Ubuntu Mobile Looks At Qt As GNOME Alternative

Derwent sends along a Computerworld piece which begins: "The Ubuntu Mobile operating system is undergoing its most radical change with a port to the ARM processor for Internet devices and netbooks, and may use Nokia's LGPL Qt development environment as an alternative to GNOME. During a presentation at this year's linux.conf.au conference, Canonical's David Mandala said Ubuntu Mobile has changed a lot over the past year... 'I worked on ARM devices for many years so a full Linux distribution on ARM is exciting,' Mandala said, adding one of the biggest challenges is reminding developers to write applications for 800 by 600 screen resolutions found in smaller devices. 'The standard [resolution] for GNOME [apps] is 800 by 600, but not all apps are. For this reason Ubuntu Mobile uses the GNOME Mobile (Hildon framework) instead of a full GNOME desktop, but since Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL it may consider this as an alternative.'"

Comments

Full 'nix for arm?

[serviscope_minor]

There's already a full 'nix for ARM complete with working packaging and so on, in the form of OpenBSD, just in case anyone has forgotten it. Also, the developers need to be reminded that screens are 640x480 on small devices, not 800x600. It would start if they got out of the habit of using excessively lavish button bars with enourmous, heavily padded buttons.

Anyway, it would be nice to see a proper "full" linux distribution. I'm not much of a fan of the special PDA ones since they're cut down. Then again, I'm not much of a fan of ubuntu either, but I appreciate that (say) Arch isn't to everyone's taste.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[siride]

"It would start if they got out of the habit of using excessively lavish button bars with enourmous, heavily padded buttons."

I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed by this. The strange padding fetish that the GTK folks has results in terrible feng shui for most GNOME apps, especially Nautilus. Even tweaking the theme manually to reduce the insane amounts of padding only helps a little, and often causes subtle and not-so-subtle rendering glitches.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[rubies]

Debian is available for the NSLU2 - I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to push it out to other ARM based devices.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Mprx]

Padding makes clicking on the buttons faster, as explained by Fitts's law. I don't want my usability compromised because some people are using impractically small screens.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[sexconker]

It's Web 2.0-itis. I hate it.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Chemisor]

I don't want to click on your stupid big buttons. If I want to do something fast, I use the keyboard. You do provide keyboard shortcuts for your buttons, right? And if you say that you really really need an 800 pixel wide dialog, I say bullshit. We got by just fine ten years ago with 640x480 screens, and before you can say "we have more features now", I'll tell you to get rid of them and fix the bugs first. Call me bitter, but after a week of trying to play Fallout 3 with the screen freezing every five minutes (or anytime more than two sounds are playing), I have a particularly sharp axe to grind.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[siride]

I use a high resolution screen and I'd rather have the layout reasonable and pleasing to the eye (not to mention more real estate for actual content), than be able to click the button an extra millisecond faster. Even Mac buttons aren't as big as what GNOME generally has, and since Mac is all about HIG and that kind of stuff, I assume that the buttons really just don't need to be that fucking big.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[the_B0fh]

Gee, your UI can't allow you to choose themes? Has GNOME been so simplified that you can't choose any other theme?

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[FishWithAHammer]

So use a theme with more padding. siride was saying (I think) that it's not a good default, not that it shouldn't be allowed. I know that one of my number one issues with a lot of GTK+ stuff is that with so much room taken up by toolbars and other crap, the amount of screen real estate available for actual working is kind of small. (Go look at MonoDevelop versus Visual Studio for an example.)

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Anonymous Coward]

See? This is the problem with GNOME. Users ask for things, and developers tell them they are wrong. WTF?

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Mprx]

If you really wanted to do things fast you'd use the mouse (preferably with gestures or pie menus).
http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html :

We've done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:

• Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
• The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.

Try timing yourself on some web browsing/text editing/file managing tasks. Keyboarding may be faster occasionally, but you'll be surprised how often mousing wins.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Foodie]

The resolution on a Nokia N810 is 800x480. That's the one running Hildon...

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already a full 'nix for ARM complete with working packaging and so on, in the form of OpenBSD, just in case anyone has forgotten it.

And Debian. It is basically tied with PowerPC for Debian's third most popular architecture.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[influenza]

There's also Angstrom which you might call a PDA style distro but has a growing repository. They also manage ports to several ARM variations.

And of course there's the Debian ARM port. I wouldn't be surprised if Ubuntu is basing their work off of this.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[morgan_greywolf]

The so-called 'strange padding fetish' is mostly a GNOME thing. It's possible to use GTK on small screen sizes without so much padding.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[chromatic]

Keyboarding may be faster occasionally, but you'll be surprised how often mousing wins.

I use Vim all day, almost every day. Using a mouse and a word processor is very much not faster for me.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[morgan_greywolf]

Hello? Linus Torvalds? Is that you?

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[timmarhy]

there is no freaking way mousing is faster.need to use undo? i've hit alt+z before you even grabbed the mouse. the ONLY way they could have come up with that is to purposefully gamed the results, such as giving subjects apps with unknown shortcut keys. given it's apple i wouldn't be surprised at all.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Arker]

This is only true for people who havent *learned* the keyboard shortcuts, or dont even touch-type to begin with. It was a rigged test and TOG, while usually good, shouldnt stoop so low as to imply otherwise.

Give me a system with keyboard shortcuts that I know well (i.e. have in muscle memory) and I'll blow away the fastest mouser in the world. I'm not even a particularly fast typist either.

Put me on a system with unfamiliar shortcut keys however and you will get results similar to what he's describing.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Mprx]

Keyboard shortcuts are not amenable to muscle memory, as the muscle movement differs depending on the previous shortcut. Returning to the home position between each keypresses allows muscle memory, but I'd be very surprised if it were enough to compensate for the movement inefficiency. Consecutive strings of keyboard shortcuts can be memorized by muscle memory (as with typing whole words), but if you use a string of shortcuts frequently enough to memorize in this way it would be better consolidated to a single shortcut.

On the other hand, mouse gestures or pie menus require the exact same movement each time, so are highly amenable to muscle memory.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[GigaplexNZ]

Throwing more powerful hardware at an unstable game will not fix the bugs.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[tepples]

Throwing more powerful hardware at an unstable game will not fix the bugs.

Unless the defect in the game engine manifests itself only on less powerful hardware. Texture management and shader unimplementation bugs tend to act this way.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[GigaplexNZ]

Throwing more powerful hardware at an unstable game will not fix the bugs.

Unless the defect in the game engine manifests itself only on less powerful hardware. Texture management and shader unimplementation bugs tend to act this way.

While that is technically possible, I've seen Fallout 3 on 8 and 9 series graphics cards with plenty of crashes. Besides, Fallout 3 wouldn't run on a Geforce 3 anyway - I think it is fair to assume the graphics card in question is fairly modern otherwise they would have given up due to framerate issues.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[guruevi]

I prefer (for small things) one hand on the mouse (trackball) other on the keyboard. Otherwise I like to use both hands on the keyboard and even in a full GUI environment, it's easier to just put in the right key combination than search through menu's for it. The fact that those keys are standard across the Apple platform makes it even easier. Heck, some of my comments in XCode (which I use for PHP, Perl, C and C++ development) have been known to have (or won't compile because of) :wq at the end (my previous editor of choice before the latest XCode)

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[samriel]

Heck, some of my comments in XCode (which I use for PHP, Perl, C and C++ development) have been known to have (or won't compile because of) :wq at the end (my previous editor of choice before the latest XCode)

I'm sorry, but I don't get it. PHP I can KIND OF see :wq at the end of a comment getting in the way, but Perl, C, and C++ (with single-line '//' comments anyway) ignore the whole line. :wq

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[extrasolar]

I think, these days, from the year that Tog wrote that article, your comment needs to be qualified. What he was talking about were primitive user interface elements: bolding, opening a file, saving a file, etc. But the qualification needs to be about expressability of the input method. So, if you are repeating the same or similar tasks over and over again, yeah it would be more productive to use the mouse. But, one may argue, if one is repeating the same task over and over again, that is something that should be automated anyway. Compare the key sequences for making every first letter of a sentence in a document a capital letter to the mouse sequence, and you might have a point. But if I can do a regexp search and replace, I'd have to use the key sequence. There is simply no mouse sequence that can do the equivalent; ultimately, the mouse isn't expressive enough. The mouse is expressive in dragging and dropping, and right-clicking (something that Apple isn't too fond of), but that's as far as you get. To get more expressive you need a full language by which you can give detailed commands to the computer. In 1989 people weren't thinking in that fashion.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Arker]

Keyboard shortcuts are not amenable to muscle memory, as the muscle movement differs depending on the previous shortcut. Returning to the home position between each keypresses allows muscle memory, but I'd be very surprised if it were enough to compensate for the movement inefficiency.

You're obviously not a touch typist. That's absurd. A practiced touch typist on a decent keyboard can select a paragraph for manipulation in about the time it takes you to get your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, let alone actually using the mouse to select the paragraph and THEN move the hand back into home position.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Just Some Guy]

Unfortunately for that comparison, mouse input is highly srialized while keyboarding is very parallel. I only have one arm to manipulate a mouse but 10 fingers to manipulate a keyboard.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[sagematt]

Debian is also known for an abundance of options. The current release, Debian etch, includes over eighteen thousand software packages for eleven computer architectures. These architectures range from the Intel/AMD 32-bit/64-bit architectures commonly found in personal computers to the ARM architecture commonly found in embedded systems [...]

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[alexborges]

It depends SO much in what people are trying to accomplish that the discussion is NOT worth it.

I mean, if im a designer, the mouse is better. If im a programmer, the keyboard shortcuts will be the best way to not loose the rythm (yeah, there is rythm in this bussiness).

If Im a bussiness exec, I dont know why I have a computer.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[alexborges]

In 3d accelerated applications/hardware it very well damned fix'em.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[bhirsch]

Let's see...
Open a new browser tab (winner: keybd)
Close a browser tab (winner: keybd)
Go to a history/bookmarked URL (winner: keybd)
Navigate forward/back in the history (winner: keybd)
Click a link (Tie. I generally hit / and start typing the link text, hit escape, then enter to visit the link. Sometimes moving the mouse over the link is faster.)
Run an application (winner: keybd)
Cut/copy/paste/save/print/quit/etc (winner: keybd)
Scrolling via arrow, pgup/dn, home/end vs. wheel (winner: keybd)
Switching between applications/windows (winner: keybd)
Change a font (I will give this one to mouse)

Sorry, but between tab to move between elements (a must have for any application I use) and standard keyboard shortcuts (control/alt/command/shift modifiers), I have zero desire to use a mouse and rarely do. I don't get how taking tme to move one's hand over to the mouse, moving the cursor over a button and clicking could possibly take less time than two simple key presses (my fingers remember where ctrl and w are, but my hand does not remember how to navigate over the little "x" on the tab).

While mouse gestures are certainly nice, they are, in my experience, far more prone to inaccuracy compared to a key presses. Mistakenly closing a browser tab happens far more often with gestures than the keyboard.

