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KDE GUI Software Linux

A Sneak Preview of KDE 4 350

Posted by CowboyNeal from the pretty-gooey dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In recent times, a lot of discussion has been generated about the state of KDE version 4.0 and as Linux users we are ever inquisitive about what the final user experience is going to be. This article throws light on some of the features that we can look forward to when KDE 4.0 is finally released some time this year. The article indicates that the most exciting fact about KDE 4.0 is going to be that it is developed using the Qt 4.0 library. This is significant because Qt 4.0 is released under a GPL license even for non-Unix platforms. So this clears the ideological path for KDE 4.0 to be ported to Windows and other non-Unix/X11 platforms."
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A Sneak Preview of KDE 4 More

A Sneak Preview of KDE 4

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  • Memory (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "For instance, Qt 4 is designed to save lots of memory and will perform faster."

    They need to work more on that cause thats the reason why I'm not using KDE. I like the UI but KDE is just to bloated so I use Gnome instead, even though I hate most of Gnome's UI.

    • Re:Memory (Score:5, Informative)

      by Frekko ( 749706 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:16AM (#17471302)
      This http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmar k.html [kde.org] article from 2006 shows you how much memory Gnome/KDE use. Even though it is written by a KDE member I can't see why he should have messed with the numbers. As you can see KDE actually uses a bit less (not much though) memory than Gnome.

      • Re:Memory (Score:5, Informative)

        by jcupitt65 ( 68879 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @07:59AM (#17471796)
        Here's an update written by a GNOME person:

        http://spooky-possum.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/kde vsgnome.html [spooky-possum.org]

        tldr: they have (essentially) the same memory requirements.
        • So wait - all this hard work that the gnome guys did during the last year to improve gnome resource usage only was able to bring it at the SAME level than KDE?

          Unimpressed...KDE 3.X is in a "mainteinance" state because most of the KDE guys are working in KDE4, still gnome only was able to "catch up". And one of the reasons to use C instead of C++ (besides the "easier to make bindings" reason) wasn't that C++ was more "heavyweight"?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Azarael ( 896715 )
            There aren't an infinite number of places where you can improve memory usage. It may be that both Gnome and KDE have reached a point where improving memory use any further would require more effort than it's worth for the expected gain.

            • It may be that both Gnome and KDE have reached a point where improving memory use any further would require more effort than it's worth for the expected gain.

              Except that KDE devs expect KDE4 to significantly reduce memory usage. Again.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Azarael ( 896715 )
                Exactly my point, that is for KDE 4, not 3. That's where the more trouble than it's worth comes in. Doing a significant rewrite of a big peace of code to improve performance can be a huge job, but if you're rewriting the whole thing for a new major version it's not much more work to optimize your algorithms and data structures along the way. For the same reason, the next major version of Gnome may very well also have improved performance.

                • Re:Memory (Score:5, Interesting)

                  by NekoXP ( 67564 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @12:45PM (#17475086) Homepage
                  Not only are they rewriting stuff to reduce footprint they're using more and more system components that everyone has (DBUS) rather than KDE-specific things (DCOP for example). Qt4 definitely uses a lot less memory as a whole than Qt3 but it's not backwards compatible.

                  What you will see is KDE4 by default using a huge glob less of memory, but if you run an old KDE3 or Qt3 app, suddenly memory usage will kind of go up when the compatibility libraries load.. disk usage will go up too because of them. But in most systems, 90% of the time the CPU is fairly idle and memory usage is the most important performance factor; not just memory-limited systems, on huge multi-GB desktops too.

                  What I really want to see is KDE4 running on Qt4 directly on the Linux framebuffer; get rid of X. Then something like MythTV running on top of it; bringing requirements down by removing some of the extraneous cruft (X no longer has magic mouse and keyboard drivers since the USB HID system does most of the work, would be one example) is a good goal too and KDE4 is also doing some of that.

