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KDE Goes Cross-Platform, Supports Windows and OS X
klblastone writes "The KDE desktop environment is going cross-platform with support for the Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. In addition to porting the core KDE libraries and applications, developers are also porting popular KDE-based software like the Amarok audio player and the KOffice productivity suite. New KDE binaries for Windows were released yesterday and are now available from KDE mirrors through an automated installer program. The Mac OS X port is made available via BitTorrent in universal binary format."
That bodes well for kimovie, kiphoto and kitunes (for my kipod)
Most of the stuff on
Would I want a desktop with a smelly foot on it?
(This is the correct KDE troll, isn't it?)
the bliss that is getting harassed with a context menu every single fricken time they drag and drop a file!
... allow me to finally have a working multi-desktop interface in windows? I've never seen a solution for multiple desktops in microsoft windows that was anywhere near as nice as the one in KDE.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Any word yet on whether it'll run adequately as a shell replacement under Windows? Running it over Explorer doesn't sound all that attractive, but instead of Explorer might be.
But does it run on Linux?
I do enjoy some of the KDE applications and want to install them deep down in my soul, but because of the buggy nature and pre-release nonsense with KDE4 I'd really never trust it on my MacOSX system. I got my mac so that I wouldn't have to deal with the eternally beta Linux software situation. I want things to work, KDE4 doesn't work. Maybe in a couple years when they get their act together I'll trust it on my system but right now, as a MacOSX user, there is nothing KDE has to offer that's worth trying out. They really screwed up releasing KDE4 early. I don't trust it, I wont trust it for a long time and they're giving me no reason to begin trust any time soon.
Maybe vsita will run faster using KDE instead!
The above comments are not guaranteed to make sense to anyone other than the author...
About 10 days ago I tested KDE4 on an OpenSUSE system, now I've just tried it on Windows too and I must say I'm astounded - many applications work just fine although they feel a bit sluggish. But the basic system is there and I believe it won't be long until we have a fully functional KDE4 shell as an alternative to Explorer. Or we could just stick to the apps and not use the whole desktop environment - in fact I'd like to use KOffice and a few other apps on my Windows box.
Considering it's such an early release, I'd say KDE4 on Windows is functional beyond any expectations, and in a couple of months I hope to be using it for real and not as a toy. Kudos to the KDE team, brilliant as usual.
Global warming is a cube.
I get so frustrated on the rare occasions when I actually need to use Windows... I've gotten so used to KDE that Explorer just feels so akward to use. If I can slap KDE on there, it'll be like home away from home. Vry, very cool.
(By getting ported to windows)
Does this mean Compiz Fusion is able to be run on Windows now?
I wouldn't mind running KDE instead of Explorer on Windows. If anything, it would certainly screw with my boss' head. What I really want to know, as a Mac user, is whether it run alongside Finder on OS X, or whether it can replace Finder.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I thought the "best of both worlds" in OSX referred to having the OSS commandline tools and Cocoa GUI. What in the world would I want with KDE desktop on my Mac?? Ok, I admit that there is ONE GUI program from Linux that I really missed on OS X. And that was PAN (Pimp Ass Newsreader). Fortunately there is a Macport for it. Yeah, it uses X11, stands out like a sore thumb, doesn't integrate with the rest of my apps, but it is the best news reader I've found.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I know this is considered by many as blasphemy but, it can't be seen as anything other than a REALLY good thing for the linux camp out there, provided it works well. One of the biggest barriers to people running linux is that they are uncomfortable with how it will work compared to their comfy Windows box. With this, people can see that KDE is really not that dissimilar, but is more functional.
/. policies.
Over time, people will see that they can run the same thing on a VASTLY less expensive computer. Get people comfortable with how it functions, show them how cheap it is by comparison, increase marketshare.
I guess I probably should have added inserted a step three in there before the increase maketshare as ??? to follow
http://www.tomandemily.com
Why is this article tagged "jews?" Is KDE4 now kosher?
...we can run a Windows GUI on Linux?
