KDE Rebrands, Introduces KDE Plasma Desktop

Jiilik Oiolosse writes "The KDE community has killed the term K Desktop Environment (previously the Kool Desktop Environment). 'KDE' had previously ambiguously referred to both the community, and the complete set of programs and tools produced by the KDE community which together formed a desktop user interface. This set of tools, including the window manager, panels and configuration utilities, which KDE terms a 'workspace,' will now be shipped under the term 'KDE Plasma Desktop.' This allows KDE to ship a separate workspace called 'Plasma Netbook,' and independently market the various KDE applications as usable in any workspace, whether it be the Plasma Desktop, Windows, or XFCE."

Comments

Wow

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

That won't be confusing.
I say that as a KDE user.

Re:Wow

[Midnight Thunder]

That won't be konfusing.
I say that as a KDE user.

There corrected that for you ;)

Re:Wow

[CannonballHead]

There korrected that for you ;)

*ahem* Fixed that for you.

Re:Wow

[NoYob]

That clarifies it!

I'm going to KFC for dinner - I don't know why I have to go eat there for some reason.

Re:Wow

[selven]

Don't you mean that clarifies it?

Also, what's the KFK?

Re:Wow

[socceroos]

*ahem* fiKsd that for you.

All better now.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The Kool Fuckers Klan ?

Re:Wow

[Risen888]

Not to the people they're hoping to reach with this move (they don't even know what KDE is).

Re:Wow

[Qu4Z]

That won't be confusing.

I say that as a KDE Software Compilation user.

FTFY

Re:Wow

[DMiax]

That won't be konfusing. I say that as a KDE user.

There korrected that for you ;)

*ahem* Fixed that for you.

K- K- K- KOMBO BREAKER!

Re:Wow

[Zero__Kelvin]

"That won't be confusing.
I say that as a KDE user.

If you find that confusing (and you are the first person I have ever said this to, and probably the last too):

You might want to consider switching to Gnome. ;-)

Re:Wow

[Nefarious Wheel]

(Why do we even need 'c' or 'x' anyway...?)

Because they look really, really nice in illuminated Insular Majuscule and half-Uncial scripts. Why else?

Mind, it does make the odd Perl script drag on a bit.

Clarity?

[cgenman]

Great! Now Linux will still have two major competing desktops. But now one of them could be one of several separate versions, or some applications on a different desktop, or a version of Windows running Koffice. Thanks, clarity committee!

Re:Clarity?

[FooAtWFU]

Ah, it'll be fine. We'll just rename the alternative windowing system's distribution 'Plasmubuntu'.

(*shudder*)

Re:Clarity?

[R.Mo_Robert]

Thanks, Klarity Kommittee!

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Clarity?

[vlm]

Thanks, clarity committee!

Uh, that would be "klarity", not "clarity" thanks.

Re:Clarity?

[TheModelEskimo]

Two? Linux will always have a million+ competing desktops. Linux is there to be customized, man, from the kernel on up. The fact that we currently think of the desktop as some specific thing is messing you up. Think about workflows. Think about a personal brand of work-fu or play-fu that you develop in partnership with your Linux machines. Your workflow is so good, you take on an apprentice to teach it to. He's thanking his lucky stars that someone who can create workflow experiences like you can would be willing to let him in the door to learn the trade.

I've said it before: You talk like Windows(TM) and Mac OS (TM) are these wonderful things because they're monoliths. But we've learned from monoliths and their creators that there is no "clarity" in that direction, only broken promises. One size doesn't fit all. The new landscape of devices and interfaces will give you clarity and specificity in exchange for your old monolith. If you won't trade it in, prepare to be left in the dust.

We'll look back at monolithic desktop computing and wonder what on earth kind of idiots we were to sit in front of this thing all day, all using the same basic type of chair, same keyboard with carpal tunnel syndrome included, and interfaces that worked like something only a masochist would use.

Anyway, back to writing another Nautilus script.

Re:Clarity?

[RiotingPacifist]

Well hopefully it will kill the misconception that you have to use one DE or another.

Re:Clarity?

[ae1294]

Obviously we have come to the proverbial fork in the road.

Re:Clarity?

[camperdave]

One size does fit all from a support point of view. If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy. If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy. Good luck doing those in linux. Everything is all over the place. Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.

Re:Clarity?

[Ibiwan]

I think you mean the KDE Klari.... wait, never mind.

Re:Clarity?

[Korin43]

Question 1: To get to your applications, there is a button on the top or bottom corner of the screen. Is it a K or a foot print? After that ask questions related to KDE or Gnome. It's not that difficult. Much easier in fact than convincing someone to tell you what version of Windows they have.

Re:Clarity?

[Gordonjcp]

Everything is all over the place. Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.

If you're in a situation where you need to support a lot of Linux machines, use the same desktop on all of them. If someone wants to use something else, make it clear that you won't be able to walk them through common fixes. Don't be a dick about it though; if someone wants the login details for the IMAP server, don't say "oh I can't tell you because I can't walk you through how to set up kmail", just tell them the details and if they can't figure out out, tough.

Re:Clarity?

[CannonballHead]

I have no idea why "a low end non power user" would know or care what their display resolution is.

"Is there a way I can make my screen bigger?"

"The power went out, and when I turned my computer on, everything was really big and now I have to scroll to see anything."

...

I don't know what end users you know, but the ones I know definitely care :)

Re:Clarity?

[TheModelEskimo]

Hm, you're looking at next week; my post is looking at next decade. The "support" you offer now will be vastly different, and changing screen resolution will be long obsolete except in enthusiast (read: hacker) markets.

The futuristic thing most closely related to screen resoluation is screen magnification, which will have been abstracted even further from the hardware in 10 years. If you've already used a system that has it, you might know why it's better, and different.

Re:Clarity?

[mugurel]

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Albert Einstein

Re:Clarity?

[Kjella]

Well, I would guess the difference between KDE desktop and netbook would be like Ubuntu and Ubuntu Netbook Remix, not heard any complaints there. And for the other part, there the division already exists you just don't hear much about it. Many KDE4 applications run on Windows now, so already there's a confusion since KOffice does in fact run outside KDE the environment.

Re:Clarity?

[causality]

One size does fit all from a support point of view. If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy. If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy. Good luck doing those in linux. Everything is all over the place. Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.

What follows is my personal opinion. Ideally, Linux can be the one (or one of the few) environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves. Users who don't want to learn how the machine works already have two major systems designed specifically for them: Windows and OSX. To me it makes perfect sense that Linux would be Open Source because Microsoft and Apple both recognize that the real money is gained by appealing to the general public and the general public is nearly technophobic.

I say that because I strongly believe that anyone who is literate and has access to Google can inform themselves. There is no conspiracy or secret cabal trying to hide any of the information one would need in order to understand any system I have named. It's out there, it's available, and it's accessible; it's purely a case of the average person not wanting to utilize it or otherwise to educate themselves. These are the folks who find "easy to use" and "supported by a vendor"** worth paying for. Therefore, the beauty of Open Source allows Linux to exist independently of the financial success of any particular company or organization so there is no reason to appease a crowd that major vendors already cater to. I also don't believe Linux could hope to displace Windows on the desktop without sacrificing many of the things I really enjoy about it. For these reasons, I am not concerned with whether Linux will ever bankrupt Microsoft and I don't view that as its purpose.


** I am far less familiar with OSX so I'll limit my comment here to Windows and Linux. I'll add that I don't really think Windows is very easy to use. I personally find it cumbersome, sometimes tedious, and sometimes difficult to automate. I would describe Windows as "easy to learn" but learning all about it doesn't make it much more convenient to use. I would describe Linux as having a much steeper learning curve by comparison, particularly if you are thorough and intend to master the command line. However, once the investment of overcoming that learning curve is made, you then find yourself with a system that doesn't get in your way or second-guess your actions. The more you master Linux, the more you can automate and the more you can get it to do with less and less effort on your part. The more you learn about it, the easier it is to perform complex tasks with an economy of expression that is difficult to find in a non-Unix system.

Also, the times I have needed support for Linux, what I found was a community of volunteers who welcomed me with open arms and provided a level of support that rivals or exceeds anything you would get with a commercial support contract. All of this was from volunteers who do what they do because they care. I believe that part of what made this possible is that the questions they were answering concerned real bugs and real problems. They were not drowning in a sea of trivial issues of the sort that are well-familiar to anyone who has ever worked a front-line technical support role. This allowed them to focus their efforts on issues that really did require the attention of experts which, in my opinion, makes a big difference.

Re:Clarity?

[an unsound mind]

More often than not neither; I usually use wmii, fluxbox or Xfce4.

Re:Clarity?

[N3Roaster]

You mean Pubuntu. May not want a brown color scheme on that one.

Re:Clarity?

[mr_lizard13]

Kheers!

Re:Clarity?

[Tanktalus]

I have no idea why "a low end non power user" would know or care what their display resolution is.

"Is there a way I can make my screen bigger?"

"The power went out, and when I turned my computer on, everything was really big and now I have to scroll to see anything."

...

I don't know what end users you know, but the ones I know definitely care :)

I've never seen xorg.conf get corrupted the way the windows registry can. And that's probably partly because the xorg.conf is not open in read/write mode, nor with pending changes currently cached by some part of the system (fs cache, hd cache, etc.). Because it's read-only, owned by root (which you're usually not logged in as), and, heck, not even opened after X loads up, it's highly unlikely to be damaged by a power failure. Meanwhile, Windows keeps that information in the registry, which is probably opened in read/write mode at all times, with far too much access given to normal applications that may damage this particular part of the registry, and with pending writes that may be interrupted by the power failure, resulting in a partially corrupted registry. So you need to know how to do that on Windows.

That said, I'd simply point them to krandr (I'm assuming kde here, though I suspect there's a gnome equivalent) and let them play with it. It sits nicely in the system tray, too. Dynamic changes to the resolution? Just as easy as on Windows. Like anything else, though, only once you know where to look. (krandr will remember its setting and go back to it during log-in, so it's still permanent even though you don't have write access to the xorg.conf file. Just like things should be.)

Re:Clarity?

[chromatic]

Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until ....

Almost every sentence I've read which starts that way ends differently. This leads me to believe that customization is, in fact, important.

Re:Clarity?

[camperdave]

That's all well and good if you're in charge of the user's machine. What happens if you're a printer manufacturer? Are you going to force a user to use KDE so that you can talk them through which icons to click to get the printer working?

Re:Clarity?

[V!NCENT]

What version of Windows do you have? "Ewr I don't know".
What desktop environment do you have? "Ewr I don't know".

*At this time you ask user for visual hints so can figure it out yourself.*
*At this time you ask user for visual hints so can figure it out yourself.*

*After figuring it out, you have to know for each Windows version where the option is located*
*After figuring it out, you have to know for each desktop environment where the option is located*

Re:Clarity?

[joeler]

Well, some of us have gone Satanic, that and the latest KDE will give you a pretty nice desktop, I like "se-bathory-wide" but my wife thinks it's just porn.

Re:Clarity?

[Seth Kriticos]

On GNOME this is awfully hard to do:

You have to go to the "System" menu on the panel (part of the allays present menu thingy), then to "Preferences" and then "Display", which also has a tooltip: "Change Screen Resolution".

I know, there are some users you can't help, but most with at least a modicum of intellect would be able to find this.

Re:Clarity?

[doti]

then you, by definition, is not one that will need support.

those are the people that use that mainstream linux distros. and there are not that many mainstream distros, nor they are that different from each other.

Re:Clarity?

[Hucko]

I can see an new golden rule:
Pubuntu others and they pubuntu you.

Sorry. Aussie; just cant get past the pub.

Re:Clarity?

[icebraining]

They now have to support Windows XP, Vista and now Seven. Supporting both Gnome and KDE doesn't seem much, and that covers what, 90% of the users?

Re:Clarity?

[Risen888]

I'm really sorry I already posted to this discussion and can't mod you up today. God bless you.

Re:Clarity?

[tepples]

If most users like these even spent half the time they spend on facebook, etc, instead learning how to operate their computers, they'd be in a much better place.

But as a computer maker, what do your customers want? If you choose not to make money selling computers to people who want Facebook appliances, your competitors will.

Re:Clarity?

[westlake]

Linux can be the one environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves.

Two words: Pulse Audio.

It shouldn't be necessary to Google for solutions to problems that haven't existed for the OSX and Windows user since the dinosaurs last walked the earth.
 

Re:Clarity?

[fbjon]

Thom Thrithopher!

Re:Clarity?

[Hatta]

"If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy. If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy. Good luck doing those in linux."

Getting a user to type 'xrandr -s 0' or 'lpstat -p -d' is easier than getting them to navigate a GUI you can't see.

Re:Clarity?

[Etriaph]

I haven't posted on /. for quite some time, but... I need to know what part of the world you live in that it's not taking over? More and more I'm meeting people, normal honest-to-God human people just out there who have converted to Linux. I meet people all the time in coffee shops, book stores, shopping malls, whathaveyou, and there really aren't many Windows users where I live anymore. I've been running KDE 4.3.2 for a few weeks now; more than ever I'm advocating this software. Linux isn't about propaganda, it's not about winning or losing, it's organically ending up on desktops, laptops, servers, cell phones, etc. Try out Kubuntu, if you don't find it easy to support your hardware and set your desktop up, then you'd have a hard time doing it on Windows too.

Re:Clarity?

[sowth]

What does pulse audio have to do with this discussion? KDE uses aRTs for audio. Linux in general uses ALSA, unless you want to do something weird and unusual like play sound on another computer across a network.

Since when have MS Windows users been able to send their application's sound across the network without special software? Such software is probably expensive or has just as many problems as pulse audio anyway. How many regular people actually do something like that and why should anyone care?

Re:Clarity?

[mqduck]

I've googled pulse audio and I *still* have no idea what it is.

