Slashdot Mirror
new KDE 1.1 Screenshots
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that
The KDE screenshots page has been updated and now has exciting new screenshots of KDE 1.1.
Several nice ones in there showing off nifty new features
for future versions of KDE. Quite smooth.
Update: 03/08 03:21 by S : Kurt Granroth
of KDE wrote in this correction: "None of the
screenshots feature advanced or "future" features. All
screenshots are stock 1.1 desktops!"
I have KDE 1.1 installed from the RPMs, nothing weird, and I can just fling my mouse up to the top and it activates. *shrug*
Congrats to the KDE team on another fine release.
Also, the menubar swaps to whatever is currently active, and hides/removes the menubar of whatever isn't active. This is actually good in the sense that something like Window Maker is good- it's less cluttered. It's a tradeoff, one that a lot of people like. If you're working in an application you see its menubar, if you have it in the background you don't see its menus anywhere until you focus it again. People actually (this has been tested!) behave as if there is only one menubar that magically contains everything they need! This occurs even when a single app changes menubar contents- if you select, say, an ellipse, and a 'shape' menu changes from Square (editing) to Ellipse (editing), many users will never notice the change and will swear that both Square and Ellipse are ALWAYS PRESENT because, when they _want_ the menu, it's always there. This bears thinking about. It's also antithetical to the MS approach, of making sure everything is in your face as much as possible.
check out www.linux3d.org
He's got a Banshee X driver on there, I'm using it, and it works well.
Please explain what you mean by that? You totally confused me.
Actually, you can run krdb from a terminal window and the resources will update themselves.
Libjpeg is weird in that its header file contains both major and minor number together (61, 62, etc.) and it refuses to load without an exact match. The KDE devel crew uses .61 (I had this problem with GNOME, too, but they use .62 [sigh...].)
Try linking libjpeg.so.61 -> libjpeg.so.62, ldconfig, and see if it runs....
Alternatively: Get the kdesupport rpm, make sure libjpeg.so.61 installs in /opt/kde/lib, make sure /opt/kde/lib is mentioned in ld.so.conf, ldconfig, and see if it runs....
Otherwise just get the source RPM and rebuild it.
Craig
This is odd; my impression of GNOME was that it was if anything slightly snappier than KDE. (Both built on my RH 5.1+ machine, egcs -O6 -mpentium.) How much memory do you have? How much else is going on in the background?
Also check your XFree version -- 3.3.3.1 is a little better with the Matrox card than 3.3.2.
Craig
http://airnet.net/craig/linux
By the way, kfm's html handling is much improved in KDE 1.1; try browsing with it now. Some stuff is still not quite right, but it's mostly very usable.
Craig
Call me an idiot, but how exactly does one switch to kde? Simply by adding kwm & as the last line in .Xdefaults? Is there good documentation of what exactly happens when one types startx? Ditto on how to modify the menus, etc. in Gnome/KDE/AfterStep?
I can do the compiles, but I haven't quite grokked this whole X structure thing.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
What is really needed now is to get the inter application and window communications standardised across KDE and GNOME.
.ini style file format for configuration -- something like an extended libPropList format would be better -- preferably something that could be mapped directly to XML RDF. This would allow for centralised, decentralised and distributed application configuration.
While X11 based mechanisms can be used, they should not be mandatory -- the mechanism should be window system independant and allow window signals and windows to be manipulated by scripts, if given appropriate permissions.
Above all, being able to run a GNOME application under KDE and have it integrate with KDE, and a KDE application integrate with GNOME when run under GNOME should be considered a priority -- so that the KDE control panel will control both GNOME and KDE applications in a consistent useable way, and simliarly for the GNOME control panel.
Oh, and please please please... get rid of the old Windows
John_Chalisque
"hawt dayum...look, Skeeter, a wumun" "Shee shur gots purty ahhs"
So tell him to use KDE. Simple.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Anyone got any mirrors?
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
These aren't KDE themes - these are KWM themes. This is just adding in confusion into the pot. It'd be like saying changing the enlightenment theme was a gnome theme if you used the gnome panel.
I'm still waiting on QT themes because the standard Qt look is just plain butt ugly. I just hope they're not the memory hog that gtk themes are.
Matt (who aches to have MUI back).
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
I've got a PII-400 and am constantly stunned at the crap speed of some of these supposedly advanced WindowManagers/DE's. I'm reasonably happy with the kpanel and WindowMaker right now, but I have kfm running, and I don't know why - I never ever use it...
