KDE Running on Mac OS X

GeoffP writes "AppleTalk Australia is running a story on running KDE on Mac OS X. For those that don't know, KDE is a graphical desktop environment used to access your computer's files. Finally, Mac users have a free (as in speech) approach to their filesystem."

news ?

[Tsiangkun]

*yawn*

I guess I should write up my tutorial on how to run fluxbox on OS X, and my follow up, setting environment variables to allow Terminal.app to interact with the X server.

Re:STUNNED!

[commodoresloat]

It's pretty bad. I had KDE running on my OS X system back under 10.2; how is it news now? For a while I was just logging in to >console and starting kde so there was no OS X -- but I came to my senses and now I use OS X exclusively. Either way though it's not news -- this artiKle is Komplete Krap.

Re:Erm... Why?

[fiftyfly]

Ummm... If I wanted to run KDE, why would I buy a Mac? I mean I love my Powerbook, but I know the Pentium M systems are faster, cheaper, and (if my experiences are the rule not the exception) more reliable.

Simply put... you wouldn't. At least not what the poster is sugesting. OTOH running something like konqueror natively without an xserver (not yet possible) would rock as the finder simply sucks.

Re:Good article

[boaworm]

Well, you could run the X-server rootless, and integrate KDE applications with your Aqua ones. That's pretty useful from time to time, you can run Konqueror, Kopete, Koffice, KMail and such.

Why you would want to do like in the article, run X in a small window, is hard for me to understand though...

Fink and DarwinPorts

[Mechcozmo]

http://fink.sourceforge.net/faq/relations.php?phpL ang=en [sourceforge.net]

That's pretty much a summary. DarwinPorts is just like Fink essentially, just minor differences. Ironically, the KDE port is mentioned in the comparison of the two. (Bottom of page)

Re:WHY?

[Fred_A]

Um, well, I might be in a minority there, but I find KDE (or Gnome for that matter) to be much more comfortable to use than the Apple UI.

I use my iBook daily nowadays, and the interface on my other machines is much more comfortable. Now the Apple interface is much nice than Windows, but I still like the X based ones better. Just being able to send a window at the back, or having sloppy focus... Or proper virtual desktops (although the little gadget that adds that on the Mac does help quite a bit). In the end it's probably a matter of taste and of what I'm used to.

And I do use quite a few X based apps on my iBook (on top of a few native apps) so being able to log directly into KDE every now and then would make things simpler (if only so that the top menu and the bottom dock didn't obscure the interface). I probably wouldn't make it my default interface though because it's unlikely that it would be as well integrated as the native one.

Re:Erm... Why?

[megaversal]

http://wiki.befunk.com/tiki-index.php [befunk.com]

They say it's pre-alpha level code, but I did try it (ages ago). I know a friend who switched from Linux to a Mac, but still starts up X + KDE just to use KMail to check his mail. It would be nice to see more KDE apps running natively.

Useless Info

[fbnas]

I've been using Mac OS X(.3) since January, which isn't too long (considering this is my first mac), and coming from a Linux/Windows background (and more CLI-inclined), I naturally was busy playing around with the Darwin aspect of the OS.
Then I tried to make my iBook boot like Linux and run Gnome and all that. 2 weeks after I bought the laptop, I accomplished that. Then I got bored... The Mac OS X interface is way sweeter and much easier to use. And I realized that all my attempts to truely crash Mac OS X (the graphical environment) weren't very successful. So besides the interface being sweeter, it's also more stable than KDE or Gnome (from my experience) on the iBook.
So besides the fact that the article is old news, I can't imagine it being of any use to run KDE on Mac. Of course, that's after I tried it, so then again for the curious, maybe it is worth it. But if you're curious enough, then I'm sure you've already tried it... Hence: Useless post... And the LAST thing I expected to see on slashdot... But then again...

(Had to say something)

Re:Goody?

[m50d]

RTFA, the programs are running locally. True, all it basically shows is a) OSX can get a working X and GNU tools and b) KDE really is independent of the underlying OS and only relies on X and some GNU tools, as has always been its aim, but it's impressive and useful. Since it's still using X it's not really any better technically than the port of KDE to Solaris, but I think this will mean more to more people.

Re:Hasnt anyone tried out the latest Enlightenment

[lightyear4]

..how does enlightenment push an envelope? Simple. It puts some complex and attractive eye candy where, for all intents and purposes, it was never meant to be. That is to say, it pushes the limits for X11 and the unices. X11 was designed as an extremely lightweight graphical windowing system for terminals over a network, not for graphics intensive aqua-esque-sexiness. For unix users who have lived for years in minimal graphical environments, its a very new development. Apple struck a home run with Aqua using brand new innovations, yet Enlightenment accomplishments are on running on top of a 25 year old graphics subsystem. Interesting in context, dont you think?