Re:Clarity?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I've never seen xorg.conf get corrupted the way the windows registry can

The windows registry is not your ordinary file structure. It was, I believe, an outgrowth of the old Digital RSX-11M,RSTS/E virtual table construct (yes, I am that old). The original purpose of that file architecture was to make an indexible in-memory structure map to locations on disk when memory was very expensive, and available addressability even more so. It sort of made sense when the language of choice was 16-bit Basic Plus. It gave the ability to manage large-ish tables using only array addressing in a highly constrained environment, via a movable address window. Sort of like proto-virtual memory coupled with a tree index structure.

However as ol' Ben Franklin said, two removes equal one fire, and when the format adapted from RSTS/E -> VMS -> NT the format suffered a wee bit from bit decay.

Considering how cheap and powerful hardware is today, it makes eminent sense to simply read the file in and parse it as you please, so xorg.conf makes a lot more sense now. It's simpler, and that appeals to me.

In all, the file format used by the Registry was just a clever piece of code once to make more out of less. A noble venture, venerable, and rather obsolete.

Re:Clarity?

[Sir_Lewk]

KDE uses aRTs for audio.

Close, but no cigar. aRTs was dropped and replaced with Phonon at KDE 4.0. It's a good thing too because aRTs was an absolute piece of shit.

Re:Clarity?

[Rich0]

And this thread just sums up the problem - in three posts we have now made mention of four different sound systems, and I'll go ahead and mention JACK, oss, and esd right here to make it 7. Various programs are written for each of these, and while some are more deprecated than others, the fact is that getting sound to work on linux is a LOT harder than it needs to be.

Sound stopped being a pain in windows with the advent of Win95 and PnP. Before that the windows bit of it wasn't actually that bad (midi mapping was a little painful, but generally the defaults weren't bad). Getting the DMAs/IRQs right was the real pain.

My linux system has a pretty nice wavetable audio board, but to be honest if I want to play something I just use timidity since I've given up on trying to get the hardware to actually work right. If I needed more than rudimentary sound I'd be really up the creek.

Re:Clarity?

[FauxPasIII]

> Two words: Pulse Audio.

Good grief, but this comes up a lot. Am I seriously the only person who has absolutely no problems with pulseaudio across a wide variety of hardware? I _love_ this thing, it finally gives me the one feature that always made me weep for BeOS (per-application volume adjustments) and it allows even the most finicky apps (Flash) to play audio without blocking the sound device.

I don't know what it is that I'm doing differently than the Slashdot hive mind, but I think pulseaudio _rocks_ and it's one of the things I use to show off Linux's capability.

Re:Clarity?

[Sir_Lewk]

And nobody but a KDE developer really needs to concern themself with Phonon. The real problem here is people who don't know what they are talking about thinking that they have more problems then they actually do.

Re:Clarity?

[Astronomerguy]

What does pulse audio have to do with this discussion? KDE uses aRTs for audio. Linux in general uses ALSA, unless you want to do something weird and unusual like play sound on another computer across a network.

Since when have MS Windows users been able to send their application's sound across the network without special software? Such software is probably expensive or has just as many problems as pulse audio anyway. How many regular people actually do something like that and why should anyone care?

First, my home network has 4 Linux PC's, 2 Windows 7 PC's and one running XP. I like Ubuntu and Windows 7 equally - they each have their role. That out of the way, There are several remote desktop apps that will allow sound to be sent actoss the network, some free: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_remote_desktop_software . As you can guess by my handle, I'm an amateur astronomer, as are many of my friends. One in particular, a Ubuntu user, has to use Windows in his observatory PC as the software he uses has no equivalent in Linux. His observatory is some distance from his house, but it's connected by power and ethernet. He does astrophotography. When an exposure has been taken, the software gives an audio alarm. In his comfy warm study, his computer is connected via remote desktop software to the observatory PC. He absolutely needs to hear the alarm that an exposure has completed so he can check it and decide to either get the next exposure or re-do the one just completed. The beta of the next version of Logmein free allows for audio to be transferred and it seems to work. If it does work flawlessly in the final release, I'll replicate what he's done with my own observatory. Sure it's a unique use of this sort of thing, but there are many Windows users who actually do need this sort of thing. Home security/monitoring is another one that comes to mind. I don't care if you don't care, but I certainly care if my critical task doesn't get completed. I really don't care what OS is involved, so long as I can get done what I want done. The PC is just a tool, a means to an end.

Re:Clarity?

[Rozine]

Perhaps because PulseAudio is not just used for playing sound across a network these days? Check Ubuntu.

Re:Clarity?

[visualight]

Linux will not gain mainstream acceptance until it is easy to support.

Actually that's not true, Linux is already much easier to support than Windows, but I'm others here will jump at the chance to explain that to you so I won't get into it.
The biggest barrier to mainstream Linux adoption is Corporate email, messaging, and calendars. I've worked for several Linux focused companies the last ten years, one of them even had 'Linux' in it's name, but all of those companies still used Exchange for company communications. What I've realized is that IT departments are not choosing Exchange for _any_ technical or security reasons, they are making this choice because to choose anything else means they have to own that choice. With any other solution they actually have know pretty much everything there is to know about the package(s) they're implementing.

In most companies (that I've been exposed to of course) most of the IT staff are Windows only, maybe a few Ubuntu 'installers' sprinkled around. These people know where all the wizards are and which boxes need checkmarks but that's pretty much it. When there's a Linux based alternative to Exchange that this class of people can choose without feeling any risk, THEN you will a massive expansion of Linux on the desktop.

PS:I mean no slight to the intelligence of the IT staff -the OS they are using is essentially closed to them so they are merely not in the habit of digging deep, or radically altering the behavior of the OS or application stack. Also, job security is a really really powerful motivator when you have a family to care for, I can't fault anyone for making the safe choices.

Re:Clarity?

[Gordonjcp]

Are you going to force a user to use KDE so that you can talk them through which icons to click to get the printer working?

Of course not. If you need to talk a user through setting up their printer, they are going to be unable to do it whatever OS they're on. From past experience if a user can't figure out how to get something like that sorted out, their choice of desktop isn't going to make any difference - they need to get a grown-up to do it.

Re:Clarity?

[erikina]

My experiences are:

• My old desktop. Pulse was unusable (I've since got rid of it, and haven't tried later versions of pulseaudio). The two killers were periodic whisper quiet sound and stupidly massive latency (and by stupid, I literally mean like ~4 seconds. I'd get an alert about a new IM message, and realize it's about the message that I opened a few seconds ago and have read, and since closed) I can't imagine trying to play games. Even just hitting the "Play" on a music player was annoying.
• Laptop. No complaints, worked like any other sound system.
• Current Desktop: Annoying, but bearable. When more than one application is playing, it plays to different physical headphone jack (my computer has 3). If I'm listening to some music, and open a video (flash or what not). I then have to unplug my headphones and put it in the different jack to get the sound for that. Each application is getting its own jack.

So yeah, it's nice that per-application volume adjustment works for you but I'd hate to think of how long people (including myself) have spent screwing around with pulse audio when freeBSD is still offering a better sound experience.

Re:Clarity?

[Fallingcow]

Sorry if you already know some of this:

ALSA is Linux's basic sound system. It provides sound drivers in the kernel, plus some tools to interface with them and to do very basic audio stuff.

There are other packages that can sit on top of ALSA to provide more functionality. PulseAudio is one of those. AFAIK the only "cool" thing it does that other layers like it don't is let you set your volume on an application-by-application basis--though personally, I've never thought "oh man, if only my system's audio services could set this..." um... oh god, see, I can't even think of a plausible scenario for which I might want that. I honestly thought I'd be able to when I started typing this, but I just can't come up with one.

Anywho, Ubuntu decided to ship PulseAudio as its main audio daemon a couple releases back, though it wasn't even close to mature enough for the job. It was a damn mess, like being back in Linux about 6-7 years ago when its audio systems were always a pain in the ass and you had to do all kinds of dicking around to get everything to work right.

Re:Clarity?

[Fallingcow]

I hadn't had problems with Linux audio for a few years before PulseAudio came along and broke everything.

Personally, I didn't know anything needed fixing; I thought they'd finally got that ALSA/ESD/ARTS/OSS shit sorted out. Stuff just worked. Was great over several installations on several machines for a couple of years.

Then Ubuntu decided PulseAudio was ready to replace whatever the hell had been just doing its damn job before, when it really wasn't. After that, I never knew what to expect when opening an app that needed sound--no audio at all (VLC)? Instant crash of its host app (Flash)? Working fine, as if nothing's wrong (Totem, which I hate)?

I wasn't able to find a way to un-break it, either. Understand that I ran Gentoo for over two years (back before it had a graphical installer, too) so I know how to un-break Linux audio (or at least how to break it more until it starts working again) but nothing I did fixed the problem without causing a half-dozen others.

Supposedly it's better now, but I'm a web-dev and couldn't live with a Flash plugin that made Firefox (with all of my tabs!!!) insta-crash about 3/4 of the time when it tried to play audio, among other sound issues. I run Ubuntu in a virtual machine on Vista now, and I doubt I'll do otherwise for a good long while since it's working so much better for me than dual-booting ever did. So, uh, thanks PulseAudio, I guess.

(as an aside, what do you do with the individual per-application volume adjustment? It's not just that I don't know what *I'd* use it for--I can't think of what *anyone* would use it for.)

Re:Clarity?

[shutdown -p now]

Good grief, but this comes up a lot. Am I seriously the only person who has absolutely no problems with pulseaudio across a wide variety of hardware?

No, but remember that there were people who ran pre-SP Vista without any problems whatsoever, as well (I know it's hard to contemplate, but it's true).

Re:Clarity?

[yuri benjamin]

I used to work in a call centre.

Me To each caller : What version of Windows do you have?
Caller 1: Office 97
Caller 2: Word
Caller 3: Um ...
Caller 4: I'm a Mac user you insensitive clod!
Caller 5: What's Windows?
Caller 6 Microsoft I think
Me: Sod this .. I never wanted to be a call centre worker .. talking to stupid customers all day ... I wanted to be ...... wait for it ... a LUMBERJACK - leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia

wibble wibble

Re:Clarity?

[camperdave]

Which is why they're on the phone with you. You can't just dismiss non-savvy users with an insulting wave of the hand.

Re:Clarity?

[HybridJeff]

I've met maybe two people in RL who uses linux regularly (and one was a comp science prof). In my ecperience 90% of people use some form of windows, and maybe 10% use macs. The percentage of regular desktop linux users in the general population (at least in Ontario) is practicly zero.

Re:Clarity?

[sowth]

And this thread just sums up the problem - in three posts we have now made mention of four different sound systems, and I'll go ahead and mention JACK, oss, and esd right here to make it 7

All of which will use alsa on any modern Linux system--even oss. Phonon and pulse audio seem to just be the renamed projects for arts and esd.

Jack is a specialized system for professionals. It has cool features such as being able to route sound between lots of applications, but for normal people who just listen to music, watch videos, etc, or even record audio, it isn't needed. A sound engineer may need it, a sound hobbiest may like to play with it, but it is a bit complicated for anyone else.

If you don't like applications who use all those other sound systems, then you will have to complain to the application developers who insist on using them. Or possibly your distro, since many applications who use sound systems often give a complier choice for multiple ones. This isn't a linux problem, this is an application (and possibly distro) problem. Would you complain about mswindows if some application developers used a broken third party sound system?

My linux system has a pretty nice wavetable audio board, but to be honest if I want to play something I just use timidity since I've given up on trying to get the hardware to actually work right.

Lack of programs in linux which use hardware midi support does piss me off, though I don't think I have a computer which will even do fm synthesis midi audio. My main desktop (admittedly a piece of crap) only has a second limited PCM output for "software" based midi, though it isn't needed because alsa emulates as many outputs I want.

My friend's ms windows system won't play midis either. Wmp doesn't seem to do it anymore. I think the problem is midi files are not used much anymore, so almost nobody supports them.

Re:Clarity?

[ScottCooperDotNet]

If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy.

Until Microsoft decides that Properties is too confusing and changes it to Personalize. Or that tabs aren't good enough and we need to be told what a Background and a Theme are.

Re:Clarity?

[fnj]

Oh, fiddlesticks. Just change the way you look at it. There is no "linux" the way you want to use the term. There is Gnome on linux, and there is KDE on linux. You can walk a Gnome on linux user through changing desktop resolution if you are familiar with Gnome on linux. You can do the same for KDE on linux if you are familiar with KDE on linux. If you are ambitious, you can make yourself able to do both. And so on for Xfce, and a myriad of others. I wouldn't advise tring to become a "wizard" with all of them, but you can pick 1 or 2.

Anyway, your idea of Windows as a single entity in terms of support is not true. At the moment, even disregarding 2000, you have to remember largely different procedures for XP and Vista, and now 7 is going to be yet a third variant in wide use at the same time.

Saying linux can't compete because it's not in a straitjacket like Windows and MacOSX is missing the point of freedom.

Now if you're talking corporate support, you can just pick Gnome or KDE the same way virtually all corporate settings pick either XP or Vista.

Re:Clarity?

[IrquiM]

ctrl alt +/-

Re:Clarity?

[V!NCENT]

Mandriva = KDE4
Ubuntu = Gnome 2.2x
Fedora = KDE4 & Gnome 2.2x
SuSE = KDE4 & Gnome 2.2x & XFCE 4.x

Gnome 2.2x = Settings/Preference/Screen resolution
KDE4 = Kicker/System settings/Monitor
XFCE = right-click on the desktop/control panel

Re:Clarity?

[imakemusic]

Since when have MS Windows users been able to send their application's sound across the network without special software?

Why would I want to? I'd rather it came out of the speakers, reliably.

Re:Clarity?

[Jesus_666]

Except if you use a device that uses XFCE because KDE and GNOME are too heavy. However, I do admit that most of those users would know how to handle issues themselves.

Re:Clarity?

