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KDE 4.1 Beta 2 – Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jul 05, 2008 07:23 PM
from the everyone's-a-critic dept.
from the everyone's-a-critic dept.
jammag writes "Linux pundit Bruce Byfield takes a look at the latest KDE beta and finds it wanting: 'Very likely, KDE users will have to wait for another release or two beyond 4.1 before the new version of KDE matches the features of earlier ones, especially in customization.' He notes that the second beta is still prone to unexplained crashes, and goes so far as to say, 'Everyone agrees now that KDE 4.0 was a mistake.' I'm not too sure about that — really, 'everyone?'"
Related Stories
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KDE Responds To Misconceptions About KDE 4 279 comments
Jiilik Oiolosse writes "PJ at Groklaw speaks with a member of the KDE team about some of the common myths circulating about KDE 4. 'There has been a bit of a dustup about KDE 4.0. A lot of opinions have been expressed, but I thought you might like to hear from KDE. So I wrote to them and asked if they'd be willing to explain their choices and answer the main complaints. They graciously agreed.' Among the topics discussed are: 'Releasing KDE 4.0 was a mistake,' 'I cannot put files on my desktop,' and 'KDE should just have ported KDE 3.5 to Qt 4 and not add all that other experimental stuff right away.'"
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What To Expect In KDE 4.1 288 comments
andrewmin writes "Recently, Gnome's been gaining a lot of ground on its KDE counterpart in the desktop environment wars. The KDE developers were hoping to change this with KDE 4, the new radical release of KDE, but it was not to be. KDE 4.0 was buggy and unstable, leaving everyone except the hard-core KDE lovers. Mainly, this was because it just didn't work most of the time. However, the developers were not without hope. They promised that KDE 4.1 would be more stable and fix all the holes and problems with KDE 4.0. That time is coming soon: in just four days, K Desktop Environment 4.1 will be released to the Linux masses." A release candidate for 4.1 came out just over a week ago, with binaries available "for some Linux distributions, and Mac OS X and Windows."
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Everyone? Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Everyone? Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good thing KDE 3.5.9 is still available so users have a choice to avoid "failure", unlike XP which will only be available to System Builder Licensees.
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Re:Everyone? Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Everyone" agrees that Vista is "a failure", even though it's really not. So why can't dumb generalizations be applied to software that's supposed to be perfect in every way?
The thing though is, I can take KDE 3 and use it till the year 5436656563577 or beyond if I feel like and still patch it. With XP I can't really even get it anymore and I can't patch it and modify it. With KDE 4 I can customize it by customizing the source, with Vista I can't.
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Perfect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista is supposed to be a workstation solution ready for every day production use right now. People are considering that to be a failure in its current state as well, and you are right, these two alleged failures are similar. But one product that is at an early start (4.0 & 4.1 beta, the more mature 3.5+ still seeing a lot of active development and use due to its maturity) and the other has the promise to be mature enough to use right now. You are not forced to upgrade to KDE 4.x, but Vista is required for some of today's games and applications because they don't run in earlier versions. This is the difference.
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Re:Perfect? (Score:5, Informative)
I dont see what people are complaining about.
I've been using KDE 4 for months and while it isnt perfect, the glitches are minor.
My biggest complaint is the rendering of the date and taskbar is...quirky (for me anyway on 4.0).
The pros outweigh the cons for me.
Dolphin is absolutely brilliant and Kwrite's tweaks are fantastic.
I'd die without Okular as well.
KDE 3.5 looks so old fashioned now. :)
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Re:Perfect? (Score:4, Informative)
My problem with KDE 4 was the size of the panel and the decorations. I'm on a laptop with limited screen real estate, so I like window manager decorations to be as small as possible. I wasn't able to reduce these without breaking all kinds of things.
The last thing I tried, might have been a beta of 4.1, don't recall, was closer. I think I could resize the panel to be smaller vertically, but this screwed up a lot of things visually. I'll wait, I'm happy with KDE 3.5.
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Re:Perfect? (Score:4, Insightful)
KDE 4.0 and 4.1 are not meant to be perfect in every way. They are meant to establish a new scheme of APIs and a new design dynamic. It is a big overhaul that is in its beginnings. Nobody is claiming KDE
I agree. The same could have been said about Mac OS X 10.0. Give it a while to mature, and people will likely be talking about how much better it is than the pre-4.0 days.
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Re:Perfect? (Score:4, Interesting)
KDE 4.0 and 4.1 are not meant to be perfect in every way. They are meant to establish a new scheme of APIs and a new design dynamic. It is a big overhaul that is in its beginnings.
And Vista isn't? Are you new or just Slashdotted?