As if.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
What does being Jewish have anything to do with the article?
I HOPE this wasn't used in any sort of derogatory way...
'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it...
KDE = K Desktop Environment. When you say "KDE Desktop Environment", you are actually saying "I don't really know what I'm talking about". Rant Over.
Otherwise, I don't see the big deal, it's still KDE.
~Sticky
/GNOME!! //No Karma Bonus
For all those Vista users... ;)
Especially if you're running MacOS X.
That would be like buying a BMW and changing the color with spray paint.
This is interesting. But there is an even more interesting implication. I think I read that Windows 7 will be able to run in text-mode.
Now imagine that someone would make a Win7 port of X.org... Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?
No no no, you've got it all wrong. They're too comfortable with windows only. All that FOSS is just geek-ware and anathema to the average windows user. What we need to do is install some some new brand loyalty before we uninstall their "trusted" windows/security-blanket.
PS: when did open software become about competition and stifling the non-open industry? I thought it was about enriching EVERYONE's experience?
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
"Considering it's such an early release, I'd say KDE4 on Windows is functional beyond any expectations, and in a couple of months I hope to be using it for real and not as a toy. Kudos to the KDE team, brilliant as usual." - by giorgiofr (887762) on Wednesday January 23, @03:09PM (#22157704) AGREED, 110%!
:)
Personally, I've always liked KDE very much on Linux (preferring it to other alternatives, such as GNOME or "std. X-11" stuff etc. et al), & this is GREAT news!
(Thanks for the HONEST feedback too, most of all!)
* Heck - I'm going to D/L it & see if it runs on Windows Server 2003 SP #2 fully currently hotfix patched!
APK
P.S.=> Kudos to their team, by all means - this is the kind of thing that ought to inspire folks to @ least TRY a Linux Desktop Shell on Windows (much as Os/2 had Os/2 for Windows @ one point), & once they get used to it? Then, you may see MORE FOLKS moving to @ least TRYING Linux proper/full, itself, since they won't be "afraid of it" then... apk
Why is this piece of news in the "apple" section, since it is related to windows as well?
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Running the install program, it's not obvious where to get a list of mirrors. After googling around, setting up my own list, etc. etc, I realized that :
If you click on the settings button on that screen you will find a pre-configured list of mirrors hiding there.
Maybe I'm just slow today...
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
"KDE developer Aaron Seigo also spoke about KDE's cross-platform ambitions and discussed some of the broader implications. Bringing popular KDE programs to Windows and Mac OS X is somewhat controversial in the open source software community, because doing so is seen by some as a means of eroding incentives for Linux adoption."
"Seigo and many in the KDE community contend that making KDE applications available on other platforms brings more freedom and choice to Windows users and gives them the ability to adopt open standards and establish an easier migration path to Linux."
Is KDE's cross-platform approach going to backfire?
"He Who Dares Wins"
You can develop for KDE and not loose your windows followers. They can get used to KDE under windows and later when they upgrade their vista to linux they can run the same applications. This makes KDE a great platform. Users win, Developers win, linux fanboys loose, but open source wins.
On the other hand you get the oddities of other platforms for your simple applications. It sounds like everything is cross platform, until you wan tot do something specific. (Just like java is platform independent, until you hit some performance bottleneck that is specific to one platform)
Sounds great to me. I'm using a Qt-based animation program (named Pencil) and it's terrific and also permits for the lead developer to respond very quickly to new ideas coming in. If that's what KDE has to bring, let's have it :)
I've been looking for some time, but I can't find any installers at the FTP sites or the wiki nodes. Is there something I'm missing?
Love the way Ars describes Autotools!
Autotools, an intractably arcane and grotesquely anachronistic cesspool of ineffable complexity that makes even seasoned programmers nauseous.
I believe you just answered your own question. There are some really nice KDE apps available that would be great to have running native on OS X. Krita is a more capable image editor than just about anything available on Mac short of Photoshop. (Try finding any other free image editor that supports 16-bit/channel color and filter layers.) Digikam is also shaping up to be a powerful photo workflow app. I've adjusted to the Mac apps now but back in the day I would have loved to keep using kmail, which is still more functional than Mail.app. In short, more diversity == more choices == better.
