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."

Comments

Explorer is just a shell

[brunes69]

Ever since Windows 3.1, and even today, you do not have to run "Explorer" as your desktop.

A lot of people don't realize this, but the whole of the windows "desktop" - the task bar, the icons, the menus, the right click on the desktop, all runs under a single instance of the "explorer" process.

Via the registry you can change your shell to anything - including the old progman.exe from Windows 3.1 if you have it lying around (heck it even shipped with Windows until Windows 2000). I have switched my shell to Afterstep many times.

There is no logical reason you couldn't switch to KDE as your desktop environment after it had all been ported to windows. It would not have any kind of a built-in performance hit.

Re:Explorer is just a shell

[jhfry]

I worked for a company that ran Outlook as it's shell. Every user logged in and had their mail, calendar, and shortcuts for word, excel, and a couple of internal apps in the sidebar. At first I thought it was nuts, but it was a well managed network, and it worked really well actually.

Mind you, this was a relatively long time ago... Win 95 or 98 era if I remember correctly... when you could change your shell just by editing a line in your system.ini.

Re:Explorer is just a shell

[geekoid]

I still think, from a usabuility stand point, the 3.1 desktop was very good.

Yes, it looked ugly, but that's not the point.
It grouped everything right there, on the desktop. This is very helpfull to users.

Visually is how people orginaize there desktop. The current paradigm makes it very hard to visualize everything, so people have a hard time orginizing in a way the is logical to THEM.

I have had many users ask "Why can't I just see everything in one place"
I tell them, you can just put shortcuts on your desktop.

No one desktop is all things to all men

[pandrijeczko]

Firstly, I think it's important to separate the "show offs" from the "power users". In other words, if certain people want pretty graphical features in Windows, KDE, Gnome, etc. etc. then let them have them - but also allow them to be turned off for people like me who want functionality, integration and speed with no interest of wasting *always* important CPU cycles on eye candy.

Personally, I find the defauly Windows XP GUI patronising and completely unusable - I much prefer the Windows "Classic" desktop, the only thing missing from it is a proper dual pane file manager that shows one directory in the left window, another in the right window and a number of easily accessible commands for working with files beneath each window (a la Midnight Commander or Directory Opus).

KDE is also nice but far too flashy and bloaty for a power user like me - given the choice between KDE and Gnome, I choose Gnome but even then with some reservations about the wasted screen real estate with Gnome.

But if I need a GUI enviroment that just allows me to have multiple shells or apps running, without too much need for filetype integration (so that when I double-click on, say, a JPEG image icon, a viewer application opens the image for me) then XFCE4 is a good compromise for usability and speed.

I can see *ABSOLUTELY NO NEED* for 3D file explorers on 3D desktops unless you simply want a fashion accessory just to show off to friends. Unless you use a PC for gaming (which admittedly I do quite a lot), then everything else you do on it is about productivity and using an application to get a job done quickly and easily - if any desktop effects do not make that productivity work any faster, then they are a complete and total waste of time.

Re:Why?

[parvenu74]

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. If you're using KDE on Windows as a migration step toward Linux, then the disappearance of the Win32 API is the goal, not a problem. Hey Gnome developers -- I know you read these posts, Miguel! -- how much longer before you have something like Gnome/Win32 available? Y'all keep wondering when Linux on the desktop will be ready for prime time... As soon as you can deliver KDE/Win32 and/or Gnome/Win32, allow OpenOffice, Firefox, and all of the other F/OSS apps to run on these frameworks instead of the Win32 API stack, then sysadmins will be able to deprecate the Win32 apps one at a time in favor of the Linux apps (Evolution for Outlook, for example) until no more native Windows apps are left and you can nuke Windows & repave the hard drive with your favorite flavor of Linux. Moreover, if these frameworks actually WORK on Win32 and work well, then companies like Adobe will have a reason to make version of their products for KDE/Gnome/Linux, which means more momentum for Linux and more nails in Windows' coffin.

Re:Why?

[alexhs]

Excepted it doesn't disable the window manager AFAIK.

The key I know about is "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell"
I've used it to start cygwin xwin X server in place of explorer, but if you're launching a win32 app, it still has XP borders. And if you're launching a browser window, it will launch the full desktop.

Is there an equivalent to 'nautilus --no-desktop' for MS explorer ?

Is there a mean to replace the whole window manager ?

Re:There are even better shells for windows.

[nschubach]

I've actually tried this before (for a PC-Gaming center configuration). something about Half-life as the Shell disallowed it access to the registry, thus the application key stored therein. When the PC booted up into Half-Life, it would prompt for the CD-Key.