Vista comes with several new API sets are out of 'in theory' technology in other realms of computing, yet people look at it and think, oh, it isn't much different than XP. It looking and working as much like XP as it does is one of the things Microsoft got right with Vista.
Go read up on the Vista APIs that are not only a foundation in new technologies, but an entire new method of programming, based on some very advanced beyond 'object' programming principles.
Then take a look at the Vista WDDM. It is not just another driver model, but a new video subsystem model that goes from the hybrid kernel/user mode all the way up to the vector based composer.
If you look at the complexity of the WDDM and yet how applications, from GDI and Win32 to OpenGL/DirectX and even overlays look like they did on XP, yet are being processed and drawn by a very new engine and work virtually flawlessly it is quite a feat. As Vista isn't just taking bitmaps of the Windows like KDE is doing or OS X does, but the WDDM shoves a lot of old drawing technology through the 3D GPU, from some basic GDI functions to font rendering and even offers up the 3D GPU for decompressing bitmaps when older applications read and draw them.
Next thing to notice about the WDDM is the GPU scheduler (pre-emptive 3D), virtualization and multi-processor GPU inherent abilities that current no other OS even offers a close substitution.
I actually don't think KDE 4 is bad, and has started the open source world to push forward in thinking beyond clever code and start to think all the way to the end user.
Vista is supposed to be a workstation solution ready for every day production use right now.
It is more stable than XP, more secure than XP, easier for business to deploy (mind numbing easy even), and unless you are trying to get it to run on 512mb, outperforms XP.
Where has Vista failed in this?
I get the whole SlashDot we hate MS, but from a Window's user or business user standpoint, where does Vista fail? There are the mindless ramblings of several people's friend of a friend stories; however, outside of the 'we wish' slashdot world, most Vista users are more than happy and would fight over going back to XP.
You are not forced to upgrade to KDE 4.x, but Vista is required for some of today's games and applications because they don't run in earlier versions. This is the difference.
What games run KDE again? Short of a few desktop games, they are not running 'via KDE', therefore, how would the KDE version have any reference on this?
Vista has a new gaming API, and even in the non-DX10 area included things needed for Windows Live out of the newer networking APIs (i.e. Halo2 Vista only 'originally' release).
Outside of that, games that are Vista only are too few and far between, which is sad because game makers have pulled back full DirectX10 support and instead are delivering hybrid games that have a DX9 engine with some DX10 enhancements turned on. (XBox 360 games are closer to pure DX10 than most DX9/DX10 hybrids being released now.)
We have yet to see a DX10 game that is fully DX10, which will be Vista only.
If a game requires a 'new' version of OpenGL are you going to argue the game is bad?
The difference here is DX10 goes past the basic libraries of OpenGL and older DX9. Since, yes, DX10 does expect the OS to be Vista because it relies on the OS handling GPU scheduling, virtualization, etc.
OpenGL has no OS dependance it can rely on, and can be both good and bad. We know the good side of this, but on the bad side, the level of features or performance it can offer is limited as it can't expect anything from the OS in new technologies. Unlike DX10 that can expect the OS to handle GPU RAM for the application an
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Re:Perfect? (Score:4, Interesting)
You won't be seeing any DX10-only games for a few years.
Expect them to say "Win7" somewhere on the box, in other words.
Lots of people didn't upgrade to Vista. I didn't. It's one of the strange things about gamers -- they tend to be quick to adopt new hardware, but new SOFTWARE? Some are.. many aren't. Good lord, were you playing any Valve games when they upgraded to Steam? MONTHS went by and servers remained on the old VAC system -- people didn't want to fiddle with what worked.
Same goes for Vista. It launched and all the reports had awesome phrases like... driver issues, massive slowdown, not working, and oh can't play.
Probably only 1/4 of the guys I know who play games often, have Vista.... and some of them work for Microsoft, so that almost doesn't count.
There's also the fact that DX10 requires TWO upgrades -- a new video card AND a new OS. And not just any video card.. in order to really get any use out of DX10 for anything more than taking pretty static screenshots, it's gotta be a GOOD video card.
Very expensive.
Game companies realize this and have and will continue offering support for WinXP / DX9 until the market is saturated with DX10-able computers and video cards. It'll be a while.
Good rule of thumb? Assume someone bought a new computer 6 months before Vista was released.
When that computer plus a mid-to-top range DX9 card will need to be upgraded to play new video games, THAT is when games will start transitioning to DX10 -- though at that point they would still want DX9 support. Rather than DX9 games with DX10 support.
Game designers love new technology, sure -- but they like having an audience large enough to actually make money, too.
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Re:Perfect? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is more stable than XP, more secure than XP, easier for business to deploy (mind numbing easy even), and unless you are trying to get it to run on 512mb, outperforms XP.
