Is KDE 4.0 the Holy Grail of Desktops? 511
An anonymous reader writes "With KDE 4.0 being expected some time this year, expectation runs high in the linux/unix users camp and the media read a lot between the lines of what the KDE developers say and do. In some ways KDE will provide a standard as to how a desktop should look and behave. This interesting article wonders whether KDE 4.0 will become the complete desktop which will meet the needs of a wide cross section of computer users. One of the common complaints that some Linux users have over KDE is that it is too cluttered. And by addressing this need without putting off the power users, the KDE developers could make it an all in one Desktop. Keep in mind that KDE 4.0 is based on Qt 4.0 and so can be easily ported to Windows and other OSes too which makes this thought doubly relevant."
Of course not (Score:4, Funny)
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Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The key I know about is "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell"
I've used it to start cygwin xwin X server in place of explorer, but if you're launching a win32 app, it still has XP borders. And if you're launching a browser window, it will launch the full desktop.
Is there an equivalent to 'nautilus --no-desktop' for MS explorer ?
Is there a mean to replace the whole window manager ?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Notice that in XP the WM is inside the kernel so in XP is just impossible to replace it.
Explorer is just a shell (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people don't realize this, but the whole of the windows "desktop" - the task bar, the icons, the menus, the right click on the desktop, all runs under a single instance of the "explorer" process.
Via the registry you can change your shell to anything - including the old progman.exe from Windows 3.1 if you have it lying around (heck it even shipped with Windows until Windows 2000). I have switched my shell to Af
Re:Explorer is just a shell (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Manager
Re:Explorer is just a shell (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind you, this was a relatively long time ago... Win 95 or 98 era if I remember correctly... when you could change your shell just by editing a line in your system.ini.
Re:Explorer is just a shell (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Explorer is just a shell (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it looked ugly, but that's not the point.
It grouped everything right there, on the desktop. This is very helpfull to users.
Visually is how people orginaize there desktop. The current paradigm makes it very hard to visualize everything, so people have a hard time orginizing in a way the is logical to THEM.
I have had many users ask "Why can't I just see everything in one place"
I tell them, you can just put shortcuts on your desktop.
There are even better shells for windows. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There are even better shells for windows. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There are even better shells for windows. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:There are even better shells for windows. (Score:5, Funny)
Get it right it's sqrt(-1)Life
otherwise you just have a negative life
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Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Say you want to transition your office or whatever to use all Linux and OSS. You can get them used to open office, but they still be a bit put off when you make them switch to KDE. This way they can get used to "linux" while still having access to their favorite windows apps. I think it'd be a great idea for preparing people for a transition.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, but CAN it do that?
-matthew
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, if you're using KDE on Windows as a migration step towards KDE on Linux, once you move to Linux the WIN32 API disappears along with the windows apps.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Then kindly explain how to install and run gedit on Windows.
cygwin?
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
If I can't flip my open windows ... (Score:3, Funny)
it's good slashdottes never RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Hope they get some click-throughs from the traffic though.
Re:it's good slashdottes never RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we wait until it's even close to out first? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure we can find as many blog entries about how Vista is most-bestest, or Gnome, or Xfce. Of those, I'd only ever buy the Xfce argument but to each their own.
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At least, KDE developers listen (Score:3, Insightful)
I also hope that this release will make KDE fonts look sharp, crisp and beautiful by default. It is unfortunate that many times, we in the Linux community have to seek Microsoft's help on fonts in order to have a desktop that is a pleasure to look at.
Re:At least, KDE developers listen (Score:4, Informative)
I haven't really used the new fonts from Vista, however, so those might actually look nicer for all I know.
Also, if you have a copy of OS X, it's always a nice idea to copy all the fonts from
The Holy Grail of Desktops? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong -- I'm a huge fan of KDE. KDE is the project that made me think "yes, I will eventually be able to learn to use Linux" -- that was back in its 1.0 days. Now I use Linux full time (I still consider myself a beginner though). KDE is a good desktop -- it's knaming konventions are a klittle kstrange, but it's still a good desktop that makes basic Linux use a lot easier while not actually preventing you from getting into the guts of everything. It's my desktop of choice (I use Kubuntu).