                  I'm not sure what direction GNOME is taking, but at least there is a lot less ability to do so with GTK; they pride compatibility without compatibility libraries, and new functionality comes with new applications and rewrites of applications which never made the grade (Ubuntu Edgy had a bunch of them) - it seems to be a more pronounced, feature-rich development cycle with less chances to sit down and optimize something old. Both environments seem to be focussing on simply PROVIDING user experience than optimizing it. However KDE has a lot more baggage; components like the browser, office suite are all part of the KDE offering, which GNOME doesn't have an encumberance on. Optimizing KDE gives more results for less work. Optimizing GNOME seems harder to justify considering very few things will benefit but the toolkit and desktop itself. Maybe I'm wrong though... :D

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by swillden ( 191260 ) *

            And one of the reasons to use C instead of C++ (besides the "easier to make bindings" reason) wasn't that C++ was more "heavyweight"?

            Only among those who don't know what they're talking about. There's nothing in C++ that's inherently "heavyweight". Object-Oriented code often tends to be a little heavier because the tools make it so easy to generalize, and OO developers often end up writing code that may be needed someday, but isn't now. C programmers are less prone to that particular error.

            However, the flip side of that focus on generality and reuse is that if it's used well it can actually reduce the code size and memory footprin

  • great (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mrsev ( 664367 )
    Ooooh... Kreversi, KMajhong.... both essential components of my desktop experience. The article is a little thin to say the least.
    • As a 6 month gnome user and semi-power user who's recently switched to KDE, I can actually say that the desktop games are about the only thing that I feel was superior. Probably reflects the way that gnome is going, I suppose.

      I'm not picking sides, it's just that KDE is genuinely better *for me*. I'd of course stick parents, mac converts, etc on gnome in an instant. And I won't recommend what I don't use, so I guess I'll be spending half and half from now on...

    • What is thin about it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:54AM (#17472074) Journal
      It shows some graphical pics of games that have been converted to SVG (nice to say the least). Then in the article, it talks about the various projects that are working on core libs. Once those are fleshed out, then more apps will come into focus. I would say that this is actually a pretty good preview of very unsettled work. As to the desktop, well, there will be more.

  • Performance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bcmm ( 768152 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:13AM (#17471288)
    It should also be pointed out that the port to QT is expected to very noticeably improve performance.

    When was the last time a new version of Microsoft Windows came out with a faster user interface?

    • Re:Performance (Score:5, Funny)

      by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:16AM (#17471298)
      When was the last time a new version of Microsoft Windows came out with a faster user interface?

      When you bought the new computer?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by urbanradar ( 1001140 )
      It should also be pointed out that the port to QT is expected to very noticeably improve performance.

      Maybe it's a typo, but just to clarify: KDE is already based on QT. It's just that KDE 4 will be using QT 4, whereas the current KDE uses QT 3.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bcmm ( 768152 )
      Sorry for typo. Obviously, I meant the port to Qt 4.0.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by zlogic ( 892404 )
      Uhm, Vista runs the GUI faster that WinXP if you have a decent GPU. Just like QT4's Arthur, it uses hardware to do rendering, which is great because even when the system is under heavy load you can still do basic tasks like moving and minimizing windows. The system feels much more responsive.

      • Re:Performance (Score:5, Interesting)

        by diegocgteleline.es ( 653730 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:52AM (#17472062)
        It's not about "using the GPU", QT4 is just much faster and eats less resources.

        "When Qt designer was ported to Qt 4.0 - only the neccesary changes to make it compile - the libqt size decreased by 5%, Designer num relocs went down by 30%, mallocs use by 51%, and memory use by 15%. The measured Designer startup time went down by 18%"

        Now try to imagine the savings for the whole KDE desktop
    • When was the last time a new version of Microsoft Windows came out with a faster user interface?

      Huh? I've never seen the Windows UI being "slow"? I don't really know what you mean...
      You saying there's a difference in e.g. Windows XP compared to Windows 95?

      Are you really talking about the Windows USER32 and other such subsystems or rather simple application requirements?