The only time I find myself consistently using a mouse is in OS X Finder, which just doesn't play well with the keyboard. In such situations where the mouse is generally faster, I will usually opt for a keyboard solution (eg, using mv, cp, mkdir, etc from a shell).

Much of this may have to do with my late switch to Windows from DOS and work generally keeping me in a terminal window, but I still maintain I can use a keyboard faster for most common tasks than anyone with a mouse.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[ion.simon.c]

Go to a history/bookmarked URL (winner: keybd)

The AwesomeBar makes this SOOO fucking true!

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Miseph]

If everything you do requires two hands on the keyboard hitting keys in programs you are ALWAYS familiar with you'll get what you're describing.

How many people browse the web with only a keyboard? How many people edit pictures/music/movies with only a keyboard? How many people use a dozen programs in a different day, each with different keyboard shortcuts that would need to be muscle-memoried? I think a strong case could be made that people who use one hand on the keyboard with their other on the mouse will spend more time just moving their mouse hand to the keyboard than they would mousing.

Much like "touch typing is just faster" falls apart once special characters and numbers are introduced in large quantities, or when one is not transcribing but rather writing original text (where regardless of typing technique, most people can press keys considerably faster than they can think of keys to press), "keyboard shortcuts are faster" falls apart when you start using apps that are unfamiliar, unpredictable or simply make more sense with a mouse (for the last two, think a web browser running online apps... even the ones that could be used keyboard only are liable to become such a convoluted and machine-specific mess that it's hardly worth the hassle of figuring out how).

Of course, the best option is just to give people both and let them use whatever they want. We're probably only talking milliseconds here anyway, so perception is all that really counts.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[ion.simon.c]

Fallout 3 is pretty crashy here, too.
Not quite as crashy as the OP (and the patch helped a *little*) but still more crashy than any game I've played in recent memory.

[It's more crashy than Dystopia 1.0, FFS.]

R420 AGP
Athlon XP @ 2.1Ghz
2 GB of DDR400 RAM
SB Audigy PCI
~4GB of swap space.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[ClosedSource]

The problem is that we are in a state of denial when it comes to scaling usability. Supporting devices with tiny displays using the same library will compromise the mainstream case one way or the other.

Using the same code from mainframe to hand-held may be a beautiful abstraction, but it sucks for real-world users.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Arker]

How many people browse the web with only a keyboard? How many people edit pictures/music/movies with only a keyboard?

How many people that *think* they've been educated on computer usage never learned to type to begin with? How many keyboards these days are so shoddily made they are effectively useless for those of us that do know how to use them, clearly designed for use by hunt-and-peckers only? How many computer programs just assume the current answers to those facts and dont bother to even consider exceptions to the rule in their design and implementation?

How many people use a dozen programs in a different day, each with different keyboard shortcuts that would need to be muscle-memoried?

How many programmers cant be bothered to use the standard shortcut keys of the system(s) they target with their programs? Particularly in X, unfortunately, many even deliberately remove the ability of the user to *set* those keys to the standard they are used to? (Yes, I'm looking at you Gnome.)

Much like "touch typing is just faster" falls apart once special characters and numbers are introduced in large quantities

Actually, it doesnt. Numbers are no problem at all, as long as you do them often enough to keep your fingers in practice. Special characters can be problematic, yes, but they dont have to be. Windows makes it bloody impossible, but with only a little practice I found I can type most special characters without ever breaking stride on a mac with a standard English keymap. (Assuming, of course, someone's already done the sensible thing and replaced the pretty but unusable little toy Apple pretends is a keyboard in the trash and gone to the trouble of fitting a decent one on the machine.) X keymappings are absolute horror to setup in my experience, but at least they're editable.

or when one is not transcribing but rather writing original text (where regardless of typing technique, most people can press keys considerably faster than they can think of keys to press)

I dont see how you think pausing to think has any bearing on the subject. Sure, you pause to think, then you type, then you pause to think... pausing to grab the mouse and run it around the screen still adds time and more importantly it breaks the concentration on the subject matter, so this doesnt help the case for the 'do everything with the mouse' argument at all.

"keyboard shortcuts are faster" falls apart when you start using apps that are unfamiliar, unpredictable or simply make more sense with a mouse

Absolutely true. However this, again, does very little for the argument. Just how often do you need to learn a new program? For most people it's relatively rare, you spend far more time *using* programs you know than learning new ones.

Furthermore it would be far more rare to need to learn new programs if we didnt keep fixing things that arent broken - i.e. replacing perfectly good, functional programs we already know how to use with new, buggy, bloated junk that gets pushed on us for marketing reasons. For most people that use a computer today, the thing is primarily a bloody typewriter. They spend most of their time in 'Word.' Yet every couple of years they have to get a new version of word, with a new learning curve and new and higher hardware requirements just to keep doing what they were doing all along - using the computer as a typewriter.

Finally, on a decently designed system, the commands that are 'common' to many programs should have system-wide standard keystrokes anyway. Even windows gets this concept - ctrl-s is always supposed to be save, ctrl-c copy, etc.

Of course, the best option is just to give people both and let them use whatever they want. We're probably only talking milliseconds here anyway, so perception is all that really counts.

I

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Tatsh]

I agree 100%. GNOME has those stupid big ugly buttons (which always look better with ugly colours too; brown, beige, etc). And I've heard 'The bigger the better'. Even the old KDE design guide says it. Regardless, there is a reasonable limit and GNOME just goes too far. With that, I found GNOME to be TOO simple as a GUI and not for power-users. KDE all the way.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Tatsh]

Pidgin users were furious over a feature change and the Pidgin developers simply responded: "We do what we like." Pidgin is nearly considered part of GNOME because it's still GTK+ and right now it is IMO the best alternative to real AIM (AIM also has a Linux version now).

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[gknoy]

My reflexive control-X control-S (when I'm /not/ in Emacs) would beg to differ. It's gotten so ingrained that I'll use those shortcuts in other things as well; similarly, shift-delete will delete a whole line in my Other Editor, which annoys the heck out of me, as i'm expecting to cut what I have highlighted. ;) So, I'm pretty sure muscle memory works quite well with keystrokes ... whereas when mousing, I am always looking at where it's going. Perhaps with a tablet it'd be easier.... but even then I had trouble and needed to look.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[chromatic]

One of the major points of the study is only the stopwatch knows for sure ;/

I was in an airport several weeks ago, editing an interview that I had to submit in some sort of word processor format. I didn't have room to use an external mouse; I only had the trackpad. I spent ten minutes editing a few pages of the interview, increasing my frustration every time I had to move the cursor to a new place. I eventually exported the document to HTML, ran it through a beautifier script, and finished editing the remaining eighteen pages there.

It was faster for me to convert between formats and write some little Vim macros to perform global conversions and changes than to use an interface tied heavily to the mouse. Perhaps if I were better at scripting a word processor I could have made those changes there. I don't know.

I welcome the researcher with the stopwatch, however. Any UI which makes me feel like I'm wearing oven mitts with my hands on a keyboard behind my back is likely not faster. I'd like the chance either to discover that I'm wrong or to disprove this ridiculous claim.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[prockcore]

Only a handful of users were furious. Most didn't care.

And "we do what we like" should describe every opensource developer. Certainly no open source developer should be forced to do what they don't like.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Lord Bitman]

I use vim exclusively, but counting out how many words I want to move, followed by typing [ESC(which is the "capslock" key)] 17w, or even just hitting "w" or "W" repeatedly while tracking with my eyes wherever the cursor has ended up /this/ time based on whatever is considered a "word boundary"...

has _ALWAYS_ been slower than moving my hand to the mouse and clicking. and USUALLY been slower than just holding down an arrow key, especially if using an editor which sanely handles the use of arrow keys to move between lines on the screen.

Yeah, I realize that if I think for 20 seconds, I can come up with a sequence of commands which will do the specific task I require, and will require I know which "physical" line of the file I'm on.. but I really don't give a shit if I could otherwise do what I want in under two seconds.

I'd be an emacs user if it didn't blow so much. (still waiting for it to act as advertised...)

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Lord Bitman]

macros, "normal mode", :commands, etc, are essential for any text editor to be decent.

That doesn't mean the mouse is bad, that just means that :s/// is often your friend. (Once the new perl version is "mainstream", I wonder if regex syntax in text editors will adapt too..)

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Lord Bitman]

if your preferred editor thinks anything+delete means anything other than "some type of deletion", you've got a broken editor

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keyboard shortcuts are not amenable to muscle memory.

O rly? :wq

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[dotancohen]

If you really wanted to do things fast you'd use the mouse (preferably with gestures or pie menus).
  http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html :

We've done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:

• Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
• The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.

Try timing yourself on some web browsing/text editing/file managing tasks. Keyboarding may be faster occasionally, but you'll be surprised how often mousing wins.

I am familiar with this, but it seems to apply only to GUI apps that were designed for a mouse, and have keyboard shortcuts as an afterthought. That is why the Vimperator Firefox extension is so amazing: it performs as if it were designed for the keyboard. It is not perfect, and I still need the mouse for a few things, but Vimperator is both faster and less tiring than a mouse. Of course, there is a learning curve.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Tatsh]

The attitude seems very unprofessional in some sense when you compare to the proprietary software companies who will always claim they do what their customers ask of them (even if they do not).

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[drinkypoo]

Keyboard shortcuts are not amenable to muscle memory, as the muscle movement differs depending on the previous shortcut.

I type over 75 wpm blind and I don't use the home keys. My hands are too big and ungainly and if I rest my fingers on the home keys, my hands hurt immediately. Resting my hands on my laptop my pinky fingers are both outside the control keys... well outside. Makes it easier to hit shifted combos etc, I guess. But the point is, you are simply wrong.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[drinkypoo]

Using the same code from mainframe to hand-held may be a beautiful abstraction, but it sucks for real-world users.

An iPaq H2215 has more computing power than probably the first 100 mainframes built put together. And it's a POS today.

The only thing that must necessarily change from one end to the other is what features are included (the kernel itself can be stripped somewhat when convenient) and what the GUI looks like. You can't do the same things on a QVGA screen that you can at XGA. Doesn't work. Hence environments like GPE.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[jonaskoelker]

If you really wanted to do things fast you'd use the mouse (preferably with gestures or pie menus).

I often enough find that Firefox disagrees with me regarding which gesture I just gave it. Pie menus, maybe.

Try timing yourself on some web browsing/text editing/file managing tasks.

Let me instead quote some more of the article you link to:

People new to the mouse find the process of acquiring it every time they want to do anything other than type to be incredibly time-wasting. And therein lies the very advantage of the mouse: it is boring to find it because the two-second search does not require high-level cognitive engagement.

It takes two seconds to decide upon which special-function key to press. Deciding among abstract symbols is a high-level cognitive function. Not only is this decision not boring, the user actually experiences amnesia! Real amnesia! The time-slice spent making the decision simply ceases to exist.

It certainly doesn't take me two seconds to retrieve muscle memory. For rarely used features, it may be true, but for things done every day, I refuse to believe it.

