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KDE GUI

KDE Gets a Mascot 150

Posted by CmdrTaco from the he-lives-by-the-sea dept.
An anonymousr reader pointed us to this Linux Today story that has the new KDE mascot. Its an unnamed rendered dragon- the lighting on some of the renders looks like it needs a bit of work, and although he doesn't beat the FreeBSD Demon, he's pretty cool. Check out dragon1.jpg, dragon2.jpg, dragon3.jpg, and dragon4.jpg. The server is really slow, so someone post a mirror?
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KDE Gets a Mascot More

KDE Gets a Mascot

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  • The noble Dragon, perfect mascot for KDE! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    At first i was a bit skeptical as to KDE's choice of a mascot. After reading the posts here and thinking about it a bit it quickly became clear why this mascot was chosen.

    1. Dragons are remarkably ugly and repulsive looking creatures creatures. Lets face it, there is nothing cute and cuddly about a Dragon. Likewise, there is nothing cute and cuddly about the KDE interface, like its dragon mascot KDE is a repulsive ugly creature. If KDE seeks to make Linux Just Like Windows Only Better! they have succeeded. KDE's interface is ugly just like Windows, only better... no BSOD. (yay)

    2. Dragons are large, overweight creatures that eat knights for breakfast. KDE is a large overweight creature that eats RAM for breakfast. I didn't think it was possible, but KDE has proven me wrong! Linux can be just as ugly, use all available system resources and be as frustrating as That Other OS .

    3. Dragons die horrible deaths by the hands of brave knights. KDE will die a horrible death by the hands of brave Gnomes. The heads of dragons make attractive trophies, which when displayed in public, is sure to attract a crowd. The crowd is already assembled in GNU square, and they hunger for dragon blood. May the best Gnome win!

    Gerek turned to leave, but the dragon called him back.
    "Do me one favour," it bade him.
    "Name it."
    "The others will forget. Humans have never wanted to believe in things of magic- dragons, unicorns, elves - but you know different. Remember me as I was."
    "I will."
    --From 'Ivory in the Blood' by Brian A. Hopkins

    -intol

  • Yes, but, maybe (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yes, the dragon was originally planned for the KDE Help Center. But some people thought it was so cute, it should be the mascot. Nevertheless, you will be able to select this dragon as your Help Assistant in KDE.

  • Resolution (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We are going to release a improved 3000x2500 pixel version of dragon1.jpg soon! :-)

    Greetings,
    Matthias

  • Now Windows needs one. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It should be a toad for windows. As in
    "Where do you want to go Toady"
  • http://jgoldsch.resnet.bucknell.edu/dragon.html

    be nice.
  • I have to wonder why these logos are in the "unstable" hierarchy. Are the images unstable? Will I crash my system if I view them?

    Or is that only if I view them under Windows?

    - Adam Schumacher
    cybershoe@mindless.com

  • Posted by Moritz Moeller - Herrmann:

    Puff has a very nice meaning in German. Next time you are around here ask everyone to teky you to the "Puff" (pronounced Poof). Bring some money.

    I heard in the USA it's legal only in Nevada?

    I like Konqui or Kate. Katie is kust too sweet. One syllable is better than two.
  • Posted by root576:

    they are here:
    dragon1new.jpg [sleepco.com]
    dragon2new.jpg [sleepco.com]
    dragon3new.jpg [sleepco.com]
    dragon4new.jpg [sleepco.com]

    tell me what you think.
    email : breatheslinux@hotmail.com
    icq: 7209870
    -Omar
  • KDE is challenging the gnome to slay the mighty dragon :)


    Who am I?
    Why am here?
    Where is the chocolate?
  • This dragon needs some larger wings if he's to truly "fly"...otherwise, he's gonna get as much lift from those puny wings as an ostrich.


    Who am I?
    Why am here?
    Where is the chocolate?
  • And please, get rid of those hovering eyebrows. I can't stand them. The body is way too small -- it looks like the neck's connected to the legs. But I do think a dragon is a great idea for a mascot. Now all we needs is a cool name for him (her?).
  • His name is probably:

    Dragon Drop

    *groan*

    --
    Get your fresh, hot kernels right here [kernel.org]!

