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KDE GUI

KDE 2.0.1 is out 161

Posted by HeUnique from the bugfix-release dept.
KDE 2.0.1 is out. Announcement is here and a summary of fixes is here. You may also want to look at the FAQ before you install it. Lots of bug were fixed (specially to Konqueror). Binaries are available for RedHat (6.x and 7.0) and SuSE (6.4, 7.0, and 7.0 Sparc) as well as the usual tarballs. Japanese users may want to install the Japanese translations which have been added to this release. Any comments from people about Konqueror?
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KDE 2.0.1 is out More

KDE 2.0.1 is out

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  • Has anyone had experience using Konqueror without the rest of KDE running?

    One annoyance I had with 2.0 were the number of kdeinit/kio processes started up with Konqueror, that would persist even after it was terminated. (Which also made memory usage comparisons with NS4 a rather tricky affair)

    Aside from that, the deluge of debugging messages and inability to display local directories turned me back to NS4, but I'm willing to give Konqy another go at it...

  • Strange things seem to happen with optimalization (Score:4)

    by Idaho ( 12907 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:41PM (#579500)
    What I consider strange is that many people are complaining about instability of (especially) KWord and Konqueror.
    I have tested many of the beta's and RC's myself and they generally worked better than the 2.0 release.

    However, to compile 2.0 release, I used pgcc with -O6, which produces highly optimized code but *may* not work in all cases. A large project like KDE, which takes a day to compile even on a dual celeron system is very likely to trigger bugs in only half-decent, just-apply-this-patch-and-it-should-work-compilers

    And indeed I encounter many more crashes then before. This time, I'm going to reinstall my old gcc version (I believe it was gcc 2.95.1) and just compile with -O2 (the default) and see how it works out.

    I mean, highly optimized is cool and all, but it's also great if it actually *works*!

    I suspect that many people have used very 'new' and untested compilers because in the slashdot thread just after release there was much discussion about that (which is why I tried to do it :)

  • hey terrific... sort of (Score:3)

    by scrytch ( 9198 ) <chuck@myrealbox.com> on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:41PM (#579501)
    Good thing I didn't waste time with the kde2 freebsd port. Now I get to download the whole ball of wax for 2.01. Over a 56K modem. 56K if I'm lucky. I just do not get it, I update the OS with cvsup, I update the ports collection with cvsup ... why can't I get one single PORT that updates with cvsup instead of downloading the WHOLE damn set all over again? This is the same beef I have with rpm's.

    --
  • >I usually compile both XFree 4.0 and the kernel with -O6 (and with -fexpensive-optimizations) using GCC version 2.95.2, and havent had any problems at all so far.

    The above poster was compiling with pgcc, which optimizes very aggressively, periodically breaking code. In the general case, I would not call pgcc a very usable compiler. It is *definitely* not meant to compile the Linux kernel. For particular purposes, it may be worth using, but I think a lot of the performance gap between gcc and pgcc has been closed in recent releases.

    And, if I recall, gcc treats all -O values above 3 the same. So, -O6 will produce the same code as -O3. Actually, that may have changed since egcs remerged, but if so I haven't heard about it...

    --Lenny
  • At least Windowmaker is more than a Window manager, or can be.

    How so ? I thought it was approximately a Window manager. That's what the Windowmaker homepage says.

    This is true, but it is really not possible to use some of Kde's best features without also using Kwin.

    The basic desktop stuff (taskbar, session manager, etc) is sort of like an extension of kwin. But KDE is much more than just kwin and friends. It's an application development framework upon which one can develop usable applications, and an application suite that uses that framework. The Window manager (and friends) is just a small part of KDE.

    It's all right for people to think of Kde as a window manager.

    KDE is not even close to being a Window manager, and those that mistakenly believe that KDE is a "window manager" project are a mile from the mark. It sort of reminds me of the three blind men and the elephant. One man uses kwin and says "ah-huh! KDE is very much like a Window manager". The second one is shown koffice by a KDE fan, and says "so that's it! KDE is sort of like Microsoft Word". Another man attends a seminar on component programming where DCOP is mentioned, and concludes that KDE is a CORBA replacement.

    Actually, the last two characters are fictional (but are invented to expose the short-sightedness of the first), but the first one is very common.

  • so... u can run blackbox on anything. come to think of it.. twm and fvwm work on anything. haha
  • If you want to run a blotted window manger that runs everything for you, why not just run windows. There are other good WM's out there. Nice little packages that dont take all of your computer memory to run. Try Blackbox.
  • You know... the plugable-tweakable desktop environment that's been arround for YEARS.

    You should see mine, it's quite pretty.
  • Now that it appears you cannot use the KDE environment without the KDE window manager, I would really like to see some simple fixes to the window manager. They copied some of the most annoying bugs off of Windoze and it would really help if these were fixed:

    If double-click is going to maximize the window, please wait until the second click is released, and don't accept it as a double click if the mouse is moved more than a trivial amount since the second mouse-down. This is NUMBER 1 ANNOYING BEHAVIOR of the Windoze and KDE interface! PLEASE FIX IT! The reason is that if you click a window to the top and then decide to drag it, the push to drag it maximizes the window.

    There is no way to configure it so that you can move the window with the left mouse button without raising it, yet allow you to click the left button and raise the window. This behavior is common in most X window managers and is really good.

    Please set the default so that clicking in a window's contents does not raise it! This very annoying behavior of Windoze makes it impossible to make multi-window interfaces that are usable (and results in bastardizations like "MDI" and tiled windows). If this default was changed I think we would see some innovative user interfaces come up for KDE that we won't see on Windoze. Although this can be set, as a software developer I would really like to see the default changed so that I can assumme this in my GUI design.

    Thanks, thats all for now.

  • Does KDE run well on the BSDs?

