not?

I would also like more information about the core KDE, not just the peripheral stuff like Konq & KHTML.

All that said, the idea of a new version of KDE is fairly kool, but frankly, as an XFCE user (and occasionally Gnome), I find the KDE desktop & icons to be just a shade on the kludgy side. They don't look as clean or professional in my mind.

But that's just one geek's opinion.

Konqueror + Gecko?

[ScriptMonkey]

Does anyone know if this will include Konquerer with the ability to use the Gecko rendering engine?

Re:Konqueror + Gecko?

[philipacamaniac]

Zack's blog doesn't say anything about KDE 3.4, but QT Mozilla is available now for testing. Yay! http://www.kdedevelopers.org/blog/14?PHPSESSID=e5d d84569f3907829c4a09159b7901f4/

Re:Konqueror + Gecko?

[Daengbo]

Using kdebindings you can easily tell konqueror to use gecko instead of khtml

Re:Slashdotted

[Chuck Bucket]

Here's a mirror.

CB

Re:Shouldn't this be posted Anonymously...

[Ed_Moyse]

Well, the site is down already and if he hadn't posted that then I wouldn't have been able to read the article. So I don't really think it's karma whoring.

IMAP filtering in KMail

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone know if the new KMail will supported incoming message filtering on IMAP folders? The ONLY reason I'm stuck using evolution at work is because evolution can sort mails coming into my IMAP Inbox into various other IMAP folders.

Re:IMAP filtering in KMail

[Daengbo]

From here

KMail

• Asynchronous encryption Ingo Kloecker , Marc Mutz
• Namespace support for IMAP Carsten Burghardt
• Using komposer Zack Rusin
• Full text indexing Don Sanders
• Leave on server for x days for POP Don Sanders
• Asynchronous filtering Don Sanders
• Multi/part related mails Don Sanders
• Get rid of mimelib (a.k.a. KMime). Marc Mutz
• Redesign filters to use Sieve internally. Allow editing of Sieve scripts on IMAP servers to get rid of the bug reports a la "KMail doesn't support IMAP folders for filtering" Marc Mutz
• Make the visible headers configurable, allow for "show all and hide specified headers" as well as "show specified headers". Already available as a patch. Klas Kalass
• Rewrite the composer window to drop KEdit and support richtext engines. (old ktexteditor patch available here). See also the new code in libkdepim/komposer Zack Rusin
• Improved configuration of header and attachment views Aaron J. Seigo
• Asynchronization of crypto operations. Ingo Kloecker
• Automatic HTML to plaintext conversion when replying to HTML mails. Don Sanders
• Make use of KWallet. Ingo Kloecker

So...yes?

Report from KDE World Summit, Day 7:

[Mstrgeek]

This is good Article dealing wih Kide written by Tom Chance

http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/30/2 028209

Hope you find it to educational

More complete feature plan

[kigrwik]

A more complete feature plan can be found here

Though it's not always up-to-date (some devs prefer pushing their code first, and *then* update the page).

HTH,
Kig.

autorefresh

[b100dian]

This is my problem too. everytime I look at KDE I get the feeling of a window manager that shivers (or refreshes) and it feels 'unstable'. Menus flickering, Icons redrawing etc. I see all these.
The problem comes when I try to find somebody that notices this too: google helps not, discussion lists either etc. Even people (like: real people) deny that they notice this refreshing/flickering.
This is one of the main reasons I avoid using KDE.. and this is one of the first times I read from somebody that he dislikes the same thing.
It's worse than a bug: it's undescribable and unreproduceable...

Re:autorefresh

[nick korma]

are you sure your monitor is not next to a large fan?

Re:autorefresh

[grqb]

I get this too! Mostly it seems to happen when I open a window that has large directories in it...I always thought that it was calculating the size of the directory. It also happens when I'm downloading or moving a large file and it re-calculates the size of the file on the fly (every time it flickers it recalculates the file size).

This is quite annoying, I just shade the window until it stops flickering...sometimes this can take a while though...

Re:autorefresh

[moZer]

If it makes you feel any better, I see it too :-)

The flickering is due to the fact that QT is not double-buffered. There are, AFAIK, tricks to make applications/widgets double-buffered, but it's not toolkit-wide. Gtk is, however.

There is a speed vs. eyecandy/usability tradeoff involved.

Mirror!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mirror

Re:Does it have a proper exchange handler

[Daengbo]

OK, this was a troll, but from here:

Kontact

• Add alternative tab-based viewmode. Daniel Molkentin
• SnapIn/SnapOut actions for changing between an app running stand-alone or embedded in Kontact at run-time.
• Make Kontact (KOrganizer/KMail) work with Exchange 2000. Daniel Molkentin

So I guess that's a "yes."

Rendezvous support is nice, but ...

