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KDE GUI Software Linux

KDE 3.2 'Rudi' Beta Released 468

Posted by simoniker from the send-a-message-to-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The beta of the next version of KDE, billed as 'the premiere Open Source desktop', has been released. Read the announcement at KDE.org. Notable features include a big clean up of the interface and menus, Improvements to KHTML from Apple, better accessibility and hardware support. There are also new applications such as JuK (a music player similar to iTunes), KDevelop (a graphical IDE), Kontact (an integrated communications package like Outlook) and more. Download it here and since this is a beta, report any problems or bugs you have." Also, nukem996 points out "The counter-terrorism unit on TV series '24' went KDE this season, too."
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KDE 3.2 'Rudi' Beta Released More

KDE 3.2 'Rudi' Beta Released

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  • Premiere Glue! (Score:5, Funny)

    by GaelenBurns ( 716462 ) <gaelenb@nospaM.assurancetechnologies.com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @03:52PM (#7380026) Homepage Journal
    Why does everything have to be PREMIERE? I swear, it's been 5 years since anything mediocre was released. There must be amazing advancements made in every field on a daily basis.
  • Maybe it should be more clear and say that the beta of KDevelop 3.0 is out now, perhaps?

  • Where I'd like to see KDE improve (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FreeBSD Goddess ( 721137 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @03:53PM (#7380041)
    As much as I like KDE - and I do, I use KDE - there's plenty of times I find myself needing to use non-KDE apps such as Openoffice, Mozilla, and others to do the things I need to do. The interface for KDE is easy enough to use and powerful enough, after many years of development, that instead of adding eye candy, it would be more worthwhile to improve the included applications. I like KDE, but there's still room for improvement. Unfortunately, I don't think the KDE developers are as much concentrating their efforts on the areas that need it. Note that I think KDE is also already more useful than Microsoft Windows, because it looks better, it's more secure, and the included apps are far better than what you get with a Windows installation - unless you want to pay a few hundred dollars for MS Office and the other apps you'll want.

  • KDevelop (Score:5, Informative)

    by ItWasThem ( 458689 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @03:54PM (#7380042)
    For the record KDevelop is not a new application. Maybe the submitter was referring to the newest beta version being included in the KDE 3.2 beta?

  • KDE on ./?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by JollyTX ( 103289 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @03:54PM (#7380045)
    Hello... a KDE announcement on Slashdot? Cooool!! ;)

    Now that we've been politically correct for a little bit, let's go back to Gnome reporting.

  • Counterterrorists use kde (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 03, 2003 @03:57PM (#7380078)
    cuz terrorists use gnome... this is a new phase of the kde vs gnome battle

    gnome, the new axis of evil.
    • the good guys (like Jack Bauer) use Macs. Note the Powerbook he has at this desk and the G4 behind him. The fact that they're running KDE on them is not the important issue. The hardware is Apple.

      From the first season on, bad guys/gals on 24 have used Windows as their OS (this was how we were tipped off that Nina was evil. She suddenly switched computers). The specific hardware (Intel, AMD, etc.) is never noted (for obvious reasons)

  • Take a look at the colours... (Score:5, Funny)

    by chendo ( 678767 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @03:57PM (#7380090)
    MY EYES, MY EYES [slackorama.net]

    Seriously, how did they build a good looking iTunes clone with THAT colour sense?

    • AHHH!! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Baloo Ursidae ( 29355 )
      When I look at it, then browse back to Slashdot, I can still see their angry-fruit-salad in reverse video.

      DAMN YOU VISUAL PERSISTENCE!

  • RPMS (Score:5, Informative)

    by isNaN ( 45985 ) <sebastian,claesson&gmail,com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @03:58PM (#7380093)
    Mandrake users can download RPMS here:
    http://www.n9nu.net/linux/kde.php

    I have been using them since Friday and they work great!

  • mirror of KDE on 24 link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:03PM (#7380147) Journal

    This [19inch.net] is another site that talks about 24 using KDE, since the link in the article seems to be /.'ed, or just dead to begin with. I didn't notice this on 24... how cool is that?