I guess ultimately power users migrate back to a CLI - that's how it was on my Amiga, that's how it is on the NT boxes at work, and its how my Linux box is heading too...
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
This is being talked about a bit, it is more of a GTK+ thing than GNOME. There are problems with using this and sloppy/mouse focus though...
As with all free software, you have to read the
manuals and make sure you've got the right environment first. Compilers, libraries, and the like can make a big difference.
I've moved two RedHat 5.0 machines to KDE, and while grabbing all the RPMs that need to be updated is slow over a 28.8, it's not at all difficult.
Let me recover from the laughter first...
Ok, now... No, no, no, KDE doesn't "intercept" Xt, Xview or Athena widgets the way you describe (i.e., Athena widgets will be displayed, instead of the KDE ones). What KDE does instead is apply the colour resources for those widget sets to those you have set for KDE. It also works for Motif apps (change the colours in KDE and Netscape shows the results). Non-KDE apps have to be restarted to display the changes, though. But it helps a lot in giving your desktop a consistent look. BTW, I recommend that if you use any Xaw-based apps, replace it with Xaw3D or Xaw95, as it will look much better.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Compile it from the SRPMs. And no, it ain't a PITA to do that (compared to GNOME).
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
...running a xterm replacement that supports pseudotransparency, like eterm, aterm, or wterm.
Well, it *does* do that here :-P
BTW: blackbox is KDE aware, so you can mix and match as much as you want...
KDE can be configured to use no screen real estate at all, except for the following:
1) a 1 pixel band for the autohidden panel (you *can* hide it completely, though)
2) a 1 pixel band for the taskbar (optional too)
3) The window frames.
If you really want to save those 4 pixels wide and 26 pixels tall, you can use another KDE aware WM:
3.1) flwm uses only 18 pixels wide and no pixels high
3.2) WM uses about 24 pixels high and no pixels wide.
4) Background icons, but that is not really what you mean, right?
By using the Mac-like menubar, you actually use *less* screen real estate, depending on how you measure it.
"exec startkde" uses a bit less ram, since it replaces the current shell, while just "startkde" keeps two shells in memory.
But because of how modern unixes manage memory you are saving perhaps 50KB.
right. That's standard KDE menu behaviour.
:-)
I mean, the menu acts just the same, it's just up there
But I'll try to answer anyway.
;-)
1) Don't try to use the current CVS HEAD branch (the one that uses Qt 2.0) now!!!! It's severely broken. It *will* get better in some weeks/months, but KDE 1.1 is a lot more stable.
You could use the KDE_1_1 branch, which is KDE 1.1+bugfixes, though.
And as for how does it look... I have no current URLs, but try http://www.jorsm.net/~mosfet/kde-plat.gif
2) Yes, KDE and KWM are not yet as themable as other toolkits/desktops, although KWM is the 2nd most themable WM I know.
3) More than 1 kpanel, no.
4) Spreading images all across kpanel, I don't know, I don't see why not.
5) Active applets in kpanel, it's supported already. You can swallow any X application (say, wmclock, or xbiff), and there are KDE aplications that "dock" in the panel (kpmdock, klipper, kppp, knotes).
6) Eye candy and themes are secondary. Functionalty, stability and productivity are more important. Having said that, more eye candy is coming
Add session types in KDE's control center.
:-)
The chosen session type is passed as first argument to ~/.xsession (or xsession).
Make ~/.xsession parse it right and execute as needed
But even the "mac-like menus" in KDE aren't maclike. I was very excited when I saw this the first time, but then I tried it out and... No.
If your mouse is at the TOP of the screen, you can't click on the menu, but on a mac you can. It defeats the whole purpose of having the menu at the top of the screen if you can't have your mouse at y0 and click to a menu.
What I think BS means is that Mac menus are not just located at the top of the screen; they extend to the top of the screen. That is, if the mouse is at the very top of the screen, over a menu, and the user clicks, the menu is activated. With KDE this isn't the case.
This feature is actually surprisingly useful, as it gives the user the ability to just "fling" the mouse to the top of the screen and know that they'll hit the menubar. Otherwise one must be a bit more careful about mouse positioning; this can be problematic, especially on laptops where the cursor isn't always particularly easy to see when it's moving.
