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Is KDE 4.0 the Holy Grail of Desktops?
An anonymous reader writes "With KDE 4.0 being expected some time this year, expectation runs high in the linux/unix users camp and the media read a lot between the lines of what the KDE developers say and do. In some ways KDE will provide a standard as to how a desktop should look and behave. This interesting article wonders whether KDE 4.0 will become the complete desktop which will meet the needs of a wide cross section of computer users. One of the common complaints that some Linux users have over KDE is that it is too cluttered. And by addressing this need without putting off the power users, the KDE developers could make it an all in one Desktop. Keep in mind that KDE 4.0 is based on Qt 4.0 and so can be easily ported to Windows and other OSes too which makes this thought doubly relevant."
You can pass a switch to disable explorer as a shell. That is why things like LiteStep are called Shell Replacements.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Because QT 3 isn't available under GPL for Windows or Mac, while QT 4 is. Next question?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Pfft - my KDE desktop copies/pastes between all applications on Open Suse and Fedora. Plus, with the Klipper, I can paste things that I copied a while ago. I deem it superior.
I'm a student. I write iPhone apps.
Program Manager shipped through XP SP1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Manager
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Yes, everything still works. If you've tried blackbox for windows, GeOShell, or Litestep, you'll notice everything still works. What would KDE make different about that? It's not like it goes off and assinates MFC and SWF.NET to replace them with libqt
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
What I don't understand is why they're saying Dolphin and Konqueror are the same thing.
Konqueror started out as a file manager, true, but KDE tacked on web browsing to it and then spent most of the time developing that aspect of it -- now it's really more of a web browser that does file management too, rather than a file manager on steroids.
With Dolphin they appear to have recognized this and are creating an application to focus on what Konqueror was originally intended to do in the first place. This isn't exactly the same as creating a beginner's app and a power-user's app...
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Have you tried using the DejaVu fonts (a derivative of Bitstream Vera)? In my opinion, they look far better than the Microsoft core fonts, especially when you use subpixel antialiasing on an LCD screen. They also support a lot more glyphs than Helvet^WArial, Times [New Roman], Courier New, Verdana, and Tahoma.
/Library/Fonts/ and use Fondu to extract the fonts in the dfont resource fork files. That way you get some nice fonts for printing (from Adobe) and some nice designer fonts as well.
I haven't really used the new fonts from Vista, however, so those might actually look nicer for all I know.
Also, if you have a copy of OS X, it's always a nice idea to copy all the fonts from
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
The WIN32 API is basically just a collection of library files (dlls) in the c:\windows\* folders. Not running explorer doesn't effect that. You'd just have a different program to organize your desktop, launch applications, etc. Programs access the Win32 API by making calls into those DLLs. As long as you don't delete the DLLs, your API is still there. You'd loose explorer specific functionality--ie, things like adding WinRAR to your context menu--might not work if whoever compiled KDE for Windows didn't ensure that part worked, but it won't prevent any of your individual applications from running and working with each other.
Of course, if you're using KDE on Windows as a migration step towards KDE on Linux, once you move to Linux the WIN32 API disappears along with the windows apps.
Several KDE 3 apps have already been ported to OS X, such as kwrite as QT3 is available under the GPL on OS X. KDE developers have said that KDE 4 will be portable to other architectures including OS X amd Win32. However this doesn't mean they intend to port port the entire desktop to, say, OS X. Rather the apps themselves will be portable. This is arguably more important than porting the entire desktop. However, Having the KDE desktop replacing explorer on win32 would be wonderful. KDE still won't make Vista any less obnoxious, though. I am looking forward to running great KDE apps like Amarok on my OS X box at some point in the future, though.
In the meantime, Gnome is coming along quite nicely too. Neither gnome nor KDE is the be-all, end-all, last word in desktop environments, though. They both will continue to evolve and develop. More and more cooperation among the two camps through the freedesktop project is happening. Major problems have now been solved, including the clipboard frustrations of years past, drag-and-drop, and removable device handling through dbus. In fact with Qt4, since the glib main event loop can be used, it's becoming possible to mix gtk and qt widgets in the same app, which is handy for plugin developers. Problems yet to be solved include a common theming subsystem, a common virtual filesystem layer (a la kioslaves), and a few other things.
So you're saying that merely doing everything Windows does it not enough, it's got to be MUCH better.
1. standardized operation for ALL applicatation.
Windows doesn't. At all. Even MS apps aren't all the same, especially between generations.
2. cut and paste between ALL applications.
KDE does this. See a thread above.
3. Applications must ALL be uniform in operation of common functions..
I assume you mean dialog boxes. Windows doesn't guarantee it, and neither does KDE. It provides the same (and more) functionality that Windows does, though.
4. Uniform operation of input devices (mouse)..
Dunno what you mean here... Seems pretty uniform to me. (Heck, X/KDE even assumes every mouse only has 2 buttons. How much more uniform can you get?)
5. Easily customizable..
You might have something here... Too bad KDE is MUCH more customizeable than Windows, especially straight out of the box.
6. Standardized behavour on any local or remote environment..
Windows can't even touch this one.
7. Some kind of direct video support (games, etc...).
Windows doesn't do this. It provides an API for it through a non-essential set of libraries. (DirectX) Everything has OpenGL, so this point is moot.
Unless you were talking about Apple's interface... But why KDE would rule the market by only beating Apple, which doesn't rule the market, is byond me.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
If you are a full-on Free Software advocate and only care about writing free/open source software, then I can see why KDE/Qt is usually the best choice. On the other hand, if you are interested in commercial development, like myself, you need to look at pricing as well. If you only want to develop for Windows, then the "SDK" is free and the "IDE" can range from free to a couple of grand with a premium MSDN subscription. But Qt itself costs around $1780 to $6600 on a per developer basis depending on console/GUI one/two/three platform development. If you work for a company with any clout, you can probably cut that cost in half for either platform.