    • Re:mirror of KDE on 24 link (Score:5, Interesting)

      by oscarcar ( 208055 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:30PM (#7380451) Homepage
      I have a suspicion my old "C Programming Teacher" is behind this.

      I had a teacher by the name of "Michael Loceff". That's the same name of the guy who's the producer/writer of the show.

      When I took an online class from him years ago, he said he did screen-writing on his spare time. He even let his class know when a show aired on "Le Femme Nikita" that he wrote. Kudos to him for bringing real tech to the screen.

  • KMidi is Dropped (Score:3, Interesting)

    by robbyjo ( 315601 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:04PM (#7380158) Homepage

    It's good to notice that KMidi is dropped from KMultimedia. It's a pain because of the old Timidity engine (which is KMidi's back-end) still uses the old ALSA 0.5. It causes compilation problems if you compile KMultimedia with ALSA yourself. And KDE people decided to get rid of it at the moment and cited that it's not an easy fix.

    It's too bad because AFAIK that's the simplest program for MIDI playing using synthesizers (albeit not that good). Other programs are geared toward compositions... Any suggestions?

  • Kontact: how much like Outlook ...? (Score:5, Funny)

    by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:10PM (#7380214) Homepage Journal
    ... Kontact (an integrated communications package like Outlook) ...

    Just exactly how much "like Outlook" ...?

    God help us all if it's very much like Outlook!
    • Not much at all. The applications in Kontact are not really integrated, they just live in the same window, sort of like tabs in konqueror and mozilla.

      The main improvement with Kontact have been to make the application behave somewhat consistently. The groupware functionality with exchange and kolab plugins will not be completed until after KDE 3.2.

  • iTunes clone? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:12PM (#7380231) Homepage Journal
    I'm seriously beginning to question the ability of any open source project to challenge Apple on the user experience front. Come on, look at these JuK screen shots [slackorama.net] and compare to iTunes screen shots [apple.com].

    Now, I will fully admit to never actually using JuK, but just from its appearance, I don't want to. I do use iTunes extensively (on a Mac, I only use UNIX-based OSs). So, on iTunes, I have 3 control buttons, a pretty status meter, and a search field. That is it. Now look at JuK. There is a crapload of buttons making the interface completely suck. Why is there a save button? I never save in iTunes, when changes get made, they automatically are propagated through the library. Easy. Why are there cut and paste butttons? Do they need to take up screen space. Leave them buried in a menu. How often are they used in the main interface screen? In iTunes, I rarely go to the menu's. About the only time is when I want to create a new smart playlist. The three buttons and the search field take care of 98% of what I want to do on the interface. This is what makes Apple user friendly and pretty to look at.

    If open source wants to be the peoples' desktop, they have to start considering the interfaces they design. There is a reason why people like to use Macs and proclaim the interface as the superior solution: it is. There are things to be learned here, but time and time again, with each new release of a new program, the user interfaces continue to suck.

    • Re:iTunes clone? (Score:2, Informative)

      by MyDixieWrecked ( 548719 ) *
      Why go to a menu to create a smart playlist?

      Just hold option (alt) and click the 'New Playlist' button. You'll notice the icon change to a gear and all is well and good.

    • I agree with you about JuK, I don't see how they claim it is anything like iTunes - I just don't see how it is. That interface does not look anything like iTunes.

      Rhythmbox, OTOH, is an iTunes clone, and it works very much like iTunes does. Unfortuneately, Rhythmbox development has been extremely slow, but it is starting to pick up now, probably because gstreamer is finally starting to become usable.

      • IIRC, rhythmbox doesn't have smart playlists the way iTunes does.