      • Huh? I've never seen the Windows UI being "slow"? I don't really know what you mean... You saying there's a difference in e.g. Windows XP compared to Windows 95?

        Go run both on, say, a 300Mhz PIII. To make the difference even more extreme, only put 64MB of RAM in it.

        There is a noticeable speed difference even on modern hardware, but some people are more sensitive to it than others. If you don't notice it on modern hardware, you'll definitely see it on old hardware.

  • From dot.kde.org (Score:5, Informative)

    by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:14AM (#17471292)
    I monitor dot.kde.org pretty closely and there's a few things notable here. Firstly if you look at KDE at the moment it doesn't look much different to KDE 3.x. This is because the frameworks are currently being finished and polished - the interface will be the *last* thing to be finalised - remember guys tip of the iceberg - there's a whole lot more code that you don't see than you do see.

    Also, with this article specifically, a few of the graphics are temporary, most notably the background that's pretty obvious in ksysguard. Yes it's horrible for that app, no it won't be there in the finished version. It's a temporary background being used in several apps at the moment for a placeholder.

    Also, the start menu isn't finalised yet from anything I've heard, that's the start menu designed specifically for Suse - it's been on Slashdot before.

    KDE looks like it will be coming together quite quickly and quite soon. Several major components are pretty much complete and are being polished now. Looks like pretty fun stuff - don't believe anyone who says it's vapourware.

    • Re:From dot.kde.org (Score:5, Informative)

      by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:16AM (#17471306)
      Also, a similar KDE article is at http://dot.kde.org/1167723426/ [kde.org]

      Read the comments there as well for some interesting info.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Wanderer2 ( 690578 )

      Also, the start menu isn't finalised yet from anything I've heard, that's the start menu designed specifically for Suse - it's been on Slashdot before.

      Glad you mentioned that before I posted! I was about to rant about how much I hate the look of that start menu. It looks too similar to the Windows XP, expanding-to-fill-the-screen-with-icons-all-over-t he-place one which drives me mad. That said, I do occasionally have trouble finding seldom-used stuff within my KDE start menu (is $APP under Settings, Utili

      • Settings/Utilities/System seem to be placed without rhyme or reason. I thought I'd worked out something logical, but apparently not, because there's always something that bucks the trend. I also don't like the WinXP style "change where everything lives every two seconds because $THING knows best." If that's not If I can't turn that off, well.. it'll be a big turn-off.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by richlv ( 778496 )
        i've tried the one in opensuse 10.2 - it does not expand all over the screen :)
        i didn't like that tabs were switched on mouseover instead of a click, and applications were 'sliding' instead on click of opening on mouseover (makes navigation much, much slower).
        but, on the other hand, you customise your favorites list, which is most you ever need - and for other things you can use search bar at the top.

        suse linux upto opensuse 10.2 (i think 10.0 and 10.1, maybe others) had a classical start menu with a filter
  • KDE is a very slick desktop, but it doesn't seem to know when "less is more". The control center is probably the worst, most confusing configuration application of any desktop I've ever seen simply because the options that 99% need to get at regularly are mixed in with options that only 1% / nobody ever needs to touch. Then you have various K apps such as Konq or KMail where you might have up to SIX different preferences menu items to choose from to configure the app.

    I wish they'd follow GNOME or Firefox

    • Re:Less of the kitchen sink would make KDE better (Score:5, Interesting)

      by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:38AM (#17471424)
      It's funny that that's the reason why I detest Gnome - for some reason they got the idea that removing all the options that only 5% of users use is a good idea. Of course all the other options are used by a different 5% each time so in the end you've got the majority of users upset because the option they want has been removed. Note: Put to the side with an unknown and unguessable key combination counts as removed.

      But that's OK because Gnome isn't for me.

      Please, Gnome is a slim pick up and go desktop for new users, KDE is a customisable and flexible desktop for power, business or techie users. I like it this way, it gives everyone a desktop that they are comfortable with. As a techie, I want KDE to stay the way it is, please don't try to change it to something it is not.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Please, Gnome is a slim pick up and go desktop for new users, KDE is a customisable and flexible desktop for power, business or techie users. I like it this way, it gives everyone a desktop that they are comfortable with. As a techie, I want KDE to stay the way it is, please don't try to change it to something it is not.

