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KDE GUI

Redhat to support KDE developement 372

belbo writes "According to a notice on KDE's news page Redhat is now funding two KDE developers in their efforts to port KDE to the upcoming open-sourced QT 2.0." Indeed KDE 1.1 is apparently in Red Hat 5.9. Furthermore, Moritz Moeller - Herrmann tells us that our ubiquitous friend Kalle Dalheimer announced to the KDE-dev list that " KDE was awarded "Innovation of the Year 1998/99" in the category software at a Ziff-Davis event in relation to the CeBIT fair. The other finalists were Lotus eSuite and Microtest Visual CD. This award is a great achievement of the whole KDE team! Congratulations to all of you! We will provide scanned pictures of the award and other items we got (like posters and stickers) as soon as possible on the KDE web site." Finally, Linux Today has a brand new look and is sporting interviews with people of the Linux community. In one of them, Corel CEO Micheal Cowpland reveals that Corel's open-source GUI will be based on KDE. Please folks, don't let this good news bring on a flame-war. Many people want to choose which desktop suits them best: GNOME, GNUStep, KDE are all worthy contenders.
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Redhat to support KDE developement

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    K:
    1. Decent stack-ordered task switching
    2. Good desktop switching (if you only use 2 windows)
    3. Task manager useful and non-intrusive when 'hidden'
    4. Good enough of a file manager
    5. Easily configurable

    I wouldn't mind a slimmer kde without all of the superfluous stuff as an option.

    Plug follows:
    -----------------
    Anyone want to try my newsreader? Download mp3s, etc off of usenet in the comfort of your own linux:

    http://www.geocit ies.com/ResearchTriangle/Forum/3838/dolphin.html [geocities.com]

  • by Anonymous Coward
    I suppose the use of a GUI depends entirely on what you are doing. Personally, I find text consoles entirely too limited for the tasks I frequently perform. I don't really need an entire screen showing information about cpu usage, 1% is enough. I frequently edit source and track down bugs in a number of files that would be ridiculous to attempt without a quick method of spliting the screen into several sections.
    I don't use a machine running linux as a client. I find the client-server model of X very usefull in this respect. Opening even a half dozen telnet sessions would be beyond a hassle. I don't notice much speed difference between X apps and console apps. Granted I'm not running linux on terribly old hardware here (p 233 mmx), but even so I have never really seen a term in X react more slowly than a console. I find the X graphics routines to be fairly efficient as well - sliding a window around in X eats much more CPU time on my windows based P2 266 server than it does on the linux pentium 233 mmx client. (bleh, i'll never get the seemingly reversed client-server association down)
    I find RPMs extremely usefull. I used Slackware several years ago and found out what kind of nasty problems can arise when everyone uses a different path for installing things. I don't really NEED to know everything that's going on during an install. Sure, it'd be nice to know, but I just simply don't have to time to be paranoid. Make it install smooth and I'm happy. Quite frankly the time it would take to investigate and analyze every single package that I wanted to install would vastly outweigh the time it would take to recover from even the worst of malicious surprises attached. This isn't to say that there isn't a place for the detailed information. On the contrary, I commend those who take the time to search out problems in the gobs of detail. What I find odd is that so many people think that Company X or Company Y is out to get them. In almost all of the cases, you're simply not important enough for that to be true. Most people don't consider the Pope paranoid for using a bullet proof dome on a vehicle (I heard somewhere that Bill Gates purchased an Armored SUV - regardless of wether he fears linux, it sounds like he fears linux users!), but if you do it, you'll probably be marked as a wacko.
    Does the command line let you run Quicken? Which do you think is more likely - an X port of Quicken, or a console port of Quicken?
    I find statements like "it looked too much like MS for me to be comfortable with it" oddly distrubing. A rather interesting side-effect of so many linux users being so anti-MS is that MS has as much control over them as it does over the MS loving crowd. It will be interesting when some company forms an unofficial and non-public agreement with Microsoft and has them basicly push customers their way..
  • by Anonymous Coward
    all the hard works (15 years of hard works) by many fsf developers, hackers and students to create a utophia(GPL/LGPL) world are now tarnish by a library (QT), a Desktop Development (KDE) and a bunch of i-need-to-get-my-job-done-i-hate-editing-config-fi les-cml-is-so-hard-rms-is-shit-gpl-stupi d-money-is-what-i-want-kde-rulez-who-cares-i-like- tom-gnome-sucks-troll-customers-always-r ight users.

    sad...sad...sad...

    indeed a sad day.
    its just debian left or it's ?
    farewell red hat.

    the future of linux is RedHat+KDE+QT.
    Where do you want to go tomorrow ?
  • by Anonymous Coward
    It is now just over 15 years since the beginning of the Free
    Software Movement and the GNU Project. We have come a
    long way.

    In 1984, it was impossible to use a modern computer without
    installing a proprietary operating system, which you would have
    to obtain under a restrictive license. No one was allowed to share
    software freely with fellow computer users, and hardly anyone could change software to fit his or her
    own needs. The owners of software had erected walls to divide us from each other.

    The GNU Project was founded to change all that. Its first goal: to develop a Unix-compatible portable
    operating system that would be 100% free software. Not 95% free, not 99.5%, but 100%--so that
    users would be free to redistribute the whole system, and free to change and contribute to any part of it.
    The name of the system, GNU, is a recursive acronym meaning "GNU's Not Unix"--a way of paying
    tribute to Unix, while at the same time saying that GNU is something different. Technically, GNU is like
    Unix. But unlike Unix, GNU gives its users freedom.

    It took many years of work, by hundreds of programmers, to develop this operating system. Some were
    paid by the Free Software Foundation and by free software companies; most were volunteers. A few
    have become famous; most are known mainly within their profession, by other hackers who use or work
    on their code. All together have helped to liberate the potential of the computer network for all humanity.

    In 1991, the last major essential component of a Unix-like system was developed: Linux, the free kernel
    written by Linus Torvalds. Today, the combination of GNU and Linux is used by millions of people
    around the world, and its popularity is growing. This month, we announced release 1.0 of GNOME, the
    GNU graphical desktop, which we hope will make the GNU/Linux system as easy to use as any other
    operating system.