But the Holy Grail of Desktops? There is no such beast, and there are too many opinions about what such a beast would be. There are too many people who want too many different things in their desktop. For my part, I want to see some desktop incorporate all the OO elements from OS/2's Workplace Shell... I've yet to see it happen. That's my "Holy Grail," and I expect if it were ever implemented it would be anathema to someone else.
The very thought that it might be able to "meet the needs of a wide cross section of computer users" would automatically make it fail in the eyes of some. I know and have spoken with some usability nuts who claim that there is One True Path to usability, and anyone who wants to do things differently is simply doing things WRONG, and that they need to learn the One True Path and experience how much better it is. "Acommodation" would be a design flaw from that perspective.
All that aside, I'm looking forward to KDE 4. One thing I've come to expect from the KDE developers is that everytime they release a new version of KDE I wind up liking the new version significantly more than the older version, and I think that's the most realistic expectation you can hope to have about software...
Re:The Holy Grail of Desktops? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm... would they possibly be people whose platform of choice begins with an "A" and ends with an "E", and which has "PPL" somewhere in the middle?
Re:The Holy Grail of Desktops? (Score:5, Funny)
That's not how you spell GNOME.
Windowmaker (Score:4, Insightful)
I use it on OpenBSd and Linux and it works nearly perfect.
Re:Windowmaker (Score:5, Informative)
WindowMaker is a window manager, not a desktop environment. A desktop environment consists of a window manager and related UI items, plus (more importantly) a development platform for applications.
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I still don't know (Score:5, Funny)
Was the one about KDE Being The Holy Grail Of The Modern Desktop anymore interesting ?
what-does-that-make-gnome-then (Score:5, Funny)
what-does-that-make-gnome-then
The Holy Hand Grenade
I prefer Gnome (Score:3, Insightful)
Though, they both seem to have issues with me customizing them. Yeah, it's possible, but the options I want are always hidden in some gconfedit.cf.conf.1.3 bullcrap file somewhere.
I don't want a new window every time I click a folder. I like to store my files heirarchically, and nest directories. I don't see how this makes me a bad person. Don't bury the option to turn that shit off. It was annoying in Windows 3.1, it's just as annoying on a linux box.
And KDE really needs a "lite" checkbox somewhere, to turn off all the bling blang for those of who choose not to "keeps it real".
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Power != clutter (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace the .0's in the summary. (Score:3, Interesting)
Another gripe is that KDE 4.0 is the base KDE 4 release; that is, it will contain the foundation for all KDE 4 applications along with its "core" applications all updated to use said base. KDE 4.0 (like KDE 3.0 and presumably 2.0 and 1.0; I'm not that old a Linux user sadly) will be more of a "proof of concept" release that updates all the KDE 3.5 applications to use Qt 4 along with the new "Pillars of KDE" (check the Dot [kde.org] for articles about it). However, it is expected that KOffice 2.0, Amarok 2.0, KDevelop 4.0, and several other key applications will be released with KDE 4.0, and those are major upgrades beside the typical updated usage of KDE libraries, Qt 4, and all the other things updated with KDE 4.
What I'm getting at here is that KDE 4.1 and beyond are the Holy Grails if anything; at this point, the developer interest in KDE should spike to above KDE 3 levels (especially due to the new platforms it supports: Windows and Mac OS X) and the new applications and innovations will begin. Just look at the major differences between KDE 3.5.6 and KDE 3.0 for example to see how much a major revision tends to change over time and include new programs. Basically, KDE 4.0 is the beginning of the quest for the Holy Grail (not to mention all the Python usage in some KDE distros like Kubuntu), but the Holy Grail itself will be a future release of KDE 4.
If you speak from a developer's standpoint, KDE 4.0 can be argued to be the Holy Grail, but not from the user's standpoint.
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KDE/Qt might be great, but I'm not interested (Score:4, Informative)
Although I'm not doing anything now, the first thing I would use for a lean startup cross platform development is ACE [wustl.edu] with wxWidgets [wxwidgets.org] on Visual Studio Express [microsoft.com] or Eclipse with CDT [eclipse.org].