[bertok]

And this thread just sums up the problem - in three posts we have now made mention of four different sound systems, and I'll go ahead and mention JACK, oss, and esd right here to make it 7. Various programs are written for each of these, and while some are more deprecated than others, the fact is that getting sound to work on linux is a LOT harder than it needs to be.

Sound stopped being a pain in windows with the advent of Win95 and PnP. Before that the windows bit of it wasn't actually that bad (midi mapping was a little painful, but generally the defaults weren't bad). Getting the DMAs/IRQs right was the real pain.

My linux system has a pretty nice wavetable audio board, but to be honest if I want to play something I just use timidity since I've given up on trying to get the hardware to actually work right. If I needed more than rudimentary sound I'd be really up the creek.

I might be revealing my ignorance here, but is there anything to be even gained from using hardware mixing?

A back of the envelope calculation shows that a typical modern desktop CPU with a nominal memory bandwidth of 10GB/sec can mix 56,000 channels with 48kHz & 32 bit precision. That's... a lot. I suspect that's a few more than even the most wildly fanciful orchestra composition would need, even in 8 channel surround (7000 sounds per channel).

Newer high-end CPUs are now pushing 100GB/sec or higher, so I just can't see what dedicated hardware card could possibly do for your audio that you can't get from some simple mixing software and a "digital out" port on the motherboard!

Even if you're doing some ridiculously complex real-time effects on those sounds, I suspect in the long term audio software would be better off using the GPU of the 3D card for doing the "heavy lifting" instead of low-volume cards with terrible drivers (even in Windows, let alone Linux).

Re:Clarity?

[ChienAndalu]

One size does fit all from a support point of view. If I want to walk a windows user through changing the desktop resolution, it's easy.

xrandr

If I want to find out which printer is their default printer, again easy

cat /etc/cups/printers.conf

Re:Clarity?

[Jesus_666]

And like many performance hacks that aren't neccessary anymore it causes much trouble today.

Seriously, the Registry is by far the worst way to store system information I have ever seen. It's cryptic, normal users and even many advanced users can't reliably backup all of an applications' various scattered settings, it's prone to corruption when the system isn't shut down cleanly and it has a whole host of really obscure bugs like "every time I shut down the system, Windows puts several megabytes worth of zeroes into the registry hives until at some point they can't be loaded into memory anymore".

It's amazing that the Registry wasn't one of the things they deprecated or at least seriously overhauled in Vista. Per-application "hives" (really more .reg files that automatically get applied) and write functions that automatically flush to disk immediately would be a start to make the Registry both more user-friendly (enabling the backup and migration of application settings withoug having to play easter egg hunt) and more stable (no more registry corruption through pending writes).

Maybe in Windows 9 (kernel version 7.0).

Re:Clarity?

[Tim C]

Mandriva = KDE4

Really? All of them? Mandrake became Mandriva a good couple of years ago now, I doubt that it immediately shipped with KDE 4...

Re:Clarity?

[EdgeyEdgey]

Pubuntu

I read that as Pub-un-too
Now if I can just fit in a free-as-in-beer joke

Re:Clarity?

[Rich0]

The figure would be a bit lower than that for a cpu that is a few years old (we can't assume people bought their computer last week), and I don't think you factored in the wavetable bit - we're not mixing wavs, we're mixing sound-fonts and sequence data. Each note on event requires you to find the closest samples, maybe interpolate a few, and then to scale them up and put them in the mix (and then do all that other stuff you counted on). I agree that it isn't as big a deal as it once was.

My point was more about the fact that there is no single standard way of doing things, and the various standards that do exist compete for memory, resource utilization, etc. The fact that you can't set up a midi sound card just illustrates the point...

Re:Clarity?

[fmaresca]

It's Ctrl-Alt-Kp+/Kp- only working in my boxes? Besides, a LCD panel has one proper fixed resolution, and that's the only one you need on xorg.conf. Zero chances of changed resolution in normal use.

Re:Clarity?

[Rich0]

Would you complain about mswindows if some application developers used a broken third party sound system?

Could you explain which of those 7 is the broken third party sound system? I'm sure you'll find 300 fanboys ready to mod you down. :)

My point is that windows manages to work without having a third party sound system. The standard one works good enough for 95% of all workflows. As another poster indicated, you can even use the win 3.1 apis and your program will play nicely with the latest FPS.

In linux it seems like nobody can live with the alsa standard, so we have a half-dozen other standards. They all have pros and cons.

From what I've read on LWN/etc it seems like pulseaudio is the future, but it has some issues around latency (in the multi-second range sometimes).

Re:Clarity?

[bertok]

we can't assume people bought their computer last week

True, but if they've got even a Pentium 4 (remember those?), they can get 2 to 5 GB/sec. See:

A 2Ghz P4 can get 2GB/sec for ordinary "integer" code

and up to 5GB/sec for better optimized SSE2 code.

Those CPUs are old, and they could still mix an entire orchestra, in real time, without breaking a sweat.

Take a look at the bar graph at the bottom, most CPUs released in the last few years easily do 5GB+ even for "integer" code (SSE3 would be more than double), and the Core i7s do 25GB/sec, which is higher than I thought.

There's just no need to 'standardize' on anything, or even have kernel-mode drivers for anything other than basic "input" or "output". Write your sound mixing code in ordinary C (even Java or C# would be fast enough!), and just send it down the line...

Heck, take a look at software defined radio, there's just no need for dedicated hardware for a lot of things when the CPU is so ridiculously powerful.

Re:Clarity?

[gmrath]

Ah, Dec RSX-11M. . . I remember that one, too, but don't seem to remember that particular aspect of all the various structures RSX-11 used; it's been a while. I remember that the OS took almost all day to load and configure and that it came on a stack of 8" floppys which really were kind of floppy.

Re:Clarity?

[sim82]

If I want to walk a windows user through ...

Never quite unerstood why I should want to do that.

Re:Clarity?

[FauxPasIII]

> So yeah, it's nice that per-application volume adjustment works for you but I'd hate to
> think of how long people (including myself) have spent screwing around with pulse audio
> when freeBSD is still offering a better sound experience.

That's just it... for me, it's not a trade-off. Before pulseaudio, lots of problems, especially with flash. After pulseaudio, everything works perfectly AND is as featureful as BeOS. Obviously I'm in the minority. =(

Hope things get sorted for you in future versions.

Re:Clarity?

[vegiVamp]

So $company standardizes on Redbuntian Linux for all of it's enterprise users. I'm not going to claim that they'll be doing a lot less support - users will be users - but at least if something needs to be changed to better match their workflow, they'll be able to.

Re:Clarity?

[bjourne]

You are not using Ubuntu. One of the reason PA gets so much flack is because Ubuntu and certain other distros shipped asla configuration files which didn't work very well with PA. Of course the distributors are not Linux audio experts (most of the package maintainers are volunteers, as you know), so if the "path of least resistance" leads to a broken PA, then at least I would partially put the blame on PA.

The PA experience has been much better on Fedora which is not so strange considering that PA's main author is also a Red Hat employee.

Re:Clarity?

[jedidiah]

Which version of Windows?

Are there variations for major subreleases (like service packs)?

The variability of stuff like this was actually what annoyed me about Windows the most.

OTOH, the guts of any Linux are the same as any other and probably a close match to any commercial Unix. That commonality is true across decades.

Windows is a chaotic mess compared to that.

Re:Clarity?

[Rich0]

Keep in mind that memory performance isn't the only factor limiting realtime mixing. Every channel requires two operations (add, multiply, divide) per sample - or you can cut down on the divisions if you have a register big enough to sum all your channels (such as mixing 16 to 32).

A typical p4 can't run that many integer operations in parallel (not sure what the number is), so at some point there will be a limit.

Still, I agree with your point that you can do a lot in cpu these days.

Note that something like software defined radio tends to do the more protocolish functions in software - the actual signal generation tends to be done in hardware, or on something like a DSP (which is technically software-controlled). It isn't like you can just tune something to 2.4 GHz and sample a few hundred MHz and have a CPU pull the signals out in realtime via FFT...

Re:Clarity?

[jedidiah]

> Mandriva/Ubuntu/Fedora/Suse/+299
> ????

Resolves to TWO CHOICES (GNOME/KDE) rather than this bogus number pulled out of your ass from site like Distrowatch.

Those inflated numbers include localized versions, rescue disks, vertical installers (like MythBuntu) and SOLARIS.

Re:Clarity?

[jedidiah]

> What happens if you're a printer manufacturer?

Print a G*d D*mned manual like you used to.

This is how support for the early Hauppauge video capture cards were created under Linux. The relevant components had DOCUMENTATION.

Re:Clarity?

[jedidiah]

Been there... done that.

Don't see what all the fuss is about.

Really. It seems like all of the whining about Pulse and ALSA before it was way overblown. It's like the bird flu. One person whines or gets infected and the whole rest of the world blows it out of proportion. Between bored media outlets and trolls with no lives, the BS takes on a life of it's own far beyond it's actual reality.

If you're a mundane Linux user you're probably wondering "what the H*LL are they on about?".

Re:Clarity?

[jedidiah]

You've yet to cite an actual REAL problem though. The best you can do is deal in vagueness.

"There is something out there that might be effected."

THAT is nonsense.

Getting sound to work is not a problem. Getting a more advanced feature or application can be a problem and that's an entirely different sort of issue.

This is not a concern of your n00b end user that can't figure out their printer.

Re:Clarity?

[jedidiah]

> My point is that windows manages to work without having a third party sound system.
> The standard one works good enough for 95% of all workflows. As another poster
> indicated, you can even use the win 3.1 apis and your program will
>

-...which pretty much eliminates any of the problematic use cases in Linux.

That last 5% is a noisy nasty bunch.

It's like people that whine about CMYK in GIMP.

Re:Clarity?

[Rich0]

"There is something out there that might be effected."

Uh, when did I say that?

Getting sound to work is not a problem. Getting a more advanced feature or application can be a problem and that's an entirely different sort of issue.

Well, that depends on whether you define having more than one application playing sound at the same time is considered an advanced feature or not. Some of the linux sound systems have resource conflicts.

I'm not looking forward to figuring out how to configure pulseaudio - so far I've managed to avoid this...

This is not a concern of your n00b end user that can't figure out their printer.

Hey, I wasn't the one that brought up the mysteries involved in getting cups and foomatic to work... :)

Re:Clarity?

[westlake]

The biggest barrier to mainstream Linux adoption is Corporate email, messaging, and calendars.

The server is not the desktop. The office is not the home.

There are many barriers to "mainstreaming" Linux. Not the least of which is that Microsoft has a thirty year head start.

 

Re:Clarity?

[dbcad7]

I could maybe google various LUGS in Ontario and come up with some numbers, but then that also is misleading because I use Linux and I know others who use Linux who are not members of a LUG.. Yes the majority of unwashed masses still use Windows machines.. and I weep for them.. Actually the tears are caused from laughter as I hear their latest story about how their machine was rendered useless by some program holding it hostage, requiring them to purchase some scam anitvirus program.. I still don't see how these maleware programs can possibly make money with pissing off people.. but then I guess the target customers are used to being pissed off, so maybe it works.. There are people who are getting fed up with it all, and they are using Linux.. and the thing is you don't have to give up one to have the other, there are dual boots. because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re:Clarity?

[FauxPasIII]

Been using Ubuntu since Warty. Haven't seriously tried Fedora since it was named Redhat 7.3. Pulseaudio works fabulously for me. Sorry it doesn't for you =(

Re:Clarity?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Ah, Dec RSX-11M. . . I remember that one, too, but don't seem to remember that particular aspect of all the various structures RSX-11 used

I may be wrong about that one, as it's rather a faint memory, but I think I remember it being discussed by an office mate. RSX-11M and RSTS/E weren't really that close, if I remember it at all. Definitely RSTS/E had them. At the time there was a bit of fairly ardently-championed conflict between virtual tables and RMS file structures; the former (like the Registry in many ways) is more of a programming construct - programming interface than RMS, which was more of a series of file system calls. The former was initially a bit more flexible, because (due to addressability) you couldn't get away with very many keys in an RMS file on those platforms, and the calling sequence for RMS was a bit more complex than setting up a virtual array. It took VMS to turn RMS into a workable B-tree/ISAM file system, which took us up to the RDB world. Most of my use of RSX-11M was Fortran 66 for the NASA DSN back in the latter Pioneer days (we were attempting to write a compiler for on-board systems for Pioneer 12 (Venus)).

I remember one fun thing from RSX-11M, that I tried after a backup & just before a reload of the system. You could indeed set all files to [S:W,O:W,G:W,W:W] turning the system disk into write-only memory. Just wanted to know. And yes, the reload worked =)

Re:Clarity?

[bertok]

Note that something like software defined radio tends to do the more protocolish functions in software - the actual signal generation tends to be done in hardware, or on something like a DSP (which is technically software-controlled). It isn't like you can just tune something to 2.4 GHz and sample a few hundred MHz and have a CPU pull the signals out in realtime via FFT...

That's exactly what happens. I've seen demos of ordinary PCs decoding HD TV broadcasts into live video, starting with a 25MHz frequency range sampled 1:1.

You underestimate a CPU's compute power. The memory speed is very much the limit, which is why video cards have such insanely fast memory on them, it's the only way to get more effective computational power. Read up on "clock speed multipliers". Essentially, for every word of memory that's loaded (at the max rate), a typical CPU can execute about half a dozen to a dozen instructions. With SSE4, it can be even more than that. (true only for simple 'math', more complex code with jumps and indirections is a different story)

A good analogy is the ZFS filesystem developed by SUN. They basically figured that the $500 add-in RAID cards were $40 worth of electronics, and $460 marketing and overheads because of low volumes. They usually had outdated 800MHz embedded processors on them, while the main system CPU was a 3GHz multi-core beast. The 'offload' card was causing a bottleneck and slowing down the system! So the latest SUN hardware doesn't have dedicated RAID hardware, they just do it in software. Way more flexible, and actually faster.