    But our freedom is not permanently assured. The world does not stand still, and we cannot count on
    having freedom five years from now, just because we have it today. Free software faces difficult
    challenges and dangers. It will take determined efforts to preserve our freedom, just as it took to obtain
    freedom in the first place. Meanwhile, the operating system is just the beginning--now we need to add
    free applications to handle the whole range of jobs that users want to do.

    In future columns, I will be writing about the specific challenges facing the free software community, and
    other issues affecting freedom for computer users, as well as developments affecting the GNU/Linux
    operating system.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    >Look how they violate the GPL (QT is not and
    > never will be GPL compatible, but they take
    > other people's GPLed code and link it to QT).
    To my surprise, even before Troll Tech jumped on an Open Source bandwagon there was NO SIGNLE objection from developers about linking their code to QT.

    Come on. Stop flaming. It would be understandable if You say : "I object KDE linking _MY_ code to QT". If You speak for other's code than... it's simply not Your business.

    May be You simply didn't wrote anything worthwile yet... First DO something -- then engage in POLITICS (if You want)... Otherwise Your thoughts do not have much credibility.

    KLM.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Both KDE and GNOME provide:

    Session management
    CORBA based component programming
    High level application print services
    High level application dialogs
    Additional application services/libraries
    Desktop productivity applications
    Panel based application menus and virtual workspaces
    Desktop themability (goes beyond UI toolkit themability)
    Consistent look-and-feel for native applications
  • by Anonymous Coward
    That's all you have to do to smear Qt and KDE, right? Just repeat the mantra 'Half-Assed Free License' or some such thing over and over, without bothering to explain why this is the case.

    Unfortunately, this ad hominum FUD has been pretty effective - compare the amount of press received by the (premature?) release of GNOME 1.0 with the much smaller amount of attention received by the far more mature KDE 1.1. Sure, GNOME is full of cool ideas, but KDE is ready for the desktops of power users and beginners alike, right now.

    I'm sick of this crap. Troll Tech may not have been on board with a 100% Open Source approach from Day 1, but thay have come a long long way in their licensing. As for Qt itself, it has been of top-notch quality right from the beginning. The documentation in particular is superb.

    I will use KDE and Qt without apology, assist my Linux-newbie friends in doing the same, and do my best to speak up against anti-KDE FUD. Qt is the best widget set available for Unix, period, and KDE continues to set the pace for the Unix desktop.

    -Doug Lay
    -too lazy to log in.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    KDE is great, but... what innovation?
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Yes it is, and it's very nice of them. It still remains GPL incompatible tho. And, no, claiming essential system component about Qt does not hold water, which means you cant get around it that way (or anyone would be able to throw together a linux dist, claim essetial system component about a proprietary library and take whatever GPL code they want).

    So, KDE still has to obtain permission to link GPL software to Qt or remove any third party GPL code. I, for one, would take appropriate measures if code under my copyright was linked without permission against a non-GPL compatible library (wether Qt or mfc32 for Linux).
  • by Anonymous Coward
    KDE may be further along, i think GNOME has an ace up its sleeve, Netscape 5.0. Netscape 5.0 should be out pretty soon, and it is written in GTK. I would go so far to say that Redhat incurged this since Netscape anncounced that they were using GTK after they made a minor investment into Redhat. If Netscape 5.0 kicks ass I wouldn't be suprised if IBM, and other announce desktop programs in GTK. Another reason GTK is required to run GIMP which a hell of a lot of Linux users have. There is no such killer app in QT. And even if they don't most will when Netscape 5.0 comes out most will get because it will require GTK to run making it even more of a reason to choose GTK, and GNOME.
    On a side note, I believe the main reason that Redhat is including KDE is to stop the Redhat spin offs, because they loose money in possible sales and support.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    You are correct. There are those who would argue that Qt can be an 'essential system component' and thus be exempt from the requirement. I most certainly do not agree, for a number of reasons, and would pursue any such violation against any of my copyright, if it had been linked without asking permission.

    There are only two possibilities, one is Qt becoming GPL compliant (which seems to be impossible, for some reason), or KDE using a modified GPL/other license and asking permission for any third party GPL code.
  • Over the last 3 days, I have compiled and installed gnome 1.0.3 on my slackware linux box.
    (Yes, contrary to rumor, you can get it to
    work with libc5). But
    this is the first time I have been able to
    compile any gnome release, and on Slackware,
    it required extensive interaction on my part.
    (Not to mention 3 sleepless nights). For the
    compile to work, I had to do the following:

    1) `hide' my gimp and gtk1.0.x directories.
    (remove these directories from /etc/ld.so.conf
    and remove the path to the binaries. This
    was easy for me since I had a separate directory
    devoted to gtk and gimp. )

    2) Configure each gnome package with
    --disable-nls --disable-threads. Use the
    package order given on the gnome web page.

    3) Run /sbin/ldconfig -v after installing
    each package.

    Anyway, last night, I finally compiled the
    last of the 42 *.tar.gz packs and fired up gnome.
    I tested it for what remained of the night.
    The following are my observations.

    1) Gnome is not as unstable as it is made out
    to be. In fact, I could not get it to crash
    even once in 3 hours. (Of course, it is possible
    that I did not get to the unstable parts.)

    2) Gnome reputation for "good looks" is, unfortunately, completely undeserved.

    This is not a troll, people. I am serious.
    I had great expectations of Gnome, as the one
    thing that I kept hearing consistently on the
    newsgroups is how good it looks. And the screenshots on the gnome web site

    The reality is that Gnome looks and feels far
    worse than KDE does. For instance, the icons are big and blocky and look amateurish. The whole thing has a clunky feel.

    Surprised, I went back to the gnome site to
    check out the snapshots. And lo and behold,
    I noticed several things I had not seen before.
    Strip the screenshots of the background images
    and color schemes and my observations still hold.
    Clunky icons and poor placements of the same.

    People who love windowmaker won't
    have any problems with this, since big blocky
    icons are a feature of that famous desktop.

    Anyway, this is quite disappointing... I don't
    know if these icons are a temporary thing or are
    going to be a permanent fixture of gnome. I hope
    not.

    If there are any slackware users out there who
    need help with any stage of compiling and installing gnome, drop me a line.

    Hari.
    gharikumar@iname.com.
  • by dwmw2 ( 82 ) on Thursday March 18, 1999 @11:02PM (#1972763) Homepage

    I admin a network which has GNOME, KDE and WM+xterm users. I don't care which one they use - as long as I can set up mime types and new applications in a uniform manner.