It is just my opinion, but I think the pricing for Qt is too high. I wonder how big the Linux Desktop "pie" could grow if we could all settle on Qt if it fell under LGPL or BSD? Trolltech's smaller piece of a bigger pie, might still be bigger than the one they have now. Putting GPL/Free Software asisde for a second, from a commercial perspective, I don't want a "new Microsoft" on the Linux Desktop. Perhaps someone with some cash could revive the Harmony Toolkit [wikipedia.org]...
As Uncyclopedia says: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easily ported to Windows, huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Because QT 3 isn't available under GPL for Windows or Mac, while QT 4 is. Next question?
Re:Easily ported to Windows, huh? (Score:5, Informative)
In the meantime, Gnome is coming along quite nicely too. Neither gnome nor KDE is the be-all, end-all, last word in desktop environments, though. They both will continue to evolve and develop. More and more cooperation among the two camps through the freedesktop project is happening. Major problems have now been solved, including the clipboard frustrations of years past, drag-and-drop, and removable device handling through dbus. In fact with Qt4, since the glib main event loop can be used, it's becoming possible to mix gtk and qt widgets in the same app, which is handy for plugin developers. Problems yet to be solved include a common theming subsystem, a common virtual filesystem layer (a la kioslaves), and a few other things.
Re:Easily ported to Windows, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's mostly true. Aren't good cross-platform toolkits spiffy?
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It's not that hard to check before being condescending, k?
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How is that condescending?
I have asshat managers come to me every day telling me how "easy" it will be to integrate some third party code, or port something to some other OS.
"durr they both use stdlib, right? they're partically teh same thing! it most be vary easy lets git crackin u gots a week"
even trivial java apps aren't necessarily "easy" to get running on more than on OS.
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Re:Let's Get Serios (Score:5, Insightful)
As current Linux user that mixes everyday Gnome, KDE, and desktop-agnostic apps at home and work, I can assure you the "clipboard hell" issue has not been fixed at all. And I'm not anti-Linux trolling, I'm a Debian fan and used to be a package maintainer there. But you should be able to admit where Linux is just weaker than Windows or OS X.
Here's an extract of the various "clipboards" or "yank buffers" or whatever they're called I deal with on a daily basis:
- The venerable X11 buffer - select and middle click. This works great BUT if you happen to select something by mistake whatever you had in the clipboard before has gone. This is especially annoying if you select a link from somewhere and want to *replace* the URL in the address bar of Firefox. What you intuitevely do is the following:
1. Select the link in some program
2. Alt-Tab to Firefox
3. Select the link currently in the location bar (in order to replace it)
4. You just lost because the second selection replaced the first.
- Then there is the Gnome Clipboard (I believe that's what it is called). This is the Control-C, Control-V clipboard which works like in Windows - with one subtle difference. If you close the program you have cut/copied from, the content of the clipboard is *gone*.
1. Select and copy some text in some program
2. Close the program
3. You just lost
- Then there is the vim yank buffer. Yes, you can have multiple yank buffers and probably program them and whatever. But it is totally separate from the other clipboards. Vim even stores it when you close and restart vim. Thus you can:
1. Open vim, yank some text (that's "copy" for non-vimmers)
2. Reboot your machine
3. Log in from another machine with ssh
4. Paste it back. You win!
BUT of course it doesn't work across multiple concurrently running instances of vim. Don't tell me that I should use only one vim for multiple files and splits and all that crap. I want to be able to yank and paste across vims. Which you can't.
And if you use gvim (the vim with gui) then pasting from the Gnome clipboard is as easy as...pressing (no joke)
ESC : " g P
They must be out of their mind.
- And then there's the Emacs buffers (I believe it's called the "buffer ring" or something like that) which are again similar to the ones in vim. I hope I don't offend any emacs users here since I'm not that familiar with it, but I know that they are again incompatible with everything else.