More stable, unless you're running certain very common drivers. Funnily enough they're the main thing which take out XP too. I've also seen vanishingly few benchmarks where Vista outperforms XP, even with SP1; their +5% performance gains after a year of tweaking have merely served to achieve a vague parity in most situations, and in some cases they needed way more than that. And woe betide you if you have any applications which actually used all your 2GB; game memory requirements don't shoot up for Vista just for the sake of it.
Vista has a new gaming API, and even in the non-DX10 area included things needed for Windows Live out of the newer networking APIs (i.e. Halo2 Vista only 'originally' release).
Heh, did you really mention Halo 2 just there? The game which looks like it came out of the early DirectX 8 era and who's Vista requirement was quickly evaded by a small third party loader application? You don't need a new OS for a couple of networking APIs.
which is sad because game makers have pulled back full DirectX10 support
Sorry, but what did Microsoft think was going to happen? That people would flock to Vista in their tens of millions because, oh, never mind all the DRM bollocks and increased system requirements for less real world performance, it actually has a decent IO system (which you probably won't see the benefit of with a single 7200RPM drive, especially with the hilariously slow file copying for the first 13 months), more userspace drivers and a really fancy hardware compositing graphics pipeline? Lets face it, anyone who would even slightly understand what any of that means will mostly stop at "DRM bollocks".
OpenGL has no OS dependance it can rely on, and can be both good and bad. We know the good side of this, but on the bad side, the level of features or performance it can offer is limited as it can't expect anything from the OS in new technologies
Erm, it sure can depend on OS features -- in case you hadn't noticed, OpenGL is a graphics API, and the way it's implemented can take advantage of whatever OS capabilities you like. The only difference with Vista is the driver developers have to work out how to make use of the new OS GPU stuff instead of being able to deal with it all themselves. And let's not forget, this is probably the number one source of system instability on Vista. I guess it's lucky (and fairly impressive) that at least some of the crashes are all in userspace and recoverable.
don't be pissed because a new game requires the new system.
Why not? I'm not "upgrading" for one game, especially when it's not doing anything it couldn't do in DX9. I'm especially not upgrading when Microsoft try to force the issue by artificially limiting crappy games like they did with Halo 2. Sure, feel free to go make your DX10-specific wondergame, just don't be pissed when it bombs because you cut out 90% of your target market.
Vista is a much larger shove forward in new technologies and APIs than KDE.
Sure, some of it looks rather nice, and it sounds good on paper, but from a user standpoint most of that's irrelevent even if it did translate into real world improvements (much of it, seemingly, does not). About the biggest thing most people will notice is slightly smoother window handling, the need for more memory and, oh, look, another video driver crash.
Vista, to me, feels something like the Windows version of FreeBSD 5; lots of things have changed, it's been ages since the previous release, things aren't really tuned especially well, and some stuff which looked awesome on paper is turning out to be more trouble than it's worth. Whether the same applies to KDE4, I can't say; I've never really cared for the big DE's :)
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OMG (Score:5, Funny)
the point --> .
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you --> x
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Re:OMG (Score:5, Funny)
It's possible he suffers from Acute Quote Blindness, or AQB. AQB is a terrible, debilitating disease that wreaks havoc on the cred levels of online pundits.
AQB has also been linked to Broken Sarcasm Gland Syndrome (BSGS), but the research in that area is still ongoing.
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Re:That's the stupidest comment I've ever seen (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista failed to achieve the goal that MS had when designing and programming it. I'm not sure how that can be anything other than a failure. The fact that they're really having to pull the plug to get people to move on and that people will likely switch directly to Win 7 if they can will prove it. And I see no evidence that that's not going to happen.
As for KDE, make it less bloated, better modularized and make the defaults include fewer programs.
I stopped using Windows because of the bloat and the unwanted features, I'm not about to start using a desktop environment that's as bad. But, really the same could be said for gnome and pretty much every desktop environment.
And for the love of god allow some alternate way of compiling the smaller applications without KDE itself. I hate having to install both the gnome and KDE libs because there's that one program which invariably requires the other set of libraries.
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Re:That's the stupidest comment I've ever seen (Score:5, Insightful)
Kparts means that you can include practically entire programs (spreadsheets, browsers, editors) inside other programs - how much more modular can it get?
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Re:Everyone? Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Unexplained Crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unexplained Crashes (Score:5, Informative)
The article hardy complains about the crashes, it just says that you probably don't want to install it on your desktop, but try it with a live CD instead (and never mentions the crashes again). The summary, as usual, is a little misleading.