And anyway, if you want compute power, NOTHING beats a typical 3D card these days. The latest generation can do 1TB/sec within the chip, 200GB/sec to memory, and have 2TFLOPS of compute power. No sound card that you can buy can even approach that.

Re:Clarity?

[Nefarious Wheel]

It's amazing that the Registry wasn't one of the things they deprecated or at least seriously overhauled

Pretty much agree with your entire post, J6. It's a pretty clear case of an old architecture extended way, long past its use-by date. If they want the tree structure as it is, because it aligns with the way the operating system works, that's cool - but I can't see any reason not to store that stuff in a simple database. Even the largest registries could be handled by something as simple as SQLite, for example, and registry backup/restore would be a pinch of snuff. I mean, what's in it? It's a tree. It has unique values you need to get from an unique address. Should be easy, but it's treated as if it isn't.

Re:Clarity?

[Nefarious Wheel]

All three gods you mention, Linux, Windows, and OSX are but avatars, lieutenants of the One True Infinite Paper Tape. They all have Buttons you can Press to Get Things Done.

I think the operating systems wars were very entertaining, myself, and I kind of miss them. All this egalitarianism is well and good, and certainly cuts friction, but can't even one of you start comparing non-favorite systems to a harbinger of Ctuluhu in this thread? If we're going to all go back to balanced opinion, I think I'll google Oprah and see if there's any controversy in running Winfrey.

Re:Clarity?

[causality]

Linux can be the one environment that caters to users who are technically inclined, know what they're doing, and either already know how to handle desktop resolutions and printers or are willing to combine basic literacy with Google in order to inform themselves.

Two words: Pulse Audio.

It shouldn't be necessary to Google for solutions to problems that haven't existed for the OSX and Windows user since the dinosaurs last walked the earth.

Personally, I use Gentoo Linux. For that reason, I need not contend with the way someone else decided to arrange the system. I do not have Pulseaudio installed at all, and the only way it's going to get installed is if I decide to install it myself. I just use straight ALSA for all of my audio needs. It's relatively simple, effective, and generally "just works."

I have helped friends with distributions such as Kubuntu and did notice some odd sound quirks. These were issues such as the sound mixer actually locking the sound device such that the media player had no ability to utilize audio. I know that denigrating Gentoo is somewhat popular especially among some diehard Debian fans, and I know Gentoo is not for everyone. Having said that, a Gentoo system built by someone who halfway knows what he's doing just doesn't have a lot of the quirks and problems that I sometimes see among popular binary distributions. I believe this would be true of other source distributions as well. However, I am much less familiar with other source distributions, so I should restrict my commentary to Gentoo.

With Gentoo or any other source distribution, it's a lot more work to get a system set up from scratch. You have to understand how a source-based distribution works and how to correctly maintain one. However, once those basics are handled you get a rock-solid system that just works. This is the main reason I use Gentoo; the small performance gains are just icing on the cake. Now, Gentoo is not really intended for people who are new to Linux or for people who just want to get up and running as quickly as possible. Therefore, it's not generally something I would recommend for beginners.

The exception to that includes two friends of mine whom I personally tutored and supported from the beginning. They, however, were unusual in that they really did want to learn and understand and they gladly accepted that learning requires effort. In fact they viewed that effort as a fair trade or a bargain. For them, starting with Gentoo (i.e. installing it manually) combined with my approach to instruction was profoundly educational and edifying. My approach to instruction is very simple: instead of handing out easy answers, I show them how to find their own answers and it starts by asking the right questions. I explain to them that good research skills and "learning how to learn" is much more important than how many facts you can memorize by rote. But don't try this unless you are glad to teach and support someone and don't find it to be a burden. If I had just handed them a Gentoo installation CD and said "ok, have fun" they would not have enjoyed it and may have been turned off to Linux entirely.

Sorry if I am rambling here. I'll go back to Pulseaudio now. In my opinion, the inclusion of Pulseaudio, or for that matter any comparable sound server, by mainstream distributions is a mistake. The actual need to remotely play sound over a network is an unusual edge case. The vast majority of users don't need the functionality. Therefore, it represents unnecessary complexity, and with it, a higher chance of problems. It would be much better to just use ALSA and maybe publish a Wiki page explaining how to enable Pulseaudio for the few users who specifically need it. Chances are very good that those few users who need it are knowledgable enough to enable it on their own, while the "newbie" or "casual user" crowd that Kubuntu/Ubuntu is designed for are unlikely to have the skill to resolve problems with the audio system. So to me, the decision that was made doesn't make much sense.

Re:Clarity?

[tweek]

There are actually perfectly good reasons for per-application streams. Imagine listening to a podcast via a headset that has a mic. A phone call comes in over Skype. I want the podcast volume to drop but not Skype. It's pretty common in gaming as well - Game volume is X (via the headset) but voice chat volume is Y (via the same headset).

Re:Clarity?

[Mista2]

One of the reasons I hope Linux doesn't get too popular 8) Imagine only having one way to do eveything. Ugh....
Kit cars a re like Linux in some ways, not always production quality polish, but you cant beat the perfomance for the money 8)
I want a v8 coupe that weighs less than 1 ton, but can still be road registered. Hard to find one manufactured by the mainstream, but I can build an Ultima GTR in my garage.

Re:Clarity?

[dpastern]

And one size fits all from the ordinary user, which makes up 99% plus of users. The vast majority of people do not tinker. They use the computer as they got it originally. All of this choice that Linux users mention is really just intimidation and confusion for the average user.

If you spent some time working in support, supporting ordinary users, you'd realise that my words are *on the money*.

Windows & OS X might be monolithic, but they're just as good as KDE. In fact, OS X is clearly better by a mile. There's a reason why Linux adoption numbers are dropping, and people are leaving Windows, but people are *flocking* to OS X.

Dave

PS and no, I'm no Apple fanboy, I hate the company.

Re:Clarity?

[TheModelEskimo]

And one size fits all from the ordinary user, which makes up 99% plus of users.

You're talking about the last 10 years. I'm talking about the next 10. "One size fits all" is definitely at risk. The desktop metaphor itself is in question, and the ground around the Monolith as "main computer" has eroded significantly. Smart phones, eBook readers like the Kindle and Nook, PDAs, netbooks, and the increasing number of network-aware appliances show us that the customizability that Linux offers is here to stay. Your mistake is thinking that all the Linux customization will be up to the end users. Over the next 10 years, that role will be picked up by middle-man companies who will offer incredibly smooth, efficient experiences via Linux. And most won't even know it's Linux.

If you spent some time working in support, supporting ordinary users, you'd realise that my words are *on the money*.

Are. Now. In the traditional way of thinking, that "end users" being forced to use awkward software for security's sake, to control a monolithic system which itself is a wooly mammoth.

Windows & OS X might be monolithic, but they're just as good as KDE. In fact, OS X is clearly better by a mile. There's a reason why Linux adoption numbers are dropping, and people are leaving Windows, but people are *flocking* to OS X.

You're still talking about the traditional monolithic model for personal computing. The developments you mention here happened over the *last* 10 years. Time is marching forward.

PS and no, I'm no Apple fanboy, I hate the company.

You may be in luck - Apple are in for a bit of bad weather over the next decade. To the consumer's benefit, of course.

Re:Clarity?

[Fallingcow]

There are actually perfectly good reasons for per-application streams.

Yeah, I figured there had to be.

Imagine listening to a podcast via a headset that has a mic. A phone call comes in over Skype. I want the podcast volume to drop but not Skype.

OK, that's a good one. I don't use Skype, so I guess I'd never run in to it.

It's pretty common in gaming as well - Game volume is X (via the headset) but voice chat volume is Y (via the same headset).

Not so much with this one, though. Any game that supports headsets will have a separate volume for them (just like they have a separate one for music, for effects, for in-game voices, etc.) and if they don't then you're probably using a separate app to handle the headset, which will have an independent volume control.

Re:Clarity?

[dpastern]

Sorry, but I don't see the desktop environment changing like you're imagining.

I don't also see the Linux desktop growing by leaps and bounds. I don't really like KDE 4 to be honest - looks nice, but not what *I* consider user friendly. And whilst I'm a "power user" so to speak, I rarely, if ever, tinker with my desktop.

Dave

Re:Clarity?

[cgenman]

If most users like these even spent half the time they spend on facebook, etc, instead learning how to operate their computers, they'd be in a much better place.

So you'd rather people stopped using their computers in order to learn to use their computers? Some people just want to put a nail into a wall to keep up a framed picture of the old Elvis. Both their lack of knowledge of internationally accepted and legally approved construction techniques for residential dwellings, and their tasteless choice in home decor, is irrelevant.

Re:Clarity?

[cgenman]

True. But Linux really does have 2 that the average user will encounter... Gnome and KDE. Of these, neither has as big a difference as KDE and, say, Afterstep, or WM2, or any number of other good alternatives.

I've said it before: You talk like Windows(TM) and Mac OS (TM) are these wonderful things because they're monoliths. But we've learned from monoliths and their creators that there is no "clarity" in that direction, only broken promises. One size doesn't fit all. The new landscape of devices and interfaces will give you clarity and specificity in exchange for your old monolith. If you won't trade it in, prepare to be left in the dust.

But there is a limit to the positive side of variation. Spoken languages, for example... Each language interprets the world differently, and is faster or slower at communicating different ideas. Yet as a culture, we're moving towards universal bilinguality: Native Language and English. The more complex a system becomes, and the more need for interunderstanding between people, the greater the value in less options.

Quite frankly, Windows, MacOS, and 95% of all Linux desktops are the same damned thing, just implemented with different degrees of skill, success, supporting architecture, and completeness. The real alternative to Gnome is not KDE or Enlightnment, it's the frickin' command line.

And my original point had nothing to do with the proliferation of multiple Linux desktops, but the challenges inherent in explaining the landscape to potential converts. And now, finding a way of communicating that KDE isn't a desktop. KDE is now a branding of something that could be one of a few Linux desktops, or a Linux application suite on a different Linux desktop, or an application suite on a different operating system entirely.

Re:Clarity?

[ross axe]

XFCE may not be quite as mainstream as KDE or GNOME, but it's hardly an experts-only desktop. And is Xubuntu not mainstream enough for you?

after reading the summary 3 times...

[SuperBanana]

...I couldn't help but think of this scene from Red Dwarf.

Re:after reading the summary 3 times...

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. I even RTFA (there's a first time for everything) and I still don't get it.
So I understand that KDE will now be the name of a group of people, rather than a desktop environment.
I also understand this change was made to solve some perceived marketing problem.
I just don't know what that problem was.
Is it to keep people from thinking you can't run KDE apps on Windows?

Re:after reading the summary 3 times...

[confusedneutrino]

I was super excited to click that link until I realized that it didn't say Red Dawn. Le sigh...

Re:after reading the summary 3 times...

[Minwee]

Lister: Where is KDE Hol?

Holly: It's been renamed, Dave.

Lister: What has?

Holly: Everything Dave.

Lister: What the window manager??

Holy: Everything's been renamed Dave.

Lister: What, the panel?

Holly: Everything's renamed Dave.

Lister: What configuration tools??

Holly: They've been renamed, Everything's renamed Dave.

Lister: The Desktop Environment isn't is it?

Holly: Everything is renamed Dave!

Lister: Not Kicker?

Holly: Gordon Bennett! Yes Kicker, everything, everything's renamed Dave!

Lister: Karamba?

Holly: It's renamed Dave, everything's renamed. Everything is renamed Dave.

Lister: Wait, are you tryin' to tell me everything's renamed?

Holly: I should have never let him out in the first place.

Re:K?

[derrida]

I thought it stood for KDE. You know KDE Desktop Environment. Funny that I cannot recall where I've seen that before.

Re:SYNERGY!

[MrEricSir]

No they don't, you can install the synergy package yourself.

XFCE

[oldhack]

X fecce is awesome. Crap name though.

Re:XFCE

[icebraining]

No, Awesome is awesome. XFCE is just nice.

Re:XFCE

[DirePickle]

Awesome is okay but fantastic would be awesome.

Re:XFCE

[icebraining]

Yet dwm uses Xlib, which is more bloated and adds more latency than XCB.

New acronym?

[SnarfQuest]

It's now to be known as the KDEPDXFCE?

Re:the triumph of buzzwords!

[larry bagina]

SciFi channel. They should have renamed to SciFi charnel, because they're dying.

Re:K?

[BluenoseJake]

A shell I can get behind, but Gnome? That dumbed down baby GUI? Get serious

sounds exiting

[Punto]

will it be able to leverage the synergies of social media 2.0 user-facing semantics?

Re:sounds exiting

[MichaelSmith]

Yes. All mouse movements will send automatic twitter updates.

Re:sounds exiting

[Hurricane78]

Yeah, but only in the verticals of the cloud and similar cyber-chunnels.

Re:sounds exiting

[TheGreatOrangePeel]

will it be able to leverage the synergies of social media 2.0 user-facing semantics?

You must be a consultant. Oh, wait, that was a question. You must be the manager of a team of software engineers.

Re:sounds exiting

[V!NCENT]

Yes.

Re:sounds exiting

[Randle_Revar]

Yes, actually:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2009/08/hands-on-kde-43-delivers-a-social-desktop.ars
http://www.kdenews.org/2009/10/09/social-desktop-winners

Re:sounds exiting

[flibuste]

Software engineers are technology enablers who provide the upward momentum that will ultimately allow for better streamlining the business' intelligence, and enhance the overall intrinsic quality as well as the underlying subjective, perceived, value of the company and its products.

Leveraging synergies is just gibberish talk to impress the customer base....This guy must be in marketing.

*cough cough*

Re:sounds exiting

[Nefarious Wheel]

Leveraging synergies is just gibberish talk to impress the customer base....This guy must be in marketing.

