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KDE GUI

Pair of KDE Stories 81

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gotta-get-in-some-equal-time dept.
An anonymous reader sent in a pair of articles about KDE. The first is over at VAR Business (which has a nice quote from Chris) and the second is over at ZD Net's Smart Reseller. Both articles are about KDE 1.1.1 and neither says anything that will surprise us, but its interesting to note that a bug fix release is capable of generating that real press.
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Pair of KDE Stories More

Pair of KDE Stories

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  • press generated (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    KDE 1.1 was released with nary an annoucement from the KDE team, not even on comp.os.linux.announce. It's not surprising that not one major magazine picked up on it. They since learned their lesson and touted their horn more loudly when 1.1.1 was released. It seems to have worked with the help of some kind people at Smart Reseller and VAR Business.

    The GNOME folks however have been handling the press admirably all along. The amount of mindshare they generated even before the first stable release was remarkable.

  • Linux replacement for outlook (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've found a great replacement for outlook, since I now use Linux for everything.

    It's called Netscape Communicator.

  • Nice gui but no apps (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You are wrong about Linux having competetive office suties. Here I certainly don't mean that Linux should have something like MS Office with its bloat, but simple easy-to-use, nice looking word processing apps, structured drawing apps (not GIMP which is for painting and image processing, though it can be used somewhat for that because of its layers) and WYSIWYG HTML editors and Web Browsers.

    Linux does already have several excellent PIMS and Spreadsheats for both Kde and Gnome and generic X, but what most people really need is word processing / html editing / structured drawing. Accountants need spreadsheets. Linux also has the very best database servers with some pretty good front ends in the works, but again that is not what I mean by apps for home users and small offices (which can use the spreadsheets and database perhaps, but also need more).

    Star Office is bloated and slow, but at least has a somehwat modern interface. Maybe a C+.

    Word Perfect has the features, but the Motif interface makes it totally unacceptable for anyone who has used a modern gui like Macintosh or Windows or Amiga, or for that matter Gnome or Kde with Linux. It's not just that Motif looks awful, but it's awkward, even with a 3 button mouse. Word Perfect gets an F for not even trying to design a modern interface. I'd rather use the DOS version of WP 5.1, which at least has a clean look and is easy to use (that gets an A, by the way).

    Siag Office (it sucks more) uses the awful Athena widget set. Even with Xaw3d, it's awkward, and there are things about its word processor, Pathetic Writer, that make errors likely - just by trying to use the gui. I give it also an F.

    I don't know about ApplixWare since I've never tried it, but it's a commercial product. Is there a free version?

    In couclusion, there is almost no reason for a current Windows, Mac or Amiga user to use the Linux desktop. Yes, KDE is easy to use and nicer than Windows 9x, but the apps that people need to do normal things with computers just aren't there.

    We haven't even mentioned the lack of a modern web browser for Linux, aside from using KDE's kfm as a web browser. That's really the best browser Linux has. It's fast and stable but still doesn't handle some pages - about one in 20 pages don't render correctly or cause a crash. Fortunately such crashes usually just close the kfm window and don't crash Linux or even X.

    Netscape for Linux sucks - Motif, slow, everyone knows about its many faults. Mozilla for Linux will not even install on most systems. They don't tell you that several additional Netscape libraries are required (nspr and idl) and you need the exact versions of those libs for the version of Mozilla being installed. It's like Mozilla is a Windows only project with Linux on the back burner. Maybe some day they'll give it some thought.

    Linux remains a system for corporate servers and for nerds to use at home. I don't think there are more than a handful of non-nerds using Linux today on home systems anywhere in the world, or using it for the desktop in small offices.

    Let's hope that KOffice delivers what it promises, and that Corel gets its act together and uses a modern toolkit like qt or gtk for its upcoming Linux suite. Then Linux will have everything the "average" Joe and Jane user needs and wants for a home system, and which small business people can feel comfortable with and which secretaries can use to do their work.





  • I thought the current version of os/2 was the last one. I guess its this next one. IBM relized that fighting ms is hopless. Everyone including all my coworkers believe the ms marketing hype that the next version of windows will be the one that kills everything and be the best os ever ....bla bla bla. MY boss thinks that NT server is faster and more stable then os/2 and windows2000 will give him finally a reason to replace linux and when it fails he will say oh well the next veriosn of windows should fix this and the next and the next and the next. Fighting the fud is hopeless. At least linux doesnt have this problem becaused its considered a server OS. Its amazing how stupid people are. I only fell for the windows thing twice with windows3.1 and then I believed the ms marketing deparmn-ent thanks to Jesse Berst in one of his articles calling windows95 more stable then unix. After this I decided to take everything from ms as a grain of salt. It is true that OS/2 is dead after verison 5. I forget where I read this. Even IBM is switching all their os/2 machines with NT server and workstation ones. IT will be the last release by IBM. I guarentee it. Perhaps IBM could get out the source code for free if they no longer plan to make money off it. IT would be great to have a os/2 gui instead of xwindows and have better win32 support.
  • Gnumeric is looking good, it has a proper plugin interface thats not *too* hard to program for, even I managed to hack in a gnuplot plugin.