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Re:Unexplained Crashes (Score:5, Insightful)
And it certainly works for that. A released version always gets more widespread testing though, and KDE is not the only project that experiences this effect. After all, how often do you see the advice to not use a .0 release because it's buggy? That's because people don't test alpha, beta, or RC releases.
We delayed the release of KDE 4.0 for two months because it wasn't ready for release, and then debated internally (you can check our public mailing lists) before the release as to whether it should be called 4.0 or another release candidate. In the end it was judged that the known bugs were not serious enough to block release. Keep in mind that there were (and are) a lot of feature regressions which get fixed up over time. But they were not due to us designing them out, it was due to the fact that they did not get ported over in time.
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Re:Unexplained Crashes (Score:4, Informative)
So, would it be fair to say that you haven't removed any features, you just haven't gotten them all working yet? If so, that would give KDE users something to look forward to, instead of something to complain about.
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Re:Unexplained Crashes (Score:5, Interesting)
But they were not due to us designing them out, it was due to the fact that they did not get ported over in time.
So, would it be fair to say that you haven't removed any features, you just haven't gotten them all working yet? If so, that would give KDE users something to look forward to, instead of something to complain about.
Well this is my personal feeling about features/configurability:
So yes, the idea is to make things that worked before work again if it doesn't work now. Of course the usual disclaimers apply, full refund if it doesn't work, patches always accepted, help always appreciated, etc.
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Re:Unexplained Crashes (Score:5, Funny)
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only mistake. (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly don't think KDE 4.0 was a mistake beyond calling it "4.0" which led a bunch of idiots to expect something "finished", and that despite the up-front warnings that it wasn't finished.
It's a clear design improvement on 3.x in every way (though I don't particularly like or use the new desktop with its "plasmoids", I didn't like the 3.x desktop either, and the 4.x desktop can emulate it trivially - desktops widgets are just pointless, you just don't see them or the desktop for 99.9% of the time you're using the computer), it's just not stable yet.
What ars said... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080702-the-critics-are-wrong-kde-4-doesnt-need-a-fork.html [arstechnica.com]
KDE4 will get better. There's a lot of promise in plasma. Until then, 3.5 is totally usable (I'm using it now). KDE has often put forward a lot of wacky ideas just to see what sticks to the wall. Good on 'em, I say.
Look about the full KDE3 installation, you can find all sorts of ideas that never really made it. Drag and drop stuff, little file servers, and so on. Some of these things are probably in use by someone now. It's all part of KDE's great flexibility.
Re:What ars said... (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. There's a new paradigm in desktop coming and IMHO, it is worth waiting for. I, too, use KDE 3.5.8. However, I have compiled KDE 4.0.4 so that I could preview and screencast some of the programs (such as the physics simulator, Step). It's not terribly stable [but it's beta, so I don't expect it to be], but I love it.
I suspect that the rants against KDE 4 are from people who are either impatient (think of the world we live in), are complaining because they are happy with KDE 3.5 and are concerned that they will lose productivity in moving to 4.x, or simply didn't read the fine print that it's in beta at the moment.
I am also unhappy with people who have not acknowledged that the the goal posts are moving. It seems that they are not hearing the complaints against the KDE marketing machine. But the bottom line for me is that I have a usable platform until the release is stable, and I'm perfectly happy to wait until it is. Hey, I'm getting it for free.
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Not quite what I said (Score:5, Informative)
While having a story linked to on Slashdot always makes my day, the summary given with the link doesn't accurately report what I said:
-- To say that I found 4.1 "wanting" is incomplete. I say that it is a major improvement over 4.0.x, but, based on the beta, isn't likely to deliver everything people want. I suggest that, while it has faults, it may be the most innovative free desktop currently.
- I say that it crashes, not as criticism (it is a beta, after all), but to suggest that casual users might not want to spend the time compiling it, and should use a Live CD to explore it instead.
- The full context in which I call KDE 4 a mistake is: "Everyone agrees now that KDE 4.0 was a mistake. However, what the mistake was -- and whose -- is a matter of opinion. KDE developers blame distributions for rushing to include a release that was never intended for everyday use, while users blame developers for changing everything." In other words, all I'm saying is that it's causing a lot of controversy -- a fact that anyone who knows how to open a search engine can easily verify.
Trying to correct an impression that gets started in comments is difficult, but I thought I'd try anyway. So, let me spell out my opinion as clearly as possibly: I'm fascinated by the KDE 4.0 series with all its innovations (in fact, I'm using it on my laptop), but I think the KDE developers seriously misjudged user reaction, and that the software itself has a ways to go.
I don't mind in the least if people disagree with me, or even condemn me; you get used to it, after a while. However, I would prefer if they disagreed with or condemned what I actually said.