    Currently, I can't - I've set up a KDE Application link, and MimeType links, for Applixware, but GNOME doesn't use them. Until there's a uniform way of doing things like this, we can't expect commercial software to use it, and hence we can't expect things to 'just work' when we click on them.

    Hopefully, with RedHat (or indeed anyone) taking an active part in development of both, this will be fixed quite quickly.

    Has anyone done QT-emulating C++ bindings for GTK, and a QT-like theme? :)

  • So, start writing code to do it. Sitting back and just wishing doesn't get anything done. You could start simply by writing a program that converts the files to a format the other can use. Then move on to writing code within both to allow them to use the other's format.

    Some of the best programs started out by just being a program one person wanted, and then millions of others found useful too. Worldwide popularity is all that can come of it.
  • The irritating thing about this discussion is the assumption that we all have to have a 'desktop'. I sympathized a great deal with the fellow who wanted some assurance that WMs like WM were not going to be penalized- unfortunately the answer was basically, 'Don't worry- Window Maker has been assimilated!' What about the window managers which take an old school approach without paying attention to KDE? Are we looking at apps which penalize those in some cosmetic way, not at all (just adding hooks to KDE additions) or actual required functionality that forces you to use something that goes along with the KDE api?
    Again, the thing that gets me is this- if I want a desktop I have MacOS. It's not going to go bad on me, it doesn't typically crash or exhibit bugs on me, and yet I am also dualbooting Linux. If I wanted to play with the Windows notion of what a desktop is, I could just run a Windows emulator, of which there are several. I'm not remotely impressed with either KDE or Gnome's featuresets or what's being offered- isn't this rather going against the grain of what Unix grew from, and doing it in a relentlessly Windows-like way to boot? I'd really contest the assumption that this is in any way necessary.
    For years, secretaries and low paid clerical workers learned DOS, and didn't have too much trouble with it. Nobody figured that they were therefore brilliant computer geeks- they just learned to use the computer. Linux has the same potential for acceptance on its own terms, and doesn't seem to be trying for that at all- instead all the attention is largely on large-scale efforts to reproduce the way Windows works, evidently on the assumption that Microsoft's judgement and design sense is better than anyone else's out there, and that Windows is in fact the ultimate computer operating system that can only be imitated, never varied from. To innovate you evidently have to add more widgets to the total list of everything Windows already has, otherwise it doesn't count.
    I seriously contest that assumption. It's understandable- really, really huge sums of money have been spent in a concerted, over and under-the-table effort to put across the idea that that _is_ the truth. It's also a bad assumption and is blocking attempts to evolve newer interfaces, for example interfaces that take elements _out_ rather than just always adding more elements towards a baroque frenzy of incomprehensible helpfulness.
    I know I direct my attention towards having my Linux box be _different_ from my Mac side... I don't want a desktop, and the last thing I need is a taskbar- even on MacOS I can remember what I'm doing. I set up Linux with Window Maker and in fact took to using the clip for even more data hiding- now the startups for various apps are localized in workspaces. A GUI desktop is all very well but doing it properly is very complicated, and there is no reason to assume Windows is the canonical example of doing it properly... the obsessive interest in KDE and Gnome (regardless of how well or poorly they interoperate with each other and with other systems) suggests that nobody is willing to suggest that the desktop metaphor, in specific the _Windows_ desktop metaphor, isn't the only way people can use computers, and most notably is not necessarily the easiest approach for newbies!
    Well, consider it suggested... people need extensive training to run Windows boxes, and even then they are frightened venturers into the weird regions of their own computers. People do _not_ rush to Windows boxes and immediately prance merrily about operating controls- in fact the opposite happens, they get shellshocked and become pitiably nervous and spooked and require lots of reassurance when talked through things. It _is_ the interface that causes this behavior.
    Surely we can do better than that?
  • by Trepidity ( 597 )
    It needs to be compatible with the GPL, because KDE is licensed under the GPL. Since the QPL is not GPL-compatible, linking KDE with Qt remains illegal.
  • by Trepidity ( 597 )
    I'm not the one violating licenses, so I have no obligation to fix anything. They need to fix their own licensing mess, since they're the ones that created it in the first place.
  • I wasn't aware that the KDE license had been changed to the LGPL. When did this happen? Was permission for the license change received from all the copyright holders of the third-party GPL code the KDE team has used?
  • I understand that the new QPL is indeed a Free Software license, but is it GPL compatible? Since KDE is licensed under the GPL, if the QPL is not GPL compatible, linking KDE with Qt would be illegal, would it not? IIRC, a license requiring patches is incompatible with the GPL, so this remains the case.

    The easiest solution I can see is that KDE could either change the license to LGPL, or provide an exemption for Qt. However, this would require the acquiescence of all the copyright holders of all the GPL'd code they've used.
  • Isn't that what GNOME is?

  • Posted by fieldmarshallburrito:

    John Dvorak's just said it: "The heir to windows is a gentrified Linux". The mainstream press is starting to crack. As soon one of the big computer vendors lets you order a pre-configured linux box with your choice of KDE or GNOME, then it's all over for "Alpha Borg" Bill Gates.
  • Posted by stodge:

    Am I the only person who thinks the GTK widget set is ugly? And I do think that KDE looks too much like Windows, but in an inoffensive way. They could have been a bit more creative (not necessary in eye candy, eh Enlightenment?).
  • Posted by stodge:

    I agree. Personally I hate messing with themes. Do themes waste CPU cycles?? I'd rather have something I prefer to use out of the box. I'm lazy! :)

    Stodge in disguise.......
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    No, just plain ethical.

    BTW, why is it OK for /. to delete comments but not OK for the FSF to ask programmers to use a particular license?
  • ...and no-one is there to hear it...yadda yadda yadda.

    If the GNUstep GNUrus can't be bothered to answer this question [dejanews.com], why should I be bothered to look into GNUstep for using it or for developing apps? They can't even be bothered to fix their mailing-list page [gnustep.org].

    If it could be gotten to work, I'm sure it would be a worthy addition to the toolkit/environment flame^H^H^H^H^Hwars. But as it is, it seems (to this outsider) to be no more than an ineffectual quilting-bee.