I just don't buy the claim that pressing Ctrl-B is slower than moving my hand to the mouse, moving the mouse cursor to the menu bar, opening the menu, and selecting "Bold".

I dare anyone with a stopwatch to prove that mousing is faster for me than pressing Ctrl-B. I'll even bet large amounts of money.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Nursie]

"There's already a full 'nix for ARM complete with working packaging and so on, in the form of OpenBSD"

And in the form of Debian Linux. And OpenSlug. And the openmoko stuff.
You can even install debian on top of android, should you wish.

OpenBSD is not special in it's ability to run on ARM.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Nursie]

It's already available for the Google/T-mobile G1 and Neo Freerunner.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Curien]

Open a new browser tab (winner: keybd)
Close a browser tab (winner: keybd)
Navigate forward/back in the history (winner: keybd)

Those are all arguably faster with gestures.

Go to a history/bookmarked URL (winner: keybd)

With most browsers, I'd say this is true. With Opera's Speed Dial, it becomes a matter of whether you've memorized the name of the site (or bookmark). Just open a new tab, and you see a (fairly large) picture of each of your bookmarked sites. Click on the one you want to visit (or Ctrl+Number). This method makes both the keyboard and the mouse faster (and near-equivalent, IMO) by removing the dependence on the user's memory for speed.

Run an application (winner: keybd)

Only if you've memorized the name of the command. What you're really saying here is that searching for a program is slower than already having it memorized. I guarantee you that clicking on a desktop shortcut (and you have your dekstop set for single-click mode, right?) is faster than executing the key combo, then typing a word, then hitting enter.

Cut/copy/paste/save/print/quit/etc (winner: keybd)

Cut,copy,paste is a process, not just a key combo. I've found that the process usually works best when you use both the keyboard and the mouse. The mouse is better for selecting large blocks of text and getting the cursor to the general area where you want it. The keyboard is better for precision movements.

Scrolling via arrow, pgup/dn, home/end vs. wheel (winner: keybd)

Let's have a race. We each have an identical several-hundred-page document. You use the page keys, I'll click on the scroll bar. First to the middle wins. Also, your mention of the scroll wheel belies your inexpertise with the mouse. The correct tool is the "middle-click drag" auto-scroll feature.

Switching between applications/windows (winner: keybd)

The advantage of the keyboard over the mouse is its parallel nature. Alt-tab is an inherently serial process, so it eliminates the advantage completely. (If you happen to know that the window you want is the previously-active window, then sure, alt-tab is inherently faster. But that's an incredibly special-case scenario.)

Click a link (Tie. I generally hit / and start typing the link text, hit escape, then enter to visit the link. Sometimes moving the mouse over the link is faster.)

That method is incredibly limited. You can't click on buttons or images. You lose context as you type since the screen's jumping around thanks to search-as-you-type. It fails miserably is the link text is repeated multiple times (eg "reply to this" on slashdot). IHBT. IHL. HAND.

While mouse gestures are certainly nice, they are, in my experience, far more prone to inaccuracy compared to a key presses. Mistakenly closing a browser tab happens far more often with gestures than the keyboard.

That is not at all my experience. Perhaps what you mean to say is that you are prone to imprecision with the mouse (especially if the next item is true for you). From this and other assertions of yours, the only conclusion I can make is that you're not very good with the mouse.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[smoker2]

What do "unprofessional" and "customers" have to do with open source developers ? Are they getting paid by said "customers", or are the freeloaders complaining ?

I'm sure if the complainers were to offer a sum of money for a feature to be developed, they would get their "three bags full sir" obsequiousness. Until then, use it or don't use it, but don't use it and then complain about it.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[oscartheduck]

Try using visual mode. It's a good compromise between swipe and counting words.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[marcosdumay]

Yeah. I've lost the count on the number of times I typed :wq when in fact I wanted :q!

And I'm not even a heavy vi user, I use emacs most of the time (and also lost the count on the number of times I locked a ssh session by typing ^x^s before I learned that ^q will release the bash interface again).

No muscle memory...

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Tyr_7BE]

Stop using only "w" exclusively - there are dozens of nav key combinations you can use with vim to move around. By using only the "skip to next word" function you're using it like one might use MS Word. There are tonnes of others - http://www.vim.org/htmldoc/usr_03.html

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Dolda2000]

Anyway, it would be nice to see a proper "full" linux distribution.

You might want to look at Debian. It has been running on ARM for quite a while.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Mprx]

I touch type about 90wpm. If I'm selecting text I'll generally move my hand to the mouse, because I've measured it to be faster.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Fred_A]

There's already a full 'nix for ARM complete with working packaging and so on, in the form of OpenBSD, just in case anyone has forgotten it.

I'm just back from Netcraft. Nobody wants zombies in their Unix. So go away, shoo !

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Mprx]

The 'w' and 'q' are in muscle memory, as this is one of the consistent strings of shortcuts I mentioned, but the initial ':' is not. That some common vi commands require so many keypresses is a design flaw.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Fred_A]

I use Vim all day, almost every day.

All work and no play makes chromatic a dull boy
All work and no play makes chromatic a dull boy
All work and no play makes chromatic a dull boy
All work and no play makes chromatic a dull boy
All work and no play makes chromatic a dull boy
All work and no play makes chromatic a dull boy

*drools*

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Just Some Guy]

You're obviously not a touch typist.

Or a pianist.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[redxxx]

Open a new browser tab (winner: keybd)
Close a browser tab (winner: keybd)
Go to a history/bookmarked URL (winner: keybd)
Navigate forward/back in the history (winner: keybd)
Click a link (Tie. I generally hit / and start typing the link text, hit escape, then enter to visit the link. Sometimes moving the mouse over the link is faster.)
Run an application (winner: keybd)
Cut/copy/paste/save/print/quit/etc (winner: keybd)
Scrolling via arrow, pgup/dn, home/end vs. wheel (winner: keybd)
Switching between applications/windows (winner: keybd)
Change a font (I will give this one to mouse)

I can do all but one of those things with one click or one a mouse gesture, and I don't have to move my hand to use controls in Flash or other firefox pluging.

The awesome bar is just that, with the mouse. Mash a couple letters with my left hand, and click with my right. If I need it in a new tab, I just use mouse 3.

Scrolling is way better with the mouse. Mouse wheel for small movement. Gesture ties too full page up or down. Auto scroll for when I want the screen to act like a teleprompter. None of which requires moving any part of my body more than a centimeter.

A 'power user', or whatever you want to call someone who actually knows how their computer works and how to customize it to their liking, who prefers a mouse is every bit as effective and efficient as one who like the keyboard. They probably just spend most of their time doing different tasks.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[thegux]

How many programmers cant be bothered to use the standard shortcut keys of the system(s) they target with their programs? Particularly in X, unfortunately, many even deliberately remove the ability of the user to *set* those keys to the standard they are used to? (Yes, I'm looking at you Gnome.)

I don't know how long this has been there, but I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 and if you go into System -> Preferences -> Appearance, in the Interface tab you can tick a box to give you "Editable menu shortcut keys", which as far as I know enables editable shortcuts Gnome-wide (it works in Gedit anyway).

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[bhirsch]

Open a new browser tab (winner: keybd)
Close a browser tab (winner: keybd)
Navigate forward/back in the history (winner: keybd)

Those are all arguably faster with gestures.

Ctrl+w versus mouse click while moving down, then right. Not sure who can possibly do that faster and with more accuracy than the most novice computer user.

Go to a history/bookmarked URL (winner: keybd)

With most browsers, I'd say this is true. With Opera's Speed Dial, it becomes a matter of whether you've memorized the name of the site (or bookmark). Just open a new tab, and you see a (fairly large) picture of each of your bookmarked sites. Click on the one you want to visit (or Ctrl+Number). This method makes both the keyboard and the mouse faster (and near-equivalent, IMO) by removing the dependence on the user's memory for speed.

This only advantageous for users who do not remember the names or URLs of the sites they want to visit, but recognize them by thumbnails. The mouse beating the keyboard suggests a certain increased level of stupidity on the part of the user.

Run an application (winner: keybd)

Only if you've memorized the name of the command. What you're really saying here is that searching for a program is slower than already having it memorized. I guarantee you that clicking on a desktop shortcut (and you have your dekstop set for single-click mode, right?) is faster than executing the key combo, then typing a word, then hitting enter.

Well, in Vista I can hit the window button, then start typing the name of the appliation (ie, word instead of winword.exe). Ditto for OS X using Spotlight (command+space). I would like to see anyone navigate through the start menu or finder to start Word faster (or even the Quick launch/Dock).

Cut/copy/paste/save/print/quit/etc (winner: keybd)

Cut,copy,paste is a process, not just a key combo. I've found that the process usually works best when you use both the keyboard and the mouse. The mouse is better for selecting large blocks of text and getting the cursor to the general area where you want it. The keyboard is better for precision movements.

Scrolling via arrow, pgup/dn, home/end vs. wheel (winner: keybd)

Let's have a race. We each have an identical several-hundred-page document. You use the page keys, I'll click on the scroll bar. First to the middle wins. Also, your mention of the scroll wheel belies your inexpertise with the mouse. The correct tool is the "middle-click drag" auto-scroll feature.

Of course I will win. With a 500-page documet, Ctrl+G, 250, enter. [Btw, I will ignore your pot shot at my inexpertise with the middle-click-drag only known to super 31337 users such as yourself.]

Switching between applications/windows (winner: keybd)

The advantage of the keyboard over the mouse is its parallel nature. Alt-tab is an inherently serial process, so it eliminates the advantage completely. (If you happen to know that the window you want is the previously-active window, then sure, alt-tab is inherently faster. But that's an incredibly special-case scenario.)

Switching to the previous application is incredibly special case? I generally have about 6 or 7 applications open at a time. I can easily cycle to the one I want to use far faster than anyone can locate what they want to use on a taskbar, most their mouse down and click it.

Click a link (Tie. I generally hit / and start typing the link text, hit escape, then enter to visit the link. Sometimes moving the mouse over the link is faster.)

That method is incredibly limited. You can't click on buttons or images. You lose context as you type since the screen's jumping around thanks to search-as-you-type. It fails miserably is the li

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[guruevi]

I meant at the end of my comments (which isn't bad) or somewhere in a line of code.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[immcintosh]

It's a great usability theory I'm sure, but one of the main reasons I, for one, just don't use GNOME is that all its UI is filled with unreasonably massive buttons and controls. As far as I'm concerned it really just makes things ugly and hurts the functionality of the interface.

Or to put it another way, my desktop UI isn't a damned video game. If I'm doing something where the .3 seconds saved by hugely padded buttons matters, I'll use the keyboard. But then again, I guess that just makes me one of the sort that KDE was made for.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[immcintosh]

This just depends so much on what you're doing and how you're doing it that it's a pointless argument to even bother talking about either way. Yeah, sometimes mouse is faster. Yeah, especially for several repetitive tasks strung together, the mouse can be substantially slower if there's a keyboard combo available.