Where we are required to have a sense of humour. Or more succinctly, "Whooosh!"

Re:sounds exiting

[Nefarious Wheel]

Re-read your post. Meta-Whooosh!, double dumbass on me.

Re:sounds exiting

[L4t3r4lu5]

Yes, it will proactively utilise the upcoming technologies of generation 2.0 content. This was all blue-skied before the most recent networking conference, you should get your programmers to look at your Blackberry

Re:sounds exiting

[Jesus_666]

I just saw someone whoosh themself. My life is now complete.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[vlm]

Plasma? My mom would be like WTF is PLASMA.

Selling plasma to buy a KDE netbook, of course?

Re:Waste of time

[clang_jangle]

Maybe this is the FOSS implementation of the Mohave trick.

Amarok on windows

[vlm]

independently market the various KDE applications as usable in any workspace, whether it be the Plasma Desktop, Windows, or XFCE.

Where's my Amarok on winders, and why does a simple port need all kinds of name changing foolishness?

Re:Amarok on windows

[Simon (S2)]

Where's my Amarok on winders, and why does a simple port need all kinds of name changing foolishness?

uhm... here? together with all other available platforms?

Gibberish

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only two appropriate responses to that summary:

- huh?
- wut?

Re:Gibberish

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot "Who cares?"

I want

[Saija]

my Plasma Wristwatch, or KDE Plasma Wristwatch:

KDE Workspace
KDE provides workspaces. These provide the environment for running and managing applications and integrate interaction of applications. The workspaces are designed as generic environment for all kinds of desktop applications, not only applications built on the KDE Platform. They integrate best with applications following the standards used by the KDE Platform. There are different flavors of the workspace to address the needs of specific groups of users or adapt to specific hardware platforms:

• Plasma Desktop or KDE Plasma Desktop. This is the workspace for desktop computers. It's built on the classical paradigm of a desktop environment.
• Plasma Netbook or KDE Plasma Netbook. This is the workspace for computers with a small display, e.g. Netbooks.
• Future KDE workspaces tailored to specific devices will follow a similar naming scheme

Re:I want

[MichaelSmith]

I run ubuntu on my eeepc 701, which has a smaller screen than most other netbooks and I find the stock gnome to be perfectly okay.

Re:I want

[Randle_Revar]

>PulseAudio: the bane of my linux desktop experience !

Works great for me!

Re:I want

[PouletFou]

I run kubuntu netbook remix on a dell mini and I find the KDE Plasma netbook to be perfectly okay.

Re:I want

[Jesus_666]

So KDE Plasma Desktop is a DE what uses PDE Plasma kwin as a window manager to display KDE Plasma Plasma widgets and KDE Plasma applications (and, of course, KDE Plasma GNOME applications, too) on my KDE Plasma Computer...

Now when will the new version of Amarokde Plasma be out?

Re:I want

[Saija]

Not for me buddy, and for so many slashdotters here, sorry for the rant in my sig, but there's no other way i can do anything to better my experience with that damnned PA.

Re:I want

[Saija]

Is the stock gnome some sort of miniature financial advisor?

you sir owe me a keyboard due to some spilled coffe

So if they've changed the name...

[BlindSpot]

kDoes kthis kmean kwe kcan kstop kputting kk kbefore keverything know?

Re:So if they've changed the name...

[H0p313ss]

Kno!

Re:So if they've changed the name...

[Zorael]

It's gnot as if gnome gisn't gdoing gthis gtoo. gggg.

Re:So if they've changed the name...

[masmullin]

jThey jstole jit jfrom java.

Re:So if they've changed the name...

[Hurricane78]

Ask the KDE Kommunity Kommittee (KKK).

Re:So if they've changed the name...

[selven]

"Krusty Kharity Klassic"

Krusty: KKK? That's not good!

Re:So if they've changed the name...

[PhrstBrn]

Gnome isn't NEARLY as guilty.

Compare http://projects.gnome.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GNOME_applications to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_KDE_applications

It's knot even a kompetition!

Dammit slashdot

[Jello B.]

No they didn't, they renamed it the KDE Software Compilation. Get your god damn facts right.

Re:K?

[JesseMcDonald]

I believe their official position—prior to the rebranding—was that the "K" doesn't stand for anything. As written in the summary, KDE expands to "K Desktop Environment", which is not a recursive acronym.

Re:the triumph of buzzwords!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now to be fair, "plasma" is the name of KDE4's new widgets engine (and widgets include everything from panels to "applets" to the desktop, in line with KDE's extensible/customisable SOP). It's not as if the term "plasma" has nothing to do with their product (arguably picking "plasma" as a name for their widget engine was a marketdroid-ish thing to do in the first place - but still preferable to "KDE Kwidgets Kengine").

Stupid

[realmolo]

You know, the KDE guys just don't get it.

They almost remind me of Commodore, during the Amiga days. They have this really cool technology, but it doesn't work as well as you want it to and has some glaring deficiencies, and their marketing department is absolutely clueless.

Re:Stupid

[H0p313ss]

They almost remind me of Commodore, during the Amiga days. They have this really cool technology, but it doesn't work as well as you want it to and has some glaring deficiencies, and their marketing department is absolutely clueless. Except with the Amiga, it did work as well as you wanted it to, and its deficiencies weren't anything worth worrying about because the competition had even more glaring deficiencies.

And see how they conquered the market as a result? Oh wait...

Re:Stupid

[socceroos]

Almost. They do have this really cool technology, there are glaring deficiencies but their marketing department isn't clueless. Go read the article, look at the diagrams and think it through. This move on their part makes complete sense and only makes official what has been unofficial for many years. Plus, by using their new scheme it removes some of the confusion around where and how KDE software works.

Re:Stupid

[w0mprat]

You know, the [insert OS team here] guys just don't get it.

There, fixed that for you.

You were too specific, what you said actually applies to many software development outfits. (Queue next FTFY with 'Many'->'ALL' in 3..2.) We're blessed with so much excellent, stable elegant, technology at a line-by-line code level, that potential somehow seems to be mangled by the time it's put together as a package such that it barely works. Linux Desktop: where whole ends up being less than the sum of the parts.

I don't know whether it's a pathological deficiency of right-brain thinking that we've been needing for a long time, or simply that good designers are not good coders, coders are not good designers and the exception to this rule is rare - added that neither group gets along and the occasional dude who can do both is shunned and stoned to death by both groups.

Re:Stupid

[Ash-Fox]

And see how they conquered the market as a result? Oh wait...

Actually, they died because of releasing their Amiga CD32 console in the States. A company in the States owned the XOR patent and got an injunction against Commodore (Commodore had full intentions to pay from the profits of sales they made on the CD32) from selling their console in the States because it used XOR until they paid the patent fee. Because Amiga couldn't make back the money they just spent to produce all these CD32s, the money couldn't be made back and keeping these Amiga CD32s in storage essentially killed Commodore off.

So, said company never got the money for their patent licensing thing - Smart move I guess?

The American corporations, legal and patent system is what killed Commodore, not Commodore's marketing department.

Re:Stupid

[Rogerborg]

If I have to read the article to figure out what they're selling, then their marketing has demonstrably failed.

Re:Stupid

[H0p313ss]

The American corporations, legal and patent system is what killed Commodore, not Commodore's marketing department.

The point is that cool technology is not enough. Just ask Sony

Re:Stupid

[Ash-Fox]

The point is that cool technology is not enough.

And my point is, your point is invalid, because their failure had nothing to do with that.

Just ask Sony

What does Sony have to do with this? They aren't cool.

Re:Stupid

[socceroos]

What a pointless sentence. This is communication. The KDE community doesn't sit on hundreds of millions of dollars. First they get the article out, people read it, comment on it, share it and themselves market the changes to the perception of KDE - which is what this is all about. The article is very clearly stating that KDE should not be perceived as a "product they're selling" but as a community of people. If you had of read the article then you'd know what I'm talking about. But hey, I guess you can't expect that from the /. crowd.
=)

Re:Stupid

[Rogerborg]

All you're doing is confirming my point. You're making this far too easy.

Re:Stupid

[socceroos]

I'm getting the feeling you're only going to communicate with smug retorts.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[arose]

WTF is Aqua? WTF is Glass? WTF is Snow Leopard? WTF is Safari? WTF do I need to Access? How in the world does one lauch a Word? WTF am I supposed to Excel at? WTF is Vista? WTF is Zune? WTF is that Blue Ray? WTF is in Ex Box 360? WTF is anything without lots of marketing money?

Re:SYNERGY!

[osoroco]

yes, people who don't know what synergy is (or that the concept exist) are constantly puzzled at how my cursor hops from computer to computer

Re:Ah Yes, Young Padawan Learner

[hrimhari]

I wouldn't go for anything less than Kanine X-Feces.

Not sure about you folks...

[Smooth and Shiny]

...but I prefer XFCE to KDE.

Re:The New KDE!

[Tanktalus]

Oddly, it actually does. I've enabled both the "Dialog Parent" and "Dim Inactive" desktop effects, basically darkening everything other than where my focus is, which, in effect, makes that application whiter and brighter than everything else. That contrast gives the illusion of whiter/brighter, which has actually helped my productivity on the machine.

Making the whites whiter and the brights brighter does seem to be part of their direction.

Re:SYNERGY!

[conteXXt]

synergy(the software, NOT the buzzword) is awesome. I hope it never gets renamed to something I won't be able to find down the road.

Re:Let me guess

[agnosticnixie]

That's why I set up these things first, instead of waiting until thanksgiving weekend to set things up.

Re:Ah Yes, Young Padawan Learner

[MightyMartian]

Pah! Yesterday's news. We're up to Feces Cloud 2.0 Cloud. By next year we should have Feces OS, built on top of GNU Turd.

Re:K?

[socceroos]

Serious users use kDE anyway :D

There, fixed that for you.

Re:K?

[V!NCENT]

"Gnome is more stable" not anymore.

"has a better feature set" not anymore.

"provides better application integration" The exact opposite. Even GTK apps look like the default QT apps in KDE4. On the integration side: KDE4 is developed in such a way that every piece of data is centralised. Everything from widgets to apps that display time? They all call the one thing that monitors that. You update your agenda? Suddenly all apps know that and display that. You play a song in VLC or AmaroK or whatever? The widget on your desktop knows what you play, displays it and even has buttons like pauze, play, etc.

"Besides this, it uses a lot less memory." See my previous statement: all kinds of data that is alike will only be stored once and executed once for all the apps that use the data.

Try out KDE 4.3. Seriously, do it. It absolutely blows away KDE 3.5.x in any way!

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[Bucc5062]

I pondered your title for a moment. Was this an old english spelling test? Wrods coming from a Celtic derivation of the word Words? I realize you were trying to include the equine species in your comments and I thank you from my mare. She gets very confused over wrods or Words. As a German Trakhener, she is partial to SUSE and would rather Linux get away from the US centric orientation of Kubuntu.

Alas, her hooves are not quite capable of operating a keyboard so she has to rely on my fingers, which are squarely comfortable with Gnome and the Mint distros, for her Google searches on hot stallions, joint supplements, and Eventing results. Wrods or Words, Mares rule the fields against us mere mortals.

Re:Let me guess

[V!NCENT]

It's actually kind of funny how many countless tons of shit I had to go through with Windows computers to get the sound working.

Your statement may have been true a few years ago, but not anymore. Ever since the driver certifications I had sound cards not working in XP SP2 and above anymore. I actually had to run Linux to get my soundcard to work again.

Linux keeps evolving. Anti-Linux trolls will always be around. The same goes for people who are uninformed.

I am glad that I have a post-Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 user interface, more stability, higher quality, easyer and more powerfull software and an OS that let's me compile a piece of software with a single command, instead of having to learn that piece of shit called Visual Studio.

All of you out there, go ahead. Use what ever you want. But please don't bash an OS that is light-years ahead of Windows, and miles ahead of Mac OS.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[wd5gnr]

My mom never says WTF. Well. Almost never.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[icebraining]

You can always use Awesome, whose name describes the software.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[kjart]

I've got news for you - no amount of marketing money would make a name like GIMP gain wide acceptance.

KDE plasma netbook? Netbook is copyrighted

[stevew]

Great move - now you guys are going to have the Copyright Police after you!

The term "Netbook" is copyrighted by Psion Teklogix,... just ask them, they'll tell you! ;-)

Why would you choose a term that is already means a piece of hardware, and is copyrighted already to boot??

Re:KDE plasma netbook? Netbook is copyrighted

[shutdown -p now]

You can't copyright a term. Do you mean "trademarked"?

"Plasma Netbook" is the right approach IMO

[Lemming Mark]

Plasma isn't just that thing for making desktop widgets of dubious usefulness. What KDE has actually done is, in my opinion, a fairly smart design move regardless of whether you like their implementation.

Desktop widgets aren't applications, they are people extending the functionality of their desktop. What the KDE folks saw was that a well-designed API could be used to write the desktop UI itself (task bar, clock, pager, whatever), the things we used to use taskbar applets for (media player control, etc) and the flashy new desktop widgets. Instead of having a basic desktop and plastering a widget API on top, they've gone and unified the whole thing so you can use the same API to write taskbar applets, widgets or write replacement taskbars or ... whatever. The various desktop elements are separate building blocks (plasmoids) that can be assembled together. They've also produced loads of bindings for this API to give folks the chance to write stuff in their favourite language.

The plasma netbook interface then takes some of the default building plasmoids, adds some new ones and then glues them together in a different way. So you can get a similar family look and similar functionality (and, fundamentally, the same desktop) but in a way that's optimised for a different form factor of device. I think that's actually pretty neat and somewhat reminiscent of the way you can configure and compile the core Linux kernel down for tiny machines or up to big iron whilst still getting the benefits of a common codebase.