Mac developers can design shinier interfaces than anyone else, but too often they gloss over core functionality and/or remain closed-source. It's valuable to have apps designed from the opposite perspective available as well.
Gives you multiple desktops, replaces explorer and is a whole lot lighter, nicer looking and faster than the default pos IE integrated explorer shell. Damn, I've been using BBlean since win2k came out and haven't found a nicer shell for windows since.
http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/ - obviously it isn't perfect but it is better than MSVDM. The worst incompatibility I have found is that some programs show up on every desktop.
I have mentioned this before in posts on slashdot, but I have no relationship with the project.I, like many of us, have to use MS Windows for work, but with virtuawin at least I have ONE annoyance out of the way.
Insert pithy comment here.
This is worth it, just so I can use Amarok.
I've been using KDE on and off for around 10 years now, but in the past 3 years I've been using it fulltime. I must say, I'm very impressed with it, it's just getting better, and better, and better with each successive version. These new features in KDE 4 look really cool. My hat goes off to the developers; it looks really impressive. However, I think I'll stick with KDE 3.5 for now, at least until 4.1 or even 4.2 comes out ;) And now that KDE apps can be run on windows....well, I think this may be the beginning of something here, and I think Microsoft are in for some serious competition in the next few years. Microsoft ought to be very worried by this....I know I would ;)
-- Fuck Beta
when I was downloading the installer it was going around 1-3k/s so I have mirrored it on my site for anyone that want's it. http://lart2150.com/kdewin-installer-gui-0.8.5.exe
You can already replace it with the traditional menu. I would expect to see so more menu implementations, since its just a manner of coding up a plasmoid.
Sounds about right.
OTOH it works, doesn't require much pre-installed (it does have some requirements, as my attempts to run it on os-400 found), and is universal. Universally hated, but still universal.
Step two: have your dial-up ISP hang up on you before the download completes, or not have any way to boot the ISO to install it. High-speed Internet access (and Ethernet cards to enable it) and CD recorders were not universal on machines sold in the Windows 98 era. Workaround: Buy a copy of Kubuntu on CD.
Step three: You downloaded or bought the wrong CD. Many PCs from the Windows 98 era had 128 MB of RAM, but the Kubuntu live CD needs about twice that. Instead, you will need the alternate installer CD. But by this time, you might as well use Xubuntu instead.
Step four: Have the CD fail to recognize at least one of sound, networking, and printing. Many older video cards have decent Free 2D drivers in X.Org, but winmodems and winprinters were unfortunately common in that era.
I can't decide about whether this is a good or a bad move. On the one hand, people will have easier time switching from windows to linux if they are using kde (firefox and openoffice helped me a lot when I first switched). on the other hand, they are spending (probably) a lot of developer time that could be spent enhancing kde 4 faster and more efficiently...
Installation Instructions: http://techbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Installation
This exemplifies what I hate about many open source projects. If you want me to try it, don't make me work for it.
I'm really tempted by this too, but... I'm uncertain about the functionality. Is it intended that EVERYTHING I have on my Mac will work with KDE, including all the Mac system tools? Mac admin is pretty heavy on the gui and light on the command line (well, at least compared to linux). I'm not really interested in this if I'd have to reinstall half the stuff I've got...
Only if you consider a QT app to be native, which I don't. QT is an abstraction of the Carbon API. And KDE is further abstraction of QT. I doubt that any KDE app would ever integrate well enough with the rest of my OS X desktop to make me want to use it. And if the K app was really that awesome, I'd always secretly be hoping for someone to port/rewrite/reimplement it directly to Cocoa.