But this does highlight one of the big flaws in the "Apple way." They get it in their heads that their millions of dollars in studies are somehow Universally Right, and will apply those results even to those few applications which are different enough that those results just aren't appropriate. I'm not even going to go into what a clusterfuck iTunes' UI is...

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Xabraxas]

Pidgin users were furious over a feature change and the Pidgin developers simply responded: "We do what we like." Pidgin is nearly considered part of GNOME because it's still GTK+ and right now it is IMO the best alternative to real AIM (AIM also has a Linux version now).

A lot of people were pissed off about Microsoft's ribbon interface but that hasn't stopped them from pushing it onto all of their apps. The pidgin interface change was minor compared to the ribbon. In fact I still wonder what the big deal was with pidgin interface change. I can't possiblly see why anyone made such a big deal out of it. Personally I find the change to be a good one.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Xabraxas]

Granted the GNOME buttons are slightly larger than QT buttons but that's only going to make a difference on very small screens. The next release of GNOME is supposed to come with a theme that is better suited to small screens. Otherwise bigger buttons are better in most cases because screen resolutions for modern desktops and laptops are quite high today. The only way to completely solve this issue is with complete resolution independence.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Curien]

With a 500-page documet, Ctrl+G, 250, enter.

OK, so now you're arguing that figuring out the number of pages (admittedly easy in some contexts, but not all), dividing by two, then typing THREE separate key combinations is faster than a single mouse click. Bravo.

I often search twice to jump to the unique text before the repeated text.

And now you're arguing that figuring out what text near your link is unique and then typing it verbatim is faster than a single mouse click. Awesome!

No need to get your panties in a bunch, but I can play too...

Dude, do whatever makes you happy. But you're lying to yourself if you think the ridiculous methods quoted above are faster for any reason other than that you're used to them.

I would like to see anyone navigate through the start menu or finder to start Word faster (or even the Quick launch/Dock).

Apples to oranges. The program menu is a way to search for an application if you don't know what's on the system -- it's a graphically-enhanced 'ls /usr/bin'. It's not a way to launch commonly-used apps (that's what shortcuts are for).

Btw, I will ignore your pot shot at my inexpertise with the middle-click-drag only known to super 31337 users such as yourself.

You're the one who said the scroll wheel was comparable to page up/down. Don't get pissed because I called you on your strawman.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Lord Bitman]

"w" was an example. I do realize there are other keys, but the point of "I need to think about where I'm going and what comes before where I'm going before I go there, and that takes not only time but my mind off whatever I'm using the editor for". "w" and "W" are the ones which require the least thought/typing, and it's still a horrible and inefficient alternative to what it is intended to be a more-efficient alternative for: "arrow keys" [yeah, not actually arrow keys, but their equivalent]

And VIM's documentation is the worst I have ever seen*, Yet I have read much of it. "You don't know me, MAN!" and linking to such things is, in general, rude, ineffective, and stupid.

*Keeping in mind that often "poorly documented" things simply don't have enough documentation to compare against

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[gknoy]

Technically, it is still deleting something -- just more than I would prefer. :D

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[bhirsch]

I can't remember the last time I had to jump to specific page w/o knowing how many pages were in a document. I am guessing it was circa WordStar era.

I can jump around a page using up/dn, pg up/dn, home, end, and text searches faster than anyone I've ever seen (bearing in mind I've worked in software for 12 years) do it with a mouse. I doubt you are any exception to that.

I also know what application I want just about 999 out of 1000 times. The rare exception happened recently where I was trying to use Poseidon for UML on a Mac, which installs into ~/Applications/Poseidon For UML CE 6.0.2/bin/poseidonMac.sh.command. But even in the UML designer, I still found myself using keyboard shortcuts for over half of what I did.

Anyway, don't get confused. Just because I am faster with a keyboard than a mouse doesn't mean I am slow with a mouse compared to others, including you. I am not even arguing with you; I'm sure you are faster with your mouse than hunt and peck.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[Curien]

I can't remember the last time I had to jump to specific page w/o knowing how many pages were in a document.

I didn't say "a specific page". I said "the middle". And tons of programs don't display page numbers -- web browsers, for one.

I also know what application I want just about 999 out of 1000 times.

Whoop-dee doo. That wasn't the issue.

Anyway, don't get confused. Just because I am faster with a keyboard than a mouse doesn't mean I am slow with a mouse compared to others, including you.

Wow. The discussion was about what's faster on average for a variety of people. I sure hope your keyboarding skills are better than you're reading comprehension skills. But judging by how spectacularly you screwed up the HTML in your previous post, I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[bhirsch]

I didn't say "a specific page". I said "the middle". And tons of programs don't display page numbers -- web browsers, for one.

Well, you said the middle of a several hundred page document. Either way, I can hold page down until the scroll bar hits the middle far faster than you can move your mouse over, click, drag down, and release. If the document were closer to tens of thousands of pages, you may win out using your mouse, but that is a bit of an edge case.

Whoop-dee doo. That wasn't the issue.

Actually it is. For those of us who know what we are doing, we are better served with a keyboard.

Wow. The discussion was about what's faster on average for a variety of people. I sure hope your keyboarding skills are better than you're reading comprehension skills. But judging by how spectacularly you screwed up the HTML in your previous post, I wouldn't bet on it.

That's some big talk about reading comprehension. I will try to soak it in, but I am afraid I replied to a post that said, "Try timing yourself on some web browsing/text editing/file managing tasks." It's not surprising you find keyboard shortcuts too confusing. If you are arguing about the average person, then the mistake is mine. I generally assume people on Slashdot are above average in most categories, but if your IQ is hovering right around that 100 mark, I have little doubt that you will be faster using a mouse.

The point I was making in response to #26540019 is that there are many of us in technology, who used computers for a long time before the mouse was ubiquitous, that find the keyboard to be far more efficient in terms of speed and accuracy. It would be unfortunate if keyboard shortcuts were phased out in order to ease the learning curve for people like you. It's bad enough that web sites are becoming less keyboard friendly (Flash, onmousedown/up events, forms that submit with JavaScript, etc.)

[BTW, I tried harder with my HTML skillz on this post. I hope it lives up to your standards.]

Re:Full 'nix for arm?

[DaVince21]

The big padding is considered good design, yes, but not giving the user the choice of having those big amounts of padding is a bad design choice on the other hand. The ultimate solution would be that Gnome auto-adjusts this depending on the found screen resolution. It's annoying to find hacks for this so everything is more visible on my 800x480 max resolution.

Too big

[jmorris42]

The really cheep netbooks in the pipeline, the ones most likely to be ARM based at first, tend to only have 800x480 displays so an app that barely fits in 800x600 isn't going to be usable.

I'm still waiting for one of the cheap netbooks to be available to purchase though. Lots of talk, but to date no URL to go with a credit card to buy quantity one. Really hope the different groups putting together these new ARM based machines can agree on some standards for bootloading and such so each one won't be all but tied to the one modified distro it ships with.

Re:Too big

[Arker]

I saw a MIPS based netbook for about US $150 a week or two ago. Trying to remember where.

It strikes me that the best way to improve usability of X apps might be to send these little babies off to as many developers as you can find - and then preferably putting a gun to their heads and forcing them to try and use their apps on them.

The gun to the head part, of course, is tongue in cheek - but wow! seldom is such a bad idea so tempting.

Re:Too big

[genericpoweruser]

Would it really be that difficult to make an X11 app that works similarly to alltray ( http://alltray.trausch.us/ ), only instead of hiding programs in the tray it allows you to scale the window? Ideally it would be built directly into the window manager, with the controls right in the title bar.

As a work-around now you could make a new vncserver on a new virtual console (vncserver :1) then connect to it on localhost (appending :1 to the address) then scale it with TightVNC (the problem here is that I can't find the Linux GUI for TightVNC [where the scale option is found], so I currently use the Windows binary in Wine).

Re:Too big

[tabrisnet]

TightVNC's vncviewer doesn't. So try krdc instead.

Re:Too big

[Anonymous Coward]

"I saw a MIPS based netbook for about US $150"

I guess you mean this:
http://gizmodo.com/5105146/170-alpha-400-mips-netbook-is-as-expensive-as-it-is-desirable

Re:Too big

[Arker]

"I saw a MIPS based netbook for about US $150" I guess you mean this: http://gizmodo.com/5105146/170-alpha-400-mips-netbook-is-as-expensive-as-it-is-desirable

That's the one. I love how the site you found poo-poos the specs though. $expletive-string-here, this thing has hundreds of times the ram of machines that only a few decades ago were being used by dozens of scientific users doing real work concurrently, and a processor to easily match that, and it's not considered sufficient to read a news article and check your email on?

I expect sloppy programming and bloat on windows, it's quite disappointing how thoroughly it's taken over the linux world as well though.

Re:Too big

[ogdenk]

MIPS-based netbook eh?

Didn't they call those handheld PC's and handheld PC Pros about a decade ago? Most ran WinCE 2 or 2.11. Most were also capable of running Linux or NetBSD/hpcmips at some point. There were some with Hitachi SH3's as well.

Some of the less educated called them PDA's but they weren't quite what I would call a PDA. The only true PDA I've ever owned was the Apple Newton MP2100. It actually put the "A" in PDA.

Re:Too big

[Have Brain Will Rent]

The problem for which you are suggesting a solution goes well beyond GUI's or software in general or even computers in general. Before a product is released the designer(s) should be forced to actually use the product they have designed for an extended period. Because half the crap out in the world has obviously not undergone that simple test.

Like the cup holder on GM vans when I bought mine - you pull it out of the center console and it has two spots for cups. The two spots are open to each other so if one cup leaks then the non-leaking one will also drip when you pick it up. Put anything heavy in the holder or press down on it with even a little pressure and it suddenly gives way canting forward about 45 degrees. When it is out in the operating position it obscures the controls for rear window defrost, fog lights and rear wiper. When it is out it obscures the cigarette lighters - which are otherwise quite useful even if you don't smoke. All this is obvious very quickly but either the designers didn't catch it or management didn't care. I find products like that all the time and every time my wish is that the designer be forced to use the product for a lengthy period.

Re:Too big

[drinkypoo]

I'm still waiting for one of the cheap netbooks to be available to purchase though.

I got lucky so I can stop waiting, I got a DT Research DT360 webpad for $270, they start at like $1250, I'm going to need a new battery. I'll see just how lucky I am once it actually gets here... I see x86 compatibility as a massive win, and it has a Geode LX 800.

Moral of the story, lurk on eBay like a mofo. You may eventually find something. I did. Wifi, bluetooth, USB2, looks like it has internal and external CF and a PC Card slot too. No memory reader but the CF, but USB2 memory card reader+hub is out there pretty cheap. And the WiFi is MiniPCI :)

Re:Too big

[drinkypoo]

That's the one. I love how the site you found poo-poos the specs though. $expletive-string-here, this thing has hundreds of times the ram of machines that only a few decades ago were being used by dozens of scientific users doing real work concurrently, and a processor to easily match that, and it's not considered sufficient to read a news article and check your email on?