[YetAnotherName]

... but it's the applications that use it that will matter. Over on Mac OS X, Rendezvous is what lets you stream your iTunes music or share your iPhoto pictures. Will KDE's media player let you stream music to other KDE media players on the network? Or better yet, to and from other iTunes players?

Unfortunately, the article doesn't say so.

Re:gmail?

[LMCBoy]

Since when does Gmail support Konqueror?

Gmail doesn't support Konqueror, but Konqueror now supports Gmail.

Obligatory Futurama quote

[RPoet]

I don't say that one has to like KDE, but "I don't like the icons" is not a very godd reason...

Calculon: An Oscar, you say? That would get me out of this festering rat's nest called "television" once and for all. Let me see the script. [Zoidberg hands it to him and he speed-reads it.] No, no I don't like the font.

What about the menu editor?

[jav1231]

There would appear to be no mention of improving the menu editor. This should be a priority.

Re:Thanks a bunch

[netsharc]

Can't you uninstall libkdecore, and then try to update KDE, so that it installs a (hopefully good) libkdecore as a dependency?

I agree, this part of GNU/Linux still need work, the structure of Program Files\ApplicationName in Windows or Applications/SingleFileWhichIsTheApp is a lot easier to manage instead of putting everything into /usr/bin/ ...

Re:Way to go KDE and Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never had to code for it. You would very quickly realize how thin the veneer is and how much of a square peg the UI is crammed into unix's round hole.

The underside of OSX is the most fsked up nightmare you can imagine. It's two completely imcompatible OSes crammed togeather with nightmarish consequences. It's a huge pain for developers and a huge opportunity for virus writers should they ever bite.

I initially thought the same as you, "Finally, a desktop unix with a usable UI!" how wrong I was :(

Re:some KDE myths

[carnivore302]

It almost seems like trolls spend more time on their posts than regular users, and often include some nice words of wisdom:

Online polls are the joke of the
century; it doesn't even require a motivated script kiddie to render then worthless.
A single post alerting the faithful on a zealot-ridden site can skew the result so
much it makes American presidential elections look fair and well organised.

This is so obvious, I have in fact never thought about it this way. "He guys, on www.xyz.org, I've put up a poll. Do (a) love xyz, (b) hate xyz. Please stop by and vote!". Guess what happens to the results..

While I am a KDE user (loving it since version 1.0) I do think a couple of the objections raised have merit, and others can be easily countered:

What about application installation and removal? GNOME has the excellent RedCarpet by
Ximian [ximian.com] [ximian.com], which makes the installation, removal and updating
of applications trivial.
KDE offers none of this, only a few small half-assed Linux-only tools,
which make no attempt at check-pointing to return to known working configurations.

I think this is true. Although most of us are not hindered by untarring, typing ./configure;make;make install, it is true that KDE is behind in this respect. On the other hand, when using gentoo it is often a matter of a simple emerge -u xyz.

[Konqueror]
It is quite unreliable and even simple standards compliant
pages can crash it quite comprehensively

Maybe, but it hasn't crashed on me for a very long time. As both a windows and kde user, I must say explorer crashes more often than konqueror.

Perhaps the most cretinous of all problems is blaming the extremely slow startup
times of KDE apps on GCC. One need only look at the recent fuss
over ugly KDE hacks (such as prelinking) used to bandage up the design and coding
flaws in the decrepit KDE architecture to see the truth.

Choosing C++ as the main language for KDE is indeed a decision with lots of impact. At the time of the birth of kde, which must be 7 or 8 years ago(?) only two viable choices were available: C or C++. The choice for C++ has probably speed up the time to implement things, but turned out to be slow at execution. The whole linking mess was discovered long after KDE started out - the KDE architects cannot be blamed for it. As an aside, I think if KDE were redone in java (now also a viable alternative), it would reach the same functionality as todays KDE in very shorter timeframe, while being faster and having fewer bugs.

Still, I think the parent deserves a (+1) underrated.

Where's the beef?

[mccrew]

the UI of KDE and GNOME is still severely not user-friendly.
...
put more emphasis on usability if you don't want linux to fall in a few years

Define user friendly.

Re:some KDE myths

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the most cretinous of all problems is blaming the extremely slow startup
times of KDE apps on GCC. One need only look at the recent fuss
over ugly KDE hacks (such as prelinking) used to bandage up the design and coding
flaws in the decrepit KDE architecture to see the truth

When was the last time you used kde? You may be surprised at the speed improvements kde has made recently. I used KDE up to version 3.0 where I finally found it to be so bloated and slow that I actually returned to windoze. Of course.. it wasn't just KDE that was bloated and slow, it was also Red Hat 8.0. Windows actually ran much faster. I wasn't as far ahead of the power user curve as I am now and I wanted an easy to use environment.

I returned to my linux journey this January where I installed Slackware with XFCE. XFCE is great. I love the CDE style since I spent a vast majority of my time during my college years coding in Solaris. The problem was that I found myself using more and more KDE programs. Gnome/Gtk programs may have been more flashy, but definitely tend to be behind the curve in both features and usability. In addition, I really hated the lack of key bindings and the rigidity of the interface.