  • Marshall Kirk McKusick owns the copyright to it, but I don't remember who came up with it, if it was he or not. He has a web page devoted to it at at his site. [mckusick.com] that may shed some light on it's history.
  • I'm thinking the KDE developers need to step away from the playstation... ;^)

    Croc is also available for PC! With a Voodoo card, it's quite fun to play. "Ka-boom!"

    If it just didn't play these guilt-inducing sequences when you fail or quit a game...

    Regards, Jochen

  • The logo is a bit "busy"---the best logos tend to be simple, yet eye catching. Gnome's logo comes to mind as being a good one. Cygnus has a nice logo, too. The Linux penguin is nice, too.

    That said, I couldn't design a logo for anything if my life depended on it. I'm definitely Gimp challenged.
  • It's awfully dark. Surely they could have improved the light source code when they rendered him.
    --
    I noticed
  • How many cute lil critters can we get dancing around the Free source software, temple?
  • While I think the head is great, I think the hands are too big, and too ugly for such a cute little face. And the body is too small, I agree with making the belly a little bigger.

    Mainly the hands bug me, though... they are scary Orcish hands or something, not a cute little baby dwagon'd hands!

    Unfortunately, I'm not an artist, merely a critic.
  • You forgot Ravi Sethi... The poor guy never gets a fair break.
  • Oops, you are right... I suck...
  • I heard (rumor, probably checking mailing lists will verify/discount) that this is going to be something similar to the paperclip, at least initially for kde's control center.

  • No no no no no.... (Score:3)

    by BadlandZ ( 1725 ) on Saturday April 24, 1999 @10:33AM (#1917843) Journal
    Sorry, this is ONE time I think SlashDot SHOULD have mirrored, or requested a mirror for something BEFORE posting it. The images are on an FTP server, so they are going to reach a maximum threshold much faster than an web server.

    Someone grab them and mirror... I'll try myself too... I am not sure if I can get them, but I'll try. This is KDE... Right? Shouldn't be any legal problems mirroring?

  • Um, how can Tux be argued to make sense?
    Linus was bitten by a fairy penguin about the time people started to discuss the idea of a mascot.
    There's also the fact that penguins look cute and cuddly until they charge you at 100mph.
  • ...that dragons are green. It's a photo realistic depiction, not some kind of cartoon!
  • Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think Kirk McKusik created it.
  • Or maybe Cutie..

    Cutie.. QT...
  • Looks rather like Spiro the Dragon, from the eponymous PlayStation game.

    That being said, not bad. Add a bit more contrast and brighten up the lighting, though, to make it look lighter and more cartoonish.
  • On the other hand, you could go with the Anne McCaffrey view. In which case they're just small, rather common, and sexually promiscuous...

  • Gah-! (Score:1)

    by Phyre ( 3557 )
    I'm tryin' to download 1.1 here!!!! I knew when the KDE mirrors were so slow, there had to be something new on Slashdot =) I do like the mascot, I think a dragon is very appropriate. I agree with some of the other posters though, it does need smaller hands and a bigger belly. On that first shot, I couldn't tell whether that was a hand, or a bizarre form of hammer attachment. Speaking of tools, maybe he could be carrying a wrench...
  • Am I the only one worried by the mention of this guy being designed as an "animated assistant" for the KDE help system?

    Does the world really need another paper clip?
  • I was going by this quote from Matthia Elter on Linux Today:

    "The idea was to create a animated assistant for the KDE Help Center but the result is so amazing that many people told me it would be nice for a KDE 2.0 mascot in general."

  • Just the dragon:

    http://david.weekly.org/kde/ [weekly.org]
    David E. Weekly (dew)

  • Exactly! I'm suprised you're the first person to ask about the model-- I'm itching to get it into LightWave (running under vmware of course!)
    Location anyone??
  • Well, Win3.x had T-Bear, though he was an internal mascot and pretty lame.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • Which renderer was this done with? I wonder if the model source would be available anywhere. Hopefully it's an open-sourced mascot like Tux is. It'd be neat to do things with this dragon, but I don't have the time or skill to do any modelling this good on my own...

    damn he's cute.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • KDE's control center thingie can scale images for you. I used it, and it looked quite good at 1280x1024.