    Initially the installation was pretty clever. The fella doing that port missed some of the configs like GIF support and such for QT. A lot of that has been fixed up now, and the installation is pretty much working as well as MouseDown has stated. It is quite a long compile since nobody has posted binaries for any of the BSD's.

    I've got this on a k6-450, and it runs really sweet. Konqueror has been working great, and looks a LOT better than NS. KNodes, the Usenet reader, looks to be a nice app, but crashes a lot under KDE 2.0. Supposedly this has been corrected for 2.0.1 though.

    In short, if you're looking to get a desktop environment going on a BSD box, I'd highly recommend KDE 2.0 for ya. Been all good stuff so far under FreeBSD 4-Stable.
  • I have been using KDE2 for some time now on my FreeBSD box, and I like it. Although I had to wrestle with kdm to get it working, and konsole still dumps core, the suite is quite decent on the whole -- especially with Konqueror. I've used it to do a bunch of web surfing, and the results are good:
    • It hasn't crashed on me once
    • It seems to be faster than Netscape
    • It seems much less bloated than Netscape
    • Minimal rendering errors.
    What amazes me is that the whole KDE project has gotten 2.0, which represents a relatively gigantic amount of progress over 1.x, together so quickly. Whatever magic they're doing, I hope they keep doing it.

    --
    SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
  • Nice manuvering.. I suggest changing "flaimbait" to "insightful" on this one!

    The GNOME project was IMHO originally created for the sake of legal issues with QT. KDE's decision to use QT instead of GTK is really strange in all accounts, but when you look at historical matters, GTK was just a small hack of a TK used in the Gimp back when KDE was designed, and even more to the point, KDE is written in C++, and whereas GTK is written in C, it is a real challenge to find anything in it! (belive me, I've tryed!)

    KDE has evolved from a nice friendly look combining the best from MacOS and Windows into a Semi-automatic road-hog that kicks ass in every way. It still bears a resemblance to Windows, but it is so superslick nowadays that you can hardly notice with a nice theme and a few modifycations.

    In KDE 1.x my biggest asthetical concerns were based on the uglyness of QT. But as of QT 2.0 everything is cool, and I for one am flaberghasted by the results.

    Remarkable effort on behalf of the KDE team!

  • THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU... finally someone else on this with a brain. and yes kde and gnome are both ugly and slow. my previous post says basically the same thing as this. and the problem with all u kde/gnome fanatics, is that u really can't see anything besides kde/gnome. "oh no they took my task bar"... "where are my icons"... why do i get a menu when i click on the desktop"...enlightenment is by far one of the best looking window managers i've ever seen. oh and someone said "kde is not a window manager".. hello... kwm is the default on it. that's the one they expect you to use. qt is slow as hell anyway. and they still aren't innovative. they still suck and are extremely slow.

    Tres|Status
  • The Start Menu didn't come from OS/2. The taskbar didn't come from OS/2. The only thing you could argue that came from OS/2 was tabbed dialogs, and the Microsoft implementation was just plain better than OS/2 (for v3 and before).

    Lots of things look similar between Windows and OS/2, but that makes sense because they were both originally developed to have an similar interface to each other by Microsoft..

  • The latest HelixGNOME, however, runs quite slowly

    Looks like someone forgot to tell my computer about this, I'm running Helix on my P133 with 48M of RAM, no external cache, and an old S3 Trio video card, and it's running quite nicely... I've had to turn off some of the extras like sound and animation, but overall it's running good.

    It's not as fast as the blazingly-fast Enlightenment (which doesn't deserve its reputation of being bloated anymore - it's almost as fast and lean as Blackbox), but I quite like Helix - it's much faster than KDE2 on my machine, which is mainly to do with the fact that it eats less memory.

    Just to prove that I'm not completely bashing KDE, I have to say that Qt is a much nicer toolkit than GTK, especially now it's GPLed.

  • Lately KDE 2.0 has been locking up everything for me. It seems to crash if I don't touch the mouse for about 5 minutes. Alt + SysRq + combos don't even work.

    --
    You don't become a failure until you are content with being one.

  • For a fellow Zappa fan:

    KMenu -> Panel Menu -> Configure -> Menu Editor...

    There's a bunch you can't remove, unfortunately, like bookmarks, etc.

    Myself I usually avoid the menu altogether and make icons for commonly used apps. If I use something a lot I drag the icon to the panel. For many things I simply hit Alt-F2 and start typing the name of the app I want. The autocomplete is cool. I use Netscape only when necessary and a simple "Alt-F2 n " will run it much quicker than any menu. I find myself also hitting "Alt-F2 im " to load up imwheel as well and "Alt-F2 kp " to manage processes when Netscape freaks out.

    What I really miss is KDesktopViewer from KDE 1, which placed a little icon in the tray which produced, on mouse click, a simple menu containing all of the entries from my desktop. I imagine you'd like that as well.
  • The Konqueror is excellent in general. It just needs a little fine tuning in a few small HTML rendering glitches and Java/Javascript support. KOffice looks great, but is in very serious need of improvements functionally. The table's work very strangely--it's not user-friendly or practical. It doesn't import anything other than its native format and can't even export HTML or RTF. You think, being in an XML form on the most popular Webserving platform on Earth, it could at least export a web page. But it has good infrustructure--I just don't see it as a complete product. It's not useful in any practical sense yet. When it is, it'll be worthwhile to start writing wizards. --Matthew

  • Re:On Konqueror (Score:3)

    by scrytch ( 9198 ) <chuck@myrealbox.com> on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:48PM (#579517)
    > The HTML rendering engine needs work in some places, but people should keep in mind that this is the KDE file browser.

    Not so, Konquerer is the KDE generic browser. As in it is able to select and view arbitrary content via a variety of access methods. The file listing component need have nothing to do with the HTML renderer -- and probably shouldnt, since I much prefer a column/graph component for managing large numbers of files.

    I'm not terribly enthused about having to do a whole damn make world just to get a version of OpenSSH it'll be happy with tho...