When KDE 3.2 came out I heard that it was significantly faster and less resource demanding. I made the switch just a couple of months ago and I was VERY impressed. I use gentoo now and optimized the build and I now get a very fast start up for both KDE and all KDE apps. I do hate the standard windoze style interface, but have since customized it to a CDE style. This was not so straightforward, but few DE/WMs could manage so much at all. Plus I get hot-keys and tab functions galore and don't have to use the mouse much at all..

Don't mistake static builds with pre-linking, they are similar but different. I've never liked the shared library concept. This was not even worth the saved space way back when windoze started doing it. It's what led to DLL hell.. and now leads to package/library hell. I saw BRAVO for more static linking. As far as pre-link.. I use cron to prelink my system once a week. The few GTK programs I use seem to benefit from it as well. Does that mean they're decreipt?

Re:again, a lack of priorities.

[Anonymous Coward]

although the screenshots show that the UI is getting better, the UI of KDE and GNOME is still severely not user-friendly.

I agree that there are a lot of areas for improvement, but I don't think that they are behind Windows or Mac OS X. Both of those environments have significant shortcomings as well.

put more emphasis on usability if you don't want linux to fall in a few years.

Both the projects have usability teams, but even without them I don't understand why you think that way. Poor usability didn't stop Windows or Mac OS X from becoming accepted. Care to back up your claims?

i'm sure a bunch of 13 year olds who just installed red hat 7 on their parents old PII-350 are going to rebut saying i don't know what i'm talking about... but from a CS student's perspective

Did you ever think that, as a mere student, you aren't in a position to belittle the credibility of other peoples opinions? Or that, if a 13 year old can use it just fine, perhaps it's not all that unusable?

Re:again, a lack of priorities.

[Jesus_666]

KDE and GNOME are ugly, hard to use, and don't come close to the user-friendliness of windows or mac os x.

You obviously never had to reconfigure your Windows in any way. I have been power-using Windows since 3.11 and after switching to Linux about one year ago I was immediately surprised at how intuitive everything configuration-related was compared to Windows.

Properly configuring your system is pretty hard with Windows - most of the interesting settings are hidden in obscure places where no one in their right mind would ever look for them; some settings even require you to fiddle with undocumented hex strings somewhere in the registry or use third-party software to do the dirty work for you.
With KDE you can access pretty much everything you should ever want to configure using a very clean and intuitive control panel (compared to Windows'). The Gnome panel seems to be rather usable too, although I haven't seen it too often.

Sure, the UI needs improvement, especially in comparison to OS X. But I think that in terms of usability, KDE and Gnome have both already surpassed Windows.
It's big things like the more intuitive design and small things like X's select-and-middle-click-paste or KDEs multiple kicker bars that - in my personal opinion, of course - make Linux/KDE a lot more usable than Windows.

Re: One learns something useful everyday. Thanks.

[zod1025]

Just an FYI, by default Konqueror doesn't show previews of files larger than 1 meg (not sure of the reason why, memory or speed limitations maybe)

You can change this behavior too, under Settings-> Configure Konqueror-> Previews and Meta Data, change the "Maximum filesize" to your liking.

Re:some KDE myths

[msh104]

excuse me... but static linking applications would tripple it's size, if not more. just imagine konqy and the 44 libs it uses (on my system that is) compiled static together.. it would become VERY large. then add kicker, kdestop, kopete, amarok, kontact and all the programs it uses... it would cost you gigs of discspace for a decent kde install.

Re:again, a lack of priorities.

[morgajel]

put more emphasis on usability if you don't want linux to fall in a few years.

What's wrong with it?

This could just be the Mac influence in you talking. I personally find kde/windows 2k and lower a breeze to use, but when I used an ibook for a month I thought it was the worst UI ever (I dislike winXP as well). It's not so much that one is worse than the other, it's that they're two different approaches. windows vs. mac. KDE, though they don't like to admit it, owe most of their UI to windows. I'm not saying that Macs aren't good; the next laptop I get will probably be some type of powerbook, but it'll probably dual-boot with gentoo.

my wife, who is not a computer person, was able to pick up kde with very little problem coming from a windows-only background. She's now capable of changing her kdm login manager and her desktop settings. she's moved the menubar to the top of the screen. she's able to update the menu when I install something new for her if it doesn't automatically (kde->settings->menu updating tool)

so I guess my question is, what is it you're having problems with? every kde thread that comes up there seems to be someone saying this exact same thing, but I never seem to hear what is actually wrong with the UI other than it's not a mac. Have you submitted a bug report about it? that's the easiest way to get the info to a kde dev. just set it to the lowest priority/wishlist or whatever, and a dev will probably check it out.

if I pissed you off on accident, I'm sorry- I just woke up.