    Now that doesn't offer the general solution, but I figure that most people who want to use the kde mascot as a backgroud are probably using KDE.

  • A name? (Score:1)

    by Scola ( 4708 )
    The real question is will it have a name, and if so what. Although there is precedence for having nameless mascots (the BSDaemon, and the Mozilla Lizard both are unnamed AFAIK), but I think the name Tux, has added something to the Penguin.

  • A name? (Score:1)

    by Scola ( 4708 )
    I kind of like Puff as well.

    I also like the proposal of katie. The dragon kind of looks like a Katie, and Katie sounds a lot like KDE.

  • A name? (Score:1)

    by Scola ( 4708 )
    Chuck? OK, learn something new everyday. Just curious, why Chuck?
  • I disagree. When I think of Green Dragons I think of Aho and Ullman, Principles of Compiler Designs. I wonder if the dragon will become Red when KDE 2.0 comes out. :)
  • First of all I've yet to hear about an animated assistant for KOffice. It wouldn't horribly suprise me, it just sounds like its a bunch of unconfirmed rumours as of right now. Second, if such a thing did exist, I'm sure it would be rather easy to disable in KOffice. The KDE is like that, rather configurable. Third, the paperclip took very few cycles. If you ever used MS Office, you'd know that it wasn't annoying because it slowed down your machine, and certainly didn't require a PIII/500 (used to run it on a Cyrix P-150+ (note: that CPU sucked)). What was annoying about it was it hard to figure out how to disable it (wasn't in an obvious place, forget now how to do that), and it had the tendency to jump into the foreground when you were trying to get stuff done.
  • Ravi Sethi is cool too. However Sethi was one of the authors of the Red Dragon book: _Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools_ but he was not an author of the original Dragon book _Principles of Compiler Design_. That was done by Aho and Ullman alone.

  • A name? (Score:1)

    by Scola ( 4708 )
    Well that's something I didn't learn in my High School German class :)

    Kate is OK, and you have a point with the one syllable thing. It looks more like a Katie IMHO, but that's me. Konqui just doesn't sound catchy enough to me, and its important for a mascot to have a catchy name.
  • ...For Win 98/NT/2000?
  • Thanks for that mirror - quite speedy.
  • most of them anyway. LJ pushes commercial software way too much. I know they need to make money, but ...
  • Like the dragon holding Balmer/Gate's head in his mouth, shaking them violently, with gore everywhere.

    Oh well, they're coming to put my restraints back on.

    Later!
  • Many people have argued that the mascot image should be simple. Others have responded that a mascot and a logo are completely different things.

    While it seems that they are using two images, the gears and the dragon, they are actually integrating the mascot with the logo creating a new logo. What this means is that the mascot will become a part of the logo.

    I agree that the images are far too busy and the different angles/lighting/movements/etc are going to be far too confusing. Even though I think a dragon would make a cool mascot for anything, why it was chosen for KDE throws me off. One could also argue that a penguin doesn't make much sense either.

    Another thing that bothered me about this mascot is that even though he's friendly and nicely rendered, he isn't looking at me! Has anyone but me felt uneasy that the dragon is looking at something we can't see?

    Also, the fourth image bothers me because of the wonderful lens flare. That's the problem with rendering logos, things tend to get a bit complex and even annoying or confusing to the eye.

    I think KDE is fine without a mascot, the gears I can dig. He is cute though, isn't he? ;)

    P.S. dragon2.jpg is my fav
  • I agree that it does look too much like Mozilla. I don't like KDE too much either but I wouldn't really compare it to what someone above said should have a mascot of a blindfolded turtle (is slow and keeps crashing into things ). It's cute, needs a bigger tummy, some more lighting, and I guess a redesign from the top. go with another mascot. I think we all want a bigger tummy on it so it will be more like Tux. -et

  • cute (Score:1)

    by NoNsense ( 6950 )
    I like the dragon. Although I do agree that the logos should be simple in nature, I dont mind this one at all. Perhaps they will just use his face for the "simple" logo.