Avoid the Slashdot efect.
www.us.kde.org
www.de.kde.org
and a few others.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
http://souls.net/desktop.gif
-- You can be a geeklord too
has anyone had the problem where netscape starts up about 5 pixels to the right? this happens both at my work and home computers...didn't happen with 1.0, just 1.1b2 and 1.1
I tried it out this weekend with a heavily updated Slack 3.4 system, and the only problem I had was getting it to link with my native GL libs instead of Mesa. I ended up hacking the configure scripts, and it worked fine. Config options, please!
As far as using it, I think it's a very well-done system. The only problem I had/am having is getting kfm to recognize WordPerfect 8 files without an extension (my roommate doesn't use extensions on his files). Isn't that what the magic file is for? I added the appropriate lines to the file, and nothing happened, so I ended up putting some extensions for the type. Anybody have any ideas? Perhaps adding mime-types and applications could be streamlined a bit...
But even the "mac-like menus" in KDE aren't maclike. I was very excited when I saw this the first time, but then I tried it out and... No.
If your mouse is at the TOP of the screen, you can't click on the menu, but on a mac you can. It defeats the whole purpose of having the menu at the top of the screen if you can't have your mouse at y0 and click to a menu.
So I'll stick to using no DE for now. It's not necessary, anyway, but I was hopeful...
No, if the pointer is at the very top of the screen... y coord 0... and you click the mouse, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN, even though it *SHOULD* activate the menu.
I guess a lot of people out there have never really *USED* a Mac and picked up on the subleties that make it's interface so nice. This is one of them. On a Mac, the user *ALWAYS* knows where they menu is... they can close their eyes and find it. This still isn't the case with KDE, though it's far better than the menu in the top of the window stuff..
This is what I experienced when I used KDE 1.1, at least, and that was probably the sole (mis)feature that kept me from liking it.
I *STILL* wouldn't have used it, though... I go in for my ultra minimalist hacked blackbox.
Err... Okay, I just reinstalled KDE (damn deb's are nice things)...
I was playing, and I thought maybe it had something to do with my having active desktop borders enabled (when I was flinging my mouse up, I was going to another desktop &%^)
So I turned it off, and then turned the menu bars on, and umm... if I am at Y Coordinate 0 and I click... Nothing. If I'm at Y coordinate 1, however, it's all good.. This is interesting to note. On my old slack system, and my new Debian system, from the debs, this does not work. (though the K menu in the korner works fine at x0 y0, if that's what you're testing on).
So maybe it's just some people who it works for. It doesn't work for me.
I might play with KDE stuff under blackbox, but that means I'd have to recompile, and umm.. it takes SOOOoooo long to compile. (that was sarcasm).
-bs
it's nice to see themes on kde or gnome but you can get themes on Windows too. :/ ) themes.
http://floach.pimpin.net/ has a whole bunch of them for example.
I'd like to see more talk on how these GUI's make your life easier instead of pretty (or in the case of enlightenment-not so pretty
---
How do you get the transparent Xterms in KDE?
KDE tries to play with Xresources to make all applications use KDE fonts and coloursq by default. This option was off by default in KDE 1.0 but was made on by default in KDE 1.1.
You can turn it off by going to Settings->Check off "Apply fonts and colours to non-KDE apps"->Press OK. You may have to restart X/KDE due to a bug in KDE for these settings to take effect.
If you make the above change, you will have to configure xterm and emacs colours by the normal means ie Xresources, and not by the KDE configuration menus.
Oh, seeing that I had the setting off for a long time I didn't know if that still worked or not. (it did at the time I was playing with it, but I had read reports that running krdb was not enough to erase the old settings)
Speed would be te biggest reason to use BeOS as opposed to a unix/X11 combo. X is just too much of a pig to hold a candle to BeOS.
Hell, the kernel is in great shape, maybe someone should write a fast gui rather than continue to pile code on top of X.
Do you know where I can read to find out how to set up different wm's using KDM.. I'm using RedHat now, and I really miss that from SuSE. I liked to be able to WindowMaker or GNOME or KDE depending on my mood..
Thanks
Ben
make the last line of your .xinitrc read:
/opt/kde/bin to your path too (unless you have an install that puts it elsewhere).
exec startkde
Oh, make sure you add
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Then don't use so many. my KDE desktop looks nothing like that. screenshots are meant to look busy.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
hmm...eterms rule with kde. which eterms are you using? i had no luck with the rpms and compiled the source instead and didn't have any trouble. i'm using eterm-0.8.8. try that and good luck.
