3.2.2 (that's all Debian has atm). The "Mixer" applet had loads of little bars for each channel and the height of the slider was the same as the height of the panel (24px). The unecessary bars could be removed using the context menu, one at a time, but the small slider made it totally unusable. The arts mixer didn't work (arts was running).
I've since uninstalled KDE because the archiver stole associations in Mozilla and put spurious entries in Gnome's applications menu (the entries could've been deleted and associations fixed, but I'm not going to go with 3.2 as it stands anway).
OK. So I installed KDE again. It's actually not too disagreeable now. I'll be sure the give the next release of KDE a whirl.
Here's what I have after half an hour of tweaking. I couldn't find a decent icon set (either prepackaged with Debian or on kde-look). The Gnome icons didn't work (at least, not out of the box). I'm sure with a bit of tweaking they'd work though.
There's a few minor niggles that I'd have to fix though before I could consider using KDE full time.
A mixer applet. KDE has one, but I much prefer the Gnome/Windows style applet whereby a slider pops up when you click the applet. I couldn't get the arts mixer to work and I don't want to run a sound server anyway.
Make the K Menu icon thingy wider. Seeing as it's the primary way to launch programs, it's a bit too small for my liking.
Reduce the spacing between the icons in the panel so that the actual icons can be made larger.
Increase the spacing between the menu bar headers and remove/consolidate some of the items. For example, I don't really need a Log out item in the desktop context menu, nor do I need a dedicated Settings menu in Konq.
Add some sort of delimeter between the date and time in the clock applet. The date and time merge into one at present.
The taskbar. I don't want the inactive buttons greyed out.
Highlighting when the cursor rolls over a menu bar. You can disable prelighting for toolbar icons in kcontrol, but not for the menu.
They're minor things (some might say insignificant), but they'd drive me crazy. I couldn't figure out how to remove the KDE strip on the K Menu.
Note that I'm not shitting on the KDE developers or complaining. I could never produce what they have.
The points in the parent post were just some examples of what I didn't like in the screenshot given. I did search around for a nice theme/icon set on kde-look. I didn't find one that I liked (specifically, a Bluecurve like theme with Gnome-type icons).
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Konq, I just don't like the look and feel of it. The overly long menu bar and the multitude of confusing buttons on the toolbar, for one. It may sound a stupid reason to you, but it's my choice to make.
I'm sure that if I invested an hour I could get rid of the excess menu bars, increase the spacing between the menu headers, remove the excess buttons on the toolbar, get rid of that annoying glowing application startup notification cursor, sort out the KDE menu and change the icons and themes. But I don't want to have to screw around with every application like that. The fact that KDE is set up to be flashy like that and Gnome is set up in a way I find nice, it just shows me that Gnome's design philosophy is the one for me.
No. Don't be ridiculous. They were just some random screenshots I found.
I'm talking about things like the gradient on the bottom panel, the KDE logo strip along the menu, the garish icons, the faux LCD clock and the overly complicated wallpaper. All of it is unecessary and clutters the screen.
Don't get me started on the abomination that is Konq.
Contrary to your claim, I find Gnome much better with regards to usability.
KDE is 'better', technologically, but each time I've tried to switch I've been put off by the clutter and garish icons and themes. Some Gnome's buttons might be switched around (not that I've ever noticed), but as long as it's consistent, it doesn't really matter.
I reckon Gnome has won the corporate heart through it's simplicity. If you compare a screenshot of KDE against one of Gnome, it's obvious that Gnome is less in-your-face than KDE. Gnome sort of blends into the background. Sort of like the difference between a Ferrari and an Aston Matrin.
I reckon significantly more than 50%, say 70%. But it's not a black and white matter - the ultimate decision has to be made by a multinational body such as the UN. It's not something that could (or should) be decided by a single country anyway.
While you do have the right to use reasonable force to defend yourself, I don't think the Tony Martin case was as clear cut as it first seemed to be.
He was not acting out of self defence, but vengence. The shooting was premeditated. He did not shoot out of panic or fear. Without warning, shot three times. That's not self defence.
He did not have a licence for the shotgun. Self defence or not, it's not acceptable for people to have unlicenced firearms.
I can only imagine the grief he must've gone through being repeatedly burgled, but excessive force was used. Note that I am in no way defending those yobs who broke in. They should've been locked up ages ago.