    --
  • hopefully konqueror will support https by now so I can bank online too.

    Konqueror already supported HTTPS in 2.0. However if you are compiling it yourself you need have openssl installed before you run configure. More info here [konqueror.org]
  • Any comments from people about Konqueror?

    I'm using it right now...

    I haven't had much time to mess with it, as I just got kdebase-2.0.1 compiled, but I can say I haven't had any problems for the last 1/2 hour or so...

    I'm hoping the annoying "won't let go of a previous URL no matter what you type in" bug is gone, and I'm hoping there's a bit more javascript support (the only two complaints I've had with it since the the later beta versions and on). I notice it still doesn't seem to support "javascript:" URLs.

    I now use Konqueror for nearly all of my browsing. I generally only switch back to Netscape 4.76 when I need support for a javascript feature that's not supported in kjs (and/or khtml?) or when Konqueror wouldn't let me go to the page I wanted (due to the aforementioned "won't let go of URL" bug which I suspect is probably fixed in 2.0.1).

    Other than that, in regards to KDE2 as a whole, the only other real complaint I have is that I can't get kmultimedia to compile properly from source. (Specifically, kmidi throws up a bunch of errors [e.g. "playlist.cpp:49: conflicting types for `class KApplication * thisapp' "] and dies. everything else seems to compile okay...though lately I've been getting "bad MD5 cookie" errors trying to run Kaiman on one of my systems, and I don't know why....)

    Ah, the joys of compiling everything myself. Since it won't compile of my machines that I've tried it on recently, but I haven't seen anyone else complaining about it, I figure it's something I've done with my setup, and therefore not really a KDE2 problem anyway.

    Does anyone know of a good place to see what aspects of the DOM and which javascript functions have been implemented so far? I haven't noticed anything in the "CHANGELOG" files...


    A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
  • That's details, and UNIX programs fail here too. At least MS Windows widgets LOOK the same, that can't be said for NIX programs. Also, I think the ideal way to handle this is to take the issue out of the developers hands entirely. Developers have no rights, they should not decide shortcut keys for apps. They should simply register various events, and allow the user to pick the shortcuts. There could even be a standard set of events so "shortcut maps" could be installed on the system.
  • KWord (at least the one shipped with Mandrake 7.2) has incredibly annoying flaws in selecting text. After you select a block, pushing delete or backspace will not delete the block - you need to use "Cut" to do that. Also, if you push backspace or delete, the text will appear to remain highlighted but is actually not. This does not become apparent until you force the window to refresh. Plus, I can't figure out how to permanently (i.e. between sessions) turn off all those annoying toolbars! Along with its tendency to crash, these problems make KWord unusable. You may unfortunately have to stick with StarOffice as I did.
  • Oh I know, I'm not knocking it - in fact, I'm sure KOffice will eventually become an outstanding product. Konqueror hasn't been around long at all, and in my opinion it already far surpasses both Netscape and Mozilla in many ways. I'd bet that fairly soon it will become the browser of choice for Linux (it's already mine).
  • I was trying to figure this out myserlf, but I haven't had much luck. I assume it's detailed in some configuration file somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. Same for the QT widget themes - I can't find the config files anywhere to mess around with. Actually I'll check bugs.kde.org and if it's not there I'll wishlist it for the future (2.1, 2.2, ..?)
  • Interesting.... My crappy hardware consists of a Pentium MMX 200 with 48Mb RAM. And Helixgnome seems to run faster than KDE2, especially if you have more than one or two apps running.

    I guess that KDE2 uses more memory than Helixgnome, so if you have less than 64Mb RAM this will slow it down because of the high swap space usage.

    So it really depends on exactly what crappy hardware you have as to which DE will work better for you.
  • I, too, am now using Konqueror as my primary browser. I still have to keep netscape around for one or two websites, sigh...

    I have a few problems with java (perhaps I need to switch to kaffe), and some wierdass layouts that some web "designers" love cause it fits, but overall it's great.

    My main criticism is with the separation of the KDE desktop from the browser. I used to use kfm in WindowMaker or icewm to get a lightweight but vey flexible setup.

    I like it the way it is now better. With kfm, I can't use it as a file browser without the desktop icons appearing on my Windowmaker desktop, and KDE icons clash horribly with the Windowmaker look. Now I can use Konqueror (as I am right this instant) as simply a file/web browser, with no desktop to get in the way. Throw on the kstep theme and it fits right in.

    (Of course, I normally use KDE as my primary desktop, but I still switch over to Windowmaker occasionally, since it still beats all others in the aesthetics department)
  • I hadn't noticed that it wasn't happening when I turned the 'buster off.

    Again, considering how many things it does right that the major browsers make ugly, I'm not complaining.

    Boss of nothin. Big deal.
    Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

  • This is the best there is in all enviroments because if you are doing some gui programs and something gos wrong it gives you a back trace which will help you point out the bug or in some other way :)
  • I didn't have any of these problems with KDE on FreeBSD. Of course, I use the ports so it wasn't I who had to configure a linux-centric suite into a non-linux environment. (KDE is getting over this centricity problem, but it's still there in spots) The only BSD related problem I had was with the konsole segfault bug, which is supposed to be fixed in 2.0.1.