        The only real reason I'm still using xmms instead of rhthymbox, though, is that their "shuffle" mode is crappy. In XMMS, I randomize the playlist, then turn shuffle off, so that I only hear each song once per iteration through the playlist (which works out to once every 4 days, assuming I listened to the playlist continuously, without stopping for food or sleep :)

        In rhythmbox, there is no "randomize playlist", only "shuffle", which is a 'pur

    • Um..Xmms.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by msimm ( 580077 )
      For a music player with a good GUI and lots of functionality XMMS [xmms.org] is the Linux king. Unfortuantaly it doesn't do everything and I can't buy music through it, but its fast, supports more sound and image plugins then you can shake a stick at and has a sharp, skinnable GUI and works better then anything I've been able to use on my Windows pc here at work.

      Xmms is a shining example of OSS quality software and like I'd imagine iTunes is, its a real pleasure to use.

      • Re:Um..Xmms.. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by advocate_one ( 662832 )
        "Unfortuantaly it doesn't do everything and I can't buy music through it," why on earth would you want to buy your musice through it??? it does what it's supposed to do... nothing more, nothing less... if you want to purchase music online then just fire Konq up... and make sure xmms is set as your default player... that's ALL you need to do... why complicate a program with bloat when most people will not be using that feature??? KISS
      • I never understood why everyone loves iTunes so much either. I still use winamp2, winamp3 seemed too bloated for me. Heck I just want a player that will play my mp3s for me. I don't need it to calculate the BPM for me, or how often i've listened to a song. I love winamp, especially because of the key mappings. It means i can easily program my bluetooth phone to be a remote control for my music. Great!
      • "For a music player with a good GUI and lots of functionality XMMS is the Linux king."

        Oh, lord, you must be kidding. XMMS is one of the projects that I always point to as an example of how badly an open source development project can go.

        There's probably not a mistake they haven't made. And they revel in it. It's almost a juvenile, masturbatory event.

      • Re:Um..Xmms.. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Per Cederberg ( 680752 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @06:08PM (#7381487)

        For a music player with a good GUI and lots of functionality XMMS...

        Good GUI? What do you mean? You can't be serious...

        1. Very small controls, some which are hardly possible to see or click. Take the small "O A I D V":s for instance. And don't say that the "DoubleSize" option is anything but a hack...

        2. How about keyboard navigation?

        3. Where are the darned settings? There is no menu bar and it is hard to guess which of the "O A I D V" does what. (Yeah, the window title is clickable, but how are you supposed to know that?)

        4. No tool-tips when hoovering with the mouse.

        5. Everything is clickable, although nothing appears to be. A mistake of a millimeter cause whatever undesired effect. (And how do you figure out how to undo that?)

        6. Window decorations are not consistent with the rest of the world. Same thing with all other widgets.

        Etc, etc. I could go on and on about such things. Yes, you can learn it and live with it, but should you have to? Some people might just want to listen their mp3:s or ogg:s and be done with it. I just don't understand why apps such as XMMS, WinAmp, xine, mplayer, etc can't provide a sensible default UI (skin or whatever) that looks and works like other applications.

        And please, tell me again what skins are good for...

      • XMMS is a shining example of what happens when an open source project copies a Windows app created by amateurs that know nothing about usability.
    • I'd argue that since KDE (and most unix applications, for that matter) are built by geeks, the end product is something that will appeal to geeks/power users.

      Does this mean it has to be ugly, with a million useless buttons, as your example pointed out? Well, not necessarily, but that seems to be more common.

    • Re:iTunes clone? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by be-fan ( 61476 )
      JuK is cluttered? Unlike iTunes, JuK actually looks and behaves like all the other apps on its desktop. Besides, the correct button count is 10 for iTunes (you didn't count the ones at the bottom) and 14 for JuK. The extra buttons on the juk toolbar are there in the interest of consistency with other KDE apps. Almost all KDE apps have those buttons in the same place. The screenshot you posted is terrible, take a look at the JuK screenshot here. [gatech.edu] Looks much nicer doesn it?

      • Re:iTunes clone? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        ahh well there's the pointless cut/copy/paste buttons. and some new/save buttons that are completely generic .. what exactly am I saving? playlists? do I use the load button to load saved playlists or to load MP3s? why would I not want all my playlists to just appear all the time?

        and the empty space to the right of the column headings (.., Year, Length, .. emptiness ..) is that another column??