If the Chinese people decided to revolt against the current structure, then I'd like to think that they could call on the armies of the world if needs be.
Helping people free themselves from their governments (when invited) would truly be a great use of the army/navy/R.A.F.
Mmmm...I don't think that invading a country and forcing democracy on it is the best idea. Revolution must come from the people. Sort of like the [American|French] revolution. It defines the character of a country.
I'm Chinese, and although I am truly ashamed of China (as a country), I have Chinese friends who don't see a problem with the way China is governed (the opinion of the majority, I think).
The status quo should be kept, unless a majority of China would like things to change.
In the grandparent post, I didn't mean that people shouldn't lend/burn free copies of Linux for people. Apologies if it sounded that way (which it does, re-reading it).
I have lent my CDs to friends who wanted to give Linux a whirl too.
Wait, wait, interesting? wtf? You don't have an OS and you don't want to pay for a copy of a Linux distro.
Unless you expect someone to burn a free copy for you, I don't see how you can criticise Linux for not being able to magically transfer itself to your hard drive.
Yes. It would be covered by the Computer Misuse Act, which states that:
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if
(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;
(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and
(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.
Furthermore, the login page also confirms that
Programs and data held on The Co-operative Bank p.l.c. and smile systems are PRIVATE PROPERTY. Unauthorised access is prohibited and is contrary to the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which may result in criminal offences and a claim for damages.
Whoa, don't have anything important on my computer? What the hell is the point of a computer then?
I'm 99.9% certain that my (Linux) system is secure. My dual boot XP installation I'm not so sure about, but I don't do any serious work on it, it's just for gaming. When Windows is necessary, I have a VMware Windows installation on which I don't browse and is fully up to date with Windows Update. Even still, I wouldn't dream of logging in to my email account under Windows, let alone my bank account.
I don't think you can ever guarantee anything is truly secure, but I'm willing to bet my bank balance is safe.
Winodws does have Big Problems with malware. My university is in bed with Microsoft. Windows XP, Exchange, Office XP, the works (they even refuse to install OpenOffice.org and Mozilla!)
I only use my computer account for searching at Google and looking up course related information, but somehow Internet Explorer is infested with some sort of malware. Every time I click a link, a popup appears from nowhere (sometimes if I'm lucky I get more than one).
Now, I haven't visited any 'questionnable' sites, nor do I click Yes to every question that appears on the screen so how the hell did this happen?
This makes Internet Explorer TOTALLY unusable. How the hell do I fix this? The registry? The Internet Explorer folder hidden somewhere in C:\Documents and Settings? If I was using Mozilla I could just back up my bookmarks and rm -rf ~/.mozilla and be on my way.
This is a Fundamental Problem with Windows. It's too damn hard to fix. IE is crap. Windows is crap.
Viruses and spyware. I like being able to click links and open random emails with abandon. I can do this with Mozilla/Evolution. And should Mozilla get infested with some sort of spyware thing like Internet Explorer is on my university computer account, I can just backup my bookmarks, rm -rf ~/.mozilla and be on my way. I don't even know where to begin in fixing IE.
Drivers. Strange as it may seem, it's a lot eaiser to get things working in Linux (provided it's actually supported).
Infinite flexibility. I have a D-Link USB radio jobbie. My computer is set to turn on at 5:50 every morning in the BIOS. In my crontab I have the following commands record Jono and Harriet's breakfast show on Heart 106.2 (great show - listen to it!)
tune the radio,
unmute the line in,
start recording at 5:55
stop recording at 9:05
shutdown the computer at 9:10
I can't even imagine how to do that in Windows.
Better looking fonts. All my apps have AA fonts. The web looks so much more prettier in Linux.
Your analogy is full of holes. While a close approximation, there are numerous, signifcant differences.
I'm not stealing a copy of XP from the store, merely using it without a licence. There's a huge difference.
It won't cost Microsoft any money to allow me to install SP2 (apart from bandwith costs). But I've already downloaded all of it anyway so it's cost them the same amount regardless of whether I can subsequently install it or not. A more subitable analogy would be for them to fix the problem, discover that the car is stolen and then remove the fix [it won't cost them any money to leave the fix in place in this situation] and leave me to go on my way. It just seems so, petty.