    I especially didn't have any boot block problems.
  • KWord definitely sucks

    Well, yeah... But KWord and the rest of KOffice are still beta software.
  • No, that is the interface. The interface is not how things look, it is how things are done in the program. User Input. Pictures are secondary. If we have toolbars in multiple apps that is great, but if they arent the same and the menus arent the same and the keyboard commands are not the same how can you possibly call it a consistent interface? Oh and the example of Acrobat is way off too. Of course when I go to a site and click on a pdf and the acrobat plugin loads it looks a lot like Acrobat, to my great surprise. But how similar is the acrobat interface to the Explorer interface? Beyond the fact that both have toolbars, menus, and hotlinks, none. The menus and toolbars and keyboard shortcuts are not the same. One of these days we will have apps with consistent interfaces on x86, but Microsoft still doesn't get it. Apple did it but only by taking control away from programmers. We could try to do it in Linux but it would require an effort on everyone's part to conform to a standard. By the way why do people want a File menu in every freaking window?
  • Sure, everyone gets excited with the x.0 releases, but the peeps in the know, realize that it is the following x.0.1 or x.1 releases that are stable and feature filled.
  • I'm the biggest KDE fan, but why is this even a slashdot article? This is a minor bugfix release. Will there be another KDE article next month for 2.1? Let's not smother a good thing with too much trivial reportage.
  • I have especially noticed that with the newer versions of KDE(2), it is getting to the point where my mom and sisters could actually use it instead of windows. BillyG was right when he decided to integrate components together, he just did it for the wrong reason. Congrats to the KDE team, keep up the good work!

    ---
    Question authority, but raise your hand first!
  • I had the same problen in RH 6.2 and 7. sndconfig said 'core dumped... segmentation fault' so I went back to my old SB16 which worked. I finally resolved it by installing Mandrake 7.2 and it was like opening the door to a new world. Great distro. 5 or 6 mouse clicks in sndconfig and the music played with my Sb 64... plus KDE 2 and a trillion apps. If you're a newbie you'll like it. I've been running linux since RH 5 and I do. $3.99 at cheapbytes.com
  • when does KDE Me come out?


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • One thing that bothers me about Konqueror is that it doesn't have a setting that allows people to use single or double click when browsing files. Well, I rather "browse" files using the shell in an xterm/kconsole, but when using a filemanager I rather use double clicks.

    / The Arrow
  • I've only got two things I need in Konqueror to be able to ditch Netscape: java support and ssl support (one of my mail accounts has an https:// address).

    So far, using a vanilla RH 6.2 host, Java applets appear in a separate window, if they run at all.

    In order to get the 6.x RPMs to install, I also had to download an openssl rpm from rpmfind. I then tried to access a secured site, but it returns with the error: Unknown host (the server is up, since I can reach it from Netscape).

    Is it a matter of getting the sources and configuring the setup by hand, or am I missing something?

    Recommendations for the best choice of JDK are also welcomed.

  • I tried to install KDE 2 on Mandrake 7.1 from downloaded RPMs (took me a couple of days), and soon found myself in RPM hell. With my slow modem connection, I decided to save myself more work and ordered the Mandrake 7.2 CDs. Came up beautifully! Konqueror works great, though KOffice still has some stability problems.

    My gripe: I just went to look at the KDE 2.0.1 upgrade, and found I wouldd have to download everything again! I don't know if it's possible, but it would have been nice to just be able to grab the changes. At this rate, I'm going to wait for KDE 2.1 -- should be just around the corner [kde.org].

  • Windows you, bitch.
  • i write this using konqueror and icewm. this kdeinit processes are indeed nasty and konqueror together with this processes is not much less memory hungry than any other browser. but it's still fast and clean, so i prefer it to any other browser at the moment. btw, someone said to me that they already included a counter for the kdeinit processes in current cvs, so that they will quit if konqueror is terminated. this is a nice step forward, but it's still a waste of memory :(

  • Has anyone had experience using Konqueror without the rest of KDE running?

    I run a fairly Frankensteined setup. WindowMaker and kpanel, with esd to manage sound. I prefer many Gnome apps to the KDE equivalents but can't stand the amount of space the Gnome panel takes up (it seems to be built to be big: kpanel seems to be designed to be thin and simulate the Win9x taskbar as much as possible.)

    I run KDE2 apps without issue. Konq is the main reasons I went and got KDE2. Now I'll be upgrading for more Konq stability (it already is pretty good and *fast*) and to try out a few more KDE bits and pieces.

    One project on my list is a wharf app which eats KDE and Gnome panel items. (more KDE than Gnome though) -- I hate the panel along the bottom but absolutely love the systray-like features it provides. I figure storing 9 16x16 icons and using the wharf icon corners (upper left and lower right) to page between them would be best. And perhaps have the panel icons which changed status pop up to the top of the pile too.

    Hmmm... I think I just wrote my spec. :-) And to think the only real reason I want it is a) to get rid of the panel and b) to put my kicq flower on all virtual destops.

  • Has anyone had experience using Konqueror without the rest of KDE running?

    Works fine for me, in WindowMaker and icewm.

    One annoyance I had with 2.0 were the number of kdeinit/kio processes started up with Konqueror, that would persist even after it was terminated. (Which also made memory usage comparisons with NS4 a rather tricky affair)

    Those shouldn't be using a major amount of memory. The current CVS (2.1) now has a fix to keep the KDE processes from persisting after they're no longer needed, although I find having to keep restarting kded is more of a nuisance than the old situation was.

    Aside from that, the deluge of debugging messages and inability to display local directories turned me back to NS4, but I'm willing to give Konqy another go at it...

    Didn't display local directories? Unless I'm misunderstanding you, something is broken, then. That's its primary job. As far as the messages go, either send them to /dev/null or just add Konqueror to a desktop menu in whatever WM you're using.

  • I hate that "previous URL" bug too... Didn't see anything about it in the list of changes (looked in khtml, too). What creeps me out is that it actually sends fully malformed requests to the wrong server - meaning that the administrator of the domain at the stuck URL sees what page you were looking for somewhere else!

    There is a workaround; delete and retype the last character, hit enter. Works for me.

    I'm looking forward to increasing stability; even when I'm using WindowMaker in general, Konqueror has become my browser of choice.

    Boss of nothin. Big deal.
    Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

  • I thought it was krashing, not crashing....

    well, doesn't matter as long as it worcs...


    --
  • Not so, Konquerer is the KDE generic browser. As in it is able to select and view arbitrary content via a variety of access methods.