What Linux needs is ONE universal clipboard. Just ONE. It shouldn't be part of Gnome, KDE, Xfce or even X11. It should be a system service. So you can copy and paste LIKE A SANE PERSON in ALL PROGRAMS. Just like on Windows. Or a Mac.
You could throw in persistence across reboots. And maybe across different sessions (say, local X11 and remote SSH). Then it would even be better than everything else. I'm actually thinking of implementing something like that - maybe even with X11 and Gnome clipboard bindings to "unify" them finally.
There should *definitely not* be multiple buffers, rings and crap like that. 99% of the time they are just confusing.
If a program *really* needs multiple buffers - and most do not - they could still implement that ON TOP of the universal clipboard. It's ok if *that* is not compatible across programs.
Greetings from one who loves, and loves to works with Linux but just *HATES* its clipboard functionality.
Re:Let's Get Serios (Score:4, Informative)
2. Alt-Tab to Firefox
3. Select the link currently in the location bar (in order to replace it)
4. You just lost because the second selection replaced the first.
On Windows I have two additional steps:
1'. Ctrl-C to copy the selected text into the clipboard
3. either Ctrl-L into the location bar or Ctrl-T open a new tab
3'. Ctrl-V the address into the location bar
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That was a long rant. Anyway, you might want to check out Klipper, which fixes all that except the network thing and vim integration... the latter being a vim problem, I'd say, xemacs works as expected. You have to configure it correctly to get the behaviour you want... Wild guess would be synchronize, keep 200 items in your case, prevent empty clipboard. If the popup on links etc annoys you, you might want to disable action.
Problem solved :)
PS: You are wrong about the Gnome keyboard, that is an X feature
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If we're going to have a "universal" clipboard, I'd want it to work in BSD and OS X (GUI and command-line) and Cygwin and Windows too. Therefore, even being a system service isn't enough; it needs to be part of POSIX!
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X11 has and always has had two clipboards, short term (highlight/middle click) and long term (^C/^V). The "gnome" clipboard as you call is is just the X11 long term clipboard. And guess what? Firefox supports it, so you can ^C, ^V in to the address bar if you wish. I guess you never tried that SINCE IT WORKS FINE. Or, you can go the shor term route and s
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I suppose that's why he's marked Troll so quickly.
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It is quite nifty in an office environment to copy paste a screenshot, the content of a browser window, application data
You see, alot of people whose job is not IT related need these kind of functionalities
Re:Let's Get Serios (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Disable Linux clipboard. Hell breaks loose.
2. Disable Windowsish clipboard. Hell breaks loose.
3. Merge clipboards. Hell breaks loose as Windows userrs have their clipboard contents "mysteriously" replaced.
4. Keep it as is and have slashdot trolls complain about the copy-paste system.
clipboards and selections (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, but I'm going to be a bit pedantic here.
You have described one clipboard (Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V), and it's the Mac way, not the Windows way. Macs originally implemented this with Cmd-C, Cmd-V (and -X, of course) because the Apple UI people were smart enough to realize that Ctrl-C and Ctrl-X already had some important (and somewhat dangerous [kill, cancel]) standardized meanings that shouldn't be messed with. Early PCs did not have a command key, so early Windows versions decided to copy this feature, but using the Ctrl key instead, and to hell with standards.
The Linux way you describe is actually an X11 feature that predates Linux (and probably Windows cut/paste), and it's not really a clipboard at all. Middle-click copies the "primary selection", not the clipboard. The distinction is lost on many (I said I was going to be pedantic...) but technically selections are a protocol for implementing clipboards. By default there is a primary, secondary, and a clipboard selection, and those can contain many separate buffers of data. (The xclipboard client lets you manipulate the clipboard buffers, if you're curious.) But middle-click in X doesn't hit the clipboard selection at all, but rather the primary selection. You can use this to copy/paste stuff without messing with the contents of your clipboard, which might doing more important things.
So X selections are really a superset of clipboards. As with everything in Unixland, this imparts a lot of power for those who have been initiated into its mysteries, but creates confusion in those who have not, and hostility in those who think the broken Windows way is the right way.
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Fixed.