There's a load of other cool stuff including a standard set of "data engines" which separate producing data from displaying it, thus making it easy to glue data sources together in interesting ways. Despite the various feature regressions that rewriting the desktop led to, it's a really neat architecture and should hopefully stand them in good stead for the future.

Re:"Plasma Netbook" is the right approach IMO

[Ash-Fox]

I just want it to be as fast as KDE3.5. Even disabling the effects and such does not give me the same performance. :(

Re:"Plasma Netbook" is the right approach IMO

[Lemming Mark]

I found earlier releases of KDE 4 slowed things down particularly, I think it might have improved since then. It's not as snappy as I'd like but it's actually fairly usable now with my KDE 4.3 on Kubuntu Jaunty. I expect it would improve if I installed the proprietary NVidia drivers, or even just the Nouveau drivers.

Interestingly, I find that KDE 4.2 runs quite nicely on my Eee 701 with 2GB RAM as long as I don't run loads of apps - and that's with KWin compositing enabled and a few fairly heavyweight things running. The expose and desktop switcher are quite useful on the tiny screen.

I've seen various claims that KDE4 is much happier if there's compositing available but I'm not sure how accurate they are.

Re:"Plasma Netbook" is the right approach IMO

[renoX]

Smart design?
I've heard that everything is in the same process so if one widget fail it can crash the desktop, I don't think that's an improvement over the previous sturdy design 'one process per tool'.

Re:"Plasma Netbook" is the right approach IMO

[Lemming Mark]

My main like is the fact that there's a common API (with multiple language bindings) for programming core desktop components as well as widgets. Some aspects of their implementation really annoy me. *cough* cashew *cough* ;-)

I think scripted widgets are effectively sandboxed, which should be easy because errors can be caught. The random widgets you download from the internet are generally in this category. If their language interpreter crashes you're probably still in trouble but hopefully that's less likely... Native widgets aren't sandboxed which does increase the probability of desktop explosions. I've certainly had a few of those, although part of that may be due to my dodgy system.

Personally I only have about the same number of native widgets running that I used to have as taskbar applets in KDE 3.x, which I'd imagine were also sharing a process with the Kicker at least. So it's not *necessarily* much worse, though that was already a bit more monolithic than a really lightweight window manager would be. However, there's probably now (many) more lines of code to do the same work KDE 3 did, plus the desktop that displays on the root window lives in the same process as the other native plasma code :-/ So that means more bug exposure, probably.

I've known the topic of sandboxing the native widgets come up and the response was "one day", probably in the "someone could do this but the core developers feel they have more important stuff to do" sense.

Krikey!

[RoboRay]

If this means they're going to stop using kwirky misspellings of various words for the names of every program, I might actually be konvinced to start taking them seriously.

K does not stand for Kool

[nurb432]

Geesh, is that misconception ever going to die?

Re:K does not stand for Kool

[atheistmonk]

It used to :( Kind of like how the A in aMSN used to stand for Alvaro \o/

Re:K does not stand for Kool

[No Eye Deer]

Are you sure about that?
http://groups.google.com/group/de.comp.os.linux.misc/msg/cb4b2d67ffc3ffce

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[lennier]

"How in the world does one lauch a Word?"

Well, you poit your moue curor at the ion and cick the buton...

Cello, chicken, city

[tepples]

Also, what's the KFK?

KFC is Kentucky Fried Chicken. (Korrecting words from C to K works only if the word starts with the sound of a K, not in words like "cello" or "chicken" where C makes a different sound.)

Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[tepples]

Question 1: To get to your applications, there is a button on the top or bottom corner of the screen. Is it a K or a foot print?

"It's a ring with three balls at the corners." Am I running Ubuntu Desktop (with GNOME Desktop) or Kubuntu Desktop (with KDE Plasma Desktop)?

After that ask questions related to KDE or Gnome. It's not that difficult. Much easier in fact than convincing someone to tell you what version of Windows they have.

"Hold the Windows key (that's the one with the flag next to Alt) and press R. Release all keys, type w i n v e r, and press Enter." Easier, but "much easier"?

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[Korin43]

Doesn't it say "Kubuntu" or "Ubuntu" every time you log in?

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[IrquiM]

After that ask questions related to KDE or Gnome. It's not that difficult. Much easier in fact than convincing someone to tell you what version of Windows they have.

"Hold the Windows key (that's the one with the flag next to Alt) and press R. Release all keys, type w i n v e r, and press Enter." Easier, but "much easier"?

But my computer says: "This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator".

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[Tim C]

Windows displays the version on the welcome screen, since at least XP.

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[TheLink]

winkey+pause is good enough to determine version for most windows support issues.

Too bad in many support calls, running ipconfig /all is important ;).

The number of users who still would need to run "winipcfg" are dwindling... Too bad microsoft didn't leave it in for later versions of windows.

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[Wolfkin]

That's not reliable. I installed Ubuntu, tried out kubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-desktop, enlightenment, and finally went back to Gnome (ubuntu-desktop). After installing the kubuntu-desktop, it's said kubuntu every time I log in, even though I'm logging into Gnome, now. I might be able to get it to stop by uninstalling kubuntu-desktop, or that might just make it so I can't log in at all; who knows?

I switched to Mac from Gentoo in 2003, and while I switched to Ubuntu a few weeks ago (since I now have the time to tweak my system every day again), I'm startled by how far Linux hasn't come. :( In Windows and Mac, there's an expectation that things will actually work, but after a few weeks back in Linux, I've reverted to the default expectation that things will not work without handholding and forum browsing.

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[jedidiah]

Things "just work" eh?

Ok, then... how do I get QuickTime to acknowledge my HD-PVR and HD-Homerun recordings?

How do I get Front Row to acknowledge arbitrary video files in general?

No need to engage in "forum browsing", huh?

Tell it to someone that doesn't have his own Mac under the table.

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[Wolfkin]

Oh, I wasn't saying that everything just works on Mac (though, really, most stuff does; not being able to do something at all is not the same as installing something and then finding that it doesn't actually do what it ought to have, and your examples point out that the built-in defaults work well enough that you'd like to use those programs for other things that they don't handle by default, too!). I'm just saying that the *default assumption* is that things do what they're supposed to, even if they don't do other things you'd like.

Once you've used Linux for a bit, your (well, "my") default assumption is that a given package will actually not do what it should do, hence my example of not wanting to uninstall the kubuntu-desktop package, even though I'm not using it, because the login screen still seems to be the kubuntu one, and my default expectation is not that it will either warn me or re-enable the Gnome login screen, but that I just won't be able to login without booting into runlevel 3 and fixing things (assuming runlevel 3 is still textmode). Oh, and the pointer and "wait" cursor are still the KDE ones, which is nice since I liked those better, but worrying because it's not clear why the Gnome ones wouldn't have come back.

I switched back in part because I noticed I was using mostly open source stuff instead of Mac stuff, and that was because I could make it do what I really wanted, instead of just accepting the few options I'm given. I knew what I was getting into, because I went the other way a few years back, and I'm not really complaining about that. Also, let me hurry to point out that Ubuntu really has come a long way from Debian ca 2003, but it appears that they've reached this point mainly by making things less configurable so that you're less likely to run into sharp corners, and that once you start doing any real changes to the system, you're on your own. :)

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[jedidiah]

The Mac is a tightly integrated system. Apple takes responsibility for the entire experience. So to claim that it's not their fault that they can't handle simple MPEG2 files is ludicrous. The same goes for any other format. According to their own hype they practically invented the extensible video decoding system. So the idea that anything is unusable is absurd.

In this respect Ubuntu has me spoiled. If it tries to play something and it can't then it will go out and look for what it needs. I don't have to go out and manually futz with plugins that might be crippleware. If things are supported formats then any combination of them will do. There will be no BS artificial limit on what combinations of audio codec, video codec, and container can be combined.

This NIH nonsense then percolates up into applications like iMovie or Front Row.

The total lack of configurability in apps like Front Row is another separate issue.

By comparison, even the worst caricature of Ubuntu is infinitely flexible.

The "superior user experience" answer is to convert all of your incoming data on an ongoing basis. It boggles the mind...

Re:Ubuntu GNOME start menu has no foot

[Korin43]

I tend to assume that anyone who installs the kubuntu-desktop package would know that they're using KDE.

The future of KDE bug reports: Some sample replies

[clemenstimpler]

Step 1: "The KDE software compilation team happily acknowledges the bug report you have filed. Why we are happy? This bug report in fact concerns the KDE workspaces team. Or so we believe. Please be so kind as to file your bug report again at the appropriate place. If the KDE workplaces team should be able to prove that this is none of their matter, please be so kind as to reopen this bug. After reopening the bug here, please be aware that it will be triaged for at least nine months as a matter of policy. If you should be obnoxious, we may decide at our own will to extend the period to at least eleven months. Thank you very much for your assistance in making the K Desktop/Compilation/Workspace/Application Experience even better. Salvatory Clause: The expression "K Desktop experience" is only preserved for the purpose of backward compatibility."

Step 2: "Thanks a lot for filing a bug report. We certainly appreciate your willingness to enhance the K Workspaces Experience (formerly known as the K Desktop Experience, an expression preserved only in order to preserve backward compatibility). However, we have noticed in your bug report that Amarok 1.1.4 has been opened while encountering your bug. Since Amarok 1.1.4 certainly cannot be regarded as part of the K Software Compilation experience, you should consider updating. If this does not remove the bug you have encountered, please be so kind as to file a bug first against the respective K Software Compilation. If this should not prove to be sucessful in the next two years, please reconsider opening the bug here. Before that, it will be futile anyway."

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[Have Brain Will Rent]

and most importantly, WTF is WTF????

plasma

[tepples]

My mom would be like WTF is PLASMA.

It's like LCD, except it's BIGGER and uses three times the ELECTRICITY. It's also part of your BLOOD that you can SELL.

JIT

[tepples]

jThey jstole jit jfrom java.

But does JIT, as seen in HotSpot VM, stand for Java Instant Translation or merely Just In Time?

KDE vs. XF(e)CE(s)

[tepples]

When she needed to edit some photos I got her to download GIMP. You know know what she said... Only after I explained to her what is was did she kinda accept the name.

But is "XFCE" (possibly pronounced like XFeces) much better?

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[Hatta]

You underestimate the power of the Dark Side.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[sowth]

They should try our agency. We'll not only make everyone fell sorry for the GIMP, but whe will make every woman want to have pity sex with him!

Broken Knobb, Inventor of Enhanzzxd Wyerds and President of Cripple-Stroke Addvertizing Agency++.

Easy Way

[rehtlog]

An easy way to make Linux mainstream is sell computers without an OS and ask the typical layman if they would like to spend $200+ on windows or some variant of Linux for free. I am almost certain many of them would be willing to learn a new OS.

Re:Easy Way

[shutdown -p now]

An easy way to make Linux mainstream is sell computers without an OS and ask the typical layman if they would like to spend $200+ on windows or some variant of Linux for free. I am almost certain many of them would be willing to learn a new OS.

You forget that they still have a third option, go find a different vendor that will sell them the same computer with an OEM Windows install.

Re:Waste of time

[sowth]

WTF is up with people who insist everyone should only use "mainstream" products? (Usually crap products which don't work.) Then anyone who doesn't, they say is trying to be a rebel and supposedly "looking stupid" or somesuch. Apparently they are totally self-absorbed and think everyone is a clone of them, and anyone who acts differently is making a lame attempt "to stand out."

Apparently using things and doing actions which suit me is some sort of threat to their fantasy world.

But then they lust after things for the rich, which are not mainstream and they could never afford, which causes them to try and live way beyond their means, and it is supposed to be normal behavior.

Re:The New KDE!

[Tanktalus]

It's not that I missed your point, it's that I dismissed it. Sound is working fine for both my machine (amd64) and my wife's (x86), even with my daughter's avid use of the Disney Princess (flash-based) site, and all other things related to a 3-year-old girl's interests.

Mostly, I use amarok all day long, though other applications don't seem to have issues, either (dragon, sox, flash in either firefox or konqueror, wesnoth, ...). And sharing hasn't been an issue thus far, either.

At the moment, my only issue, which isn't actually with KDE, is that X has regressed a particular bug going from 1.6 to 1.7. And, also not with KDE, is that my video driver doesn't fully support OpenGL, so I don't get all the pretty playthings in KDE (though at least 4.3 gracefully tells me it doesn't work, unlike 4.0 which tried anyway and crashed).

Re:Ah Yes, Young Padawan Learner

[MulluskO]

Pah! Yesterday's news. We're up to Feces Cloud 2.0 Cloud. By next year we should have Feces OS, built on top of GNU Turd.

I think you missed an opportunity for a fart joke.

The sweet stink of rebranding!

[hackshack]

For me, at least, "rebranding" has always had a certain stink of failure about it. (I like KDE, BTW, so don't lose your fucking minds.)

Witness:

• Palm, Inc. > PalmOne + PalmSource > Palm, Inc.
• Tropicana > Tropicana "generic crappy label" > Tropicana
• AOL > LOL "remedial art-school" logo

How did you feel while the respective companies were doing this? Is there anyone in the room that remembers reading the headline, "Palm splits into PalmSource and PalmOne," and thought, "Man, that's some sexy marketing right there. I need to get me a Treo but quick." No. We saw it and thought, "the shark has been jumped, the drain is being circled." Yes, you did.

While I'm on a roll, for shits and giggles, let's look at the bastard sibling of rebranding, "editions."

