KDE's New Projects Take On Portable Devices 110
jrepin writes "Key KDE developers have been blogging about new projects aimed towards portable devices. As Aaron Seigo says, 'In a nutshell, Plasma Active is about getting the KDE Platform with Plasma providing a compelling user interface ready for and available on hardware devices outside the usual laptop and desktop form factors.' For us mortals, that means an interface for smartphones, tablets, and handhelds."
Re:*what* tablets? (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to be the guy who makes the car analogy, but if you walked into a dealership and said you wouldn't buy anything that wasn't a V8 that got 45MPG, came with an XM radio, had a sunroof, four doors, included the schematics, and cost $16k or less, I imagine they'd politely tell you to take a hike.
Don't get me wrong, it's great when you can get exactly what you want. But that's often the exception to the rule.
Sort of like Android, Meego, Unity... (Score:0, Insightful)
As much as choice is Linux's greatest strength, the effort wasted on five or ten different projects with the same goals is Linux's biggest weakness.
Re:Sort of like Android, Meego, Unity... (Score:4, Insightful)
How is the effort "wasted"?
Let's say that Gnome was the only project to do a desktop environment. How would that be more efficient? Now everybody would be stuck with every boneheaded decision the Gnome project comes up with, and every time a new version came out, everybody would have to learn new ways to do old things.
On the other hand, if there's 5 or 10 desktop projects, then you're not stuck if your current favourite goes in a direction you don't like. The more choice the better.
Saying that putting effort into 5 or 10 desktop projects is wasted effort is like saying that free markets are a wasted effort: one single company selling things is more efficient than 5 companies competing.
1998 just called... (Score:4, Insightful)
... they want their meme back.
We hear the same tiring rant over and over again, and this is really becoming OLD. Plain and simple, in that case, this is bollocks. I've run every version of KDE since v. 1, and anytime there was improvements, whiners have complained they were too broke to afford the required computing power. Then, don't use it and be done with it !
But what's more, since KDE 4.5, this rant is completely delusional. I use daily a 2008 eeepc 900A (Atom powered low-end netbook w/ 1GB RAM and Intel graphics), with Fedora 13, KDE 4.5 (composite display enabled with bells and whistles), and libreoffice. This is my bread-and-butter computer. The speed of KDE is already perfectly adequate even if slowed down by the lousy 8GB SSD of the machine. All the graphics effects just work. And this from a computer that wouldn't be able to run Microsoft Aero effects.
You don't like KDE : fine. But stop smearing it for imaginary defects produced only by your incapacity to configure it properly.