There you go, amen to that. If I could send my slowest computer still plugged in (a rackmounted P3 1GHz with 384MB memory and a 60GB disk IIRC) back in time to myself when I was fucking around with my 386DX25 with 8MB ram in DIP packages in sockets on the motherboard, that version of myself would probably have wept for joy.

I just bought a used DT Research WebDT360, hopefully it will get here by the end of the week. It will be my new primary system. Right now I am slashdotting on my Compaq nw9440. I'm using a Core Duo, a Quadro FX1500M, and a 17" panel to websurf. This is dumb especially since I use small font sizes because I can read faster*. If the other buyer fell through I'm picking up a Mini-ITX Geode LX development board as well to be my new server. What's the current one? An IBM Thinkpad A21p with a Mobile P3. Obviously I am chasing low current consumption :)

I think a lot of us could be using a lot less processing power a lot of the time. I only wish that my Core Duo would clock down to, say, 100 MHz with meaningful power consumption savings. Most of the time, two 100MHz cores could handle the workload just fine. The Geode LX 800 has MMX and 3dNow! and a crypto accelerator and has a TDP under 4W, can run at a case temperature of 85 C (wow) and is fully x86-compatible. If I could take THAT machine back in time and give it to my teenage self I'd probably soil myself. But I won't know before the end of the week, it's coming to California to Montreal via UPS :p

* They trained me in speedreading in my elementary school. The more text I can see at once the faster I can read, now. Which is counter-intuitive since the technique was based on only displaying a small amount of text at once. Go figure.

Re:Too big

[smoker2]

You realise that you're not supposed to be using the cup holders while driving, don't you ? They are there as picnic items, not to turn the car into a moving restaurant.

Re:Too big

[domatic]

These guys produce a patched tightvnc that has scaling and some other goodies. Pressing F8 brings up the UI for it:

http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/ssvnc.html

They have source and binaries for a number of platforms. Their focus is on wrapping a friendly UI for tunneling VNC over SSH but the tightvnc binary they give you has the goodies even if run directly.

Re:Too big

[harry666t]

How about scalable interfaces, hm? Fonts are easily scaled, SVG graphics as well. But that doesn't fix some of the ridiculously stupid UI designs, like wasting hundreds of pixels of vertical space for title bars, menu bars, icon bars, tab bars, status bars, panels, etc on a screen that is already often much wider than higher.

Re:Too big

[Have Brain Will Rent]

My observation is that the usage is not as you describe. And even if the car were stationary, for example if you pulled over to take a break, you just might want to make use of the: cigarette lighters (for smokes or for DC power), the fog lamps, the rear defogger etc. and you might want to not have one cup drip on you because the *other* cup leaked and you might not want to have the whole assembly suddenly fall 45 degrees forward because a minor amount of weight is put on it. But if that's all fine with you then you then GM will love you. I think most of us would rather that things were designed properly.

Why just netbooks?

[DeHackEd]

Sure the big blocky feel of pretty much every window manager out there sucks on my Eee, but this is one reason I stick with GTK+ 1.x. I don't have a 1280x1024 monitor just so I can see the same material I could see on an 800x600 10 years ago but with cleaner rounded edges.

And I have the bigger Eee. 1024x600 resolution, and some dialogs don't even fit on the screen.

Re:Why just netbooks?

[calmofthestorm]

I stick with ion3 because my screen isn't that big. 1024x768. With a tiling wm it feels big, but with gnome, kde, etc I can barely fit a single app on the screen.

Of course, the learning curve for a tiling wm is kind of intense:-)

Re:Why just netbooks?

[Just Some Guy]

I'm a huge fan of Netbook Remix and "maximus". The former provides an awesome launcher sort of like the Eee's default interface but way better, and the second provides fullscreen, borderless windows. You might see what you think of it.

Re:Why just netbooks?

[Repugnant_Shit]

I have the same 1024x600 screen on my EeePC, and Evolution's preference window is too big for the screen. My solution? Switched to Thunderbird. I'm also using Easy Peasy instead of the default Asus Xandros distro.

Re:Why just netbooks?

[Abreu]

I also recommend Ubuntu Netbook Remix. I use it on my Acer AspireOne (also 1024x600 resolution) and I love it

Is there a QT/KDE equivalent? Im curious

Yah for the LGPL

[QuantumG]

For too many years the GPL has been killing adoption of Qt. That's a fact. Maybe it shouldn't have. Maybe people should be willing to be dictated to on what license they can use for their product because they dare to use the Qt framework. Maybe that's your opinion.

Of course, now that so many people are piling on-board to use Qt thanks to the license change, I wonder how many of them have actually bothered to read the LGPL. My favourite part is section 4.

You may convey a Combined Work under terms of your choice that, taken together, effectively do not restrict modification of the portions of the Library contained in the Combined Work and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications,

Yeah, didn't see that did ya? Almost every boiler plate EULA includes a clause prohibiting reverse engineering and I wonder how many have not been updated to comply with the LGPL (thankfully a lot of us can just ignore these restrictions as the government in our part of the world recognizes reverse engineering as a right that cannot be contracted out of).

I'll be looking for violations.. just for shits and giggles.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[msobkow]

Personally I'll be downloading the Windows version as soon as there is an LGPL variant. I've always wanted to work with Qt, but none of the companies I've worked for would accept the GPL restrictions and they weren't willing to pony up the license fees when they could get GTK-based applications for free.

Qt looks like a nice successor to Neuron Data's Open Interface, based on C++ instead of C with C++ wrappers. Plus Qt seems to have better platform coverage and a much livelier support group.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[vbraga]

Why don't you go for Qt 4.5 beta? It's available both under GPL and a "special beta license" (dunno what that means). When Qt 4.5 is officially released (about March '09), supporting LGPL, you already playing with it.

I've been working with it for about a year and it's really nice. It feels somewhat bloated sometimes and I really dislike the Visual Studio integration. Qmake could be better. But, overall, I believe is the best framework for C++. It's really nice to work with.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[QuantumG]

This is true. And you no longer have to worry about the insanity of Trolltech's lawyers who claimed that you couldn't do private commercial development with the GPL licensed library.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[Cyberax]

Notice the words "for debugging such modifications".

It pretty much means that your users are allowed to attach to your process with GDB to debug their libraries and that's about it.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[QuantumG]

Note the words "reverse engineering". If you forbid reverse engineering, as typical EULAs do, for any purpose, then that is forbidding reverse engineering for debugging modifications to the library. So they at least need to modify their EULA to permit reverse engineering for this purpose. And it also means they can't put any anti-debugging tricks in the application, because it will interfere with that reverse engineering.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[Cyberax]

It's certainly possible to use anti-debugging tricks, if they do not interfere with linked libraries.

In practice, shareware authors can (and do) legally use anti-cracking protectors with their own code if they do not interfere with LGPL libraries.

In any case, anti-circumvention prohibitions in EULAs are the most stupid clauses...

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[QuantumG]

Whatever you say man.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[Jamie Lokier]

If you're looking for violations, check out all those little devices (routers, media players etc.) which link to uClibc without shared libraries...

uClibc is LGPL. When it's not a shared library, that conveyes certain rights to a relinkable form of the object code of all applications on the device, including proprietary apps.

I've never seen such relinkable object code of the proprietary apps offered, for download or in any other form. In other words, flagrant LGPL violations everywhere.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[kripkenstein]

Yeah, didn't see that did ya? Almost every boiler plate EULA includes a clause prohibiting reverse engineering

It is my understanding that you can reverse-engineer the LGPLed library, but nothing else. And that isn't much of an issue: the LGPLed part should come with the complete source (or equivalent), so being able to debug/disassemble binaries for which you have the source isn't a big deal. In fact the purpose of this clause (again, to my understanding) is simply to be able to ensure that the source of the LGPLed library indeed corresponds to the binary of said LGPLed library.

So yes, EULAs might need to change - good point. But the change should only be "you can reverse-engineer the LGPLed library X, but nothing else," and that would appear after "you can get the source code to the LGPLed library X from here."

Bottom line, if you are ok with using an LGPLed library - and many otherwise GPL-averse corporations are - then this should not be an issue.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[QuantumG]

No. You fail. To understand what the LGPL means you need to actually read the LGPL. I know it's scary, but there ya go. The provisions actually say that you have to permit reverse engineering of the application, and take no action to permit said reverse engineering, so that one can debug changes to the LGPL library. The purpose of these provisions is to allow someone to fix problems in the LGPL library and have your application work with those changes.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[kripkenstein]

No need to be insulting.

Ok, it seems you are right, this does allow limited reverse engineering of the non-LGPLed app, in order to see how it works with the LGPLed library. This might scare GPL-averse companies, in theory, that's a valid point. But hopefully it won't.

Re:Yah for the LGPL

[drinkypoo]

Note the words "reverse engineering". If you forbid reverse engineering, as typical EULAs do, for any purpose

Then you come into conflict with the DMCA, which explicitly permits reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability, and you lose. A EULA can't trump the law. So as it turns out you're not allowed to debug their product for them, but you are allowed to make a clone by reverse-engineering the original. Interesting, eh?

"" may "" "" consider ""

[sofar]

enough said for now. this is just speculation. nobody is seriously looking into dumping gtk+/gnome.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[morgan_greywolf]

Ok, I'll bite.

Top 10 Reasons GNOME isn't going anywhere:

10. Firefox and Thunderbird are GTK+
9. Konqueror and KHTML, without WebKit, is hobbled by severe rendering and JavaScript bugs
8. GIMP is GTK+
7. The OOo KDE integration, last I checked anyway, was nowhere near as good as the GNOME integration.
6. Pidgin is GTK+ and Kopete is still very immature compared to it.
5. Inkscape is a GTK+/GNOME app.
4. Audacity is GTK+
3. Most of the popular major distros have GNOME as the default desktop (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, etc.)
2. GNOME is easier to use than KDE

and the number one reason GNOME isn't going anywhere:

1. Germans just love David Hasselhoff!

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[Cyberax]

Frankly, I hope that GNOME+GTK die a quick death.

10. FireFox already has QT build (http://browser.garage.maemo.org/news/10/ff3qt.png). Thunderbird will be easy to port, since libxul is already ported.
9. Who cares about WebKit? I have never seen anyone using Konqueror or Epiphany.
8. GIMP must die. KDE has Krita.
7. That's a problem.
6. Pidgin is dying (mainly because its developers can't find their asses with both hands), Empathy is slowly replacing it even in GNOME. Kopete is maturing very fast.
5. Scribus.
4. So?
3. That's already changing.
2. Not by much.

1. Well, GNOME vs. KDE is now certainly going to ignite flamewars on the scale of virtual WWII :)

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[niteice]

4. Audacity is GTK+

Wrong. Audacity is wxWidgets, which uses GTK on X11, and the native windowing toolkit elsewhere.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[tepples]

4. Audacity is GTK+

Wrong. Audacity is wxWidgets, which uses GTK on X11

Until wxWidgets is ported to Qt, all wxWidgets apps will be GTK+.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[Repossessed]

9 webkit and khtml were remerged
3 is a good reason, 2 I'd argue with, but is very subjective.