        What does "normal matching" mean??? what does "collection list" mean, is that my whole music collection .. list?
      • JuK actually looks and behaves like all the other apps on its desktop.

        I have never understood this argument. Why would a user expect their MP3 player to look and behave like a word processor or web browser? To put it in more abstract terms, where is the expectation that a program designed for audio playback look and work like an app designed for text manipulation and display?

        The extra buttons on the juk toolbar are there in the interest of consistency with other KDE apps.

        Why would I want or need a
    • Yes the layout could be more minimal and refined, but most of the appearance can be better "skinned" by using more visually appealing qt and kde theme components. Look at kdelook.org for more info. It may not be Mac OSX pretty, but it can look much better than the default-esque screenshots.

    • Re:iTunes clone? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:46PM (#7380641) Homepage Journal
      Come on, look at these JuK screen shots and compare to iTunes screen shots.

      How the hell can you determine "user experience" based on screenshots!?! I've never used iTunes, but I can guarantee you that it's outward visual appearance is completely irrelevant to its usability. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's very usable. But usability is not related to appearance. My Dodge Neon is every bit as usable as my neighbor's Plymouth PT Cruiser. Which should come as no surprise since the everything's the same between those vehicles except for the styling.

      JuK is very usable, despite its lackluster appearance. It's probably the most usable multimedia application I've every used. It's just not pretty.
      • Easy. It's called screen clutter and widget placement. You can tell a LOT about usability from a screen shot.

        Why do you think that good GUI development consists of doing screen mockups before actual code is written?
        • Why do you think that good GUI development consists of doing screen mockups before actual code is written?

          Good GUI development starts with a GUI mockup. This is not the same thing as a screen mockup. It's far different. And this mockup is just the *start*, not the middle or the end. Good usability designers do NOT use photoshop.

          In the same way that a photo of a sports car tells me nothing about the way it handles, a mere screenshot tells me little about the usability of an application. It might reveal so

      • I've never used iTunes, but I can guarantee you...

        JuK is... probably the most usable multimedia application I've every used.

        ...sounds like you should also try iTunes.

        ~jeff
    • I agree with you that no program out there right now works as well as iTunes. iTunes is great because it gives people what they want in terms of features, nothing more, nothing less. I love the categorization, search box (it's SO EASY!) and music sharing, ripping, and burning. The clones out there arne't anywhere near the level of features and stability yet. It's so good in fact that i'm switching back to windows from linux mainly to use it. say what you will, but it's really a killer app. i use mozil

  • mirror (Score:2, Informative)

    by cultobill ( 72845 )

    Site response is already slow here...

    Mirror [nmt.edu] from 13:15 GMT -7

  • KDevelop is a new application since when exactly?
  • Although a silly little applet quite a lot of people have been getting a kick out of KBinaryClock which was added to KDE 3.2 in the addons package.

    Screenshots and photos here: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~benjamin/programs/program. php?program=KBinaryClock [rit.edu]

  • Make things short... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Windows fan: "It still doesn't look and behave exactly like WindowsXP and is therefore not ready for the Desktop!"

    Linux fan: (Score: -1, Flaimbait, Troll, Anger in the ass)

  • Juk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by proxima ( 165692 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:27PM (#7380417)
    I, for one, appreciate more alternative music players on the *nix side of the world. While setting up my music server (with video output to the TV), I tested a variety of applications to see what might work best. My requirements included:

    - The ability to be controlled from an LIRC remote control

    - The ability to interface to an LCD screen for song info (haven't set this up yet, but it was a consideration)

    - Large, easy to read playlist

    - Large buttons that are easy to manipulate by the somewhat awkward mouse on my wireless keyboard

    I tried xine (along with derivatives like the gtk version), and found the playlists difficult to manipulate easily. xmms works decently, but I had to double size the top screen and those unfamiliar with it's interface (or winamp) would have a more difficult time adding songs because the "add" and "remove" buttons are practically unreadable on the TV. Though I found a decent theme, xmms is not designed for full screen usage with large buttons. Because of this, screen real estate is not devoted to things like easy-to-find switching of playlists along with other features I'm sure could be incorporated.