        No it doesn't give everyone a desktop they're comfortable with. If you put twice as many options in a user's face than they would reasonably expect or ever require they are going to get co

        • I don't think you read my message very closely. KDE's not for everybody. Neither is Gnome. That is a good thing since people are different. If you want to change KDE to be just like Gnome then that would defeat the whole purpose of the choice of difference desktop environments.

          Your solution, especially for Windows, involves huge difficulties for me as an advanced user. You're actually suggesting that if you use Windows and want to do something the least bit advanced then I should buy a new program o

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by DrXym ( 126579 )
            I'm not saying KDE should be like GNOME. My original message said I'd be happy if they only thing changed in KDE4 was to simplify it.
            • But the usability guidelines are the main thing that differentiates Gnome and KDE. I'm sure most Gnome users think that KDE is a bloated piece of crap, while most KDE users think that Gnome is a toy system that lets you do fuck all. Simplifying KDE will make it more like what current KDE users hate about Gnome.

        • Re:Less of the kitchen sink would make KDE better (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Octorian ( 14086 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @07:33AM (#17471642) Homepage
          Windows doesn't hide all the advanced options. Many are still easily accessible from the GUI. MacOSX, however, hides them so deep that you need to drop to the command like to tweak them. (Heck, Apple's complete hiding/elimination of options is why I ditch Apple's packaged apps whenever I find a suitable alternative, even if I used MacOSX every day at work)

          Likewise, GNOME hides the options so deep as well, that only a poweruser spending the day on Google is ever going to even figure out how to get to them.

          At least KDE (and Windows) put the options where you can find them using just the normal flow of the GUI.

          This whole "assume the user is a drooling moron or an ubergeek, with *nothing* in-between" really puts off a lot of "competent" Windows users.
          • At least KDE (and Windows) put the options where you can find them using just the normal flow of the GUI.

            Yeah you bet, every advanced option you can imagine is on plain view for you to change your GUI based
            REGISTRY EDITOR
            KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curren tVersion\Explorer\Advanced
            in the registry and add the following DWord value
            CascadeFolderBands and set it to 1.
      • It's funny that that's the reason why I detest Gnome - for some reason they got the idea that removing all the options that only 5% of users use is a good idea.

        Those options aren't gone, they are just exposed in GConf. People who complain about a lack of configurability in GNOME haven't figured out how to use gconf-editor.

        Please, Gnome is a slim pick up and go desktop for new users, KDE is a customisable and flexible desktop for power, business or techie users. I like it this way, it gives everyone a deskto

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )
          Gnome is good in very many ways. Gconf in my opinion is not one of them.

          People who complain about a lack of configurability in GNOME haven't figured out how to use gconf-editor.

          Have you used it? Have you been on the gconf mailing list? Have you read the docs that exist? It doesn't work very well, is very poorly documented and can't really be used to import and export settings - the Sabayon project is an application designed to meet the import and export problem - so it won't always be like this. The c

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xtracto ( 837672 )
        Please, Gnome is a slim pick up and go desktop for new users, KDE is a customisable and flexible desktop for power, business or techie users.

        Just a clarification here. While i agree that Gnome is a good desktop for new users I need to make clear that not everyone who preffer Gnome are new users. I am not a new user and I preffer Gnome against KDE any day of the week.

        This reminds me of the time when someone on slashdot told me that I should not be using XUBUNTU because it is for people that is supposed to kn

      • Some criticism of gnome mostly past (Score:5, Informative)

        by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:05AM (#17471822)
        I hate gnome due to the cretinous idea of implementing an obfiscated MS Windows style registry on what was at the time a non-portable linux environment - and having one of these registries per user spread over multiple files named after the three stooges and others (not kidding) in a form where you cannot export the settings to another user let alone another computer. This has been fixed to a degree, not everything needs gconf anymore and with Sabayon many of the settings can be exported. However it remains an environment where a user can render their laptop unusable via a screen resolution applet which sets stuff in the weird registry instead of in the X windows configuration files where it belongs. Try fixing that over a bad mobile phone link to a remote area some time. Cretinous behaviour like making things executable without permission also occured at one time, but I believe was fixed rapidly.