The rest? Who cares? I use KDE and have no issues running them.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[netcrusher88]

Just a note: Scribus and Inkscape aren't even close to each other. Inkscape is more akin to Illustrator - it's a vector drawing application - whereas Scribus is more akin to Publisher or InDesign - it's a publishing layout application.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[Just Some Guy]

6. Pidgin is GTK+ and Kopete is still very immature compared to it.

Did you mean that sarcastically? Pidgin doesn't even doesn't even support proper metacontacts last time I checked. Every time I've been stuck using Pidgin, it becomes a game of finding out what they've removed "to make it easier".

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[Kennon]

Pidgin is GTK+ and Kopete is still very immature compared to it.

I was totally onboard with your post until you said Kopete was immature compared to Pidgin...As far as I am concerned the complete opposite is true. I am regularly a Gnome user but I switched to KDE for a few weeks (for reasons beyond my control) and I completely fell in love with Kopete. It matches GAIM/Pidgin feature for feature then adds 100 more on top of that. Just the appearance and skinning options alone dwarf Pidgin's. All the best Pidgin plugins are represented in Kopete too. Plus Kopete has great video device support, a feature the GAIM/Pidgin team has been promising for years but never has managed to deliver. The integrated camera on my Lenovo Thinkpad W500 was supported out of the box. I really wish we could get a gtk version of Kopete over to gnome to give Pidgin a run for it's money....for years now, like ever since the main dev went to work for Google it is as if Pidgin has gone into feature freeze/bug fix only mode...

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[Prien715]

Most of the reasons you mention are "people are already using it" rather than addressing the question "it's better".

Here's my top 11 (top 6 are not about inertia):

11 Firefox has been ported to Qt
9. Skype is Qt based.
8. Google Earth is Qt based.
7. Qt's cross-platform support is so good that some people (e.g. doxygen) use it who have no/very few GUI components.
6. Qt is C++ based.
5. Localization support. And these guys even thought about making number suffixes right in Czech.
4. Qt is easier to use.
3. Qt has a usable UI creation kit (designer)
2. Qt extends C++ by offering an event based handling framework.
1. Qt is a tool for platform abstraction, so like Java, it's possible to create complex cross-applications with no #ifdef WINDOWS or #ifdef LINUX.
0. I love any company who names itself TrollTech;)

I use Qt in professional application development I have to tell you, vs the Xtoolkit or Motif, it's night and day. Using Qt is 10x easier. It's also much easier to create truly cross-platform apps (using a make system like CMAKE for example) with platform specific code.

I look for Qt to become more widely used simply because of how good it is...rather than because "some influential people are using it".

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[pherthyl]

>> Top 10 Reasons GNOME isn't going anywhere:

You're confusing GTK and GNOME.

>> 10. Firefox and Thunderbird are GTK+

Neither of them "are" GTK. Both can use multiple toolkits to render their widgets. One of these is GTK.

>> 9. Konqueror and KHTML, without WebKit, is hobbled by severe rendering and JavaScript bugs

And this has to do with GTK how?

>> 8. GIMP is GTK+

Great. Haven't used it in years. Most people are far better served with a photo manager that does some light editing than a full image processing app. Especially on a mobile device I really doubt anyone is seriously using the GIMP.

>> 7. The OOo KDE integration, last I checked anyway, was nowhere near as good as the GNOME integration.

Works fine here. Without specifics it's hard to tell what you're talking about.

>> 6. Pidgin is GTK+ and Kopete is still very immature compared to it.

Subjective. I don't see anything mind-blowing about Pidgin when I used it. Amsn does a better job than both of them anyway (only the one network of course).

>> 5. Inkscape is a GTK+/GNOME app.

Scribus is a Qt app. Both of them are niche apps and really don't matter to mobile platforms.

>> 4. Audacity is GTK+

WxWidgets actually, as others have pointed out. And again, niche and not useful on mobile.

>> 2. GNOME is easier to use than KDE

Riight.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[Repugnant_Shit]

GIMP doesn't have the features. When it does, people will stop complaining about it. Also, the layer palette sucked, still sucks, and will probably continue to suck.

Pidgin? Libpurple is tremendous. If you want to see what Pidgin should look like, check out its sibling Adium, the best IM client on OS X (which uses libpurple).

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[ion.simon.c]

*looks at krita*

I'm not sure that I like it, but I'll give it a try over the next couple of weeks.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[Repugnant_Shit]

Inkscape kicks ass, though.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[ion.simon.c]

What's wrong with the Layer palette? What am I missing?

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[westyvw]

2. GNOME is easier to use than KDE

Huge Myth. So much is missing in Gnome that it makes ones head spin. The reality is that its very easy to do nearly nothing in Gnome, whereas KDE has lots to configure, but actually does something for you.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[ion.simon.c]

Did you mean that sarcastically? Pidgin doesn't even doesn't even support proper metacontacts last time I checked.

"aliasing" multiple contacts to the same name collapses them into a single group. Is this the same as metacontacts?

Every time I've been stuck using Pidgin, it becomes a game of finding out what they've removed "to make it easier".

Yeah. I kinda hate that.
OTOH, I've just stopped using "advanced" features, so maybe I'm a victim of Stockholm Syndrome? ;)

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[shutdown -p now]

Most of the popular major distros have GNOME as the default desktop (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, etc.)

Wow, Mandriva is there already? I recall it being a very KDE-centric distro some time ago...

BTW, didn't SUSE switch as well?

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[moosesocks]

GNOME seems to be about on par with Mac OS X in terms of configurability, and I hear that Apple is barely selling any machines these days.

But, seriously.... customization doesn't even need to occur via preference panels (if it needs to happen at all). Developers should strive to write apps that are both simple and intuitive. KDE apps tend to suffer from feature-bloat.

Look at Transmission versus Azureus: Azureus does a whole lot more, but suffers from *serious* feature bloat. Transmission does almost everything you'd want a torrent client to do, but has a dead-simple UI, and uses about a tenth as much RAM. Azureus isn't a KDE application, though it does seem to suffer from the same pitfalls as most KDE apps do.

While I'm ranting, I should add that KDE's tendency to put toolbars with dozens of tiny identical-looking blue icons is absolutely maddening.

GNOME's user interface guidelines seem to be much clearer and consistent than those used by KDE. For now, this is a clear reason to pick one over the other for desktop usage.

*Note that none of this applies to the abomination that is the GIMP.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[hubert.lepicki]

You've got outdated info. 10. Firefox already has Qt frontent by Nokia. 9. Konqueror can use WebKit (or they can use FF+Qt) 8. Well yes. Krita? 7. I don't complain - works for me. 6. What?! Can't disagree more - Kopete is great piece of software. 5. True (gtk-engines-qt?) 4. True (gtk-engines-qt?) 3. True (Qt licensing issue caused this, let's observe now) 2. True 1. And they *DO* like Qt.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[ChienAndalu]

0. KDE4 sucks at this point.

KDE4.2 is rumored to be better, but I haven't tried it yet. But I doubt it.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[moonbender]

That FF3 QT screenshot sums up all my reservations about leaving Gnome for KDE.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[moonbender]

Inkscape is so popular I have never even heard of it.

It's the definite OSS vector drawing application. The other OSS solutions aren't in the same league, except maybe for Xara which at least used to be a pro app, IIRC. I don't know why you wouldn't have heard of it, maybe you never needed to do vector drawings? But then you seem to think that XMMS is comparable to Audacity which frankly is just bizarre -- maybe IHBT? HAND.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[moonbender]

You still don't point out an alternative to GIMP -- because there isn't any, besides running whatever Photoshop version Wine now supports. Somebody above mentioned Krita; you've got to be kidding me.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[rufus t firefly]

4. Audacity I have at least heard of, but never used. XMMS and the multitude of others mean that it is hardly a barrier.

I think you're confusing audacity with audacious. Audacity is a sound file editor, XMMS and audacious are sound file players.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[redxxx]

Pfffttt... who'd ever want to use a image editor where all the dialog boxes were kept in one window? Sorry, if the program doesn't take up half my taskbar, it isn't worth using.

I miss Gimp's newish marque selection UI. Still no CMYK, out of the box at least. Seems ok though. It looks like a decent enough alternative, and I can talk about it around people who don't know what it is without them looking at me funny.

It isn't going to replace Photoshop(for all the same reasons gimp won't), but after a curssory look I might use it instead of Gimp at home.

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[redxxx]

5. Inkscape is so popular I have never even heard of it. (I actually try to keep up with this stuff).

So, if you keep up with this stuff, what do you use for opensource vector image editing? There is a lot I don't like about Inkscape, what is the alternative?

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[ion.simon.c]

Pfffttt... who'd ever want to use a image editor where all the dialog boxes were kept in one window? Sorry, if the program doesn't take up half my taskbar, it isn't worth using.

You can tweak a setting in Gimp to hide those windows from most taskbars.

But yeah. MDI REALLY, REALLY sucks for a multi-monitor (and occasionally multi-desktop) setup. I wish that more folks would drink the "eight-skrillion floating windows" kool-aid. :)

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[dbcad7]

whereas KDE has lots to configure, but actually does something for you.

Before I begin, let me say "to each their own"

First, having all those extra configuration options.. Well, that's "somewhat" true, but actually, now when you add in compiz-fusion.. it all kind of goes away for the most part.. Gnome's widget coloring has been and still is not something that is a simple mouse click, and that has alway bothered me somewhat.. but it is possible to do, if your willing to learn how.. I make no excuses for them, it should have that basic function.. but I have learned how to customize it myself, just because I wanted to.

But let's really get down to the core issue.. does one or the other make you more productive ? .. no, they are equal, and it goes back to "to each their own"

Re:"" may "" "" consider ""

[nutshell42]

The two were in a dick-waving contest about who has the necessarier "professional" app.

On a related note, the original 10 reasons were crap, but I, too, don't expect that netcraft will confirm Gnome's demise anytime soon.

Does he mean 800x480?

[BikeHelmet]

Most ARM handhelds have 800x480 screens, or smaller. 4:3 isn't that common, unless you're talking about relatively new tablets where larger displays matter.

Gnome is rather heavy. Nice to see them using something lighter, at least until ARM processors reach netbook speeds.

Re:Does he mean 800x480?

[rubycodez]

hell, at *small* end its 320x200, either color or with 4 bit greyscale

Re:Does he mean 800x480?

[BikeHelmet]

Yeah, I know. I've seen 480x240 screens, 320x240, 320x200, 800x480... never seen an 800x600 myself, on an ARM-powered device.

Greyscale? Most of the ones I've used were either 15-16bit or 24bit. Luxury, I suppose!

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[Anonymous Coward]

>@ Canonical
>Debian system

WTF?

Debian Has Supported ARM For Years

[John Hasler]

I worked on ARM devices for many years so a full Linux distribution on ARM is exciting

You mean. for example, Debian GNU/Linux on ARM ?