Microsoft does not send out security alerts to users, licenced or not (in general, anyway).
Regardless, if this post is accurate, the point is moot.
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A simple solution to traffic control: a maigc roundabout!
3.2.2 (that's all Debian has atm). The "Mixer" applet had loads of little bars for each channel and the height of the slider was the same as the height of the panel (24px). The unecessary bars could be removed using the context menu, one at a time, but the small slider made it totally unusable. The arts mixer didn't work (arts was running).
I've since uninstalled KDE because the archiver stole associations in Mozilla and put spurious entries in Gnome's applications menu (the entries could've been deleted and associations fixed, but I'm not going to go with 3.2 as it stands anway).
Here's what I have after half an hour of tweaking. I couldn't find a decent icon set (either prepackaged with Debian or on kde-look). The Gnome icons didn't work (at least, not out of the box). I'm sure with a bit of tweaking they'd work though.
There's a few minor niggles that I'd have to fix though before I could consider using KDE full time.
They're minor things (some might say insignificant), but they'd drive me crazy. I couldn't figure out how to remove the KDE strip on the K Menu.
Note that I'm not shitting on the KDE developers or complaining. I could never produce what they have.
The points in the parent post were just some examples of what I didn't like in the screenshot given. I did search around for a nice theme/icon set on kde-look. I didn't find one that I liked (specifically, a Bluecurve like theme with Gnome-type icons).
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Konq, I just don't like the look and feel of it. The overly long menu bar and the multitude of confusing buttons on the toolbar, for one. It may sound a stupid reason to you, but it's my choice to make.
I'm sure that if I invested an hour I could get rid of the excess menu bars, increase the spacing between the menu headers, remove the excess buttons on the toolbar, get rid of that annoying glowing application startup notification cursor, sort out the KDE menu and change the icons and themes. But I don't want to have to screw around with every application like that. The fact that KDE is set up to be flashy like that and Gnome is set up in a way I find nice, it just shows me that Gnome's design philosophy is the one for me.
Nevertheless, to satisfy you, here's a screenshot of my desktop with the Applications menu showing.
No. Don't be ridiculous. They were just some random screenshots I found.
I'm talking about things like the gradient on the bottom panel, the KDE logo strip along the menu, the garish icons, the faux LCD clock and the overly complicated wallpaper. All of it is unecessary and clutters the screen.
Don't get me started on the abomination that is Konq.
Contrary to your claim, I find Gnome much better with regards to usability.
KDE is 'better', technologically, but each time I've tried to switch I've been put off by the clutter and garish icons and themes. Some Gnome's buttons might be switched around (not that I've ever noticed), but as long as it's consistent, it doesn't really matter.
I reckon Gnome has won the corporate heart through it's simplicity. If you compare a screenshot of KDE against one of Gnome, it's obvious that Gnome is less in-your-face than KDE. Gnome sort of blends into the background. Sort of like the difference between a Ferrari and an Aston Matrin.
Yeah, and Big Brother sucks (except for BB3, that was good).
There's also a full page spread about CERT's advice on page 3 of today's Independent, which can also be read online.
I reckon significantly more than 50%, say 70%. But it's not a black and white matter - the ultimate decision has to be made by a multinational body such as the UN. It's not something that could (or should) be decided by a single country anyway.
While you do have the right to use reasonable force to defend yourself, I don't think the Tony Martin case was as clear cut as it first seemed to be.
He was not acting out of self defence, but vengence. The shooting was premeditated. He did not shoot out of panic or fear. Without warning, shot three times. That's not self defence.
He did not have a licence for the shotgun. Self defence or not, it's not acceptable for people to have unlicenced firearms.
I can only imagine the grief he must've gone through being repeatedly burgled, but excessive force was used. Note that I am in no way defending those yobs who broke in. They should've been locked up ages ago.
If the Chinese people decided to revolt against the current structure, then I'd like to think that they could call on the armies of the world if needs be.
Helping people free themselves from their governments (when invited) would truly be a great use of the army/navy/R.A.F.
Though it would probably start off WW3.
Mmmm...I don't think that invading a country and forcing democracy on it is the best idea. Revolution must come from the people. Sort of like the [American|French] revolution. It defines the character of a country.