Re:Juvenile 'K' Naming Jokes? Holy Grail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right! They should behave like the serious folks in Microsoft calling everything with the full beautiful "Windows" before the app name instead of a little "K": Windows Mail, Windows Firewall, Windows Media Player. Or Apple, using a slick, minuscule "i" instead of a boasting "K": iPod, iTunes, etc. True, big companies really HAVE grown the fuck up!
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Re:They don't get it... (Score:4, Informative)
Konqueror started out as a file manager, true, but KDE tacked on web browsing to it and then spent most of the time developing that aspect of it -- now it's really more of a web browser that does file management too, rather than a file manager on steroids.
With Dolphin they appear to have recognized this and are creating an application to focus on what Konqueror was originally intended to do in the first place. This isn't exactly the same as creating a beginner's app and a power-user's app...
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1. standardized operation for ALL applicatation.
Windows doesn't. At all. Even MS apps aren't all the same, especially between generations.
2. cut and paste between ALL applications.
KDE does this. See a thread above.
3. Applications must ALL be uniform in operation of common functions..
I assume you mean dialog boxes. Windows doesn't guarantee it, and neither does KDE. It provides the same (and more) functi
Re:KDE doesn't stand a chance until.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Nobody said anything about Windows. Why are Linux users so unable to let Linux stand on its own? You never see Mac users constantly comparing everything about OS X to Windows, instead they judge OS X on its own merits and criticize it for its own failings.
Have you ever seen those cartoons with the bulldog who's constantly being circled by the annoying yipping puppy sucking up to him? Linux is like the puppy. It's irritating.
2) If Linux wants to gain users, yes, it has to be much better than Windows. I would think that obvious.
2. cut and paste between ALL applications.
KDE does this. See a thread above.
Only for text. Try copying (say) spreadsheet cells and pasting them in a bitmap graphics program. Or try copying a few seconds of a video file and pasting it in a word processing document.
3. Applications must ALL be uniform in operation of common functions..
I assume you mean dialog boxes. Windows doesn't guarantee it, and neither does KDE. It provides the same (and more) functionality that Windows does, though.
Not just dialog boxes, but also:
* Keyboard shortcuts
* Menu items
* Contents and ordering of contextual menus
* Open and Print dialogs (which you mentioned)
* Button labels
* What the "Home" and "End" button do in text fields
etc.
5. Easily customizable..
You might have something here... Too bad KDE is MUCH more customizeable than Windows, especially straight out of the box.
He didn't say "more customizable" he said easily customizable. If you don't know the difference between those two statements, you really have no business critiquing a UI.
But why KDE would rule the market by only beating Apple, which doesn't rule the market, is byond me.
It would only rule the market if it:
1) Beat Apple's OS X
2) Beat Microsoft's Windows
3) Was compatible with, or had feature-complete equivalents to, all software that runs on OS X or Windows, including custom-developed programs
4) Ran on affordable hardware and was itself affordable (both in monetary cost, and in support costs)
Right now, no Linux environment (KDE included) is even remotely close.
Re:KDE doesn't stand a chance until.... (Score:5, Funny)
Really? I thought Mac users' sole purpose in life is to endlessly compare OSX with Windows.
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As a home Mac user, my "sole purpose" is to forget the damn operating system exists and get some work done. Worrying about the OS is like constantly thinking about the frame of your vehicle as you drive down the highway. What a waste of fucking time.
If the operating system actively gets in the way, that's a real issue. I haven't had problems with Mac OS X so far.
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That's all kind of beside the poin
Re:KDE doesn't stand a chance until.... (Score:5, Informative)
--> It does, check out dcop or it's replacement d-bus. Through shell, perl, c++, qt... you can communicate between any application in both fore- and background.
2. cut and paste between ALL applications..
Has done that for a while now...
3. Applications must ALL be uniform in operation of common functions..
That's up to the programmers mainly, but all decent KDE applications use the standard QT library
4. Uniform operation of input devices (mouse)..
What's your problem with that? Any mouse I connect works and the mouse buttons too. Mainly an issue of configuration (which can be done from within KDE), doesn't matter which OS you use.