        Fortunately the people that wanted a version of MS Windows that they wrote themselves running on linux (only) but not understanding the features of the platform have moved on - leaving us with two fairly decent environments with just a few remaining flaws.

      • Re:Less of the kitchen sink would make KDE better (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chris_Keene ( 87914 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:08AM (#17471836) Homepage Journal
        "Please, Gnome is a slim pick up and go desktop for new users, KDE is a customisable and flexible desktop for power, business or techie users."

        Disagree.

        I use Gnome because I have a million and one things to do and so long as the interface isn't annoying, looks ok and doesn't get in the way, then it's good for me.

        Don't get me wrong, I'm a power, business and techie user. When KDE 1 came out I spent loads of happy minutes changing every setting just to how i liked it on my home PC. Partly because I could and partly because I found the default kde setup annoying.

        I now use Ubuntu (at work) and have never felt the urge to change a single option. Now, the techie in me wants to do cool things at a PC, not change how the taskbar looks.
        • Exactly. I'm getting tired of this 'Gnome is for newbies, KDE is for power users' argument that gets trotted out over and over again. I'm a 'power user', I've tried every KDE version to date and always gone back to GNOME, because it just works the way I want it to without having to change anything, and stays out of my way. KDE 3.3 and beyond are much better than older versions, but still I prefer Gnome. But then I always preferred MacOS over Windows.

          Sometimes, I get the impression that the bulk of KDE fan

      • It's funny that that's the reason why I detest Gnome - for some reason they got the idea that removing all the options that only 5% of users use is a good idea.

        I agree, and I don't doubt that opinion is widespread. I tend toward installing Gnome for others because it gives the appearance of simplicity and it's generally less annoying looking than KDE (I think the operative word kids use today that would describe it is less "gay"). But dear Lord, Gnome is as dumbed down and featureless as Windows, if not m
      • At the risk of getting a bbq'd ass, I would say that this is one area that both GNOME and KDE could learn from how Windows does interface. The 'Advanced' tabs in Win make it easy to segregate the options that should be left for the last 5%.

        For that matter, I would like to say that the major drawback I found in KDE is not that the options are too complex, but that there are so many different ways to get to the settings from Kicker. Changing the windowing settings could lead me to three different interfaces,

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Godji ( 957148 )
      I understand your concern, but on the other hand, KDE is right now the only desktop which allows me to customize EVERYTHING I could ever want to customize WITHOUT going into config text files or the source code itself. This is exactly what I like most about it!

      Have you ever had the feeling that "this program is awesome, but there's this really annoying tiny thing I wish I could easily change"? I had a couple of these with GNOME last time I tried it, and I've never had this with KDE 3.x.

      GNOME is already

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        I don't really give a damn about the deskop. To my mind, the desktop should be something which is easy to configure, let's me organise files'n'stuff and run apps. It should do this with the minimum of fuss. I might want to set it up with some applets, change the locale, mouse speed and a few other bits and pieces, but other than that it really should sink into the background. Every second I waste trying to configure it, is a second lost doing what I bought my computer for. Every second I waste changing weir

    • Re:Less of the kitchen sink would make KDE better (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mjlner ( 609829 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:41AM (#17471986) Journal
      "I wish they'd follow GNOME or Firefox and realise that overloading the senses with tabs, buttons and checkboxes does not make for a pleasant desktop experience."

      Hear hear!