    True -- my point wasn't what it is as much as what it isn't. It isn't a dedicated web browser project.

  • I usually compile both XFree 4.0 and the kernel with -O6 (and with -fexpensive-optimizations) using GCC version 2.95.2, and havent had any problems at all so far.

    / The Arrow
  • The thing MS found out how to do is make things consistant so everything worked the same way. ---> Actually, Apple figured out how to make a consistent user interface so everything worked the same way. Microsoft made an attempt at doing the same thing somewhat later on, with somewhat less success in terms of consistency, but greater success in terms of market share.
  • Look, if you are going to use PRE tags (annoying to look at IMHO) then at least try to understand how they work....

  • There's a little program called kdebugdialog with which you can turn off the debug output that you don't want to see.
  • It took me while to get KDE2 compiled correctly. (Mostly because I first did the ./configure;make deal without reading ahead that I would have to specifically enable certain options like SSL, RPM, GIF rather than having them be autoconfigured. I still haven't gotten RPM support working in kpackage, for reasons that I don't entirely understand.) But I love browsing the web with Konqueror! Now that I installed Lesstif and got Flash running, I can go basically everywhere, without all the crashing I would get from Netscape. (And Konqueror hasn't bombed out my X server once, Mr. Andreeeesen!)
  • Where are the packages?
    Did you know that the potato packages of kde 2.0 came with a QT package with a different version of the QT version used to compile the other kde 2.0 packages?
    Result: Uninstallable.
  • I think they forgot to mention how much fun it was to develop KDE 2.0.1. So much fun that they forgot about KDE League and improving speed.

    What that is said, I think I will use Konqueror in my GNOME envoronment. Not a bad browser at all, except that the 2.0 version could not be used with iDrive. Can't wait to see if that is fixed.

    --Can we fix it? Yes we can!
  • My main gripe with KDE is its themes, or lack of. I have been checking kde.themes.org twice a week or so and havent seen a new theme or new news in months! I don't know if it's because the administrator the site has disappeared or just because no one does KDE themes anymore. I would write a few themes myself if I had any artistic skills.

    If I understand correctly, KDE has some impressive themeing abilities. The GUI widgets as well as the window borders and such can be themed!

    The second major gripe is window management. How do I tell KDE's window manager that I want a non-KDE app/window (like XMMS) to always be on top?

    This isn't a flame but a concern and questions..

    Geoff

  • Re:Konqueror is starting to impress me... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Konqueror on Linux is better than Netscape on Linux.

    Wow, what an endorsement!

    Konqueror, it doesn't suck as much as Netscape!

  • usually it works with

    kstart --ontop gphoto

    e.g.. Doesn't work with xmms for some reasons though.
  • I have the RH 6.2 RPMs installed. The docbook help files just won't get converted to HTML. Yes, I went to the i18n.kde.org or whatever pages. Followed the instructions to the letter, and no luck. Others are having problems with this, too.

    Anybody need to do anything else beyond what was in the instructions to get documentation to work?

  • -1; Troll for the previous post?
    -
  • you must be really busy!!

    go get some work done dude
    .oO0Oo.
  • from a clean install of Mandrake 7.2 I found kword and maybe some of the others did the nasty trick of disappearing along with my work.
    I've seen the SIGNAL detected box a few times too.

    I wouldn't recommend it for people who rely on their word processor sticking around until the end of the day.
    .oO0Oo.
  • KDE 2 runs perfectly on my P2-266 with 128 Meg RAM... Very fast and looking beautiful! Even my mom can use it now, especially Kmail. She had trouble with that :) But now she doesn't ask me what to do anymore :( I was wondering... With the Windows-Keyboard; when's KDE going to release their own K-Keyboard? With a nice K-key and stuff, or is that for the KDE2001 release? ;)

  • Re:Ok, what about Debian potato? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Have a look at kde.tdyc.com [tdyc.com]. you will find kde 2.0.1 for potato. it's from the same person who also handles the kde packages in woody. and of course, the archive is apt-able. but see the website for further instructions. so long
  • all this talk about konquer being great... does anyone have any opinions on koffice? how often does it chrash? does it do file conversions well? the main reason i am looking at kde over gnome is it seems that they will be having a better suite of applications.. to be honest... i didn't really like star office.. so i need something that will read my old wp and quatro pro files (ofcourse i could always use wplinux...)
  • The debug messages are a little annoying, but you can just redirect to /dev/null.
    You can? When I run Konqueror, the debug messages come, not from Konqueror itself, but from all the deamons that it spawns. How would I direct that output to /dev/null?
  • Hi.

    I have only two complaints with Konqueror:

    1) It doesn't remember passwords very well. It did until around RC2.. oh well, people complained then too..

    2) I have yet to get Java working properly....

    Can anyone tell me _EXACTLY_ how to get java working?? I've got 3 JDK2's on my system, and it works in Mozilla, but Konq's a no-go...

    I've sarched all over, but I've had no clear explanation on how to properly set Java up..

    Thanks for any help,

    Ben
  • www.freshports.org end of story
  • Take a look at the interior KDE design. Far superior to the rest, and very very different from Windows (unlike Gnome). The widget set can look like anything, if the default look is somewhat similar to Windows, so what? KDE is a lot more than a widget set.
  • who gives a shit. it's like the mac vs windows argument. THERE ARE OTHER CHOICES PEOPLE!!!

    why not try something like blackbox, enlightenment (not the canned gnome version), or (god forbid) windowmaker.
    gnome and kde are both bloatware in my book. and, comparitively ugly and slow.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • Actually, themes.org [themes.org] has a posting [themes.org] asking for a new maintainer for the kde.themes.org area....seems the previous maintainers got bogged down with other things and are looking for someone to take over...
  • Agreed. XFce is the only WM I'll use. Convenient enough to be pleasant, and fast enough to be used on any system. With KDE and Gnome I constantly found myself lost amongst a sea of eterms and konsoles, and eventually I began to wonder why I needed a bloated GUI when I didn't use 1/10th of its features.

    v
  • I'm hoping the annoying "won't let go of a previous URL no matter what you type in" bug is gone, and I'm hoping there's a bit more javascript support (the only two complaints I've had with it since the the later beta versions and on). I notice it still doesn't seem to support "javascript:" URLs

    I believe that the URL bug(s) were/are caused by Klippy the super-duper clipboard manager. It appears to poll the X cliboard every 1-2 seconds for changes, this seems to give Konqueror and Mozilla problems now and again. This wasn't listed in the fixes in their press release but I hope they fixed it, I use Klippy heavilly at work when filing security incidents.

