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A Sneak Preview of KDE 4
An anonymous reader writes "In recent times, a lot of discussion has been generated about the state of KDE version 4.0 and as Linux users we are ever inquisitive about what the final user experience is going to be. This article throws light on some of the features that we can look forward to when KDE 4.0 is finally released some time this year. The article indicates that the most exciting fact about KDE 4.0 is going to be that it is developed using the Qt 4.0 library. This is significant because Qt 4.0 is released under a GPL license even for non-Unix platforms. So this clears the ideological path for KDE 4.0 to be ported to Windows and other non-Unix/X11 platforms."
Funny how everyone says 'SUSE' these days to rhyme with 'traitorous scumbags' :-)
I'm a new convert to KDE, after years of predominantly fluxbox usage, with the odd dabble into Gnome. This is mainly because I principally used Linux over VNC or ssh, so KDE was out of the question, too slow over the network.
Now I have the novelty of a fast local Linux box, and decided to try out these fancy Graphical Desktops a bit more. The new Gnome is good, but I must say I am becoming more and more impressed with KDE as the days go on. I still like my fluxbox though, simplicity does have it's appeal sometimes. Can KDE ever be that fast though, I doubt it. Not that I care much about load times on KDE, 99% of my computer usage is text editors and the console. Those are two things that run fast on any system.
KDE on windows? Sounds interesting. Windows is just a games environment or dumb terminal into my linux cluster for me normally, I'd love to have KDE on XP. A fast KDE frontend for Vista might actually make me consider buying that heap.
It's funny that that's the reason why I detest Gnome - for some reason they got the idea that removing all the options that only 5% of users use is a good idea. Of course all the other options are used by a different 5% each time so in the end you've got the majority of users upset because the option they want has been removed. Note: Put to the side with an unknown and unguessable key combination counts as removed.
But that's OK because Gnome isn't for me.
Please, Gnome is a slim pick up and go desktop for new users, KDE is a customisable and flexible desktop for power, business or techie users. I like it this way, it gives everyone a desktop that they are comfortable with. As a techie, I want KDE to stay the way it is, please don't try to change it to something it is not.
Actually its a CDE ripoff.
CDE predates win95, and was based on the many desktop WIMP environments around in the late 1980s, such as HPs VUE.
A lot of the things you imagine are Windows interface paradigms are actually basic HCI stuff (Fitts law, Roman language left-right convention, and whatnot) that pretty much dictate colour schemes, icon size, icon behaviour, left to right conventions, etc.
The only thing I can think of that is a Windows thing is the position of a main menu button in the bottom left, its easier to mouse to the top of the screen than to the bottom because of the way the muscles in the hand/arm work. In truth the KDE button can be located anywhere, its just the default themes that just happen to position it there, cos that's where most computer users look to find a central control.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
It's not about "using the GPU", QT4 is just much faster and eats less resources.
"When Qt designer was ported to Qt 4.0 - only the neccesary changes to make it compile - the libqt size decreased by 5%, Designer num relocs went down by 30%, mallocs use by 51%, and memory use by 15%. The measured Designer startup time went down by 18%"
Now try to imagine the savings for the whole KDE desktop