Anyway, the app I mentioned was GTK. Though I should mention that I haven't read newsgroups in a while and haven't bothered reinstall PAN since I upgraded to Leopard. I guess my point is that for most common functionality, I find that native Cocoa apps are not only better individually than Linux counterparts, but also integrate better with each other. Like Java (Swing/SWT) apps, K apps would have an automatic handicap running on OS X in my opinion.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Mac OS X was not entirely new, especially when you consider that "OS" can stand for OpenStep.
Hello WindowsXP. We don't need no stinking vista.
I smell a winPE+KDE brewing!
Windows Live DVDs here we come!
They're using their grammar skills there.
Actually, you'll find that X windows started in 1984. The protocol was established at least circa 1987. And X windows is the base that KDE sits on top of for window management. So even if OS/2 didn't have a GUI in 1988, there were GUI's available.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
How does racsism getinto this conversation.
I guess we tanked the download server.
http://download.cegit.de/kde-windows/installer/
Poop. I really wanted to give that a try. Anybody got a mirror?
Is there a non-network installer? Is there an offline installer? Network installers just do not work over dial-up.
Hold shift+drag to move, ctrl+drag to copy.
On Windows, I enjoy the bliss of not knowing until I try it whether a particular drag-n-drop is going to result in moving the file, copying the file, creating a shortcut, or just make something up. Same with OS X, and with every other system that tries to helpfully guess for me.
On KDE, if I forget to hold down shift (move) or ctrl (copy), I get a context menu, instead of some completely unpredictable behavior. It mentions the keyboard shortcuts, so that if I'm intelligent, that menu will never bother me again, and I'll know exactly what I'm doing.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
That's what I've been hoping for for quite a while now. Anything else is just bonus or even wasted space for my particular desires, but I love the idea of Konsole on my Mac!
i remember way WAY back in the day before i even ran linux when i got blackbox running instead of explorer as the window manager within windows
of course it never panned out but i always wondered why didnt such an idea catch on
then i used those window skins that are all fancy n shit u know what im talking about... i dont remember the name .
This is just a waste. They could not even get it right in Linux yet.
How soon will you get those 'error messages' popping up like it happened to Netscape?
Kleopard. Has a nice ring to it, no? With the Kpyramid theme and everything?
Instead of unleashing it on an unsuspecting public like this, some guerilla-warfare tactics could or should have been employed.
1. Leak a memo or internal email about this next-gen Windows desktop, kodenamed KDE4.
2. A few days later, 'leak' a few screenshots and/or YouTube videos showing wobbly windows and pagerrific desktops and cuba goodness.
3. Have a Mac rumour site also post some to show it's cross platform.
4. Leak a beta version (At this point GNOME could pull the rug off everyone by releasing and proclaiming that this was what the rumours were all about, but see alternative approach step 6).
5. Show some vids with Carmen Electra using it at CES (even if the vid was all CGI). Or Britney going mental 'after using Windows Vista' (all voice over of course, same newsclip you've seen a hundred times already).
6. Now release KDE4. (Here GNOME could do a preemptive strike, complete with press release about desktop wannabees or posers that will soon 'start coming out of the woodwork'. They could even point a finger at the source of the suspected 'leaks'.)
7. ????
8. ob. Profit!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
How will the traditional virus/spyware/adware/whatever that plagues Windows systems affect KDE on Windows?
I'm not trolling, I'm just curious. I would assume that an IE bug wouldn't affect Konqueror, but the whole idea of KDE on Windows is so foreign to me I can't help but wonder where Windows ends and KDE begins, so to speak.
Maybe I'll do some VMWare experimenting...
FFS.
http://www.winehq.org/
Funny this is modded up. I have been saying the same thing for years and always get blasted. Bunch of morons.
You're right, Microsoft is still way behind. If only Sun was still making the SPARCstation 1, I would certainly have bought one and run X11 and SWM on it, rather than settling for my Dell XPS M1330 with Vista.
By the way, pass the crack pipe, I want some of what you're smoking.
-Graham
I agree it completely sucks for finding apps when you don't know what you're looking for e.g just browsing whats installed so I refuse to use it. Luckily someone already did a kde4 remake of the simple menu from kde3. I think the problem is that for ages the new menu was all they had and the simple one only tuned up shortly before the release.