Re:Reasons for using KDE/Gnome on OS X w/Finder

[Cloney]

Don't even get me started on the Finder's utterly, utterly useless "alt-tab" - what a pointless piece of crap. You simply _CANNOT_ switch windows with it, only applications! Great, you can switch focus to the most recently used window in one app or the most recently used window in another, but there is NO FUCKING WAY you can change amongst those app's windows without using the mouse and going to the "window" menu or using "expose" (all involve several distracted seconds on that bastard touch-pad mouse thing).

Try Apple+~ to switch between windows of the open application. Also, calm down, and drink less coffee. Finder is a bit of a mess, but the Apple-Tab is fantastic, simply for being able to Apple+Q to quit applications without giving them focus.

Re:Reasons for using KDE/Gnome on OS X w/Finder

[micilin]

Don't even get me started on the Finder's utterly, utterly useless "alt-tab" - what a pointless piece of crap. You simply _CANNOT_ switch windows with it, only applications

You're not supposed to switch windows with it: Command-tab to switch applications. Command-` (i.e Command- backtick) to switch windows in the foremost application. And they're changeable in the System Preferences, as is every key board shortcut IIRC, even some application specific ones.

Your points about inconsistency in the Apple interface are valid, and a sore point to the pre-OS X purists (I'm kind of one of them, but OS X now gives FAR more than it ever took away compared to OS 9,8,7,etc.), but RTFMH (Read the fine mac help), or buy a book.

Re:Erm... Why?

[megaversal]

I think it renders fine in my Firefox, but that's neither here nor there.

If you do a Google search with words like: native, kde, osx (and/or "os x") you get various matches. Here's one. The links from here have a bunch of screenshots: http://dot.kde.org/1073009304/ [kde.org]

Re:Erm... Why?

[cgenman]

Your experiences are the exception. While apple desktops are comparatively expensive, apple laptops are actually a good deal. PC notebooks are getting milked for as much money as possible by system builders to make up for the razor-thin margins on the desktop... Expect to spend 1-2.5k on a PM notebook, which is basically the same range as Apple's iBook/PowerBook line. I've seen a lot more problems with stability on PC laptops, but I generally see the lower end (1k models) or the experimental end (sony's Vaio). But iBooks are generally rock solid.

Linux-on-Powerbook is actually quite really popular. Tons of sysadmins and programmers buy iBooks and replace OSX with Debian (or red-hat, or install-of-choice). I'm guessing this has to do with the power architecture being the same as that of some of IBM's servers. Or maybe they just like the hardware. Either way I'd guess that half of friend's iBooks are running already running Linux.

Re:Totally off-topic

[SeanAhern]

Nice. So what did you use to capture the quicktime in the first link?

Re:Good article

[The Infamous Grimace]

I have added 4 links to the Finder toolbar (not sidebar) - 'bin', 'sbin', 'private', and 'usr'. But that doesn't let me browse to '\Volumes\some_connected_ipod\iPod_Control\Music\' . Perhaps a folder action would do the trick.

(tig)

Re:Good article

[Midnight Thunder]

the problem with the way osx does ftp though, at least through finder, is that it mounts it as a filesystem, and when the remote ftp site goes out to lunch it sometimes takes osx with it

This actutally a big issue that needs to be fixed on MacOS X, and it is not just limited to FTP. Any network mount that goes off-line causes the Finder and any other open/save dialogues to block. In certain cases I have been gone 15 minutes and I still see the color-wheel spinning.

brought to you by the old-fucking-news dept.

[dionysian.mind]

Hrm... this article seems like old news -- I have been doing this since my brand-new 700mhz iBook on OS X 10.1. What's even better, that I didn't see when I skimmed through the article, is that you can drop OS X into console mode by entering the user >console at the login screen, with no password -- log in to the console and issue the 'startx' command. No more aqua, just kde (or gnome)...

This is kinda useful on the new iBooks that would like to run a more linux-y interface, but still want wireless support (the airport extreme cards use a closed-source broadcom chip-set that will never be opened due to FCC regulations). You can just run your qt / gtk programs in your respective window manager and run all the programs you can either find on fink, or anything else you can get to compile correctly (good luck). Obviously the down-side to this is that you can't run an OS X apps, but if you just log out it will throw you back to the OS X log-in screen.

What I would really like to see (calling out to the talended /. developer community) would be a way to initiate sessions on OS X, so that the ctrl-alt-F* would give you a different session -- one running quartz/aqua, and one running Xfree86/Xorg. Say hello to the best of both worlds -- the window manager of your choice right at your finger-tips!