Re:Not quite what I said (Score:5, Insightful)
The full context in which I call KDE 4 a mistake is: "Everyone agrees now that KDE 4.0 was a mistake. However, what the mistake was -- and whose -- is a matter of opinion. KDE developers blame distributions for rushing to include a release that was never intended for everyday use, while users blame developers for changing everything." In other words, all I'm saying is that it's causing a lot of controversy
Err.. no. That is not at all what you are saying. If everyone is in agreement on a point, there can be no controversy on that point. Anyway, the "everyone agrees ... " statement was the most interesting part of your article and I was displeased to see that it was just grabbed out of the blue. If the KDE core devs feel that 4.0 was a mistake, getting to know why, what they think they should have done different and what they have learned would have been very valuable to know for other developers. If distributors feel that distributing 4.0 was a mistake, then I would like to know what they will do about it? Will they be more strict about upgrading to flaky libraries?
But it is extremely uncommon for developers to admit that they have made a mistake. And I very much doubt that the KDE 4.0 guys think it was a mistake. You definitely made a mistake if you thought that an "everyone agrees" statement would slip. :)
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My only problem with KDE 4.x (Score:4, Interesting)
is the incredibly slow-ass file previews. What happened? I can now open up a folder of digital camera images and have Dolphin or Konqueror preview them, and 45 minutes later it will still be working to get all the thumbnails done.
Compare to the current version of Nautilus (or the KDE 3.x version of Konqueror) that previewed more or less instantly... What gives?
Other than that, I've not had any major stability issues or gripes with KDE 4.x (I'm using Fedora 9 and have switched from the new menu to the old "accordion-style" menu.)
Not enough magic ponys yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
4 is almost a complete rewrite. It seems people have the impression that the reason all of the 3.5 desktop features weren't completed in 4.1 is because of a conscious choice. When actually, it is was just limited time. Feature freeze tends to stop the adding of magic ponys.
Re:Not enough magic ponys yet? (Score:4, Funny)
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Short Term and Long Term (Score:5, Insightful)
KDE shot itself in the foot by making the KDE 3.x so polished. KDE 3.5 is essentially 9 years of evolutionary development from KDE 1.0. Unfortunately, its impossible to recreate 9 years of development and polish in only 3. I think that the long term prospects for KDE 4.x are great, but short term I'll continue to use 3.5.
I've tried the first beta of 4.1 and while its much more functional than 4.0, its still not there and probably won't be for a few more releases. On the other hand, I remember that KDE 3.0 was, while more functional than 4.0, also much rougher than 3.5, so I can't complain too much.
A distro-timing faux pas vs a technical disaster ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The distros have had a big hand in the unpopular reception of KDE4.0.
I've been a Fedora user since Core1, followed most of the revisions, and recently upgraded to F9. I have found most all Fedora major releases to be more stable and usable than previous.
Upon installation of F9/KDE4.0, I thought something really bad had happened to my system (strange menu, taskbar screwed up, desktop icons weird). Only after some reading (yeah, should have RTFM first) did I learn it was all intentional - KDE4.0 !
Having used it for a while, I admit it has potential. Due to the independence on display resolution, KDE4 looks much nicer on my old 1024x768 laptop than KDE3.x ever did. The guts feel great, the skin is flaky (I humbly await your jokes).
But I wish Fedora (yes, I do realize that Fedora is a 'testbed' of bleeding-edge packages) had waited before including KDE4.0, perhaps giving an install option, or simply putting it off until F10/KDE4.x
Fortunately, I didn't upgrade my office machine to F9 - I would be really in a mess if I tried to used it as productively as I can with F8/KDE3.x
KDE4.x future looks bright, I'm more disappointed with the Fedora team that chose it as the only KDE desktop for F9.
KDE 4.1 has *increased* my productivity (Score:4, Informative)
I run semi-nightly builds of SVN from Project Neon [kde.org] and I can say I'm very satisfied with KDE 4.1. Compared to 4.0.x there has been a tremendous leap in features and polishing, and the new Plasma features make it better for me to work. An explanation: Plasma enables you to zoom-in and out of your current desktop. When zoomed out, you can add another desktop ("Activity") in which you can place plasmoids like the one you were using before. You can switch between them using keyboard or zooming in and then out.
What makes it different from X11's standard virtual desktops? The fact that activities are completely independent from each other. I have one set of plasmoids on my "leisure" view, a different one in my "coding" view, and yet another one in my "writing" view. In this context, Folder View is absolutely brilliant, as you are not enslaved to ~/Destkop, but instead you can view many more dirs (including remote ones: anything that KIO supports works), and you can filter for file names/extensions (there are plans to do MIME type filtering in the future, IIRC). Like that, I actually work much better than with the old desktop paradigm (I *hated* when desktops became huge and pointless dumping grounds for anything).