Re:Debian Has Supported ARM For Years

[morgan_greywolf]

Without which, Ubuntu Mobile couldn't possibly exist as they wouldn't be able to rip-off most of the work of the Debian packagers. ;)

*ducking*

Re:Debian Has Supported ARM For Years

[jonasj]

Just like Debian GNU/Linux couldn't possibly exist without the work of, say, the GNU and Linux developers.

You know, there'd be no need to duck if you'd just say "derived from" instead of "ripped off" :-)

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to build from source you should be competent enough to figure out how to download it; it's really not hard. Otherwise, let your vendor do the packaging for you. Most Linux distributions make it so you don't have to care about building anything; and the BSDs make building easy anyhow.

Granted, if you are building from source, Qt's build method is mildly stupid compared to the (end-user) ease of autotools or CMake. But really, if you're just wanting to run programs, let your vendor take care of it all for you.

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[tftp]

WTF? What is that all about to someone who just wants to run an application that uses Qt?

If you want only to run a Qt-based app then you do not need to do anything except to install the application. It should install the Qt runtime libraries for you.

Why the hell am I even looking at this when I just want to run an application?

A good question indeed :-)

If you want Qt widely used you need to make it easy to get and install.

If you are a developer then installation of Qt is the least of your worries. If you are an end user then, as I said, you should not install Qt at all.

AT LAST

[NekoXP]

Hoo-fucking-ray!

At last some common sense..

Qt outstrips GTK/GNOME just as a GUI toolkit and a bunch of middleware, even before you start thinking about stuff like KDE.

The only thing stopping it's use - at least in the strange mix of preinstalled Linux distributions on standard hardware - was that weird problem of having to have every one of your developers buy a license just to run their app - on a Dell for example - if their license was even slightly incompatible. That was a real turn-off if you were a hardware company wanting to take advantage of open source and build communities around open source software.

I'm glad that so soon after Nokia announced the LGPL relicensing, people are taking notice of what is quite obviously a far superior middleware solution than the GTK/GNOME nightmare, and considering developing solutions that work because of code quality and wealth of features, and not *just* because it's GPL.

Re:AT LAST

[siride]

Having to run a compiler means less control over your code. If you are really that anal about it, use assembly, or better yet, just code in a hex editor.

MOC doesn't really do that much. It just generates some much-needed code for limited object introspection. Otherwise, it's not much more advanced than what you already get with the C preprocessor.

Re:AT LAST

[dbIII]

That was a real turn-off if you were a hardware company wanting to take advantage of open source

Why? If you were not selling the software you didn't need a commercial licence. The idea was simply to stop people making money from Trolltech's efforts for free, but if you aren't making anything from it (eg. selling the hardware but giving the software away) then you didn't need to give them anything.

Reverse engineering

[ChunderDownunder]

Certain companies won't touch LGPL for such reasons, preferring apache-licensed stuff.

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[Draek]

I know my comment will be burried for saying this, but this kind of crap is what we all know is wrong with open source software. The front end delivery is done by geeks and bean counters who don't actually use the products as end users.

You may notice the fact that QT was originally developed by a commercial company, Trolltech. You may also notice the fact that since, until lately, they sold commercial licenses for the same software they licensed as GPL, practically all contributions to the 'main' branch of QT were done by Trolltech (and now Nokia) employees. Therefore, if anything, this proves the failings of cathedral-style development, of which closed-source is the biggest exponent.

Ohh and also, being a person unwilling to use pre-compiled packages to be able to use a library you do *not* plan to use as a developer puts you amongst the minority of a minority of a minority of users, therefore do not be surprised if Trolltech/Nokia doesn't care about you at all.

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[int69h]

I'd say "what we all know is wrong with open source software" is what is actually right about it. I'm sorry that the fact that it runs on multiple platforms and is available under multiple licenses inconveniences you. Perhaps you should check out http://www.microsoft.com. Most of their stuff runs on exactly one platform and is available under one license, so you won't have to worry about making those pesky decisions.

hmnn

[Vexorian]

I agree with the suddenoutbreakofcommonsense, but that goes to Nokia, actually. Regarding this, how would you switch from gnome to QT? that won't make sense, guess they meant they would switch to KDE so that they will then make QT apps?

What *is* happening?

[dhasenan]

Ubuntu Mobile is not switching to Qt.

Ubuntu Mobile is not even considering switching to Qt.

At some point in the future, they may consider switching.

How is this news?

Re:What *is* happening?

[mcbridematt]

I was at the particular session where David spoke. His comment was more along the lines that mobile GUI's were a fast moving target, and Qt may gain more momentum given Nokia acquired it and made it LGPL. (aside, Nokia is now pushing Qt for Symbian/S60 dev)

The comment regarding screen resolution is that the majority of developers haven't designed their GUI under a low res environment, and given that such resolutions are starting to appear again, some work needs to be done.

Re:What *is* happening?

[jonasj]

So in other words they are NOT seriously consider basing ubuntu mobile on qt or kde in the future? Just so I'm sure I understand right what you're saying... if that is in fact what you're saying. (If it is, it would be somewhat of a relief.)

Re:What *is* happening?

[mcbridematt]

My mind is a bit hazy since the session was on Monday, but the video of that session should come out soon.

He noted that the community had been doing quite a bit of work on mobile Qt/KDE, and didn't rule out moving to it (or anything else), but as it stands Ubuntu Mobile will 'come to market' on various devices with GNOME.

Re:What *is* happening?

[jonasj]

Thanks for confirming.

Reminds me of http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/14/1245204. Slashdot seems to like spinning it like Ubuntu wants to move to Qt more than is actually the case.

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[AeneaTech]

If you want Qt widely used you need to make it easy to get and install.

They (Qt Software) make it easy to use and install for their intended user-base. Namely: developers
As an end-user you have no business going there.

The applications you are trying to install should be installed using apt-get which will install the needed Qt libs.
If there's no .deb for the requested app, apt-get ubuntu's libqt4-dev, download the source, go to the source directory where the .pro (project) file is located. run qmake-qt4 in that directory and then run a normal make.

It's not that hard, even from sources. Sure, some problems might arise if the app is using features of a newer Qt version than the 1 bundled with your distro. Even that is easy to solve if you are a developer and if you're not, go complain to the author of the app...

Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[John Hasler]

Qt was already Open Source, of course, under the GPL.

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[atomic-penguin]

Qt was already Open Source, of course, under the GPL.

That is not entirely accurate.

Qt was previously dual-licensed by Trolltech with certain restrictions. If you used the GPL version of the Qt development tools and IDE then it was required a viral GPL license be applied to any application developed. You could not use the "Free" version of Qt to develop a closed source application. I may be mistaken but there may have been other restrictions, such as the ability to develop commercial application with the GPL Qt toolset. The GPL version of Qt was intended by Trolltech to only be used for educational, non-commercial, and personal use.

Again, I re-iterate that I may be wrong about the restrictions placed on the Qt developer toolset. Someone, please correct me if I am mistaken. It was certainly not a traditional GPL software development toolkit in the sense of the restrictions placed on the developer. I don't know of any other open-source development environments, or widget toolkits that carry these same type of restrictions.

The non-viral GPL licensed version, on the other hand, costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,500 per developer. You could, however, license the resulting application in any which way you pleased. As opposed to being forced into using the GPL toolkit. Which is really not a bad compromise, if your goal is to learn about C++ development with Qt, or it is your intention to develop a snappy looking GPL application. By the way, I used Qt for a "pick your own language" undergrad software development project, the instructor thought I had the best looking GUI. To be honest, I probably spent the least amount of time on the graphical design, since Qt was so intuitive and easy for a beginner to pick up.

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[|DeN|niS]

It was certainly not a traditional GPL software development toolkit in the sense of the restrictions placed on the developer.

Of course it was, it's the GPL, nothing more, nothing less.

What you are referring to is a condition of the commercial license, (to prevent you from finally buying 1 single license to release your 20-man-years-application commercially). You are free to accept, reject, or try and renegotiate the conditions of this commercial license. If you don't like them, stick with the GPL, it's your choice.

Practicality of enforcing such a restriction in the commercial license notwithstanding.

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[jonasj]

Qt was already Open Source, of course, under the GPL.

That is not entirely accurate.

Sorry, but that _is_ entirely accurate. Qt _was_ already very much free software and open source, under the GPL.

You could not use the "Free" version of Qt to develop a closed source application.

That is the case with ANY GPL licensed library!

The GPL version of Qt was intended by Trolltech to only be used for educational, non-commercial, and personal use.

It is not true that the GPL'd version of Qt couldn't be used for commercial software development -- any GPL'd software can be used in creating any other piece of software, whether commercial or not. Maybe you meant to say proprietary rather than commercial?

It was certainly not a traditional GPL software development toolkit in the sense of the restrictions placed on the developer.

It WAS a "traditional GPL software development toolkit" in the sense of the rules you had to follow when using it, yes. EVERY other GPL'd library comes with the same restrictions.

I don't know of any other open-source development environments, or widget toolkits that carry these same type of restrictions.

Again, see every other GPL'd library.

(I posted this a minute ago and it showed up as posted by an AC! This is the second time very recently I've had a comment show up as AC even though I swear I hadn't checked that box. A bug in the new discussion system? Has anyone else experienced the same?)

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[atomic-penguin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Public_License

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[atomic-penguin]

Of course it was, it's the GPL, nothing more, nothing less.

No, the Gnu compiler collection does not require that every application compiled with it be licensed under the GPL, that would be absurd.

What you are referring to is a condition of the commercial license, (to prevent you from finally buying 1 single license to release your 20-man-years-application commercially). You are free to accept, reject, or try and renegotiate the conditions of this commercial license. If you don't like them, stick with the GPL, it's your choice.

No, as I mentioned before, I am referring to the restrictions on the Free edition.

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[jonasj]

One wikipedia link does not a series of detailed points refute!

Before 2005 Qt was distributed under the license you linked to, and not under the GPL -- the point being?

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[jonasj]

Of course it was, it's the GPL, nothing more, nothing less.

No, the Gnu compiler collection does not require that every application compiled with it be licensed under the GPL, that would be absurd.

Huh?? True, it doesn't, and the GIMP doesn't require every image edited with it to be GPL-licensed, and orange juice doesn't require anyone drinking it to first dance a happy little dance while singing a song about the underpant gnomes from south park! But what in the world does ANY of those facts have to do with this discussion? Nobody here suggested that the GNU compiler collection required that! I know Obama promised change, but if he's already changed the fundamental laws of debate such that any point can now be refuted by saying the word "No" followed by stating a completely unrelated fact, then that's more than I had expected!

No, as I mentioned before, I am referring to the restrictions on the Free edition.

Ah, but now you're talking about the QPL -- an entirely different license. In you original post you consistently referred to the GPL-licensed Qt.

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[atomic-penguin]

I am going to blame early morning confusion, prior to the first cup of coffee.

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[jonasj]

Now that, on the other hand, is a very convincing argument. Oh you poor caffeine addiction sufferers...

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[jonasj]

...I don't even know why I'm bothering defending (sort of) Qt here - I don't even LIKE Qt (GTKFTW:)). Guess it's just this.