    Flames welcome. I'd like to learn more.

    --

  • by pingouin ( 783 )
    From NEWS:

    Noteworthy changes in version `0.5.5' =====================================

    NOTE that the X/DPS backend is not supported at all in this release. Hopefully it will be fixed up in the next release.

    Thanks for the heads-up. Back to the quilt, GNUrus...

    --

  • Since Unix is inherently multiuser, a more traditional approach would be to install all of them and then have the administrative adduser program allow the choice. I believe some commercial Unixes do that with e.g. OpenLook and CDE.

    Besides, 10G disks are breaking the $200 barrier now....

    Craig

  • This is probably a troll; it's hard to believe that anyone this idiotic could actually learn to operate a toaster, let alone a computer.

    But whether it is or not, it's a useful example of the mindset that makes many of us dislike the GPL and gives us the uneasy feeling that it may have outlived its usefulness -- particularly in an age where trial lawyers bicker about what the meaning of "is" is and legislatures believe that no area of human interaction is safe against their interference.

    The mere fact that some clown would be clueless enough to prattle about "all true Linux users" shows that the grownups in this movement -- who really do constitute the majority -- have a lot of educating to do.

    Craig

    My personal opinion is that licenses should first be read as moral obligations, and after that they should be gone over by lawyers. -- Linus Torvalds, March 1999
  • > We live in a time when such things can and should be handled automatically by machine.

    Yep, the automount program and filemanager features are very convenient. But you have to bear in mind why they're necessary, and why they're separated from the OS core: Unix is a multiuser system, so anything that would change the operating environment for everyone at once requires root privileges, whether it's changing the CD or editing XF86Config.

    If automount were built into the OS it would provide an endless source of security headaches for Linux as a server -- and just picture what a nice little office system could be set up with a central Alpha or high-end Pentium running apps for a dozen or so old 486s being used as X terminals; a cost-effective, flexible all-Linux installation. But automount under those circumstances would be a pretty awful idea....

    Craig

  • The biggest hassle in what I do is the cut-n-paste mess. Even between, say, Netscape 4 and NEdit -- both Motif apps -- I have to remember that it's Alt-c in Netscape but Ctrl-c in Motif. So I usually wind up just using the middle button. (XEmacs understands the Motif clipboard, too, but of course its default key bindings were originally designed for the plates on the back of a stegosaurus.)

    Fortunately KDE and GNOME will be interoperable in this fundamental way in the next releases, Qt 2 will support wheel mice, key accelerator conventions seem to be getting more uniform, and so on. KWrite is very, very nice and Gnumeric seems to be almost mature enough to replace Wingz -- and all flame wars aside, either GTK+ or Qt is an enormous improvement -- both in code quality and freedom -- over Motif.

    (My personal favorite desktop at the moment is either IceWM or XFCE with wmppp, NEdit, and of course a dozen xiterms. Ain't choice great? Check out www.x11.org when you get bored ....)

    Craig

  • No doubt that kfm has vastly improved html support in 1.1 (as do kmail and the rest, since they apparently all use a vastly improved library), but it still has a ways to go before it works as well as Netscape4, especially in the areas of forms and printing.

    It will be fascinating to see to what extent the NGLayout engine can be adapted to kfm -- that could make for a dynamite combination.

    It's a great year to be a hacker. I'm looking forward to it.

    Craig

  • by Craig ( 839 )
    > Because it is the only licensing scheme that guarantees freedom.

    No, because it is the only license that perpetuates the FSF concept of freedom [fsf.org] at the expense of a concept of freedom held by many [freebsd.org] other [perl.org] people [xfree86.org].

    "Freedom" is too important a word to allow it to be exclusively defined by one person or organization.

    Craig

  • Thank you.

    It's an old saying in many philosophical movements that you need to be more careful of your friends than of your enemies, for the simple reason that outsiders are more likely to judge your whole movement -- unfairly, of course, but that's the way it is -- more by what your friends do and say than by what your enemies do and say.

    Now, for every person who carefully reads and absorbs the well-reasoned arguments at www.fsf.org/philosophy (I disagree with many of their conclusions, but they are rational and well-thought-out), several dozen will see this sort of adolescent foolishness. This is one reason why I'm somewhat disappointed that more adult GPL advocates don't try more actively to discourage this kind of mindless post. (On the other hand, they may realize that it's a hopeless undertaking.)

    Craig

  • by Eccles ( 932 )
    >THIS IS NOT LEGAL.

    Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

    Licensing issues are civil matters. To bring suit, you would need to show harm. You would also need to have acted consistently with the license. Any judge with half a brain would say, "You worked on this project in full knowledge of how it would be used and distributed, and yet you still claim damages when it is used in that fashion? Get out of my courtroom."

    Now, if you submitted code to a different project which was then pulled into KDE, then you have a case. But if this doesn't describe you, STFU!



  • by On Lawn ( 1073 )
    Go play outdoors for a while, maybe go hiking or fishing. Honestly sometimes I think the opinions of the fanatic slashdot posters were spun from the migranes caused by intence spin of there out of balance monomeniacle lives.

    Redhat did something cool. They enabled choice, choice (not liscences) offers the ammunition for freedom. There choice enables us to make choice. Celebrate be happy, then decide if you will use it or not. (BTW its known as a contribution, unlike slashflame opinions.)
    ^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~ ^~~^~
  • by ninjaz ( 1202 )
    I think this was a great strategic move on redhat's part.. In a single bound, they've kept toward their stance on Open Source[tm] software, and diffused one of the biggest rough spots that would push newbies toward Bero/Mandrake or SuSE.

    Perhaps this will foster something like a compatiblity layer between gnome/kde apps, too.

    All this hiring reminds me of different countries' royal families intermarrying in feudal europe, btw.. ;)
  • by mha ( 1305 )
    what do you think he wrote the software for
    --
    Michael Hasenstein
    http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/ [tu-chemnitz.de]
  • I believe the code to support kde was introduced from 0.50 onwards. If you update, you shold have no problems.
  • by Thandor ( 1371 ) on Thursday March 18, 1999 @07:39PM (#1972789) Homepage
    The thing is, KDE and GNOME are not window managers. The even better news for you is that WindowMaker supports both KDE and GNOME. So all you need to do to run KDE or GNOME applications is to install the libraries, you can keep using WindowMaker as your window manager.