Some missing features have crept in since last beta, including moving the applets on the panel.
Re:Open Source Developers vs Commercial Developers (Score:4, Insightful)
One of reasons may be that they are doing it for free, in their spare time. Not eight hours a day, with their paycheck dependent on the quality of the result and with best professional artists, designers, usability specialists etc hired for big $$$ to decide what is best.
As much as we want to think otherwise, most of open source software is amateur production. Some of it is professional in means of program, but great most is amateur when it comes to UI design, art, and such.
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Re:Open Source Developers vs Commercial Developers (Score:5, Interesting)
and they still can't come up with something remotely polished as Win2k was years ago?
What is your idea of "remotely polished"? If you mean any modern Linux distro I would say that it is better than W2K. Lets start from the top...
1. Solid kernel.
2. Solid GUI base (X)
3. Solid GUI (take your pick, XFCE, GNOME, KDE, etc)
4. Lots of programs (just take a look at the Ubuntu repos)
Now look at all the things that Windows 2000 doesn't have that Linux has
1. Out-of-the-box driver support for just about everything (only exceptions are ATI/nVidia graphics cards, but some distros now include them)
2. Central package management system
3. 3-D effects
4. Support for all major filesystems out-of-the-box
5. Support for all major filetypes out-of-the-box
Your comments are nothing but trolling. Show me how Windows 2000 or any Windows is better than Linux and stop making up your "facts"
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Re:Open Source Developers vs Commercial Developers (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that's something I don't care for. Those 3D effects are quite pointless, as far as I could tell. I prefer the way OSX does Exposé/Spaces/Coverflow/Dashboard... enough eye-candy to impress, but always serving a purpose and not going too over-the-top.
Also, you forgot to mention this feature: pretty much every Linux distro out there has virtual desktops, while even Vista needs some add-on for that.
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Re:Open Source Developers vs Commercial Developers (Score:5, Informative)
Applications don't have the same Level of UI consistance as Windows. Sure Windows has a few oddballs iTunes, Windows Media Player, and Office 2007 come to mind, but most have pretty good level of consistency.
Yup, Windows is just the model of visual consistency [arstechnica.com]. Note that every application in that screenshot is a Microsoft application, so we're not even talking about third parties making a mess here.
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Re:Open Source Developers vs Commercial Developers (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's why:
1) NIMBY - If Z is a feature or program I don't use, not only do I not care about it, I don't care about whether or not it can interact properly with programs I do care about.
2) Windows-ism - Many projects now try to replicate the functions of Windows apps. But the clones and work-alikes they produce are not only imperfect, programmers also can't take the same shortcuts that the Windows developers do.
3) Real Programmers - If a program isn't hard to write, it isn't worth writing, and if you make it easy for programmers to write for a platform, especially new ones, they will only produce crap that you somehow have to deal with. Compare this with MS's "Developers developer developers" motto, or Apple's excellent dev tools.
4) Esoterism - The command line is better than graphics. Graphics, and especially graphic quality is unimportant, and studies with evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, whether an interface is cleaner or more obvious or better-looking is irrelevant. It's okay for GUI tools and programs to just be front-ends for their command-line equivalents, even if it puts unnecessary limits on the graphical version.
5) Arrogance - (related to 1) There is only one right way to do things, one language, one library, one kernel, one package, one work-flow set-up. If you do it any other way, you're wrong; if you suggest that another way is good, I must shoot you down and insult you because you implicitly threaten the validity of my worldview; if you say that there can be more than one solution to a problem, you are really saying that your solution is right and mine is wrong.
I once listened in on a conversation by some digital typographers about their work set-ups, and unlike linux-heads they were genuinely interested in the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of solving the same problem, instead of arguing over whether which was best.
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4) Esoterism (Score:5, Insightful)
It's okay for GUI tools and programs to just be front-ends for their command-line equivalents, even if it puts unnecessary limits on the graphical version.
On the other hand, there's a pretty strong argument this should always be the case EXCEPT for the tools that build the GUIs themselves.
Consider the standard menu of a program[1] where you'll find the same options from the File menu almost always as buttons in the application right under the file menu and you'll find the edit menu items in the context menu.
Point is, there are plenty of ways to display these UI options to the user. They can and should be separated from their actual implementations. This would ultimately mean that the UI can be generated according to a user's personal preferences and needs (including assistive technologies or device limitations) while the actual guts of the application stays the same.
At least, I believe this is the way forward for GUIs.
[1]
[...]