    In any event... I give him thumbs up.

    Tron
  • Maybe they should call him Kedoh or Kedeh and pronounce it like Kedeh ... Since KDE :) KeDEh :)


    Freaker / TuC
  • MONKEYS?!? Whay blame us for troubles? he heh
    Gnome is more fun,. KDE is cute,. give them a mascot of a lady bug or something.
    One thing,. that last pic (number 4) looked a lot like the FX you get from Adobe photoshop,...hmmmm ?
  • The dragon is supposed to be a mascot and not a new logo for KDE. Their logo remains to be the sprocket & K thingy.
  • Eats all available hard disk space and memory, then explodes...
  • If I remember correctly, the cover of the Windows 95 Annoyances book has a gross-looking toad on it.

    Leave it to O'Reilly to sum up a subject in one image! :-)

  • Could someone PLEASE, just for once, not read somethng evil into KDE.

    The fact of the matter is that it is an excellent product that works as advertised. If the dragon is green, maybe it's because the creator likes the colour.
  • I bet you regret hitting the submit button.

    Seriously, did you even think about how stupid you would sound comparing a whole desktop environment with a very small window manager? I'm guessing no.
  • Dragons breathe fire, implying that they are fiery and fierce.

    Kmail froze KDE yesterday when it tried to pull mail (I had 568 messages but so what?)

    KDE has a lot of services, only some of which work. I'm sure someone can post a message saying how Kmail pulled 10000 messages in a day. Mine never even came close.

    dpkg -r kdenetwork kdeutils kdebase, etc.

    apt-get install enlightenment enlightenment-theme-clean gnome-panel gmc

    That's much better, and nicer on my eyes...

    I can't wait until gnome moves out of BETA stage. The KDE panel is nothing (and I mean nothing) like the gnome-panel. The take KDE's panel and give it the functionality of wmaker applets and you get the picture.

    KDE freezing brings down the system if you use kdm. F-that, gnome is much faster, and its usability is going way up. I'm impressed, and it's hard to impress me.

  • Hmm. Another case of not thinking before posting, right? KOffice already uses XML. If you're looking for an XML parser to use on your own, do a little searching at www.w3.org. There's expat among others. Hell, there's even comercial XML parsers if that floats your boat.

    And, as I understand it, the majority of the [Windows] PIMs out there understand VCS.
  • Go ahead, shoot your mouth off and be a coward hiding behind anonyomity, but you know what, back up your claims, or we'll all see that you are as full of shit as you really are.
  • Looks like it will be konqy or konqi.
    The pet name for the file manager konquoror.

    Stephan
  • I want some stuffed animals, and t-shirts, and those nifty squares to stick on my case! When do they come out?

  • As many have pointed out, this dragon is a not a logo, but a mascot -- much as Tux is a mascot for Linux.

    My question is: Why doesn't Linux have an official logo? (or perhaps it does but I've just missed it?)

    Chris
  • I can't be the only one who thinks this looks like "Croc" off of the Playstation. Short, stumpy, green, the bandana, 3d.... it's all there. Hrmm......
  • Go here [rahga.com]
    See, I toldya so :)
  • This is just me, but I'm not sure how great it is as a mascot.... a dragon that cute and cartoonish looks silly and nondraconic; and to show a believably fierce dragon would probably not sell well as a friendly mascot.... perhaps something else would have worked better. A cruel, evil Troll [Tech] maybe?

  • hmm , now Linux has a penguin and a dragon.. will they fight? will the penguin shoot the dragon? or will the dragon bake the penguin and eat him for dinner? (ROTFLOL)

    stay tuned ....

  • There is a KDE Image mirror being hosted at: http://www.qlitech.net/kdemascot [qlitech.net]
  • I couldn't have said it better myself. Thankyou...
  • Well the (original, not the mirrors) images are located in the 'unstable' directory... :^)

  • I like any character with floating eyebrows.
  • "effeminate", I think not.
    With the red KDE scarf and all, there is no mistaking him as a "cute little guy".
    At least that is what I see. Rather, THIS [kde.org] is what I see.