5. Easily customizable..
Check out kde-look.org, I think there's even a plugin into the Themes section of your configuration that automagically downloads them.
6. Standardized behavour on any local or remote environment..
That's up to the environment server. I connect through X or VNC, looks the same as my desktop at home.
7. Some kind of direct video support (games, etc...).
That's up to the Operating System, not to a desktop environment. And those solutions are available, it's called OpenGL and SDL, too bad only good game developers dare to use portable, industry standards instead of closed API's they don't even have full support for (take a look at the UT engine, Doom engine, Cube engine).
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Sadly, OpenGL drivers on Linux aren't up to speed feature-wise. ATI's drivers are especially poor. For instance, you can't reliably
Re:KDE doesn't stand a chance until.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Damn KDE Fanboys (Score:4, Informative)
Dynamic binding defeats CPU branch prediction regardless of how it's implemented -- if the target of a jump instruction is taken from a pointer whose value is determined at run-time, rather than compiled into the program, it can't be predicted. Ordinary C structures containing function pointers, like GNOME uses, work the same way. This isn't a problem with C++ virtual functions; it's just that current processors aren't able to accelerate a certain technique that's often used in modern software design.
As for the extraneous symbols, GCC 4.0 introduced some facilities for suppressing them, and I'm pretty sure KDE uses them now, so that should no longer be an issue.
My only real issue with KDE's programming environment is that they don't use standard C++; they use a variant of C++ that's "enhanced" with syntactic support for signals and slots, and the code gets preprocessed into standard C++ at build time. That's a bit ugly.
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Hear hear! I've been using KDE for years, and every once in a while I experiment with Gnome. I like it, but the lack of some utility (quick and simple file operations across SFTP / SMB / local filesystems using Konqueror springs immediately to mind here) always sends me back to KDE. But I will give Gnome some credit: their desktop looks extremely nice, and seems particularly suited to new users. Yes, I can't stand the way Nautilus deals with rem
Re:Clutter and appearance (Score:4, Informative)
Hear hear! I've been using KDE for years, and every once in a while I experiment with Gnome. I like it, but the lack of some utility (quick and simple file operations across SFTP / SMB / local filesystems using Konqueror springs immediately to mind here) always sends me back to KDE
You know, there's no need to use KDE to use Konqueror. I use Konqueror with Fluxbox, for Chrissakes.
Re:Konqueror (Score:4, Insightful)
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The replies are an example of precisely what is wrong with Linux. Take cyclop, who wrote:
These are people who don't understand the paradox of choice.
I've used Unix on the desktop. I've used KDE, Gn
Re:KDE's Achilles' heel (Score:4, Insightful)
You call it a bug, I call it a feature. People make the same complaint about the Linux kernel, GNU readline, and so on. If you want a proprietary-friendly OS, go use Windows or OS X.
Though it would have been nice if the effort expended on GNOME had instead been expended on a BSD-licensed Qt replacement... Or improving OpenStep... or pretty much anything except developing a third desktop environment and stuffing it with Microsoft patented technology.
Re:KDE's Achilles' heel (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's great.
They are modern day Robin Hoods, except legal!
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No, no. That isn't the issue at all. Qt isn't like the Linux kernel, GTK+ is. Look - you can write non-GPL apps to run on top of the Linux kernel, in userspace. If you want to modify the kernel itself, only then do you need to write GPL code. In that sense, the Kernel's use of the GPL is very much like GTK+'s use of the LGPL -
Re:KDE's Achilles' heel (Score:5, Informative)
Well in that case, you have no problem. Qt for X11 is available under the QPL [trolltech.com], which permits applications to use a range of free software licenses, including the LGPL and BSD-style.
Guess you'll be switching now then?
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Addressed to several people who have replied to the parent post
Most of these responses give a truly informative overview of why so many non-*nix users (MS and Apple) think we are a bunch of snot nosed arrogant kids.
When a person makes a list of complaints, bogus or not (and his/hers are well composed compared to most complaints), that person and their complaints should be respected. You know what most of my clients have complained about linux the most? Not the roughness of the OS, but the roughness of t