      You're so right! I wish the KDE team would realise that a pleasant desktop experience involves editing .gtkrc-2.0 by hand and adding stuff like

      binding "gaim-bindings" {
      bind "Return" { "insert-at-cursor" ("\n") }
      bind "<ctrl>Return" { "message_send" () }
      }
      widget "*gaim_gtkconv_entry" binding "gaim-bindings"
      This is Clearly preferable and more easily understandable compared to having to click a check box, as you had to do in the bad old days of Gaim.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        I have never hand edited a .gtkrc file in my life so I really don't understand your sarcasm. But if I did have to do it, you've shown how easy it is to do even in the remote likelihood that I would ever want to.
    • Um, if you like the way GNOME does things, you should be using GNOME. Leave KDE for those of us that like the way KDE does things, including the control center (which I like very much, since my KDE is heavily customized, and I didn't have to edit a registry to do it).

  • KDE on MacOSX (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hritcu ( 871613 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:50AM (#17471484) Homepage
    I can hardly wait to be able to run KDE apps on MacOSX without having to start an X server, and have proper copy-paste support, correct window stacking and native look an feel. There are KDE applications like Krusader [sourceforge.net] for which there is hardly any alternative on the Mac [mucommander.com].

  • KDE vs. Gnome (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Psychotria ( 953670 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @06:54AM (#17471500)
    At the risk of being labelled a troll, I have a few obversations to make. I yearn to return to Gnome (I made the switch from Gnome--which I'd been using for 3 years--to KDE about a year ago. I'm not sure if it's a "feature" of Gnome, but when Gnome apps (at least on my systems) fail, they don't even give a reasonable error message. This may be a design feature, to make it "easier", but, in fact, makes things stupidly difficult. If something fails, then I want to know WHY (at least give me the option of more detailed error messages). KDE is consistent. Gnome isn't (yet). 3 years ago, I would laugh at KDE users, because I knew that "Gnome was best". These days I take a more pragmatic view. Ideoligally, Gnome may be better. In practice, KDE takes the cake.

    • Re:KDE vs. Gnome (Score:5, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @07:25AM (#17471628)
      This may be a design feature, to make it "easier", but, in fact, makes things stupidly difficult.

      Troll or not I think you have just pegged the perfect Gnome slogan:

      "So easy it's stupidly difficult."

      KFG
    • If something fails, then I want to know WHY (at least give me the option of more detailed error messages).


      No you don't. Application "failures" are almost always memory protection errors. There is no useful error message to provide unless you compiled the app with debugging symbols - and then, you're probably going to be working with the corefile anyway. Looking at an out-of-bounds memory address isn't going to do you any good.
      • Unless you do what kde does - put the debug info in a separate file that can be loaded when needed (i.e. when it crashes).
        That way you can have a useful backtrace without using up memory when the program is running.
        • when a program is running, at least not on any reasonably modern kernel. Most (all?) current operating systems only load pages from executables on demand. If it doesn't get used it doesn't get loaded into memory.
  • Do they have any kind of official roadmap for KDE4 ? Looking at the not-updated-in-agesFeature Plan [kde.org] and yet-to-be-written Release Plan [kde.org] makes me doubt that they plan to ship anytime soon. Are you guys sure that it's going to be "some time this year" as the article states?

  • NOOOOOO....... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @07:40AM (#17471674)
    Plasma will provide the next generation desktop experience in KDE 4.0. It is planned to integrate three separate applications namely the Kicker (Panel), KDesktop and Super Karamba (Widgets) into a single application. And the surprise of all things is that it will be possible to run the beautiful Dashboard widgets of Mac OSX in KDE 4.0.

    I like things as they are with separate applications. If Kicker hiccups and falls over I can relaunch Kicker, if Super Karamba falls over, then I can simply restart Super Karamba, if the desktop falls over then I can restart the desktop... if the "all in one app" Plasma falls over, than what??? do I have to restart KDE? I don't want flaky Super Karamba widgets threatening the entire desktop... and I only want to run Super Karamba if I want to, not by default...

    • If your kicker in KDE 3.4+ dies, it's supposed to be auto-restarted (by kdeinit I think), just like Windows Explorer does in XP. I have never had kicker crash and not auto restart. Plasma will likely be the same.