If its installed you can change it by going to the cashew icon thingy in the top right of the screen, bring up the add widgets screen, scroll down to the kmenu item and click the minus next to it to remove it from the panel. Then drag the simple menu onto the panel.
When I use Linux, the single thing I miss the most is... Windows Explorer. Yes, the simple presentation with folders as a tree structure on the left, files on the right and a space to copy/paste the path on top. I cannot figure out how to set up Konqueror to work the same way. It kind of looks the same, but if I double click a folder on the right it won't update the tree on the left and a whole bunch of other annoying quirks. No, it's not just a question of getting used to it, I've been using it for several years and I still can't do anything useful with it.
And where is the 'Send pathname(s) to clipboard' option when you right-click on files in Konqueror ? It's an inf file I've been installing on every system since Win95 and cannot live without it.
I'm sure there are plenty of custom configurations of Konkeror, so if someone can point me in the right direction, thank you.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
If you're referring to the executable, than maybe "perl language" doesn't merit any objections, aside from the fact that it's a tortured construct.
... ;-)
Two pedants walk into a bar
It is THEN, as in THEN MAYBE. I hope English is not your first language, because even though it is not mine, that sort of error is very annoying.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
We can bicker all day about what's "native" and what's not, but it really doesn't make one bit of difference. If an app does a job I need it to with an interface that doesn't get in the way then it's an asset. Sure, it would be great if everybody ported every app on the planet to Cocoa with loving devotion, but that's not going to happen. KDE has innovative and powerful apps to offer, and being able to run them as first-class apps on OS X is a Very Good Thing(TM). Furthermore, having OS X as a supported platform means those apps are likely to integrate *better* with the system over time instead of staying in the X11 ghetto.
By design, KDE-windows does not provide the full-blown KDE desktop, thus no KWin composite manager, KDE-specific "start" menus, Plasma desktop, etc.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
An interesting presentation in all platforms is here
I'm one those anxiously waiting for KDEPIM on windows, but I just have to wonder...
How long to you think it will take before one of MS's updates "fixes" it so the KDE apps have problems.
They say they're bringing many KDE binaries to Windows. I would be so overjoyed to have Kate running seamlessly on my Windows computer. I use it for all my general web development at work but the equivalent editors available for Windows either cost money, or just don't feel the same. If this translates cleanly then it'll become my new favorite editor for Windows.
/* No Comment */
It has neat features, too bad it requires a shitpile of dependencies on Windows (Cygwin, Ruby AND Java!?) and doesn't do ssh tunneling or SOCKS proxy.
I'll stick with Putty.
Thanks
"Autotools, an intractably arcane and grotesquely anachronistic cesspool of ineffable complexity that makes even seasoned programmers nauseous."
They're obviously not very familiar with Autotools. If they were, then they would have used much harsher words to describe it.
Oh wait, you're already posting at -1. Never mind then.
The problem is not how an app is developed, but what that means to the end functionality. For example, will KOffice via QT support system services. None of the versions of OpenOffice on OS X are a good solution and none yet support system services the way native applications do. If I can't use my custom dictionary and thesaurus that I've spent considerable time training and which work with all my other applications, I'll look elsewhere. If I can't use my custom bibliography auto-formatter, my grammar checker, my text manipulation services, and my text analysis package; then "native" or "not native" doesn't matter because the apps aren't functional because they don't interoperate with other applications and the OS using the standard services.
Think of it this way. Would you run a command line program that was using some intermediate layer from another OS that did not support pipes or std in/out?