    So even though KDE's default window manager is kwm, and GNOME's defaul is enlightenment, neither forces you to use that particular window manager to use that desktop environment.

    So having Red Hat back KDE as well as GNOME is really a win/win thing.
  • It's scary! ;-)



    http://kde.themes.org/gallery.shtml?show=51-75&s ort=alpha
  • ...I don't. I don't plan on having one.
    I can't afford one, even.

    Why should those who don't own macs be deprived of a friendly GUI?

    If you believe the MAC UI is good, why is it bad to use it as inspiration?

    Finally: "we can do better?" what we is that?
    What have you done to be part of the "we"?

    (I mean besides flaming me in the past)
  • These questions are pretty easy to ask, but quite difficult to answer. None of the developers are claiming to be revolutionizing human-computer interaction. They're just trying to bring Linux up to the state of the art.

    Contrary to your claims, people have been suggesting for years that the desktop metaphor isn't the only or best UI model. It's just that nobody has suggested a replacement which is clearly better. People are working on desktop environments because we basically know how to build a desktop environment. Nobody knows how to build the environment of the future, or even what it is.

  • Of course. But KDE and GNOME don't interoperate. They share a display, but not a clipboard, visual appearance, etc.

  • It's great that they're supporting two desktops. In fact they should support several different desktops. Part of what makes OSS so cool is that you have tons of choices. I think RH is putting for some fairly serious effort towards giving back to the community which made them possible.
  • preach on brother! amen!

    seriously..
  • One thing that I found that is kindof nifty, on my system at least, is to run individual gnome components under windowmaker. I have my windowmaker autolaunch panel and gmc on launch,
    [snip]

    panel was something I was impressed with. What all did you have to have installed gnome-wise to get Gnome's panel working?
  • seriously now

    perhaps we should find a law firm or sympathetic legal expert who could evaluate all these zillion licenses, as well as their (in)compatibility

    it's not that I don't trust Bruce, ESR, and RMS, but they all have the tendency to talk about the foundation before the concrete is poured

    software licenses need more than peer review, they need legal examination

    the artistic license especially underscores this

  • is the rumor true that KDE and GNOME can run at the same time on the same DISPLAY= ?

    if that is the case then we can all really shut up

  • I'm hoping the Redhat 6.0 install will have a
    window which asks "check the desktop environments
    you would like to install", allowing you to install either, neither, or both KDE and GNOME.

    Danny.
  • i've had this set up for ages.

    i don't use kde, but i need the more familiar behaviour of kdm for some of the users. You can choose between openlook, fvwm95, windowmaker, KDE,
    staroffice and quake with the sessiontype box.. cool.

    works well, and the newer versions of it support PAM aswell. :)
  • I'm glad to see Red Hat finally embrace KDE after flip-flopping on the issue so much. After all, KDE is the only truely usable GUI for Linux. Gnome, Englightenment, whatever may be nice but they have a long way to go yet. KDE is usable now, and has an interface that users will be comfortable with.

    I just wish that Red Hat would become more concerned about security and make Red Hat 6.0 as solid as possible. Perhaps they could fund a project to close security holes in the Linux code?

    Michael.

  • ...all of the features that you mentioned that you like in KDE are in WM as well. Plus, WM has a few WONDERFUL features that I haven't seen anywhere else (like ALT + drag to move/resize).

    I ran KDE for a while (back in the Beta 2 days). I like that it's clean, modern, and friendly to people coming from Windows. But then I found WM and there was no going back (though I still use a few of the nifty little K apps). I need to take a close look at KDE 1.1 and see what all has changed.

    --Lenny
  • I believe you're referrign to MDI. They stink!
    Eudora and Pegasus at work use them, I find them
    completely constricting. I think it was a BIG
    MISTAKE for KDE to use these in ANY of their apps.
  • I replaced the aging RedHat installation on my main workstation with Debian 2.1 the other day, and yes, it's a very nice distribution. And in some ways I think the package management is done nicer.

    Once the main installation was done, getting KDE going took about five minutes :).

  • **huge round of applause***
  • This page at IBM [ibm.com] says:
    OpenDoc, originally developed by several industry software leaders, is an object oriented software component architecture designed to accelerate the industry's shift from monolithic, one-size-fits-all applications to more flexible and modular object oriented component-based applications. IBM's OpenDoc offering provides a collection of 'as is' freeware class libraries and frameworks (including source code) that can be reused by advanced C/C++ developers wishing to build C++ desktop applications requiring integrated compound document and component services. As a rich set of compound document technology, advanced developers can leverage and reuse this freely available technology in the development of desktop operating system optimized applications written purely in C++ on OS/2 WARP, Windows 95, Windows NT and AIX/600. OpenDoc supports IBM's VisualAge for C++ or Microsoft's Visual C++ compilers.

    With the industry's revolutionary shift to network computing and e-business internet solutions, IBM has evolved its component software strategy to be based on the exciting 'write once, run anywhere', network-savy capabilities of the Java and JavaBeans component technologies. While JavaBeans represents the centerpiece of IBM's component strategy, IBM will continue to make the OpenDoc technology available as freeware for developers of advanced C++ solutions to leverage. For more information on IBM's component software strategy, visit our Application Development website.

    The IBM OpenDoc technology is available to download at no cost, and is being provided as 'as is' freeware without formal IBM technical support. IBM plans no major new releases beyond the currently available OpenDoc v1.2, but does plan, at a future date, to make full OpenDoc source code available in the public domain for reuse by advanced C++ developers.

    If you are student of C++, component software, compound document technology or are an advanced C++ developer wishing to reuse and leverage robust C++/SOM class libraries technology in the development of your solutions, we welcome you to download and reuse the freeware OpenDoc technologies!

    I'm not familiar with the details of OpenDoc, so I don't know how useful that stuff (which I infer isn't OpenDoc in its entirety) would be outside the environments they mention.

  • Unix is a multiuser system, so anything that would change the operating environment for everyone at once requires root privileges, whether it's changing the CD or editing XF86Config.

    This is perhaps better stated as

    Unix systems can be multiuser systems; on such a system, anything that would change the operating environment for everyone at once should require root privilege (or, if your system has more levels of privilege than "ordinary" and "root", sufficient privilege), whether it's changing the CD or editing XF86Config.