  • Kool! (Score:5, Funny)

    by glavenoid ( 636808 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:12AM (#17471852) Journal
    KNow,if Konly Kthey Kwould Kstop Kalling Keverything KSomething or Kother!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Stevyn ( 691306 )
      I GNOw what you mean

    • Re:Kool! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @09:55AM (#17472476) Journal
      geah, gthat gis gsuch ga gpain.
      MSPerhaps, MSthat MSshould MSstop MSeverywhere.
      .netof .netcourse, .netI .netbe .netwrong.
      ior imaybe iyour igrip is inothing.

      • Pardon my ignorance... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @12:01PM (#17474354) Journal
        Why are they McNamed (I'm coining a new word. McNamed: Named in such a way as to be associated with an organization, entity, or product) anyways? Aren't applications written to run on any desktop. I seem to be running gnome, because there is an "about gnome" item on my system menu. However I have several "K" applications, such as kpovmodeller, that run just fine. Clearly they don't rely on KDE, so they must be written to some generic desktop standard. So, why the mcnaming? (They can't all be written by the same people who are writing the desktop software, can they?)
  • I don't like the Oxygen Icons. To many look tacky - probalby on purpose. How that is supposed to be a 'new user experience' I can't tell. I think we've got enough rull-color range Iconsets by now. They should put the work into refining and variation of what's there.
  • Apparently, they will be doing a lot of work on PIM data. I, for one, look forward to the day where mobiles and handhelds will be hardware abstracted, just like printers. Instal your Nokia whatever driver, and it synchronises agenda, contacts, pictures and music, in exactly the same way as your iPod and your Palm.
  • So we're runniong one GUI to run an entirely different one? Does this seem ever so slightly perverse? :-)
  • So, will KDE 4 be:
          - smaller than 3?
          - lighter weight, with fewer programs running in the background just to *run*
                  the damn thing?
          - faster?

          mark, who went to IceWM years ago, since *it* comes up in under 20 seconds, as opposed to a minute or more for KDE.

               
    • What kind of hardware are you using? A minute or more for KDE to start up is not realistic on even semi-modern hardware. It takes less than 15 seconds on my P4 2.6GHz from KDM to fully running KDE 3.5 desktop.
  • to mention XFCE. Time to done a flame retardant vest....

    I tried Gnome, and hated it. As others have said, it's designed to be simple, but I found it aggravating. Haven't used it in years, and have no intention of ever trying it again. KDE was alright, but it was slow as molasses. I still haven't figured out why the default is to dump debug information to console... if I'm running in X, I don't need to see that, and every call to stdout() slows down the system. It's a lot faster if you go into the source and

  • This is significant because Qt 4.0 is released under a GPL license even for non-Unix platforms.

    Stop spreading this bollocks. Qt 3 was released under the GPL. GPL is GPL, and platform restrictions would contravene Paragraph Six. There's nothing to stop you from porting Qt to Windows, VAX/VMS or even the ZX81, if you were so inclined. The only reason that earlier versions of Qt were never ported to Windows is simply because most Windows programmers don't want to work on Open Source code for the benefit o

  • It's rather lonely in here! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LordPhantom ( 763327 ) on Friday January 05, 2007 @12:42PM (#17475016)
    Am I the only one that wants a WM, not a Desktop? I'm still using a rather heavily-customized version of E16, and anxiously awaiting E17. Sure, I use a bunch of stuff from the KDE project as drivers (arts anyone?), but I would love to see more options built into the "eye candy overhead" of KDE (i.e. turning off components, etc) to increase perfomance.

    That said, the main reason I avoid KDE and GNOME is performance - most of the stuff it does is just overhead I don't need (and why does KDE -not- use the xscreensaver interface instead of their rather....useless wrapper?!!), but if they were able to improve the reliability of KDE, and make it possible to lower it's footprint to something that is, say, just -slightly- more than your average WMW I might consider it.

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