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Re:Open Source Developers vs Commercial Developers (Score:4, Insightful)
"If a program isn't hard to write, it isn't worth writing"
thats probably the most stupid phrase I have heard all year. A program is worth writing if it gets a job done that you have to do more than once; and whose total time of use and time saved is less than spent writing it. Just because an action might only take a minute doesn't mean I shouldn't have a program that could do it for me in an instant. Further; easy to write for who? the person writing the app or the person using the APP?
2. what the hell is a windows app? (as applied in your usage) I'd like to laugh at an example of a clone and work-alike. If you mention a file system explorer prepare to be slapped over the head.
Along with your whole crud on great developers make great developers. blah blah... have you heard of man pages? make? automake? tools that Visual Studio have been emulating for years; heck mac development relies on unix linux tools.. what compiler do they use? oh gcc right...
The reason windows is polished is because there is a SINGLE standard for the gui's they all have to be the same they all play with the same tool kit; same with mac. Linux gui apps often have to be written to be compatible with one of several.
Furthermore linux gui's can be user customized in a variety of ways which a BASIC user will never do on mac or windows. But more importantly windows and mac both spend a large amount of time and money (more so for mac) on their uniform gui design paradigms. They have a single ethos of how each app is expected to work; linux does not. You are free to do whatever you want. And frankly I think that on a gui side kde and gnome have been on par with linux for awhile; at least since 2005. I'm not going to get into kde4.1 because i havent used it or kde4.0; but as poorly as others have retorted you haven't expressed what about the gui was lacking. what is this mythical 'polish' you speak of?
its as vague as saying "it's not good"; well what is good?
Arrogance? ironically that describes everything that makes windows and osX themselves. there is only one real api set available, and in then end one way to do things. Arrogant people are present everywhere; the OS however is not Arrogant about it which is why you are free to choose whichever gui or lack of one that you want.
which only makes your esoterism line even more pathetic.
"Graphics, and especially graphic quality is unimportant, and studies with evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, whether an interface is cleaner or more obvious or better-looking is irrelevant." so basically lets throw out all knowledge and study of human computer interaction, human factors in design and principles of user interfaces.? You just made your whole post meaningless because it contradicts everything that you say.
Interface does matter. And if you don't think so and love command line so much, then uninstall X from your linux machine and go knock yourself out. Too bad you can't do that on a windows machine or a mac. Me I'm going to enjoy the combination of command line and GUI.
There are plenty of nonlinux heads who are arrogant too; lots of OS/2 nuts, windows junkies, etc floating around. They also exist in politics, you have conservatives, christian conservatives, etc. The one thing they tend to have in common is those people all seem to be members of the baby boomer generation.
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Re:Open Source Developers vs Commercial Developers (Score:4, Insightful)
You mustn't actually USE any open source software, or have actually contributed to any of it.
I'm not a developer, or a programmer, and I've found that most of these guys working on these projects take a lot of pride in their work. I've sent e-mails to quite a few projects and I almost always get a very favorable response. I've submit bug reports and have had them fixed in the next release.
Where else can you get that kind of user-to-developer connection?
You seem to have a lot of anger towards open source, and you think that everyone doing it is in it for some kind of glory or something. Whatever man. Go work for some slave shop like EA and leave us alone.
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Re:Shouldn't that be.. (Score:5, Informative)
Contrary to the contributor's comment, I'm saying that 4.1 *is* better than 4.0, but not as much as better as people hoped, and that, in Folder View, it introduces a new source of controversy.
I twisted the original saying to reflect my opinion.
-Bruce Byfield ("nanday")
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Re:Too bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither is all that happy, both have been looking forward to a fully usable kubuntu with the 4.1 (because it "seems more like windows"), but maybe I should begin looking into E17 for them?
Or perhaps they can stop expecting it to be something it isn't and get used to Linux as a real operating system, not "that shoddy free Windows clone" they expect it to be.
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Re:Too bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Short answer? Mnemonics.
Long version: it's easier for most people to fudge through something they vaguely remember doing by pictures than it is for them to memorize a set of arcane terminal they vaguely remember. People who do things other than program and learn Linux inside and out have all sorts of other random esoteric knowledge buried away, and there's only so much that a single person can keep in their head. These people are called end users, and frankly, if you don't understand why politely asking them to "simply" learn the terminal commands is a mind-numbingly stupid proposition, I seriously recommend staying the hell away from UI design.