KDE has innovative and powerful apps to offer, and being able to run them as first-class apps on OS X is a Very Good Thing(TM).I agree it is a good thing to be able to run KDE apps on OS X. I do it right now by running Kubuntu in a VM and a smaller footprint way to do that might be a better solution for me. But I think it is mistake to assume these apps will be "first-class" because I at least am not convinced they will be fully functional. Rather, I suspect these applications will always be second class, lacking the ability to leverage OS X technologies that so far Linux has failed to replicate. Will it be trivial, for example, for Krita to apply any of the Quartz composer filters the way Pixelmator can? I somehow doubt it. Being able to target multiple platforms including OS X is great and I hope it works well. But let's not go overboard. I suspect for many types of applications, this method of implementation will never be as good as a truly native port. This is more of a step up from third-class applications to second class.
"The KDE development community's adoption of CMake is another major factor that has contributed to the increased portability of the desktop environment. KDE's build system was previously based on Autotools, an intractably arcane and grotesquely anachronistic cesspool of ineffable complexity that makes even seasoned programmers nauseous."
Can I get an amen?
I wrote a little poem about autotools. It goes like this
"Autotools
die
die
die
die
die
Autotools
die
die
die
Autotools
fuck you!"
It's not very lyrical, but I think it conveys my emotions.
Now if only we could converge on a single good cross platform build system for c and c++...
...to Windows. That's what it's always been struggling to look like anyways.
Should I...
A) Delete Vista and replace with Ubuntu (gnome)
B) Replace Vista GUI with KDE (for the lulz)
C) Dual boot Vista and Ubuntu, no change to vista GUI
D) Do B and then dual boot with Ubuntu
or E, keep Vista, and not put Ubuntu on the laptop.
idk which one to do now...
signature is pants
Are you trying to get Windows users to rally to your cause? Because I don't think you're being condescending enough. Why don't you add a few more insults and references to "slavery", and see if that wins you some friends.
Does it run on ReactOS? If it does then a complete M$S clone is much closer.
hmm. Next week I have some time. I will have to down load it and try it on the KVM-QEMU virtual image of ReactOS.
AMAROK AND KTORRENT!!
The KDE libraries have been available through the Fink and MacPorts package managers for some time now, as have the GNOME libraries. The advantage here is that this probably uses an installer. I'd know if the torrent didn't take flippin' forever! Come on! Is it too much to ask for Konqueror and KOffice? It's a 2.5 GB torrent, with only about 4-8 peers sharing, and 20-30 downloading. I spent the whole day trying to download it. When will someone offer a DIRECT DOWNLOAD?
My apologies to all the MS and apple fans here, but I really wish the KDE ports did replace the desktop.
:( )
At work I currently have only XP, I don't mind many aspects of the OS, but I find explorer unimpressive. The powertools multiple desktop hack is almost funny it is so bad. KDE with beryl/compiz would be so nice!(right now I am using VMware to get access to some linux apps, and I don't have sound working yet..
On the Mac it would be nice as well, I only boot it up when I need to these days, I am part of the population who likes desktops that let me work my own way, and I like the freedom to customize a bit. Now if KDE replaced the desktop, most of my peeves would be gone - and I would get the great KDE apps(yes, I am listening to Amarok at this moment).
If you are a fan, don't beat up on me too bad... I don't expect others to like the same UI I do. (take gnome, some LOVE it, but for me it is just OK )
Whoa, doesn't everyone get it? Qt 4.x broke the barriers by becoming GPL and cross-platform on Windows, Mac, and Linux. This has paved the way for KDE. I use Linux, BSD, OSX, and if I really must play a game, Windows. I would *love* to have some quality apps across the board. For that matter, Qt's technologies like Qtopia offer a future in handheld devices that KDE applications could quite possibly make it to someday.
This is the game of getting architecture right, and then reaping the rewards. KDE may have seem cluttered before, but it's been powerful and able to be shaped to your comfort. Now it's getting a good cleanup and even better than design. Screw all that armchair bitching and "they shouldn't have released 4.0, I sez so on my interblog", I think this is a desktop hot on the pursuit of excellence.
And will having KDE applications on other platforms backfire? I don't think so. The KDE environment itself features a level of integration that is competitive with OSX. It's not just a cobbled-together pile of applications. Let the individual apps gain fans on Macs and Windows PCs, and then more people will be interested to try them where they all come together.
