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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?)
... 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.
(By getting ported to windows)
Does this mean Compiz Fusion is able to be run on Windows now?
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
Looks like you're trying to move a file.
Allow / Deny
Why is this article tagged "jews?" Is KDE4 now kosher?
There is a good shell replacement that is similar to fluxbox: http://emergedesktop.org/. When I have to boot into windows it eases the pain.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
"How long before we can run a Windows GUI on Linux?"
Why the hell would you want to? As far as I can see, the only advantage that windows has is that it runs software written for windows.
(mostly)
"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"
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.
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.
;)
The "K Desktop Environment" abbreivated "KDE" is the full name of the project. Its not a project called "K". And KDE is a desktop environment, so the KDE desktop environment while somewhat 'redundant' if you expand the acronym, is perfectly acceptable: "The 'K Desktop Environment' desktop environment has been ported to..."
The same sort of thing applies to, say, DOS, OS/2, or BeOS. Where it is perfectly acceptable to say "The DOS operating system...", "The OS/2 operating system...", "The BeOS operating system...".
Do you ask if someone's PC has an AGP port? I've never ever heard anyone say, "Do you have an AGP?" Or maybe you say "AGP slot" which is still redudnant: As in "Do you have an accelerated graphics port slot"?
Do you take offense if someone refers to the the perl language? The POP, PPP, TCP/IP, or PPTP protocols? And I can only imagine how you must burn right up when told to enter your SIN number.
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
Well, that clears it up.
Well, I DO find it annoying when I have to enter my PIN number at the ATM machine in the UMB bank.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
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.
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
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.
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!
It's still way behind a modern X desktop in terms of GUI features. Your Vista XPS one may be capable of many things, but usable virtual desktops is not one of them. The fact that microsoft has had 18 years to incorporate these features and hasn't is really pretty pathetic.
And honestly, for most of the work I do, I'd rather use the SPARCstation.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
Sounds like you don't pay attention to what the menu has to offer you instead? yeah! modifier keys!
Though I don't know what version you've tried or have now, KDE3.5 (presumably the whole 3.x series)
offer you this: (keys are shown in the menu as well)
Left Click, hold Shift , drag your icon, release mouse button - will result in a file move.
Left Click, hold Ctrl , drag your icon, release mouse button - will result in a file copy.
Left Click, hold Ctrl+Shift, drag your icon, release mouse button - will result in a file softlink.
No menus shown.
There we go.. No need to wait for KDE4
Right click, drag, drop.
That gets you context menus in windoze.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
"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.
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.
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?