• Toothpaste. Now was that Crest Tartar Control plus Whitening, or Crest Whitening plus Tartar Control? And did you want that in paste or gel? I swear, we need meta-toothpaste, where it's formulated on the spot. You have a big board with all sorts of shit like "mint," "sparkly" (for the child or man-child in your household), "tartar control," and buzzword of the year, "whitening." Then you push a whole bunch and hit the MIX button, and get a toothpaste tube with all that shit custom-made. It'd be like ordering an HP server; it'd even warn you about compatibility issues! But I digress.
• Windows 98 > Windows XP. Then it hit the fan. Windows Vista Home Basic + Home Premium + Business + Ultimate. I won't get into Windows 7, but suffice to say there's an edition for everyone, even your crazy next-door neighbor that listens to Yanni all day, has an alpaca fetish, and taught his kids to communicate solely in Klingon. (Sorry if I've touched a nerve amongst anyone here.)
• Sun is particularly adept at this. You can almost taste the management schizophrenia: Solaris > Solaris Express Community Edition + OpenSolaris + Solaris > Solaris + OpenSolaris (not including Indiana, Nevada, et al. the distinctions between which I'm not sure anyone truly understands). Besides, half the stuff will be discontinued by the time you read this, so why bother itemizing it all?

The moral of the story, kids, is that rebranding is for the desperate, and editions are for suckers.

Peace out.

Re:The sweet stink of rebranding!

[oddman]

Yeah re-branding never works.

Netscape > Mozilla > Phoenix > Firebird > Firefox. Colored Apple Logo > White Apple Logo Star Office > Openoffice.org oh wait....

Re:The sweet stink of rebranding!

[anethema]

<li>Toothpaste. Now was that Crest Tartar Control plus Whitening, or Crest Whitening plus Tartar Control? And did you want that in paste or gel? I swear, we need meta-toothpaste, where it's formulated on the spot. You have a big board with all sorts of shit like "mint," "sparkly" (for the child or man-child in your household), "tartar control," and buzzword of the year, "whitening." Then you push a whole bunch and hit the <b>MIX</b> button, and get a toothpaste tube with all that shit custom-made. It'd be like ordering an HP server; it'd even warn you about compatibility issues! But I digress.</li></quote>

That is actually a great idea. Some machine in Walmart, big Crest logo. Pick your flavour, features, gel/paste, etc. Give it a name and it mixes it, puts it into a tube, prints your name on there, and you're done! You should probably patent the idea, I'm pretty sure it's marketable.

Re:The sweet stink of rebranding!

[anethema]

Bad quote sorry.

Re:The sweet stink of rebranding!

[ledow]

I agree, rebranding is an exercise in management of boredom (and trying to sweep bad reputations under the carpet), not anything practical or useful. Does "Nick the Plumber", small-time business man need to rebrand every few years? No. Does IBM or Microsoft or other large companies? No. Rebranding on mergers / takeovers, I can sort of understand that, but even when Santander took over a lot of UK banks, they were smart enough to keep the original names and start a *very* *very* slow transition to introduce the Santander name in the UK (which was unheard of).

Marathon -> Snickers (I will never forgive them)
Opal Fruits -> Starburst (I still ask for these in shops and people always know what I'm talking about).

Rebranding is a waste of time and money in order to confuse your existing customers and keep them asking for your previous name.

Re:The sweet stink of rebranding!

[Jesus_666]

What? Windows 7 Alpaca Fetish Edition is a great edition.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[Draek]

Prove it.

Re:SYNERGY!

[ArcherB]

No they don't, you can install the synergy package yourself.

sudo apt-get install synergy

Of course, you need the right repo's.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[Nefarious Wheel]

and most importantly, WTF is WTF????

Won't Think Further.

3.5

[gatkinso]

KDE folks: revert to 3.5 while you still have a user base.

Re:3.5

[The Master Control P]

I hate to agree but... he's right.

After the initial euphoria of transparent composited windows wore off, I became afraid that Kde 4 would be a Windows Vista. I now realize that it's far worse than Vista. I've been trying to use KDE 4 since it came out and given up every time. Without exception I go back to 3.5 after a few days because I don't want to go insane. Waiting seconds on end for windows to restore. Experiencing a slideshow when I try to resize them instead of a smooth size-change. Hearing my disk thrash after opening email, a few konqueror tabs and a PDF or two. The agonizing fail that is Amarok 2.x (How in the fuck did something that doesn't pause with 100% reliability when I press "pause" ever get out the door? Yes, this happens about once a day). Basically the only time I'm not repressing a simmering annoyance when using it is when playing fullscreen games or typing into a text console.

I remember being so excited that KDE 4 was gonna be the first compositing desktop and do all this neat stuff... Holy shit. It's like a kid comes down to the tree on Christmas day, and not only are all the wonderful presents gone but his parents say "there is no Santa." Not only is 4.x not better than or even on par with 3.5, as of 4.3 it's still a massive step back in speed, responsiveness and memory usage.

At first I sneered at people who said KDE 4 would take until 4.5 to become usable. Yet here we are, after 4 significant releases, and it's barely reached beta quality.

Writing this really sucked but it's the truth.

Re:3.5

[shutdown -p now]

At this point it's way too late already. They've pulled a Vista with 4.x, now they either make it into 7 eventually (and no, 4.3 is still not it - way too unstable - at best it's SP3), or die.

Re:3.5

[shutdown -p now]

Taxes don't make civilization. Religion does. If people didn't believe in God, there would anarchy, because really there's no fundamental reason to act civilized.

I can accept that religion was a driving force at some points in history - there's a reason why we call our present civilization "Judeo-Christian", though it has strong overtones from pagan Antiquity as well. But today, well... you do realize that there are European countries that are 50%+ atheist, right? and some of those have over 80% people say that religion "does not occupy an important place in my life"? Not to mention China, which is majority atheist...

As an atheist myself, I also take offense at your claim that there is no "fundamental reason" to act civilized. Ultimately, there is always some concept that is simply taken for granted in one's set of values. For some it's god(s) and their commandments; for others, it's universal inherent human rights. One is just as much a matter of belief as another, and you can be a zealot in either case.

Furthermore, one doesn't in fact need any specific rationalization for one's "right/wrong" scale - these things just are, or aren't. Personally, I put myself in this category - I subscribe to moral relativism in theory, but I also have no qualms asserting that I simply believe my values (and, in general, values of my culture in the broadest sense) to be superior. Not for any rational reason, and not because they're ordained from Heaven - "just because".

As for the quotation (it's what it is) in my sig - the point is mainly that there's no civilization without organization, and government is just a form of that organization on larger scale; and, of course, it needs taxes (and, broadly, the mandate to use force within certain limits) to function properly. Anarchy can never sustain a civilization for long.

Re:3.5

[fnj]

I did one better than you. I went back to Gnome after trying KDE4. The garbage font rendering did it for me. Sheesh.

I still use a number of KDE programs under Gnome. Konsole is far better than gnome terminal. Kate is far superior to gnome editor. Klipper is better than glipper. Cervisia doesn't even have a counterpart. And so on.

Re:3.5

[IrquiM]

Why?

I used 3.5 until 4.2.2, and then switched. See no reason to switch back, as KDE4 delivers the required functionality and bling for a standard normal user.

Re:3.5

[Kjella]

KDE3 was a very solid house. But the foundation just can't take building anything more on top. Qt3 is dead, arts is dead, so much of the technlogy is dead. Maybe they got a little bit carried away when they designed KDE4 but the foundation had to change. Going back to KDE3 just isn't an option.

Re:3.5

[timbo234]

KDE 4.0 and 4.1 really sucked when they were released in the *normal release* versions of distros and pushed as being complete and up to scratch (hint: keep betas for dev versions and label them as such FFS!)

KDE4.2 was a major improvement and 4.3 is just about back up there with 3.5

Re:3.5

[Tim C]

If people didn't believe in God, there would anarchy, because really there's no fundamental reason to act civilized.

Rubbish. I, like most of my friends, do not believe in God. We still manage to act civilised as it's the right thing to do - I don't want people being shitty towards me, so I'm not shitty towards them. I don't need a mythical uber-fairy to force me to be nice to people on threat of eternal damnation.

Re:3.5

[gatkinso]

4.2. Meh.

Re:3.5

[hejpig]

Continuing with the house analogy... Users don't have to build, they just stay there and fix the little bugs that are still around. I see no point in moving. KDE4 is just too slow on the hardware at my disposal. So folks who want to stay on the Kubuntu bandwagon but like KDE3, https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Kde3/Karmic . If it ain't broke.... although many programmer may refer to KDE3 as baroque..

Re:3.5

[Anne Honime]

This is silly. 4.0 was an alpha version, not a failure, 4.1 a beta and 4.2 a RC. But 4.3 is actually extremely good at what it does. I barely ever used 3.5 before, it was either too bloated for the computers I had, or much too crash-prone. But it wasn't anymore useful than a plain window manager. In any cases, if I need something lean, then I take windowmaker over kde 3.5 anytime. KDE 4.3 is an entirely different league. Either you want it for your comfort and productivity, and you have a computer with the guts to run it correctly (I found that it's a breeze on an AMD X86_64 x2 3800+ with 4Gb RAM), or you deal with somewhat older hardware, and then you're better off with an entirely different and much less taxing window manager than any KDE version (xfce, window maker...). Since day 1, KDE is synonymous with huge RAM footprint, general bloat, and ressources hunger in exchange for nice effects, usability helpers, graphical wonders and user comfort. Either you cope with that, or you get away, but you can't have both.

Re:3.5

[tjstork]

Ultimately, there is always some concept that is simply taken for granted in one's set of values.

But that's religion. Religion is basing your values on anything that can't be proven. You have to believe in some "fundamental human rights". You don't have to have a God to have religion. You can be an atheist and still be a religious fruitcake.

As for the quotation (it's what it is) in my sig - the point is mainly that there's no civilization without organization, and government is just a form of that organization on larger scale; and, of course, it needs taxes (and, broadly, the mandate to use force within certain limits) to function properly. Anarchy can never sustain a civilization for long.

I don't disagree with that. But you have to have consent by the governed, for government to work.

Re:3.5

[tjstork]

We still manage to act civilised as it's the right thing to do - I don't want people being shitty towards me, so I'm not shitty towards them

But that's still faith, involved in that. I mean, if you walked around with that attitude in New York City..

so let me restate what I wrote:

You have to have faith, to have civilization.

Re:3.5

[shutdown -p now]

But that's religion. Religion is basing your values on anything that can't be proven.

No, that's just irrational belief. Religion is belief organized via a set of symbols, practices, rituals etc.

But that's just semantics. Call it religion if you want. It still doesn't involve any concept of God, or anything else to be worshiped. Hence my objection to your claim that "If people didn't believe in God, there would anarchy". If you broaden "god" to "a set of ethical axioms, or an infallible source of such", then I can agree with that.

I don't disagree with that. But you have to have consent by the governed, for government to work.

Of course. That's why we have terms such as "oppressive dictatorship", after all.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[Have Brain Will Rent]

Awwww cmon I don't even get a single +1 Funny for that? Tsk, tsk.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[mopslik]

no amount of marketing money would make a name like GIMP gain wide acceptance.

So... you're saying I should reevaluate my KDE Ultimate Network Tool then?

Re:Let me guess

[Kjella]

I guess the experience is highly anecdotal. Around here, the sound occasionally and randomly fails to start when I play something, Plasma gives me a nice little notification in the corner that initializing the audio failed. Then I use a different app or wait 30 seconds for the stars to align and it works - this is on KDE 4.3. After they got rid of the ghost notifications in the 4.2.x series somewhere (notifications would pop up, leave the border around the notification and stay forever) I'm overall happy with it. But I have been using Win7 now and let me put it this way, if they'd released Win7 instead of Vista I wouldn't have gone through the effort of moving to Linux.

Re:K?

[shutdown -p now]

Even GTK apps look like the default QT apps in KDE4.

And any Qt4 application (including, I believe, KDE4 ones) will use Gtk look & feel when running under Gnome, because it is in the base Qt package.

Try out KDE 4.3. Seriously, do it. It absolutely blows away KDE 3.5.x in any way!

I tried either KDE 4.2 and 4.3 on 4 different distros in the last few months (Ubuntu, Debian, Mandrake, OpenSUSE). In all cases I was able to crash some core KDE application (usually either the desktop thingy, or file manager) simply by clicking around and dragging/resizing stuff. Last try was KDE 4.3 in Debian last week - crashed within 3 minutes after logging into it by resizing a Dolphin window to be as small as possible. I didn't even bother to repro this - sorry, but if that's a typical quality of a release, I want to stay as far from that as possible.

Meanwhile, no Gtk/Gnome or plain Qt 3/4 (non-KDE) application crashed on me in the last year or so, despite Gnome being my primary desktop environment (and thus much more heavily used).

Re:Let me guess

[shutdown -p now]

Your statement may have been true a few years ago, but not anymore. Ever since the driver certifications I had sound cards not working in XP SP2 and above anymore. I actually had to run Linux to get my soundcard to work again.

Good for you. Meanwhile, it seems that all Linux distros shipping today have an audio bug that doesn't have a known fix (there are some fixes that worked for some people, but no single one that works for anybody). Note that, while the bug I've linked is for Ubuntu, the problem also exists at least in Debian Lenny, Fedora 12, OpenSUSE 11.2, and Mandrake 2010. Note that Ubuntu bug tracker claims they've fixed it on some of the dupes for that bug (but not others) - it's false. They've released with it still there for many people.

I have a post-Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 user interface

What's that supposed to mean?

an OS that let's me compile a piece of software with a single command, instead of having to learn that piece of shit called Visual Studio.

You do realize that you can compile a piece of software with a single command using Windows SDK as well, right? C/C++ compiler is "cl", and for make you have a choice of "nmake" and "msbuild" - and, of course, there's always MinGW.

Speaking of VS - it's not perfect, but I dare say it's not for a Linux desktop user to boast of good C++ IDEs. Until Qt released Creator recently, everything that was there was either severely feature-crippled, or highly unstable. And Creator is still somewhere on par with VS6 (1998) in terms of code completion quality.

But please don't bash an OS that is light-years ahead of Windows, and miles ahead of Mac OS.

You'll have to explain the "miles" first, I'm afraid. For all the OSes you've listed, there are areas in which one is ahead of another, but Linux is most assuredly not ahead on all counts. No Time Machine as in OS X (and that similar feature tucked away in Windows), no transactional FS as in Vista/7, etc.