Run KDE installation script. IT will /opt/kde. /opt/kde/bin/usekde
put a bunch of stuff into
Remap it if you want, or make a symlink.
Them as a user run
That's it. 10 minutes. Enjoy.
It's all in documentation, and you do not have
to be worried about dozen circular dependent packages as in gnome.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
The kscreenshots look pretty kgood.
I'm all for kbranding and all, but k'mon...
kscreenshots?
Ksheesh!
What's next? Gscreenshots! Or would
it be GNUscreenshots? Ghe-ghe. Gjust
gkidding!
Glater!
How about sending patches?
Do you know how free software works?
People with something write the
support for this something!
Thanks, Stephan
on how to modify menus, both kde and gnome have menu editor applets
i thought I had no sig?
I like it. Very nifty looking stuff in there.
Makes me want to redouble my effort to get Linux back up and running on my new Gateway. (Blasted Voodoo Banshee video card is a pain in the butt to get X-Windows to use, so I gave up.)
-Augie
P.S. NOT FIRST!
If it makes a difference If I use just "startkde" or "exec startkde".
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
ditto here
3 easy steps, no problems.
can't say the same for GNOME, though I would like to....
WOW! KDE can actually automatically configure your X server for you? How does it do that?
KDE is a desktop like GNOME. KWM is what KDE calls their WM. Some say its not really a WM, whatever.
There is no comparision. E beats KWM hands down in features, theme support, configurability and yes, stability. E CVS is rock solid now (only a few minor buglets). If you doubt E's theme support, take one look at http://e.themes.org .
The only valid gripe I have heard about E is that it does take more memory than most other WMs. This is mainly because of its extensive configuration and image caching. IMHO, if you don't like the size of E then either buy some memory (cheap now days) or run WM. Just don't expect all the bells and whistles.
-dubbs
Subject says it all. Flame Bait!!!!!!!
Maybe I was doing something wrong but it didn't work for me. I run Eterms on E and GNOME with no problem but on KDE, it doesn't work. Is KDE using imlib to load images? If not I can't see why Eterm would work.
Maybe one of the other trans xterms will work.
-dubbs
I am running a similar setup to yours: i586 200mhz, 32 mb RAM, 2 meg graphics card, XF86 3.3.2.1.
While I definitely advocate upgrading to 64 megs RAM, I think the choice of window manager is much more important -- KWM is way slow.
You may wish to try Blackbox. It is fast and still looks good. I have a small site dedicated to it at: http://members.xoom.com/ultravoid/
There is also a link to a site with info on how to integrate Blackbox into KDE. Good luck!
[ Aaron Shaver ] [ ultravoid@usa.net ]
Aaron J. Shaver - aaronshaver@yahoo.com "Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do." --Bertrand Russel
Solaris x86 offers the user a choice at login, between CDE and OpenWindows.
Would it be practical to offer a similar choice between KDE and GNOME?
Richard
I have been using KDE 1.1 for about one month. I have not had any real problems. The kpackage is a little squilly but that is all I have found.
I will say it was easier to use than Windowmaker or FWm
Brian E...
Well, the short answer is that you don't have to run a shitty underlying OS to get a friendly desktop, but both the Qt widget set and KWM (I haven't used any other window managers with KDE) have the advantage of having fully-functional keyboard operational support. By default, you can change applications and focus within applications with just they keyboard. (I've never used GNOME so I can't speak for that)
Also configuration in KDE was made to be GUI-based, rather than the more traditional Xresources config files. (yah, I'm a wuss, we should all configure everything with vi/emacs, right?)
I agree with you that pretty UIs are all well and good, but usability is the bottom line.
my netscape takes about a MINUTE to launch. . . dreadfully it is making me sentimental for windows where, on the same machine, it never takes more than a second for NS or MSIE to get up and running. i do concur, they musta done a sloppy, quick port to linux that was not close to being optimized.
otherwise i love kde 1.1 to death -- only problem is i can't get any menus to work (have to do everything off the command line).
I've had this same problem with another :)
.so.6 to .so.62
desktop system to remain unamed.
It seemed to be solved by making a
symbolic link from
I'm not sure if it's just a name thing,
or if it's asking for trouble...are they
really different versions? Anyway, try
it!
are you using the lastest driver from linux3d.org? i have a diamond monster fusion and it is working great.
---
john