Although I'm not doing anything now, the first thing I would use for a lean startup cross platform development is ACE with wxWidgets on Visual Studio Express or Eclipse with CDT.
It is just my opinion, but I think the pricing for Qt is too high. I wonder how big the Linux Desktop "pie" could grow if we could all settle on Qt if it fell under LGPL or BSD? Trolltech's smaller piece of a bigger pie, might still be bigger than the one they have now. Putting GPL/Free Software asisde for a second, from a commercial perspective, I don't want a "new Microsoft" on the Linux Desktop. Perhaps someone with some cash could revive the Harmony Toolkit...
WindowMaker is a window manager, not a desktop environment. A desktop environment consists of a window manager and related UI items, plus (more importantly) a development platform for applications.
The workspace (that would be mostly KWin and Plasma) won't be ported to Windows. Only applications will.
1. standardized operation for ALL applicatation.
--> It does, check out dcop or it's replacement d-bus. Through shell, perl, c++, qt... you can communicate between any application in both fore- and background.
2. cut and paste between ALL applications..
Has done that for a while now...
3. Applications must ALL be uniform in operation of common functions..
That's up to the programmers mainly, but all decent KDE applications use the standard QT library
4. Uniform operation of input devices (mouse)..
What's your problem with that? Any mouse I connect works and the mouse buttons too. Mainly an issue of configuration (which can be done from within KDE), doesn't matter which OS you use.
5. Easily customizable..
Check out kde-look.org, I think there's even a plugin into the Themes section of your configuration that automagically downloads them.
6. Standardized behavour on any local or remote environment..
That's up to the environment server. I connect through X or VNC, looks the same as my desktop at home.
7. Some kind of direct video support (games, etc...).
That's up to the Operating System, not to a desktop environment. And those solutions are available, it's called OpenGL and SDL, too bad only good game developers dare to use portable, industry standards instead of closed API's they don't even have full support for (take a look at the UT engine, Doom engine, Cube engine).
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Dynamic binding defeats CPU branch prediction regardless of how it's implemented -- if the target of a jump instruction is taken from a pointer whose value is determined at run-time, rather than compiled into the program, it can't be predicted. Ordinary C structures containing function pointers, like GNOME uses, work the same way. This isn't a problem with C++ virtual functions; it's just that current processors aren't able to accelerate a certain technique that's often used in modern software design.
As for the extraneous symbols, GCC 4.0 introduced some facilities for suppressing them, and I'm pretty sure KDE uses them now, so that should no longer be an issue.
My only real issue with KDE's programming environment is that they don't use standard C++; they use a variant of C++ that's "enhanced" with syntactic support for signals and slots, and the code gets preprocessed into standard C++ at build time. That's a bit ugly.
Have a look at bbLean, a Windows version of Blackbox. I think it does what you want.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Hear hear! I've been using KDE for years, and every once in a while I experiment with Gnome. I like it, but the lack of some utility (quick and simple file operations across SFTP / SMB / local filesystems using Konqueror springs immediately to mind here) always sends me back to KDE
You know, there's no need to use KDE to use Konqueror. I use Konqueror with Fluxbox, for Chrissakes.
2. Alt-Tab to Firefox
3. Select the link currently in the location bar (in order to replace it)
4. You just lost because the second selection replaced the first. There's no need to paste the address into the location bar -- just middle-click somewhere in a browser tab, and it will load the page. If you hold down Ctrl while you paste, it will open a new tab. IMO this is a perfect example how X11's clipboard logic is way superior to the logic on Macs and Windows.
On Windows I have two additional steps:
1'. Ctrl-C to copy the selected text into the clipboard
3. either Ctrl-L into the location bar or Ctrl-T open a new tab
3'. Ctrl-V the address into the location bar
KDE4-for-windows is supposed to use the Windows WM. Porting KDE 4 to windows doesn't mean porting EVERY piece of KDE of KDE 4 to windows.
Notice that in XP the WM is inside the kernel so in XP is just impossible to replace it.
Well in that case, you have no problem. Qt for X11 is available under the QPL, which permits applications to use a range of free software licenses, including the LGPL and BSD-style.
Guess you'll be switching now then?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Sorry, but I'm going to be a bit pedantic here.
You have described one clipboard (Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V), and it's the Mac way, not the Windows way. Macs originally implemented this with Cmd-C, Cmd-V (and -X, of course) because the Apple UI people were smart enough to realize that Ctrl-C and Ctrl-X already had some important (and somewhat dangerous [kill, cancel]) standardized meanings that shouldn't be messed with. Early PCs did not have a command key, so early Windows versions decided to copy this feature, but using the Ctrl key instead, and to hell with standards.
The Linux way you describe is actually an X11 feature that predates Linux (and probably Windows cut/paste), and it's not really a clipboard at all. Middle-click copies the "primary selection", not the clipboard. The distinction is lost on many (I said I was going to be pedantic...) but technically selections are a protocol for implementing clipboards. By default there is a primary, secondary, and a clipboard selection, and those can contain many separate buffers of data. (The xclipboard client lets you manipulate the clipboard buffers, if you're curious.) But middle-click in X doesn't hit the clipboard selection at all, but rather the primary selection. You can use this to copy/paste stuff without messing with the contents of your clipboard, which might doing more important things.
So X selections are really a superset of clipboards. As with everything in Unixland, this imparts a lot of power for those who have been initiated into its mysteries, but creates confusion in those who have not, and hostility in those who think the broken Windows way is the right way.