Hmmm. Suit-speak?

[BrokenHalo]

I've known what KDE is for well over a decade, and I'm even prepared to say it's quite good, if not to my taste. but I'm fucked if I understand what they're trying to achieve with this re-branding. The whole concept of the developers assuming the identity of "KDE" seems as empty as an election promise. Maybe they've been joined by a new bunch of MBA graduates...

Re:Hmmm. Suit-speak?

[Risen888]

It's pretty simple. They're trying to move past "KDE is a Linux desktop environment" into "KDE is a technology platform." And it's true, the KDE desktop and its underlying pillars, and the KDE application suite, are a lot more than just another Linux desktop.

Re:Hmmm. Suit-speak?

[ross axe]

I use a number of KDE applications on my XFCE desktop, so now I suppose I'm using 'KDE Applications' built on the KDE platform, but without the 'KDE Plasma Desktop'. If this rebranding is a sign of commitment to this kind of heterogeneous environment, then I welcome it, but I'm not sure whether this brings us anything that freedesktop.org didn't.

Re:It's still X

[Ash-Fox]

Also, no matter what you call it, It's still totally reliant on the graphics libraries, kludge and rubbish code that is X-Windows, or X11, or whatever that underlying monstrosity of a graphical desktop server is called or was forked into these days. Fix that whole stack, then call yourself "new". But not before.

What's wrong with it? I find my Windows games perform better (get better FPS, graphics quality still excellent) running under Wine (not running entirely natively on top of that, d3d calls getting translated to ogl), x11, Linux than they do running under natively Windows. This is where the graphics system under Windows is running under ring-0 while on Linux it's running under ring-3... Where ring-0 is supposed to be so much faster.

I mean, x11 is designed to be extremely extendable and not locked into any one way of doing things to allow for future innovation. The current implementation supports features like GEM, which go beyond certain features Windows and OS X has... Perhaps I'm missing something. Could you explain exactly what in detail x11 lacking?

KDE, you are no Amiga.

[tjstork]

KDE is not Amiga. When you first saw an Amiga running Deluxe Paint or any of the other things that it could do when it first came out, it was a life changing experience if you cared about multimedia. KDE is an ok desktop. I honestly don't even think it is as good as Windows 7. All KDE is a Desktop shell, control set, and some apps, like Windows Explorer and USER and Notepad, and one that took too long to write and still has no tools.

Czech

[kikito]

I allways thought KDE was the Czech word for "Where". I guess I was wrong.

Re:K?

[V!NCENT]

So everbody keeps saying... I didn't have any crashes since 4.3 anymore. I did have a lot of Ubuntu desktops crash with Compiz.

Plasma used to crash on me. Dolphin however never did. Not even when I was using the 4.0 version.

Maybe the problem lies somewhere else? I know that SuSE for one includes many pre-release KDE4 code. Kubuntu used to crash every once in a while, but with a fresh install of Kubuntu 9.10 these problems are a thing of the past now. Mandrake also includes pre-release code. Debian? Never tried that...

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[AniVisual]

Then lets' port it to KPD and call it the KIMP!

Re:Windoze lovin

[AniVisual]

Firstly, call Microsoft Microsoft. Secondly, porting free software to non-free OSes is good, for it gives people who are stuck using Windows a choice. It also raises awareness about FOSS projects. Since when were these people sucking up to Microsoft?

Re:Let me guess

[V!NCENT]

"Meanwhile, it seems that all Linux distros shipping today have an audio bug [launchpad.net] that doesn't have a known fix"
That is the old, single channel audio system called Alsa. Upgrading to PulseAudio fixes the problem. PulseAudio had been the default sound system in many user-friendly types of distros.

"What's that supposed to mean?"
Watch this to get an understanding of the tech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2RwYF8-oZE
It means: No static desktops. After years of zero innovation on the desktop, KDE4 aims to evolve the concept of the desktop entirely.

"Speaking of VS - it's not perfect, but I dare say it's not for a Linux desktop user to boast of good C++ IDEs"
I don't want one. But if you want a good IDE then Code::blocks may work for you, or the KDevelop IDE.

"You'll have to explain the "miles" first, I'm afraid."
KDE 4.3 is far ahead of any desktop offering out there. What Aqua was to the Windows XP user interface, is KDE 4.3 to Aqua now. Kubuntu 9.10 for example does not only have ALL the features Mac OS X offers, but lots more.

The latest WWDC in which Apple was so proud to have almost all apps ported to 64bit? Like WTF? Linux had that years before Apple. Quicktime X, all full HD stuff. Cool but VLC had that years ago. File systems? Are you kidding me? Linux has a lot of them, but Mac OS X 10.6 and Windows 7 file systems are not only not even journaling, but none of these are optimized for SSD drives. And let's not even start about fragmentation. Linux file systems only fragment when your hard drive is filled for more than 80%.

Time Machine has a cool front-end for backups, but backup solutions have been in Kubuntu even before Apple ever had a backup solution.

Now let's look at Gallium3D. Once the early bugs are sorted out and state trackers are complete, Linux will not only get ahead with graphics drivers, but also with hardware acceleration from HD video and scalable vector graphics, to OpenCL, OpenGL and even Direct3D! The possibilities are endless...

Safari? You know where Webkit comes from? The KDE Konqueror browser. Yes! The terminal and compiler? Gnu tools. Their base OS? FreeBSD was used as a starting point. It is not all FreeBSD, but a large part is.

iTunes. AmaroK not only has all of these features, it has even more.

iMovie. Completely blown away by Kdenlive.

Finder. Dolphin is way beyonbd Finder.

And so forth and so forth and so forth... Linux may not be marketed as much as Mac OS and Windows and it might be able to run apps that are not compiled for it, but for what it is and what it has to offer, it far exceeds Mac OS and Windows as an OS.

Re:Let me guess

[V!NCENT]

Oh and BTW... Grand Central Dispatch? KDE Phonon... 'nuff said...

KDE Plasma Desktop

[MadJo]

So, it would be the Kool Desktop Environment Plasma Desktop.
Thank you department of redundancy department.

Re:Let me guess

[V!NCENT]

In combination with ThreadWeaver, excuse me..

Basic Math EPIC FAIL ( 1 != 2)

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Two words: Pulse Audio."
"It shouldn't be necessary to Google for solutions to problems that haven't existed for the OSX and Windows user since the dinosaurs last walked the earth."

Let's just hope nobody ever releases a Virus named Pulseaudio, or we'll never be able to find info about it without adding Linux to the search terms!

... and if you have really dealt with Pulseaudio problems and still don't know it is a single word, you have bigger problems than your Linux audio setup.

I don't know what makes you think audio problems haven't existed for years on Windows, but I do know that lots of people upgraded from XP to Vista only to discover that there new audio problem was completely unsolveable with Google, with the sole exception that their Google search delivered to them the wonderful news that they would need to go out and spend money on new hardware and then learn how to replace it in their system or spend money on a whole new system. They further learned that the latter option was the only one that would give them a system that was merely painfully slow rather than excruciatingly slow.

Doesn't emphasize the bloat factor well enough

[exa]

As an inactive KDE developer, may I suggest that we name it KDE Bloatspace Desktop and KDE Bloatspace Netbook? :D

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[s1lverl0rd]

Stupid git...

Re:Let me guess

[sim82]

It's actually kind of funny how many countless tons of shit I had to go through with Windows computers to get the sound working.

you mean, stuff like waiting two years for a certified 64bit Vista driver (not everyone has time to spend hours trying to get vista64 to accept an uncertified driver)? Meanwhile the linux driver was there as soon as I installed the first 64bit kernel. And the sound card wasn't even some prehistoric piece of junk, but a quite reasonable and still-in-production M Audio delta 44.

Re:Let me guess

[shutdown -p now]

That is the old, single channel audio system called Alsa. Upgrading to PulseAudio fixes the problem. PulseAudio had been the default sound system in many user-friendly types of distros.

Did you miss my list of distros? 3 out of them have PulseAudio configured out of the box. The bug reproduces on them, too (in fact, Ubuntu, on which I first found it, has PA, so at first I thought it is a PA bug).

Also, I wonder if you're aware that PA works on top of ALSA, not replacing it...

It means: No static desktops. After years of zero innovation on the desktop, KDE4 aims to evolve the concept of the desktop entirely.

My desktop is covered by my windows, and so is virtually any other I've seen. I always disable icons/widgets/applets/whatever on it, in any OS because it's a useless waste of resources.

I don't want one. But if you want a good IDE then Code::blocks may work for you, or the KDevelop IDE.

Code::Blocks is very primitive when it comes to editing. KDevelop, on the other hand, is the best in that department, but unstable.

Judging by your other remark, you believe that Emacs/Vim is the ultimate productivity tool. Which is sad, but I've seen that delusion in old-time Linux users way too often. It's true that e.g. Emacs is a very powerful text editor on par with any IDE... from like 12 years ago. That is also about when it was last true.

Mac OS X 10.6 and Windows 7 file systems are not only not even journaling

Both HFS+ and NTFS are journalling file system. Of those, NTFS was a primary Windows file system long before Linux got its first stable journaling FS (when people like you claimed that it was already "way ahead", and all that useless crap isn't needed anyway).

Time Machine has a cool front-end for backups, but backup solutions have been in Kubuntu even before Apple ever had a backup solution.

And who used them? The genius of Time Machine is (as it often is with Apple) in its UI.

The similar thing on Windows, VSS, is even more interesting technically as it is backed by NTFS and kernel support to provide true immutable but fully accessible snapshots during backup, even when files being copied are locked exclusively and/or being written to (or deleted, moved, etc).

Now let's look at Gallium3D. Once the early bugs are sorted out and state trackers are complete, Linux will not only get ahead with graphics drivers, but also with hardware acceleration from HD video and scalable vector graphics, to OpenCL, OpenGL and even Direct3D!

"Techology X is almost ready, and when we sort the bugs out, it will blow Windows/OS X out of the water" has been a mantra of Linux-on-the-desktop movement since inception. In very few cases had it actually happened as promised, and together they're not enough to make any serious effect along the intended lines. Quite often it just makes things worse: to wit, PulseAudio...

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[arose]

'Shop' in English is pronounced quite close to 'ass' in Russian? Guess the name of a widely pirated and professionally used photo editing software in Russia.

Re:Let me guess

[shutdown -p now]

Safari? You know where Webkit comes from? The KDE Konqueror browser. Yes!

It's all well and good, but Safari (and other WebKit browsers) today advanced beyond Konqueror, and I can run them on OS X or even Windows quite happily. Personally, I like Chrome.

The terminal and compiler? Gnu tools.

OS X terminal application is not a GNU tool. Did you rather mean bash?

Their base OS? FreeBSD was used as a starting point. It is not all FreeBSD, but a large part is.

Not the bits most relevant to the OS (such as kernel). Some parts of the userland, only.

iTunes. AmaroK not only has all of these features, it has even more.

iMovie. Completely blown away by Kdenlive.

Finder. Dolphin is way beyonbd Finder.

It's interesting to see that you only list OS X applications, and even then only Apple ones. I'm not qualified to judge on this specific list as I'm not an OS X user (I merely run it in VM for amusement). That said, on Windows, you get dozens of software titles competing in each of those categories, and I would be surprised if there was no competition in OS X, either.

In Windows, for file management, nothing beats the likes of classic panel file managers - I personally use the text-based Far, mostly out of habit (by the way, feature-wise, it's way beyond Midnight Commander); a lot of power users go for Total Commander etc.

For music (and, in general media) playing and organization, I've found that nothing beats the free J.River Media Jukebox, except the commercial version of the same product with more features, Media Center. It lets me do stuff like sync my players, but configure encoding settings for each one separately - so my iRiver, which can play Ogg Vorbis, I've set it up to only re-encode MP3s with bitrates >256kbps to size them down; and for iPod, it's also set to re-encode all Vorbis files to MP3. It's done once, and then it remembers the settings for each and applies them automatically whenever I sync or otherwise transfer files.

Re:Wrods for mare mortals

[Minwee]

Yeah. That was worse than failure.

How should one format a phone script?

[tepples]

C:\> w i n v e r e n t e r

Did I write "w space i space n" etc.? I was working under the assumption of telephone troubleshooting. Is there a widely recognized standard for stating that something should be spelled out in a phone script?

Re:Let me guess

[shutdown -p now]

Oh and BTW... Grand Central Dispatch?

What about it? A wonderful Apple product, the secret sauce being OS support. Currently the only stable OS shipping it is OS X. FreeBSD will get one soon in RELEASE versions (which aren't STABLE, so...). Linux - not supported (yet), so you can forget about any meaningful cross-platform use of GCD for now.

As for ThreadWeaver, it's just another userspace task/job-centric threading library, which is nothing new. For Microsoft take on this, see PPL, PFX, and PLINQ - the latter being particulary interesting as it's one step of abstraction above task-based parallelism with explicit dependencies.

Who is responsible for the computer?

[tepples]

But my computer says: "This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator".

If I am or report to the system administrator, I know what operating system image the IT department ghosted onto the machine. If I am not the system administrator, the user should contact the system administrator, who may in turn contact me on the user's behalf.

Re:K?

[QuietObserver]

Don't know which version of KDE (Ubuntu 9.10 in a virtual machine I'm using to test it), but the task bar crashed when I tried shutting it down today (mistakenly, since I couldn't tell what feature the damn dialog was talking about). I've used Gnome as my exclusive desktop since shortly after installing Ubuntu 7.4 (when I first tried KDE) because KDE functions too much like Windows (which, in my opinion, has one of the worst overall designs of all time; I'm much more comfortable using Gnome, despite the absence of a few features I'd prefer having). That, and I've rarely had Gnome crash on me, either, and never in the past two years, unless I've tried something my drivers aren't properly written for.