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Terminal Vs. GUI (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing about CLIs is that they do anything you want them to instantly, if you know what you're doing. The disadvantage to CLIs is that, unlike GUIs, they offer absolutely no prompts - in a GUI there's always words or pictures at least labelling the buttons, even if it's just "load". Another "advantage" to GUIs is that they're "safe" - anything you want to do in a GUI requires at least 2 steps, so it's nearly impossible to do something dangerous accidentally (I'm counting loading the application as a step - in a CLI you can almost always open-and-execute-command in one step). This idea has become so deeply ingrained in people regarding computers (see: Any "hacker" in a movie, general societal impressions of 1980s supergeeks, etc). Most people are actually terrified of command prompts for this very reason - although they might describe it more as "it's confusing"/"I don't know what I'm doing here"/"What if I get it wrong and break something?". Hell, I remember being terrified of "breaking windows" the first time I opened command prompt to do something innocuous (maybe it was proper DOS back in those days though..).
/y C:\* for a GUI).
This is basically why most geeks use CLIs when they can - because it's much faster and more efficient to do something you know how to do, while most newbs prefer GUIs - it's safe, easy, faster for doing multiple unrelated things at once, and they're used to it. Personally, I'm glad that there is this mindset - I'm getting a little tired of having to fix my friends' and parents' computers, I hate to think what damage they could accidentally do if they managed to get a dangerous command out in a command line (I can't imagine them accidentally deleting everything with a GUI - there's no one-step rm -rf or del
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Re:Too bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Too bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
And so does any GUI.. they all have icons, some sort of "OK" buttons, a close button, etc.
KDE 4 is probably more different then Windows then Gnome. Just because Gnome's main "bar" is on the top, doesn't make it somehow completely different than Windows. Move the bar to the bottom, and BAM, you have a Windows-looking UI.
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Re:Still very disappointed with KDE 4 (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Aren't you aware of the Linux development paradigm that has been the rule since Linus released Linux? ... "Release Early, release often!" FOSS depends upon the users helping in the development of software, not whining about perceived or real problems.
Bruce Byfield summarized his findings with the following statement:
How stable KDE 4.1 will be when released at the end of this month is anybody's guess. But, judging from its features, the release will be a major milestone in the 4.x series. Unfortunately, it will almost certainly not be the complete answer to user discontent that has been promised. It might even drive large number of users away from KDE altogether.
Such a reaction would be misguided. KDE 4.x has many features, including the use of scalable vector graphics and natural language searches that make it the most innovative free desktop currently in development. Moreover, if you dislike some of its experiments, you can work around them with no more trouble than it takes to change your desktop wallpaper -- for instance, one of the widgets you can add to the desktop is a KDE 3.5.x menu.
That is wise advice.
Troy Unrau introduced KDE4, before the first beta was released, on Jan 1, 2007 with the "Road to KDE4" series at http://dot.kde.org/1167723426 [kde.org]
Before he resigned KDE4 to focus on his Masters in Geology degree, Troy posted the following comments:
We knew there would be some pushback to the major changes in KDE 4.0, because, believe it or not, history is simply repeating itself. KDE 2.0 was met almost exactly the same way, although open source was flying a lot lower under the public radar in those days. It took until KDE 2.2 before distros mostly stopped shipping KDE 1.1.2 and were happy with 2.x.ferent standard. Somehow though, there's still a lot of positive press about KDE out there, which means that the developers have done something right (or us Marketing guys are worth our weight in Rhodium...) and the naysayers have not killed a project they confess to love.
So my message to all the disgruntled users out there are: use KDE 3.5.x, and wait until 4.x makes you happy, or better yet, help. That's what the Mac OS users did. That's what the Apache users did. That's what our KDE 2.x users did. The software you are getting from the KDE project is free, worked on by a team of developers that actually like to use their own software. Improvements are coming fast, and KDE 4.1.0 is scheduled for July. 4.2.0 for January, etc. If you use 4.0.x, have found issues, and would like to help improve 4.1 before the release, grab the SVN version, using KDE4Daily (virtual machine image), the automated kdesvn-build script, anonsvn, and file bugs. Join the bug squashing days that are announced via planetkde or the dot. And bring a positive attitude because KDE is yours, just as much as any coder!
The hysteria in some complaints (and deliberate FUDing and astroturfing in others) is misplaced. FOSS software is not static, especially when there is a vibrant body of users CONTRIBUTING to its development (coding, testing, documenting or donations). Users who do not contribute but only complain are "poisonous users". A project grows when it has an amply supply of contributing users. Any project dies when its users are poisonous.
It is also obvious that some "complainers" are not KDE users at all. Their motives are obvious. A lot of this brouhaha has been exploited by a few bloggers trying to increase their page hits by inflammatory comments with little basis in fact.
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Re:KDE .. vs ... anything else? (Score:5, Funny)
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Hans? (Score:5, Funny)
How'd you get access to /. from jail?
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Re:Hans? (Score:5, Funny)
Tunnelling, I'd suspect.
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