    I would love for Juk to become a full featured sound program which could perform a variety of functions seamlessly:

    - Ability to manipulate playlists on any other computer given appropriate access (without using remote X or VNC). Sharing of music between clients is not important to me, I have my music mounted from a central location within the network

    - creating playlists by the meta data (like "smart" playlists on iTunes).

    - Pop in a CD, have it show up as a separate playlist, and preferably be able to rip the tracks into OGG or FLAC on command

    - Burn mix CDs based off the playlist (not as important, but shouldn't be too hard if code is shared with koncd)

    - Interface doesn't need to be skinnable but should be usable at a variety of resolutions. Keyboard shortcuts should be available for just about everything.

    Looks like some of those features already exist in Juk, and I look forward to using it once it's released with 3.2 stable.

    • Mythmusic.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by msimm ( 580077 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:25PM (#7381070) Homepage
      You need Mythtv [mythtv.org] setup with at least Mythmusic (screenshot [sourceforge.net]). It's perfect for this and it was designed to be easily used with a remote and a television monitor.

      It will play/rip/visualize/navigate your music collection and if your using Debian or Mandrake is just a quick apt/urpmi away (for Mandrake configure urpmi to use Thacs RPM's [nyvalls.se] first, as described on the site).

  • Not just 24. Alias does too. (Score:3, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @04:47PM (#7380660) Homepage Journal
    See my newsgroup thread [google.com] (KDE seen in Alias episode 11 (A Higher Echelon)) from January 2003.
  • 150 mb just for a GUI with some apps. It's as big as win98 install already.

    Having said that, it looks sweet. Konqueror is getting better every day, and i am looking forward to kopete (don't use 0.8 beta, it's buggy as hell, i reported around 10 big bugs already)

  • I love it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xrayspx ( 13127 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:11PM (#7380928) Homepage
    I'm running Alpha 2, and it is great. Many UI bugs fixed, like now they shrink tabs instead of making you scroll around when there are lots of tabs open.

    I miss "view source" in the context menu on a webpage, and I'm still patiently waiting for some mid-mouse AutoScroll, Opera and Firebird seem to be able to deal with this as meaning "paste" when on a textarea, "scroll" when on plaintext, and "open in new tab" when on a link. I would love to see this in Konq. Konqeror is still my primary browser anyway.

  • we'll either have to get off our lazy butts and figure out how to do this ourselves or
    we'll have to wait for Mandrake 937.34733e+07283 to get this hot item..

    Hmm, should I wait or get off the pot???
  • Great. Just bloody great. I only just took delivery of SuSE 9.0 and now I have to upgrade half of it already. So begins the long decline into terminal bit rot.

    *sigh*.

  • Be clear about the terms. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Monday November 03, 2003 @06:02PM (#7381436) Homepage
    nukem996 points out "The counter-terrorism unit on TV series '24' went KDE this season, too."

    dot.kde.org's news entry [kde.org] claims

    "Interestingly they used a 3-year-old KDE 1.x desktop. These older icons are made available under a public domain licence [kde.org]."

    There is no such thing as "a public domain license". Putting a copyrighted work in the public domain means forgoing all copyright power for that work. Licenses, by contrast, tell you what you what the terms are for activities regulated by copyright law. Licensed works are still under copyright.

    When I read the KDE art site pointed to by dot.kde.org's article [kde.org], I can't find the phrase "public domain". There is language that suggests the copyright holders tried to do something similar ("The images inside this directory are COMPLETELY FREE for commercial and non-commercial use." emphasis theirs). To be clear, when you mean the work is in the public domain, say the work is in the public domain. The Creative Commons makes doing this easy [creativecommons.org] now (if you're talking about US copyright law).

  • Konstruct A Beta (Score:3, Informative)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @08:11PM (#7382710) Homepage
    Use Konstruct [kde.org] to easily install KDE (including betas).

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