  • Just in case anyone's desperately searching for the newest kde rpms for Mandrake, I found them this afternoon at ftp://ftp.twoguys.org/mandrake/current/i586/Mandra ke/RPMS
    I think those are pretty new. Also in the future rpmfind.net has bleeding edge mandrake rpms updated constantly. I find it interesting that the Mandrake guys jump on new software and package it for Mandrake so fast.

  • Re:KDE Themes? (Score:5)

    by FunkyChild ( 99051 ) <slashdot@nOsPaM.mke3.net> on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @06:22PM (#579578) Homepage
    KDE themes are great, but they're sort of hidden away. To change window decoration themes, right click on the titlebar and choose something the 'Decoration' submenu. All of these window decoration themes are proper QT themed - not pixmapped, and they look great (although there aren't many). The good thing is that the window decoration themes pick up the right colours from you colour choices in the control panel. It's a bit hard to explain, but if you go and try it out, you'll see what I mean.

    As for widget theming, the KDE 2 widget theming system is very powerful. You can change the widget theme in the control panel, under 'Style'. There are quite a few native QT themes that emulate MacOS, SGI, BeOS etc. These are good because, like the window decoration themes, they reflect your colour and contrast choices from the colours control panel. KDE also does pixmap widget theming. There are only about 4 KDE2 pixmap widget themes on kde.themes.org, but the great thing is that KDE can use GTK pixmap themes, and is much faster than GTK due to it's advanced engine.

    To use a GTK pixmap theme, use the program in the K menu called 'Legacy theme importer' (yes, that's a bit of a nasty name for it). You just need to untar the GTK theme wherever you want it, then tell the theme importer where the directory is.

    However, there are a few drawbacks that I've noticed which I hope will get fixed for 2.1. Using KDE native pixmap themes seems to be somewhat slower than using GTK pixmap themes. I've noticed (for example) with the Aquatic KDE2 theme, that when drawing windows, the background behind the toolbars tehnd to flicker a bit, and draw a bit slugglishly (about the same speed as GTK themes on my box). And the GTK importer isn't bug-free. I've had problems with the GTK theme overriding my font choices in KDE, and as much as I try in the control panel under 'Fonts', I can't get it to do what I want. There are also problems with using GTK themes, in toolbars. For example the Aqua theme for GTK draws those 'bubble' things under toolbar icons when you mouseover them, but when used under KDE, you just see a bland bevelled rectangle when you mouseover. Another problem with the GTK themes is that it doesn't theme the Menu Bar, if you have it at the top of the screen like MacOS.

    Other than these issues which I hope will be fixed soon, I love KDE2 and its themeing capabilities. Right now, I'm using the KDE2 native BeOS-style window decoration theme and QT theme. It looks beautiful, and it absolutely flies.
  • Your point is good, but could I point out...

    a) He means desktop environment when he says Window Managers
    b) `KDE', the term, as used by the developers, includes KWM. They are not seperate, one is a subset of the other.

  • KMenu -> Panel Menu -> Configure -> Menu Editor...

    I'm getting odd results here with KDE 2.0.1, and would appreciate any help folks out there can provide.

    As a normal user, removing items from within the menu editor works...and those menu items remain gone in the menu editor.

    The K menu, though, does not reflect those changes; the removed items are still on the K menu even after loging back in.

    Example: Removing the menu item Games...xpuzzles...xtriangles.

    This makes sense from a Unix perspective since only the local user settings were changed not the global menu settings. Unfortunately while this makes sense to admins, it will make little sense to users.

    (I have not tried this as root, though the menu editor is mostly an end user tool. Hand editing files in /usr/share is much quicker and easier.)

  • Re:kde innovative? (Score:3)

    by dangermouse ( 2242 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @05:23PM (#579598) Homepage
    ...i really wouldn't be caught dead using a beefed up, ripoff of a microsoft gui.

    Assuming that's all that KDE and Gnome are... why not? What's wrong with it, other than the fact that Microsoft uses it (and we all know Microsoft isn't hip)? Are you too 1337 for a task bar? Too punk rock for icons?
  • Interesting idea. Bring some of that KDE/Gnome panel applet goodness to the *Step dock!

    I figure storing 9 16x16 icons and using the wharf icon corners (upper left and lower right) to page between them would be best. And perhaps have the panel icons which changed status pop up to the top of the pile too.

    If I may make a suggestion... what if you were to multiplex them somewhat like this [freesurf.fr]? (screenshot nabbed from the wmmenu [freesurf.fr] site)

    The row of tiles could slide out on mouseover (or a click), and slide back in on mouseout. It would let you see all the applets at once.
  • Have a look at kdenonbeta/kappdock in the KDE 2.1 (HEAD) CVS.

    It lets you dock any application in a seperate dockbar. It's a panel applet, but you can just hide the panel and it's still visible. It lets you dock all those old applications like XBiff, Xload just like you could in KDE 1.1.2, as well as windowmaker applets. Don't know about GNOME.