    I.e., disable automount on a server, perhaps, but don't prohibit users from putting it on their own single-user desktop machine.

  • Only a fool would want an floppy-type drive to automount anymore these days.Why ? Can you say computer viruses and other such garabge?

    And the reason why automounting a floppy disk is bad, and manually mounting it is not bad, is? (NOTE: automount and autorun aren't the same thing. Automount would be something like "if you refer to something under /floppy, and there's a floppy disk in the drive that /floppy is set up to automount, and that disk isn't currently mounted, mount it on /floppy." Autorun, for a floppy drive, would be something like "if the machine detects that a disk has been put into the floppy drive - which, on a PC, would probably involve polling the floppy drive - mount it and run autorun (or whatever) on the root directory, if it exists.")

  • More important, some months ago some guy posted an url here. There was some sceenshots showing off Qt with a Next theme, surely looked awesome. Maybe someone remember the url, I don't??

    I didn't, either, but AltaVista Is Your Friend; I eventually found this Linux Weekly News page [lwn.net], which said, near the bottom:

    The beta version of Qt 2.0 has been
    announced [troll.no]. An anonymous source provided us with this screenshot [lwn.net] of a partial port of KDE to Qt 2.0. It demonstrates one of Qt's new styles, the "platinum" look, meant to appeal to MacIntosh aficionados. In addition, a screenshot [lwn.net] of the Qt "metal" demo (Qt widgets) is also available.
  • The KDE folks addressed this by using the LGPL.
  • You ask, am I being paid by the trolls? That's not nice. I raised holy hell to get them to change their license. After a year or so, they actually did what I asked them to do and changed it. So, why would they need to pay me?

    Bruce

  • The new QPL [troll.no] is free software. Troll addressed our complaints - I wish every company was that nice.

    So, it's time for the KDE-haters to stop.

    Like the GPL, Qt is free for use with free software only. Proprietary software needs a different license.

    Gnome has its libraries LGPL-ed, and is thus OK for both free and proprietary software.

    I still like Gnome and run it at home, but there is nothing wrong with Qt's license now.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • The OSD/DSFG allow licenses that want modifications distributed in patches. Patches can be both generated and extracted automaticaly, using them is then no more complicated than using tar files. Debian does all of its modification in patches, for the entire distribution!

    Bruce

  • The "good looking" part is left up to the themes.

    I haven't managed to make it crash either but I have gotten a lot of odd behaviour, especially when using the control center to change window managers. It's hard to know who's at fault (i.e. to whom the bug report should be sent) when you have all these different GUI things interacting behind the scenes, many of which have 0.X version numbers.

  • MDI is the worst piece of crap ever invented. It was designed for Windows 3.0 to try to prevent inactive applications from swapping in. It serves NO OTHER PURPOSE!!!! Get that through your thick skull!

    Unfortunately due to MDI Windoze has broken the UI by making windows "click to the top" even if you try to pick a menu item or click a button in them. This error existed in X once upon a time (in X9 I believe) and was fixed. That was only 15 years ago so I guess MicroSoft has not caught up.

    PLEASE NO MDI! Thank you.
  • kpanel -no-KDE-compliant-window-manager

    How about that? It would be nice if they documented that. Actually it would be even nicer if they just detected this fact, surely they can check to see if their own window manager is running!

    I wrote a window manager (flwm) and tried to get kde apps to run under it and everything seems to work except kpanel. I'll try this switch soon.
  • Hey, some of us poor, misguided souls actually like olvwm. Of course, most of us work on suns, and only have CDE as an alternative...

    Having olvwm at home gives me a consistant interface no matter where I am.

    The big reason I like olvwm is that it doesn't do any of these fancy things that kwm, enlightenment or whatever do. It stays out of my face until I ask it for something.
    --
  • The GPL doesn't require him to distribute the code at large. He only has to provide the code to the people to whom he distributes the embedded system.
  • Ok, now all we need is a nice XDM-based desktop chooser system, so you can easily choose between window managers/user environments, using the Xsession system. I had the KDM setup for a while to do something like this, and it was very nice. If that came with redhat by default, it would make beginners able to use the system right off, as easily as win95. The system boots right into KDM or whatever and the user is off.
  • The only intelligent arguements against KDE were against the QT libs. I to am against Prop. Libs.
    BUT QT is NOW free. So there really shouldn't be any arg's left.

    I think this is a great move for the Linux community. Though I hope they keep up with Gnome devel, because I personally didn't like using KDE (but hey that is just personal preference).

  • They're giving you choice. Now they're giving you the choice of running KDE _or_ Gnome.

    They realize that dividing the community is a very bad move and it would hurt the efforts at making Linux have a decent desktop environment, our biggest challenge right now.

  • I can get .deb's for KDE and install it quite easily if I want to. I don't see how using Debian will keep you completely free if you don't want to be.

    Developers in the end will choose what environment to code in, and it is up to them what license they want to use.

  • Please, stop spouting that bull. You make all Debian users look bad with unfounded assertions and stupidity like that.

    Ben
  • For the longest time, I used FVWM. Not pretty, not easy to configure (I prefer immediate visual feedback), but perfectly usable. I recently decided I wanted something prettier, and something that would display a nice clock and battery meter off to one side. Because of some questions surrounding the licensing underlying KDE, I decided to go with WindowMaker. I'm happy.

    However, when looking over KDE, I noticed that some apps are "enhanced" for special features KDE has. Forgive my naivate, but I thought the whole point of Xwindows was to allow apps to run under any window manager, and they would all look and work (more or less) the same.

    So. With a major contributor like Red Hat backing KDE, will people like me currently using WindowMaker find themselves needing to switch to KDE because of all the apps tailored to it? I don't really have anything against KDE at this point, but WindowMaker works fine, and if, in the grand scheme of things, I shouldn't have to use a particular window manager, I'd prefer not to switch.

    Are my concerns unfounded?

    Schwab

  • Red Hat felt that QPL 1.x was incompatible with the GPL. KDE uses a lot of GPL code, therefore KDE w/ QPL 1.x was, in Red Hat's opinion, a legal can of worms.

    BTW, it was at about the same time as the QPL 1.x white paper that Red Hat dropped CDE since they decided it is a basic technology and that they (Red Hat) were not allowed to fix security bug.