Re:Nokia open sourced Qt under the LGPL

[atomic-penguin]

Guess it's just this.

Nice one.

Re: GIMP

[gringer]

8. GIMP is GTK+

8a. GTK+ is The GIMP Toolkit.

Re:what the fuck are you on about?

[slimjim8094]

Folks, I propose we take this good fellow as the perfect example of a non-biased and uncharged commentator.

Kudos to you on your stellar objectivity!

Re:what the fuck are you on about?

[Reality Master 201]

It's not an objective view - I've used Qt before, for several projects (it's our standard GUI toolkit where I work).

And, yes, I've done complex applications using it.

Kubuntu Mobile?

[tepples]

How is this news?

It opens the door for Kubuntu Mobile.

Re:Fuck you Linus you fucking finnish shit eater!!

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

(I could see this becoming a meme)

Linus Torvalds is a god damn thief!!! I gave Linux my credit card number, and two days later, he stole my virginity! Again!

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[dbIII]

You may also have noticed that they were making the source code available to all even back when RMS was saying "Linux? Never heard of it" in every interview. It has been around for a while and open for a long time.

GTK2.x theming to the rescue

[bornagainpenguin]

Martin Ankerl has a potential solution for you then, he made a HOWTO and has released a compact version of Human and Clearlooks which really make a difference! I even use them when I'm on my desktop these days to cut down on screen bloat. Find the HOWTO and linsk to the themes here: http://martin.ankerl.com/2008/10/10/how-to-make-a-compact-gnome-theme/

--bornagainpenguin

Kubuntu?

[flyingfsck]

KDE uses QT, so what is so wonderful about this 'news'?

How does this compare with Easy Peasy

[Repugnant_Shit]

I've been using Easy Peasy (http://geteasypeasy.com I think) on my Asus EeePC 1000 netbook. It is a solid distro based on Ubuntu 8.04. They plan on releasing 2.0 after Ubuntu 9 comes out in April. How does this Ubuntu Mobile compare? Is it friendly towards flash drives and computers with WiFi-only Internet access?

Qt is *NOT* Gnome alternative itself

[hubert.lepicki]

OK, Qt isn't even close to Gnome in terms of being a desktop environment. In fact, it isn't a desktop environment at all - so it can't be alternative to Gnome. It can be alternative to GTK, which is underlying library for Gnome. What I guess is the case - Ubuntu might look for KDE as an alternative to Gnome desktop, or create something new based on QT that'll fit more on small screens.

Re:Qt is *NOT* Gnome alternative itself

[CrashandDie]

The summary is a bit stupid.

Hildon is GTK for Mobile Devices. It was developped by Nokia. One distribution that uses this the most is Maemo. Considering Maemo is a Nokia-motivated (read coded/funded) project, and that Nokia bought Trolltech and told them to GPL Qt, they now have an extra incentive to boost Qt adoption. One of the tactics used to boost Qt adoption is that from their next version of Maemo (code named Fremantle), the UI is going to be moving from Hildon to Qt. Fremantle will still be using the Hildon libraries, but the version after Fremantle (Harmattan?) will include the Qt libraries by default, and will be officially supported.

Considering that Hildon is very closely entied to Maemo, if Maemo drops its use (read: if Nokia drops it), keeping it up to date is going to be a hard task, which is probably why UbuntuM is switching to Qt as well, as they don't want to have to maintain the UI library on their own; quite the smart move.

We've seen full Linux distributions running on ARM platforms for quite a while. Yes, Debian works, Maemo does as well, and some people might even be intersted in projects such as Mer (Mer is project that forked from Maemo and that is basically the Maemo community yelling at Nokia that they'd better not drop support for the n800/n810 in Fremantle, as they're proving they could very well take care of themselves --software wise-- and that they won't buy new devices just because Nokia wants them to). We've even seen fully fledged KDE desktops run on the n8x0, or Android for that matter.

The main problem on these devices is the lack of support for languages like C++. Yes, we have libhildonmm (C++ bindings for Hildon), but this is all pretty limited. They don't add the flexibility and power that Qt has; and they most probably won't ever do so. At this point, the devices are too slow to even think about compiling C++ on it, so most people default to shit languages like Python.

But I digress, let me summarise:

- Nokia created Hildon, and Maemo.
- Maemo uses Hildon.
- Ubuntu Mobile came along, liked Hildon and said "Hey, let's use that!".
- Nokia bought Trolltech, that develop Qt.
- Nokia is switching Maemo to use Qt instead of Hildon.
- Ubuntu Mobile doesn't want to hold on to the losing end, and switches to Qt before Hildon dies.

Re:Qt is *NOT* Gnome alternative itself

[yelvington]

Someone should mod parent up as informative.

What is striking about all these comments is that there seems to be a lack of clarity about what Ubuntu Mobile is, and whether it even needs to exist.

It's not for netbooks. Netbooks currently run Intel processors, most have 1024x600 displays, and they all can run standard Linux distributions (after the usual wifi struggles). Linpus and Ubuntu Netbook Remix provide alternative desktops with big icons. A lot of people immediately turn that stuff off.

Ubuntu Mobile seems targeted at a market that barely exists and may not survive: ARM-based Internet tablets. I have one of the few entries in this field, the Nokia N800 running Maemo (based on Debian) on the TI OMAP processor. It's a good and useful device, but as a product it's become trapped between the netbooks and the smartphones.

If a product is big enough to support a usable keyboard, it's big enough to run real Linux. If it's small enough to fit in your pocket, it's small enough to run Android.

Re:Qt is *NOT* Gnome alternative itself

[redxxx]

It's a good and useful device, but as a product it's become trapped between the netbooks and the smartphones.

I'm really hoping Maemo 5's support for HSPA will be enough to push the next devise firmly into the area of 'really awesome open source smart phone.'

I love the heck out of my n810, and when I look at i or g phones, I cringe. I want a maemo based phone, and I'll deal with having to use Voip if that is what it takes.

Re:Qt is *NOT* Gnome alternative itself

[MtHuurne]

Why would you compile on the device itself? If you have a decent build system, cross compiling is easy and much faster.

If they are indeed considering replacing GTK by Qt, I'm wondering if they want to run Qt on top of X11 or on top of the framebuffer. I guess ideally they would run Qt on top of OpenGL ES, but I don't know if the infrastructure is ready for that yet.

Re:Qt is *NOT* Gnome alternative itself

[CrashandDie]

Fair point, I understand a lot of people wouldn't want to compile on the device, and that's really the problem. It's a mobile device, so why not? Why do you think at some point, so many people started developping in Python; even though the performance was attrocious (Helloooo 15+ second start time). Some people are actually geeky enough that they want to develop something while they're commuting or traveling, and quite frankly, who could blame them? It's when I'm out of the office, or out of my home office that I have had some of my craziest ideas, so why not? That being said, liqbase was up 'till recently being developped on the device (on device compilation, even though the code was being written on an external computer). Not sure how he does it now, exactly.

We also know that KDrive is going to go, and that instead, a fork of Xorg is going to be used. You'll have to hunt the web for more details though. But the problem remains the same: Nokia didn't get the drivers (and.. err, rights) for the PowerVR chip. Not sure why Nokia never got the rights, even though they acquired Symbian who has the rights to ship the PowerVR drivers. Nevertheless, if Nokia doesn't get the rights to release a driver for the new Internet Tablet, be it Qt, GTK or CP/M, it's not going to evolve a whole lot, graphically wise. If they had been able to release the drivers for each single platform, we could've had a few high quality games by now. The PowerVR chip really is quite powerful.

Well done

[CarpetShark]

This is called defamation, which you can be put in sued for --- for much more than $400. Good job.

Re:Well done

[Slashcrap]

This is called defamation, which you can be put in sued for --- for much more than $400. Good job.

Shut up, you shit eating faggot.

Buttons

[drx]

It would start if they got out of the habit of using excessively lavish button bars with enourmous, heavily padded buttons.

Mobile devs should develop the habit to erase all functions that are not useful for users on the go. Then they should keep the padding around the buttons, so it is possible to hit them on tiny touch screens.

Mobile devices have other UI requirements than Desktops.

Qt4 Dance

[MoOsEb0y]

I bet the GNOME developers are going to run and go do the Qt4 Dance once they start programming in it.

Re:Qt4 Dance

[Maestro485]

lol that was absolutely ridiculous.

Only in your dreams

[Anonymous Coward]

"For too many years the GPL has been killing adoption of Qt. That's a fact."

It's only a fact in the fantasy world you inhabit.

Without GPL for Qt, KDE would not have gained the foothold it has, and Qt would still be a niche player.

Nokia doesn't care about GPL, open source, or free software. It is just doing what it feels is necessary to undermine its rivals.

Re:ARM will be dead in less than 10 years.

[salimma]

Not really; ARM has SIMD instructions and a lot of these complex features you're talking about are multimedia-related and should be offloaded to the GPU anyway.

Error -

[marcosdumay]

Mismatched parenthesis at line 2

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[marcosdumay]

"Most of their stuff ... is available under one license..."

You should check those facts again.

Merging Qt and Gtk

[Yahma]

There is an ongoing discussion about the possibility of porting Gnome 3 to use the Qt toolkit over at Ubuntu Forums.

There also exists an Ubuntu Brainstorm Idea with several possible solutions, with Solution #4: Change Qt to render using the Gtk widgets my favorite.

Re:ARM will be dead in less than 10 years.

[salimma]

Not necessarily; a general-purpose CPU will always be less efficient than a processor optimized for certain tasks. Thus the really high numbers you get from nVidia and ATi.

Not saying the CPU and GPU cannot be combined onto the same die, but at a logical level they are two separate pieces.

WTF

[cecom]

Is the world gone completely insane? One, QT already was open source (ahem, anyone heard of a obscure license called GPL?), and two, Debian (on which Ubuntu is based) has had an Arm port (among others) for practically ever. This is f*ing ridiculous.

Wireshark

[pur1ty]

Wireshark is GTK+.

Err...

[Balinares]

You mean something like this? It's already in HEAD and will ship with Qt 4.5.

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[tftp]

Maybe on Windows or OSX? On Linux, applications expect libraries to be already in place.

They can't do that because there are thousands of builds of Qt - tens of revisions of the library itself, then all permutations of ./configure switches (--with-package=this and --without-package=that) then several compilers, and so on. If an app was compiled with library headers of one revision and then executed with runtime libraries of some other revision then you have a good chance to see it crash. This is one of reasons why sometimes apps are just statically linked. Xilinx, on the other hand, ships Qt libraries in its own /bin directory.

Re:Thats why...

[DaVince21]

Gnome sucks.

So? This article is about not using Gnome.

Re:Whiney complaints (send to /dev/null)

[CarpetShark]

I know it's probably just bad luck, or some ignorance on my part, but I gotta say that I bloody hate Qt. There are loads of applications I would like to run that use it, but every time I try to compile one I go through the same soul destroying and ultimately fruitless process.

This sounds like you hate your distro, not Qt. But since your distro seems to be Ubuntu, I've no idea what you're talking about. Installing Qt on Ubuntu is wee buns.