I think I see what people like A. Seigo really have in mind, and it gets me some architectural jollies. People who want eye-candy without the functional oomph can have whatever environment they want, but I would love to see a free desktop with good design inside and out, and KDE 4 is on track to be it.
Unless I want to pretend that my PC is a time machine? "Watch this. With a flick of this button, my desktop environment will go back to 1991!"
Seems like this would be a great program except ... you have to be a Linux guru to figure out how to get things running. How about some installation directions for the rest of the world, like how to install KDE and Konqueror or Koffice together in one set of directions?????
Any help from /. would be most appreciated.
What you're in fact complaining about is the versioning. You disagree with the "x.0 is stable enough for first official release" mentality of the KDE devs. That was a choice, that was fully and exhaustively explained before, while, and after release. You can agree with the choice, or not.
However, you are throwing with phrases like "no trust", "nothing worth trying", "getting an act together", "buggy nature", and "eternally beta".
That's a shame, the KDE developers certainly don't deserve it, and in fact I think this whole development thingy is just not for you, and you really should use a Mac.
>=20 years ago: i used to use this functionality on my Amiga FFS (which had titlebar buttons for manually setting the z-index for crying out loud).
Also: Can we please utilise the mouse scroll wheel here too? Click and hold the title bar with LMB and use the mouse wheel to push/pull it's z-index. Even if it goes behind another window during this operation - so long as you keep that mouse button held down - the focus shouldnt dissapear either, same for standard dragging
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
I don't know what people are smoking who praise iTunes for being "great". I can only imagine they have lower expectations than I have and/or have never used something better. Personally I find iTunes a complete annoyance and a really shitty media player. It lacks real library management (such as automagically detecting new files, file movement, duplicates with different file names), it doesn't display ID3 tags properly and truncates long titles, it doesn't have advanced search apart from intelligent folders, it cannot sort results by filename and sorting by album also doesn't work properly, it lacks cover management if you're unwilling to make business with CC companies or FraudPal, it has no lyrics support, no wikipedia support for artist info, and generally performs like a pig.
I have several hundred CD's and ripped them all to MP3s over the years, resulting in a 60 GB library which loads instantly in Amarok on a PIII-800, but takes almost 30 seconds to load in iTunes at 100% CPU usage on my G4 1,25 GHz. Handling those in iTunes is virtually impossible, handling them in Amarok is a breeze.
The public opinion on this is a different one, I know, but I for one can't wait to get Amarok on my Mac. iTunes is a cunt, and a smelly one at that. Amarok, OTOH, is one of the best OSS applications I've seen in the last years.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
I was excited about this news, but then I saw the note at the bottom of the installation instructions. Apparently, by design, this will not give the full-fledged KDE desktop with the K-menu and other features. At least you can use it to run various qt/KDE apps.
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
>Well, from the poster's comments.....I gathered he was probably in the US. /. on less than $349/mo.
>You're generally not going to be in the US posting on
You know, I make more than that *now* but when I started posting here I was living on just about that. I was a very poor retail worker in my early twenties.
Now I'm a slightly less poor web designer in my late twenties now, but *still* -- I'm sure there's quite a few people who visit Slashdot in my former condition.
TRHOnline - Staggering Towards Brilliance
All active users of my application use MS Windows, so MS Windows is my main development platform. I started out with Solaris, but there are pretty good arguments for developers using the same platform as the users. But I don't want my application to be the reason my users stick to MS Windows, so I stick with portable tools for the development. GCC plus the standard libraries for the base code and command line interface, and Qt for a GUI for those who prefer that.
What this means to me and other developers concerned about cross platform portability, is that I could start using the KDE libraries, if they provide something of value for my application.
I suspect this is where the release is most significant, it might lure developers to KDE. I doubt it will have much affect on users, MS Windows and MacOS X both already have pretty good desktops and desktop tools.
I'll of course only use the KDE libs if they are non-intrusive to the users, like Qt is (a Qt application does not feel "foreign" to a MS Windows user).