    Very similar is the kdockbar panel extension added recently to the KDE 2.1 (HEAD) CVS. kdebase/kicker/extensions/dockbar. Some info can be found
    here [kde.org]

    These might be good starting places for what you want to do.
  • I have used koffice (mostly kword) a bit and find it to be pretty decent. Unfortunately it is really lacking in filters. It imports word but does not export, and the filter chokes on complicated tables and formatting.
    Since I have to share files with word users, and do all my printing from windows b/c my printer won't work in linux, I have mostly stuck to word 97 with wine, but my initial impression is that koffice is pretty decent. And, unlike staroffice, it doesn't take over my entire desktop or eat up all my memory.

  • Hopefully less buggy than 2.0 (Score:3)

    by ff ( 35380 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:16PM (#579607) Homepage
    Hopefully this release is more solid than 2.0, which was quite unstable under FreeBSD, not to mention that all the apps still spewed tons to debug messages to stdout, which isn't something one would expect from production quality software.
    <br><br>
    Otherwise, KDE2 is excellent.
  • .. and things have been stable for the most part. I have found that the KDE Office is still very unstable, as it crashes quite often. Konquerer is nice and is comperable to Opera on Windows. (Much better state than Opera for Linux (as of Beta 2)). In terms of Eye-Candy, does it for me .. I love the Risk OS Theme 'decoration'. Overall stability has been decient. I have noticed the KDE applications are not as rock solid as the 1.x applications, naturally being a .0 app itself. As for a fast and stable environment, I have switched back from Gnome (Didn't think KDE would ever get me away from Helix).. KDE == Consistant Nice Interface - Confusing Control Center... Oh well, nothing is perfect, like this post. ;-)


    --------------------

  • Konqueror is starting to impress me... (Score:5)

    by funkapus ( 80229 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:20PM (#579614) Homepage
    When I first got KDE 2.0-final installed, I posted a semi-nasty comment about Konqueror, because my impression was that it sucked.

    However, during a recent reinstall, I was having trouble getting Netscape up and running, so for a couple of days I used Konqueror as my sole web browser. This was the version from KDE-2.0-9 or whatever came before 2.0.1. Man, I was impressed. Not perfect, but it was very fast, and ate MUCH less memory than Netscape. Didn't segfault on me or crash at all, which was a huge improvement over the first version I tried.

    Still had some difficulty with plugins, https and the like, but I'm now thinking that this is a viable browser. I can't believe how quickly this thing got stable.

    Nice work, Konqueror folks. And I apologize for my previous bitching.

  • Good work KDE! (Score:4)

    by Kiwi ( 5214 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:23PM (#579615) Homepage Journal
    Good work KDE!

    My main concern is that KDE will do with KDE2 what they did to some extent with KDE1--they will abandon development on the stable KDE2 release in order to get on the the KDE3 bandwagon.

    - Sam

  • Anyone know if Konqueror in 2.0.1 finally supports SSL via a proxy server? What about major fixes to Javascript?

    With Konqueror 2.0.0, I have not been able to connect to my Internet banking site due to both the inability to do SSL through a proxy server and the fact that basically no Javascript works (On pretty much any site, even super-simple Hello World applets)

    Also, can it finally do - So far, when I hit a site with links that use graphics instead of text, the graphics don't show if the graphics are .png format.

    Konqueror 2.0.0 sure looks good, I hope that 2.0.1 take care of those problems. If not, I'll just have to wait until it gets there. Till then, Netscape 6 is good enough.

  • Ripping of a five year old Microsoft UI is in no way innovative,

    KDE is considerably more than a "rip off" of the "Microsoft UI". It is a modern application development framework, and yes, it is an interesting one. Similarites to Windows are superficial. The KDE and Qt APIs are most certainly not in any way "borrowed" from Windows.

  • I untarred the Blackdown jdk in /opt, giving me /opt/jdk-1.2.2. I then symlinked that to /opt/java. In Konqueror, I followed the menus through Settings|Configure|Browser, went to the Java/JavaScript tab, checked "Enable Java globally", then "Use user-specified Java" (at the bottom, and gave it /opt/jdk as the "Path to JDK". Apply/OK, and finis. Working just fine. (This is with the Slackware-current KDE 2.0 packages.)
  • That's not the point. In Windows integrated components help consistancy. The user learns how to use, say Adobe Acrobat, and when they browse a PDF file with Acrobat they're like "hey, I've seen this before" and can use it.
  • KDE is nothin more than a ripoff of a win95 gui.

    No, it's not a "rip off" of the win95 GUI. The resemblences are fairly superficial. As someone who actually writes code, I want a decent object oriented development framework, and guess what ? KDE/Qt is it. So if you think that KDE is just a crutch for drooling Windows idiots, you'd better think again.

    if you want something innovative, try enlightenment or blackbox. if you want somethin that looks like windows, use gnome or kde.

    Huh ??? KDE is an application development framework and a suite of applications that run on that framework (including but most certainly not limited to a window manager), Blackbox and E are Window managers. It makes absolutely no sense to compare the two. You are confusing kwm with kde. They are not the same thing. Repeat after me: KDE is NOT a window manager

    lets remember that there are a hell of a lot more than 2 window managers out there

    Again ( repeat after me: ) KDE is NOT a window manager. Neither is GNOME.

    And neither of these are "Windows ripoffs".

    i don't know about you, but i really wouldn't be caught dead using a beefed up, ripoff of a microsoft gui.

    Why not ? If you're afraid that doing so would make you a "windows idiot", suffice it to say that there are developers vastly more skilled (or l334 or whatever) than yourself who use KDE/GNOME.

  • I have used konqueror and it is nice. There are a few HTML tags that are not supported with the 2.0 release, but I am told that they are fixed or will be. In particular with the A:hover in style sheets, cnn.com and nbci.com use this.

    It takes 18 seconds to start up if you are not running kde. This is on a 233 with 128Meg of RAM.

