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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."
Someone mod this guy up. Seriously, Linux folk need to get serious about GUI design if they ever want Linux to be taken seriously. THAT was supposed to be the holy grail? Not that I'm an avid Windows supporter, but they've had a better file manager than that for over 10 years now. Apple for even longer. I think that, because the typical Linux user has been using Linux forever and would just as well command line everything, the GUI gets relegated to the back of the line. Even the Linux desktop's that are full of graphical eye candy just miss the usability ball. We want/need less information and simple structure, not more options. Well, not we but that "ambiguous" target that's out there that the Linux crowd thinks they can capture.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
That's a GNOME problem if anything. KDE has something called Klipper for a long time now, and that manages the clipboard between all applications. You can still do X-style copy/pasting via selections and middle-clicking, but Klipper keeps a history of your clipboard and is overall an awesome clipboard manager; better than the default offerings in Windows and OS X by far.
In fact, KDE is far more consistent than GNOME in my experience, and even more consistent than Windows or OS X in some cases.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
No. KDE 4.0 is not the holy grail of desktops. Anything else you wondered about?
> That's a GNOME problem if anything.
> KDE has something called Klipper
> for a long time now
There is a small little utility named Glipper, similiar to Klipper in functionality, but based rather on GTK than Qt.
Klipper sucks.
Klipper is annoying. Each time I copy any URL to the clipboard, it pops up with a stupid menu asking me "WTF do you want to do with that URL, open it in mozilla, open it with Konqueror, disable this popup, etc". It's *REALLY* annoying. Selecting "disable this popup" doesn't help much (Klipper pops up with another window reminding me that I can always turn the popup menu back), and my choice not to use the popup is not remembered across restarts.
Glipper is just better. It doesn't load the whole kbuildsycoca/kinit/kded/ksomething crap and my E16 desktop starts much faster.
Then kindly explain how to install and run gedit on Windows.
Wake me up when you can copy and paste between applications as you can in Windows or on the Mac.
I'm not sure about Mac, but Windoze copy and paste would be a huge downgrade to what's available in free software desktops. KDE and Gnome co-operate well as do most other applications these days. Cutting and pasting preserves formats most of the time. For instance, I can cut a table in Konqueror and paste it into Gnumeric and have it line up right. The same thing happens with text editors ... across desktops ... across networks. I can compare this to the clumsy world of Windoze where cutting and pasting between non free applications is always a crap shot and the network is opaque at best. When I'm forced to use a Windoze machine, I feel like reaching for a floppy.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"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."
Wow! There really are no drawbacks to using KDE on windows!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!