I once got KDE running on Windows under Cygwin. It was really, really slow though. But I was also wasn't doing it on an high-end machine. I'm going to try and do this again, and also maybe see if I can get Compiz-Fusion running. Just for fun.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
i'm not in love with cmake either, by the way. make, itslef, is cross-platform. i can't help thinking the better path would've been something that reads plain makefiles and outputs workspaces/projects for the various tools cmake supports.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
This is "+5, informative"????????
Also, the autotools absolutely rock, given the magnitude of what they are trying to accomplish. I'll grant you that it *is* kind of hard to get started with them.
Maybe I've missed the tutorial on how to get Columns UI working with Wine. As far as I can tell, trying to use Columns UI (and thus actually enjoy using foobar) isn't much more than a good way to crash the dang thing.
Does somebody have a link to how to get it working?
I think you're misunderstanding what I mean by "first-class application." I'm merely talking about an app having its own identity in the Dock, the ability to be assigned file extensions, etc. X11 apps can't do this stuff without cheesy proxy-app hacks. I *don't* mean "integrates with the system and uses all the system-wide resources just like a Cocoa app". I would certainly *not* expect the first releases of KDE apps to do that, though I would hope they would move in that direction over time.
As for system integration, there are areas where it's important to me and areas where it's not important. I definitely want my web browser to use the keychain for passwords, and I definitely want my mail app to work with the system address book. But when I working on a photo I'm much more interested in the quality of the image pipeline than I am about system integration. This is an area where *many* OS X apps are less than "fully functional". Pixelmator may be able to apply quartz filters but it uses an 8-bit image pipeline. You can forget about working on black & white photos -- 256 shades of gray is nowhere near enough. I'll take 16-bit working space over a swirly-twirly distortion effect any day of the week. (Actually krita can even use 32-bit float/channel working space for HDR images and specialized representations for things like watercolor layers that Pixelmator doesn't even dream of.)
This is what I'm talking about when I take exception to the sentiment that KDE has nothing to offer OS X. Krita does a job that Pixelmator just can't do, and it's cheaper to boot. I'm definitely willing to ignore system integration issues in exchange for superior results. It seems quite silly to me that so many other Mac users aren't.
So then why does a Google search for "vern32" produce nothing but warnings of malware and instructions on how to remove it?
Caveat downloader.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I looked at Dexpot some time ago, and while it looks lovely, I also note that the last release was a year and a half ago, with no news items on the website since then. Is this project dead? Though I am happy to note that the site actually loads now -- last time I looked it took *ages* to come up, and that was even without the benefit of a slashdotting.
Then again, I happen to be using Virtual Dimension, which likewise seems to be dead, with no releases since July 2005. I contracted this particular VD :) only after my previous love, Virtual Desktop Toolbox, went belly-up when the website disappeared and the sole dev vanished into thin air.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Yeah, but how many of those people have the time to learn about/futz with Linux, even Ubuntu? That's the rubbadubba- people who subsist on meager incomes are generally busy people, often without access to services which we take for granted. If office peons who work with computers for a living fail to install Linux because of time and attention pressures, how much more eager will their hard-working neighbors in the trades be?
I've been on both sides of the fence, as a contractor and as an office worker, although I've been lucky to get decent wages my whole life. When I was a builder, I can say that at the end of the day, the last thing I wanted to be doing is installing an operating system on my computer. How much harder is it, then, to leave the jobsite and go immediately to a second job, as many of the day laborers I worked with would do?
If Linux is ever going to take its place as a democratic software platform, it still has to address this issue. Poor people have genuine needs that get met using cheap computers and free software- accessing government services, education, finding affordable housing and good jobs, improving their budgeting, their communications (every immigrant family I know has gone from using primarily calling cards to chat and email programs...), and getting at all the free online stuff that they'd otherwise have to pay for. Linux arguably serves them better than Windows if it can provide more stability, better security and free updates on the same hardware. But it doesn't serve them at all if they can't install or use it.