    I really like using it as a file manager, as the icons are hot. It is a true alternative to windows explorer, and is probably as good at rendering pages as mozilla or netscape.

    It lacks some plugins, and visiting cnet tv was diffucult if not impossible. Netscape 4.7 on Linux works best so far at that site (real video). I'll have to try the newest update. I'm sure there will be more as well.

    I have had problems with fonts, but that may be X or my cahracterset or something.

    Pages seem to render fairly fast even with a 56k modem.

    Still pretty kewl though.

    I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
    Flame away, I have a hose!

  • I must say KDE2 is impressive in what it has been able to accomplish and the features it has in it. Konqueror is amazing.
    But please, please, please, work on stability! Many apps crash once upon startup and then work fine when tried again, others never start (killustrator)
    The functionality that it has gotten is great, but not great when applications crash all the time. I can get Windows to do that all day.
    The best thing KDE could do for the free unix desktop is to institute a full feature freeze and go into full time debugging mode. If KDE were as stable as FreeBSD and Linux it would really take off. As it is now I have to try to explain to everybody that it's not the OS that is unstable, it's the windowing evironment. "the what???" They have been cultured to equate the OS with the gui.
    But as free unix users we have become acustomed to a much higher level of stability. We should expect the same from our desktop environment. So once again please institute a feature freeze to make kde as solid as it should be.
    Tim
  • I don't know wnat it want to conquest but users have stated that the stuff is good but interface is bad. Specially in cases when you have to deal with multilanguage. It looks more stable for some troublmaking sites but in general people prefer the Netscape/Mozilla stuff. It seems that menu and button design was not made in the most optimal way. And this turns people away from it.

    Meanwhile people generally agree that KDE2 is much better interface than KDE1.

  • On Konqueror (Score:3)

    by update() ( 217397 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:28PM (#579639) Homepage
    Any comments from people about Konqueror?

    I've found myself using it as my primary web browser. I love the cookie handling and it feels quicker than Netscape 4.x and the overall app is more polished and stable than even recent Mozilla nightlies IMHO.The HTML rendering engine needs work in some places, but people should keep in mind that this is the KDE file browser. The fact that people bother to make criticisms that it doesn't handle complicated Javascript or encryption on certain sites suggests just how well it works as a web browser. And this was done with a tiny fraction of the resources of the Mozilla project! A comparison of the two projects would make an interesting case study for open source proponents.

    That was as of last week. Some ugly bugs have popped up in recent CVS (at least for me), but that should be fixed soon.

    My main criticism is with the separation of the KDE desktop from the browser. I used to use kfm in WindowMaker or icewm to get a lightweight but vey flexible setup. kdesktop creates massive problems for me with other window managers, even when it's started with the root window option. Hopefully that will be polished in future releases.

  • They started to build KDE 2.1 which will be backward compatible with KDE 2.0
  • LOAD A FREAKIN WEB PAGE! I will admit, something might be my problem, but the documentation SUCKS for KDE 2.X. I try to get it to load slashdot and I get Konquerer cannot handle text/html check your installation. I havre looked all over the place trying to find a detailed way on getting this to work and I have not had any success. I am running Red Hat 6.2. I amslo want to comment that KDE has too freaking many packages. Can't some of these things be integrated into one package? Can the KDE folks do something like Helixcode has done with GNOME? I might have to go buy Mandrake just so I can try a proper KDE setup.
  • I prefer many Gnome apps to the KDE equivalents but can't stand the amount of space the Gnome panel takes up (it seems to be built to be big: kpanel seems to be designed to be thin and simulate the Win9x taskbar as much as possible.)



    You must not have tried the Gnome panel recently. It's minimum size is 12 pixels (half the size of the Windows taskbar) and it can also be set at (in pixels) 24, 36, 48, 64, 80, and 128. You can set it up to simulate the Windows taskbar if you like, or you can throw it wherever you like... It's very configurable. I'd be suprised if it can't do what you want.

    --Ben

  • > www.freshports.org end of story

    Um, no. That's an announcement site for the standard ports collection. I am talking about port content that updates via CVS or cvsup (which I understand is the case for the OpenSSL port, before it was marked FORBIDDEN). Dont answer questions I didn't even ask.

    --

  • KDE 2 is really wonderful (Score:3)

    by maynard ( 3337 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2000 @03:30PM (#579655) Journal
    When the KDE team added V2 RPMs for Redhat-6.x I decided to deploy KDE-2 along with Helix-Gnome for a nearly 200 host desktop rollout. My feeling is that as head SA it's really not my decision to tell people what desktop to use, it's up to them to tell me what desktop they need to be productive; and anyway if I can offer both Helix and KDE-2, well then let the users decide. I really wasn't planning on this since I didn't expect the KDE team to support RH-6.x given how much trouble I had attempting to compile the source tarballs when they announced the first release; I figured it was brokenness in the egcs-2.91 g++ compiler and just gave up.

    Boy, am I glad they decided to support RH-6.2, I've been fiddling with it and like the desktop a whole bunch. My users are happy since many of them come from Europe and prefer KDE. The others from America most to prefer Gnome -- now both need not feel slighted.

    The only thing I seriously dislike about KDE is the lack of Scheme/Guile bindings to the toolkit... sorry, but I just love Gnome because of that!

    Cheers,
    --Maynard
  • It took me a good 5 evenings to compile the initial KDE 2.0 release on my trusty old P233 with 64 megs of RAM, but it was well worth the effort. It runs acceptably well on this old boxen. The latest HelixGNOME, however, runs quite slowly (not flaming GNOMErs, if you got more hardware oomph, more power to you; I don't :-). Even though I had gotten random app crashes here and there, nothing seriously bad ever happened. I am looking forward to updating to 2.0.1 to fix these minor things; hopefully konqueror will support https by now so I can bank online too. KDE is really starting to show that it can work as an everyday system for everyday people.


    ---
    Santa Claus: "Ho ho ho!"

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