    Though I do feel that the eye brows need to be something other than just floating haloes.
  • Here is another mirror: http://www.linuxbox.org/~sean/kde/ [linuxbox.org]
  • I don't see why there needs to be any story behind it. It is cute and gives KDE a personality. Just like any other mascot does. Do you know why your highschool football team had a particular mascot? Did it matter why you had that particular mascot? When I went to college in the states our mascot was Vic the Demon which is kinda ironic considering the school originally started at as a school for nuns...
  • No offence to you Coolo, but I don't recall a vote on this yet on the mailing list. I really thing that kongi or kongy is a bad name... it makes me think of klunky! There has been some discussion and it appears that several people like this name, but there are also several other names being considered. Also, the fact that the new kfm is code named konqi I think this would be a bad idea. It would give the impression that this particular componenet IS KDE. But KDE is much more than that. The name of the mascot will have a large impact on the effect it will have on the public and I think that it is important that a name is chosen so that it is easy to remember and reminds them of something they would call a pet...

    Personally I still like my original suggestion of "Puff" :o)

  • XML (Score:1)

    by _Stryker ( 15742 )
    Koffice is using XML.
  • Didn't you read any of the other posts? This is NOT a logo... it is a mascot. Read the previous posts for a full explanation why this matters.
  • And how is Kedeh pronounced? I've already mentioned this several times, but I think it is very important that the name is easily remembered and easy to pronounce. This includes both native English speakers as well as people from other countries.
  • There are already several comments about the image saying it is too complex for a logo, or it is too for a logo... the fact is that this little guy (doesn't have a name yet) is NOT a replacement for the Gear logo used by KDE, in fact it isn't a logo at all. It is intended to be a mascot and as such does not suffer from the same constraints that a logo has.
  • I know this is like a fish going after a worm on a hook, but I guess I'll bite...

    Here is my response to your 3 points:
    1) First of all I personally don't find KDE to be ugly. The opinion of one single person, however, is meaningless, so I guess I should also mention that the 150+ students in our department that use KDE on a daily basis also like it. The majority students that we have that also run Linux at home are running KDE as their desktop.

    2) Again, refer to point 1 for a discussion of esthetics. As for resource use, I would have to argue that KDE actually does a very good job of using minimal resources for the amount of services that it offers. It obviously will consume more resources that a plain vanilla window manager, but KDE is not just a window manager, it is an entire desktop environment. It offers services such as drag and drop, integrated task bar, etc. I'm sure if you were to compare KDE with other systems with similar functionality you would see that KDE is no worse than the others when it comes to resource usage.

    3) I personally use KDE, but don't see why there needs to be a "competition" between Gnome and KDE. There is no reason why the two can not coexist happily. Variety is one of the things that makes Linux so nice to use. KDE and Gnome have different design goals and focus on different areas. By having both KDE and Gnome there is a better chance that _both_ will be better. The exchange of ideas between the two projects can only improve the situation rather than making it worse.

    Well, I probably should have just left the bait alone, but I snapped, so lets see if I get reeled in now.
  • Here is a mirror for the images:
    dragon1.jpg [kde.org]
    dragon2.jpg [kde.org]
    dragon3.jpg [kde.org]
    dragon4.jpg [kde.org]

    And in other KDE news. The first version of the KDE style plugin interface (aka Theme support) has been released. You can find more information about it here [jorsm.com].

  • Pricey package, and definitely not open-source, but there are tons of programs that can import the format ;-)
  • What does a dragon have to do with KDE? He's cute and all, but there better be a good story about some developer getting eaten by one or something. A BSD Daemon makes sense. Tux can be argued to make sense. The Orioles bird makes sense. But why a dragon, guys?

    -Chris
  • I couldn't help noticing that it is a GREEN dragon. As any reader of the Dragonlance series of books (or player of Dragonlance AD&D) will know, green dragons are EVIL.

    Are the KDE people trying to tell us something?

  • Get your pictures here [cmu.edu].
  • Right! M$ Ofice has "Clippy", the animated assistant (more wasted CPU cycles == justification to upgrade to that PentiumIII/500). Now KOffice has to have one.