    As far as any company that I know of goes, Red Hat has a true philosophy beyond making a buck. For that, I thank them.

    --

  • Since CDE is the standard desktop of the Unix world, the "Security" thing is a shallow excuse.

    Shallow? The whole issue is that Red Hat thinks the "standard" platform should come with source code that can be fixed.

    If a security problem with CDE, companies like Sun, IBM, and HP...

    There was a security problem and Red Hat was at the mercy of an unresponsive vendor to wait for a Linux fix.

    Where's the hypocrasy? Remember, the issue Red Hat had was that the Qt 1.x license was not compatible with all the GPLd code used in KDE and that Qt 1.x did not allow the redistribution of fixes.

    Red Hat pays people to write GPLd code, what a bunch of bastards...

    --

  • Does your PnP modem allow you to disable the PnP "feature" and just set it for a specific port? Also, not trying to be a smartass, but are you sure that it is not a winmodem?

    Also, Enlightenment is alpha software at best! It isn't even feature complete. It is currently at version 0.15.4, note the *0*. I like Linux, but it isn't for everyone. Neither is windows or MacOS or OS/2, Plan9, QNX, FreeBSD, dos, etc..

    If you never use Linux just because of modem trouble, you may be missing a chance to learn about something that could be a powerful computing tool for you. There are several redhat newsgroups where you could probably find much friendly, useful help.

    Good Luck
  • Get the hell over it. How about we call the merging BANAIP (Bitch About Naming AFTER Integration, Please).

    I don't have problem giving the GNU project credit where credit is due. The acronym was just something I made up off the top of my head :P

    I've put my money where my mouth is - forked out cash for books on QT, CORBA, and all kinds of other interesting topics. I'll be working towards integration. I hope those who quibble about a silly issue like name will be willing to do the same.
  • I'm all in favor of this. It's good for Red Hat -- they get a mature, functional desktop now (KDE) and later (GNOME). They don't pick sides, they just produce a good distribution.

    Anyway, I'd really love to see GNOME and KDE come together over a few solid issues. One of these is CORBA. Hot damn that stuff gives me wood.

    Universal drag-n-drop plus universal theme support will virtually ensure a seamless blending of the two desktop systems.
  • "Freedom of choise is what you've got,
    Freedom from choise is what you want." - Devo
  • I started writing just such a beast. I have some signal/slot stuff working. It still relies on the
    Troll moc precompiler, but that is no longer an
    issue with 2.0. It will run some of the Qt tutorial, (read: needs lots of work). I was hoping to take some of the Harmony code for the non-visual classes. The biggest problem I've found so far is that QWidget can be directly instantiated and acts like a fixed widget in gtk, and it may be inherited as well.

    If anyone is interested I can release the code, it's just sort of a fun hack for me currently.

    Brian
  • QT 2.0 is free too.
  • You never give up, do you ? They asked for it by making their toolkit Open Source. Yeh, they really deserve to be punished for that.
  • Redhat did nothing wrong. They just said they couldn't include Qt in the base distribution, and wouldn't include KDE because of that. Its fair enough, really, isn't it ?
  • Qt and KDE are free. Even RMS says so.
  • You 'suffer' from restrictions on what you can do with other people's code anyway. The purpose of the OSD is not to allow you to behave like a spoiled little brat, but to give you a certain minimum level of freedom. If you want more, you might benefit by being polite to the people who might give it to you.
  • by AraQniD ( 8255 ) on Friday March 19, 1999 @03:29AM (#1972842) Homepage
    If you mean Windows-style MDI interface, where the "internal" window looks like a normal window, but is embedded in an application frame, then I'd say.... NO! DON'T GO THERE!

    IMHO, it's a horrible piece of UI, and anyone advocating it should be short. JMHO ;)
  • you have to distribute patches

    You don't have to do anything. That's the beauty of it. You don't like it? Don't use it.

    This has nothing to do with whether it's free or proprietary, and really all code except public domain code is "proprietary": someone owns it, and they have released (or not released) it under certain terms. Sometimes the terms are more liberal (the BSD license); other times they are stricter (the GPL); and still other times they require patches.

    You don't own GPL-ed code. You never have. You never will unless it's code of your own. It's free to use as the author dictates. Same with Qt.

    If you don't like it: don't use it. My, that's simple, isn't it? Choice is a beautiful thing. It's a shame the FSF jihad refuses to see that.

  • by Grell ( 9450 ) on Thursday March 18, 1999 @08:10PM (#1972868) Homepage
    Choice is always a good thing.

    Thanks Redhat.

    ~Grell

    A child of 5 could understand this. Fetch me a child of 5!
  • Yeah. I tried GNOME, too. It crashed after five minutes for me, as well, but I couldn't take that lying down. Once I realized there was a peculiarity in the way Red Hat 5.2 deals with your machine's hostname on a dialup PPP connection, and once I realized portmap was spiking pieces of GNOME when they requested service, all was copacetic. Well, until five days of steady use revealed another raft of bugs, which were presumably fixed, but unobtainable due to slow mirrors and a GNOME ftp site that is always full.

    Back to KDE, though? Nope. Too slow for me. Someone said "Yeah... it really wants 64 meg or it thrashes a lot."

    I decided I don't want a "desktop environment" for now. So I'm back to Window Maker and some well-configured menus for general use. It's sort of nice. I reclaimed a lot of HD space and my machine acts like the speedy thing it is.