I'm Chinese, and although I am truly ashamed of China (as a country), I have Chinese friends who don't see a problem with the way China is governed (the opinion of the majority, I think).
The status quo should be kept, unless a majority of China would like things to change.
Well...that's obvious. Is it really a +1 Interesting?
How do you expect to get it in a usable form without you (or a friend) paying for it?
In the grandparent post, I didn't mean that people shouldn't lend/burn free copies of Linux for people. Apologies if it sounded that way (which it does, re-reading it).
I have lent my CDs to friends who wanted to give Linux a whirl too.
Wait, wait, interesting? wtf? You don't have an OS and you don't want to pay for a copy of a Linux distro. Unless you expect someone to burn a free copy for you, I don't see how you can criticise Linux for not being able to magically transfer itself to your hard drive.
Yes. It would be covered by the Computer Misuse Act, which states that:
Furthermore, the login page also confirms that
Where computer crime is defined by the Computer Misuse Act (1990) as:
- Unauthorised access to computer material.
- Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences.
- 3. Unauthorised modification of computer material.
I think Section 1 would cover the case where my machine was compromised. All seems pretty reasonable to me.Whoa, don't have anything important on my computer? What the hell is the point of a computer then?
I'm 99.9% certain that my (Linux) system is secure. My dual boot XP installation I'm not so sure about, but I don't do any serious work on it, it's just for gaming. When Windows is necessary, I have a VMware Windows installation on which I don't browse and is fully up to date with Windows Update. Even still, I wouldn't dream of logging in to my email account under Windows, let alone my bank account.
I don't think you can ever guarantee anything is truly secure, but I'm willing to bet my bank balance is safe.
I find that removing Flash makes Firefox much, much more stable. That said, Flash 7 is much better in this respect.
Winodws does have Big Problems with malware. My university is in bed with Microsoft. Windows XP, Exchange, Office XP, the works (they even refuse to install OpenOffice.org and Mozilla!)
I only use my computer account for searching at Google and looking up course related information, but somehow Internet Explorer is infested with some sort of malware. Every time I click a link, a popup appears from nowhere (sometimes if I'm lucky I get more than one).
Now, I haven't visited any 'questionnable' sites, nor do I click Yes to every question that appears on the screen so how the hell did this happen?
This makes Internet Explorer TOTALLY unusable. How the hell do I fix this? The registry? The Internet Explorer folder hidden somewhere in C:\Documents and Settings? If I was using Mozilla I could just back up my bookmarks and rm -rf ~/.mozilla and be on my way.
This is a Fundamental Problem with Windows. It's too damn hard to fix. IE is crap. Windows is crap.
The workgroup name can be changed in the System applet in the Control Panel.
Seriously, I don't want to sound like a zealot here, but Debian is great!
I can install (virtually) anything with a simple aptitude install xxx. Need an office suite? One aptitude install openoffice.org and it's there.
I can also keep my system up to date with a simple "aptitude update" followed by "aptitude upgrade".
Microsoft should make apt for Windows and start a repository of Windows software. aptitude install officexp. That would be a great idea.
Drivers. Strange as it may seem, it's a lot eaiser to get things working in Linux (provided it's actually supported).
Infinite flexibility. I have a D-Link USB radio jobbie. My computer is set to turn on at 5:50 every morning in the BIOS. In my crontab I have the following commands record Jono and Harriet's breakfast show on Heart 106.2 (great show - listen to it!)
- tune the radio,
- unmute the line in,
- start recording at 5:55
- stop recording at 9:05
- shutdown the computer at 9:10
I can't even imagine how to do that in Windows.Better looking fonts. All my apps have AA fonts. The web looks so much more prettier in Linux.
Your analogy is full of holes. While a close approximation, there are numerous, signifcant differences.
I'm not stealing a copy of XP from the store, merely using it without a licence. There's a huge difference.
It won't cost Microsoft any money to allow me to install SP2 (apart from bandwith costs). But I've already downloaded all of it anyway so it's cost them the same amount regardless of whether I can subsequently install it or not. A more subitable analogy would be for them to fix the problem, discover that the car is stolen and then remove the fix [it won't cost them any money to leave the fix in place in this situation] and leave me to go on my way. It just seems so, petty.
Microsoft does not send out security alerts to users, licenced or not (in general, anyway).
Regardless, if this post is accurate, the point is moot.