    M$ Office has security holes everywhere you look. Is this also a "feature" KOffice must have before you try it? I would prefer not to let someone else flatten my hard drive.

    I suggest re-thinking this "feature" bloat mindset. It diverts CPU cycles into useless, cutsey, Bill-Gatesey garbage (like Bob) and developers' attention from useful avenues of thought and activity.
  • The remark about CPU cycles used for fluff like dancing paperclips was hyperbolic. A little extension along one axis (amount of fluff) yields a great extension along another axis (increased CPU utilization). Of course, I exagerated a little. :-)

    But just a little. Win 9x inefficencies and Office-bloat sold as many, if not more, Pentium/PentiumII class chips as applications that really needed the power.

    Yes, I've used Office. It contains nice applications covered with a thick layer of gooey (GUI?) chocolate to raise the sweetness level (cost of the product, cost of the recommended hardware) and put smiles on the faces of the users.

    By the way, have you ever used the fish scaling utility hidden in the Windows 2000 Beta 3 Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/Sports/Weekend/ FoodGathering/Beer Drinking menu? ;-)
  • A striking resemblance to Pinky of Pinky & The Brain?

  • Is it just me, or does this little "guy" seem a tad bit effeminate? I'd like to see a definite statement on the gender of the mascot, as this kinda threw me--perhaps the cute was taken too far?

    In any case, the rendering is fantastic, though it could use a little bit more light. Drop is a neat name, also.

    Kudos to KDE on finally catching up to GNOME ;^)

  • why not?

    Errr... because it's a bit derivative of "Puff the Magic Dragon"?

    --

  • I can't be the only one who thinks this looks like "Croc"

    Yep, that was my first thought. My second was that he was Croc crossed with Spyro.

    I'm thinking the KDE developers need to step away from the playstation... ;^)

    --

  • Someone above pointed out that KDE themes are now just starting to materialize, and I thought a few more people should find out about it (at the risk of /.ing somebody's website...). Before, KDE had interim theme support that let you customize the WM, background, and chose between Motif and Windoze widgets, but now it has real, GTK-style theme support. This had been a bit of an embarrassment to KDE evangelists. It still ain't easy to compile, but for now you can look at screenshots [jorsm.com] that seem to indicate that the whole theme thing is beginning to crystalize. They also show KOffice, which is even worse to compile but (supposedly) really works. And on the subject of KDE mascots, I think we need to find a name for the dragon. It should also appear in various places throughout KDE itself, maybe leaning against the window that pops up the first time you run it. And I think it would be neat if the rendered gears appeared instead of the cartoony ones in KFM, but they do look suspiciously WinNT-like (ever notice those wierd purple-and-green gears hanging out in the documentation)?

  • KOrganizer uses vCalendar natively as its file format. vCalender [imc.org] is an industry-wide open file format with RFCs.

    It is supported by many programs (see bottom of page above) including Lotus Notes, Netscape Communicator, Outlook 98, Starfish Sidekick98, and the Palm III uses it to sync up between systems.

    VCS is the extension KOrganizer uses, I take it?

  • Here are some more mirrors for y'all.

    dragon1 [icehouse.net]

    dragon2 [icehouse.net]

    dragon3 [icehouse.net]

    dragon4 [icehouse.net]

    Hope you like them

  • Now that KDE has one. Perhaps windows can get one. Maybe a blindfolded turtle. It's slow and keeps crashing into things. But I do like the little dragon for KDE.
  • I think Khaos would be a kick ass name for the new KDE Mascot.

    Obiwan

  • So, what level is it, how much exp does it give, does it have any gold and do you get dragon steaks when it finally goes TU? *slurp*

  • eh... (Score:1)

    by virid ( 34014 )
    the bandana has to go...

  • Exactly my feelings! This is what I posted at linuxtoday:

    ------

    No offense to the artist, as it is clearly a very good rendering, but the dragon just doesn't inspire me -- there's nothing unique about it. I've seen dozens of characters just like him. The idea of a mascot is you see it and you think abou the product (or whatever). I see the dragon and I think about all kinds of children's stories.

    It seems like the KDE character has to be something with a bit more "ummmph."

    - Scott

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