    ----------
    mphall@cstone.nospam.net

  • by 8Complex ( 10701 ) on Thursday March 18, 1999 @08:05PM (#1972872)
    what about enhancing things like PnP (I've had redhat 5.2 installed for 3 months now... i STILL can't get my modem to work under it cause it won't assign it correctly - hence i never use linux, a wasted 1.2 gig right now)

    and how about enhancing the ease of installation of things? anyone try installing enlightenment? its a COMPLETE BITCH.. download these 17 rpm's then go download 7 more that need upgrading before you can install some others... which break dependencies of other things you need to upgrade... its retarded. when did the word UPGRADE lose all its meaning???

    and how about configurability? you know, having every little thing in seperate text files isn't so bad... its the whole idea that you can't FIND them and there is no central config panel for everything... control-panel only does so much, linuxconf (linuxconfig?) only does so much (and is buggy as hell) - granted its still all better then the "registry" :-)

    so really, who gives a shit that they're backing a desktop environment when what they need to do is a little bit of restructuring of the OS? get with it people... and help me get my god damn modem working while you're at it ;-)

    8Complex
    May you flame to your hearts' content... I will only learn from them.
  • by Twigg ( 11247 ) on Thursday March 18, 1999 @07:28PM (#1972876)
    I'd really like to see Linux get to the point where KDE and Gnome can co-exist. They've both got enough merits and momentum that there's no point trying to kill one of them off. But if you're trying to attract mainstream applications to Linux, you have to attract developers, and if you want to attract developers, you need standards. It's just not worth their time to have to develop an app for KDE and then discover that in order to attract the OTHER half of Linux users, you're going to have to port the whole thing over to Gnome. This is the kind of stuff that people who don't like Linux love to complain about, and frankly they have a point. One of the biggest frustrations for me early on (and even still today, sometimes) was that every dingle X-Windows app seemed to want some different windowing toolkit, or library, or whatnot, that had to be downloaded from this site, except that now that site is giving you an HTTP 404 error and you just give up and end up booting back into NT. Anyway, my point is that it doesn't really matter whether KDE or Gnome or GNUStep or Bob's Little Windowing Toolkit is better, what's important is that we get these guys talking to each other. Hopefully, eventually you could drop a KDE app into your Gnome desktop and have all the bindings work fine, and all the special features working right. Be kind to your developers, and they will be kind to you. I sure as heck don't want to write apps for one environment and then have the other one win out...

    Anyway, that's my relatively worthless two cents.
  • by micsaund ( 12591 ) on Friday March 19, 1999 @06:41AM (#1972883) Homepage
    It bothers me that KDE looks so much like Win95/Win98 and is getting so much attention. Basically, the only difference in appearance from KDE and WinXX is the little wharf type bar.

    Now, admittedly, I'm NOT a KDE expert, and maybe there is a way to get the KDE "extended functionality" from another window manager (sounds like GNOME then), but the default window manager creates a WinXX style clone. All of the buttons, icons, app layouts, etc. look like Bill Gates himself designed everything.

    I, for one, enjoy having a unique desktop. I really like the Next type appearance, and thus I choose to run WindowMaker. I never (NEVER) want my Linux machine to look just like Winbloze. Isn't this ability to customize your environment one of the key points in using Linux?
  • I found Gnome too unstable also, which made me sad because I prefered the feel of it to KDE. I like KDE, and support it, but its just a tad to slow for me....gnome on the other hand is fast and has, IMHO, a nicer interface, but its install is freaking insane and its not stable.

    One thing that I found that is kindof nifty, on my system at least, is to run individual gnome components under windowmaker. I have my windowmaker autolaunch panel and gmc on launch, and for some reason this is far more stable than using gnome-session was. had no problems with it, but I have just been using it for acouple days. That way I can still keep the nifty gpager and set up some drawers for common apps, but keep most of the advantages of windowmaker. granted, this strips out alot off the niftyness of gnome..but hey.
  • by miscellaneous ( 14183 ) on Friday March 19, 1999 @06:47AM (#1972893) Homepage
    It's NOT voluntary! Hackers everywhere are being forced to pay Red Hat to support this software! When are we going to stop the madness and INSIST that the binaries be free, the source be free, the documentation be free, and the SUPPORT be free?

    Oh, sure, we COULD write our own documentation, and we COULD look in the support newsgroups, but that IGNORES the fact that someone, somewhere, is PAYING ACTUAL MONEY for these things. It's an anomoly, and it creates an IDEOLOGICAL impurity. Does not compute! *clank* Does not compute! *clank*.

    Not only must we insure that these things are free so that ALL computer people can help their fellow women and men achieve the NIRVANA that is the INEVITABLE UTOPIAN RESULT of absolute freeness, but the people who have PERPETRATED these travesties must be made to CORRECT THEIR WRONG THINKING. They must be made to admit their mistakes through self-criticism, and, if they persist in such counter-revolutionary agitation, re-education through labor becomes a real option.
  • by bnf ( 16861 ) on Thursday March 18, 1999 @07:28PM (#1972903) Homepage
    You would probably consider me a newbie to Linux at four months. The past three of them have been with KDE.

    When I found an environment that let me Alt-Tab to other applications by default (not to mention using the keyboard to go to another virtual desktop) and make me feel like I could manipulate and configure my environment from the environment itself I finally felt like I could have faith in world domination. Besides, it's wonderful to be able to have themes [themes.org] and event driven sounds. These little things make going from A to B that much quicker.

    bnf

  • Here's what this is about: OS bigots in the Linux community. We need solidarity, not bickering. The petty "Oh... you use KDE, what a putz... you have AOL too?" should stop. Whatever helps Linux helps us all. Choice is essential.

    The fact of the matter is that KDE is a pretty decent desktop. Yeah, if you're running a server you probably don't need KDE (or GNOME, for that matter). But for workstations, it's not that bad. And Linux needs to move into the workstation arena before it can really take off. Doing that means having a nice GUI.

    KDE is easily installed, usable, fairly stable, mostly customizable, has plenty of apps that take advantage of it's semi-unique features, and looks pretty good. And it beats the shit out of Windows. KDE can be used to win the hearts and minds aof Windows/Mac users because of these attributes.

    I'm setting up a gateway machine for my mother in about three months, and I convinced her that Linux was the best choice, over much protestation about how Unix is "...all command line stuff, and I gave that up with DOS." She's very computer literate, but not a Unix user, and had this notion in her head that Linux was, at best, curses-based. So I showed her KDE, and she loved it. I also showed her fvwm and WindowMaker (just to let her know that she did, in fact, have a choice and that this was what Linux was all about) and she was not terribly impressed.

    Now another business is going to have Linux as an integral part of it's success. And it's primarily because of KDE (I showed her some uptime figures for Linux vs. NT, and that helped as well...). So how can KDE be bad? In this case at least, KDE has converted one more soul. When she sees that her gateway machine never goes down, and the WinNT clients always have to be rebooted, she'll probably deploy Linux more widely.

    And that's a Good Thing. It's what we need.

    -B

  • It is good that the Open Source Community can afford to develop two desktop environments, so that the best technology for a specific purpose can be picked.

I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and implement a PL/1 compiler. -- T. Cheatham

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