    Given a load of formulae, printing ability, and a bit of corba type embedding stuff, it could kickass. Now for a wordprocessor :)
  • Actully, Intel made few hundreds of them at the first month when P-II came out (as much as I recall)

  • First off, let me say that I agree with you, there are parts where GNOME is clunky. However, the most important thing we as users can do is to give helpful explanations of exaclty, and I mean exactly, of how it is clunky. There's no way the developers can read your mind. You've made a good start with your list, but it's not enough to let the developers know how they can fix it. If you gave the GNOME team a detailed of which behaviors should be changed in what ways, then I'm certain they'd be glad to consider it. Otherwise, all we're really doing is just whining.

  • The remark about "almost no reason for a current Windows, Mac or Amiga user to use the Linux desktop" irritated me. I'm a current Mac user and I _like_ Linux for what it is. I am not asking for office programs and I am not asking for a desktop (Clarisworks and MacOS Finder do both those things better than anything I've seen elsewhere). Instead I like letting Linux be what it is, and I run Window Maker with such an individualised way of setting it up that it's almost a totally novel interface. No desktop and in fact I also have a lot of stuff running without titlebars or resizebars, but zoomable by keyboard shortcuts. I don't _want_ Linux to be just exactly like the MacOS I already have, and I sure don't want it to be more like Windows. Why can't you just let me do it my way?
    Wait- you _do_ just let me do it my way, because it's linux and nobody can _stop_ me from inventing my own way around it. Nevermind ;) I guess my point is that I feel this wish for Office and desktops is incredibly stupid. Who has been putting subliminal messages in everybody's subconscious that desktops are the final pinnacle of evolution and there's no other way to do anything? Wait, let me guess, starts with an 'Ap' and ends some years later with a 'ft' ;)
    That's been _done_. Fine. I even like it and (regarding the 'Ap' version) happily use it. Let's be willing to develop new stuff for Linux, shall we, and not squander the amazing freedom from influence, the amazing opportunity, by frantically making it just like everything else?
  • Heck, I am completely into Window Maker, and in that you _always_ doubleclick tiles to launch them. I just think this is incredibly superior to singleclick for actions/launches. Singleclick turns the GUI into a minefield with stuff that can go off unexpectedly. Doubleclicking is totally easy and separates selection from activation very effectively and I agree with the Window Maker people- the last I heard there weren't even _plans_ to add activation on singleclick to WM tiles, because basically this is just wrong and steps on the select/drag functionality. So there ;)

  • Actually, I've found that the GNOME included in Red Hat 6.0 is quite stable and very usable.

    For the first time, I've actually been able to use the control-panel effectively and I can install GTK themes without bringing the whole thing to a crashing halt.

    Now, I'm actually spending all my time within GNOME instead of a bare bones Window Maker session.

    Check out my basic screenshot [nmsu.edu] that I was able to whip up within minutes of getting RH6 installed.

    I still use a couple of the KDE apps which RH thoughtfully included by default in the GNOME start menu. My one wish would be for GNOME and KDE to share the same theme format so that I could have a integrated look and feel for both sets of programs.

  • Here's what came with my RH6

    [mmichie@localhost mmichie]$ rpm -qa | grep gnome
    gnome-audio-1.0.0-6
    gnome-audio-extra-1.0.0-6
    gnome-core-1.0.4-34
    gnome-core-devel-1.0.4-34
    gnome-games-1.0.2-10
    gnome-games-devel-1.0.2-10
    gnome-libs-1.0.8-8
    gnome-libs-devel-1.0.8-8
    gnome-linuxconf-0.22-1
    gnome-media-1.0.1-3
    gnome-objc-1.0.2-4
    gnome-objc-devel-1.0.2-4
    gnome-pim-1.0.7-2
    gnome-pim-devel-1.0.7-2
    gnome-users-guide-1.0.5-4rh
    gnome-utils-1.0.1-6
    switchdesk-gnome-1.7.0-1
  • Posted by Moritz Moeller - Herrmann:

    While I agree that Corel has been VERY supportive of KDE, they are in no way special: Caldera sponsors the whole ftp site of the KDE project, something like 40 GB of dowanloads a day. SuSE also donated stuff.
    And if they ever added a proprietary extension to KDE, well who cares - just copy it. KDE is under the GPL. Any extension must be under GPL as well....

    And while I like and work with Star Office, I am looking forward to a good Kword. Star Office is as proporietary as you can get, hides a lot from the user and is quite big. You can't convert your SO text files to any Open layout language format(except HTML), you can't import TEX or DVI.
  • You can "shrink" it to only take up a corner by right-clicking on the blank space of the menu and selecting "Convert to corner panel". After you do this, try middle clicking/dragging on the menu retract arrow -- move it around the screen to see "what it can do". :^)

    As for physically resizing it, I dunno. It is "elastic" with whatever you put in it (If you run an application on it that is bigger than the rest of the panel, the whole panel expands to accomodate that program). Shrinking it further than the default would be difficult, I think.
  • (Are you referring to Timur Tabi as the "troll"?)

    How did you guess? Yeah, I think his sig is a bit of a troll.

    LinuxToday.com just yesterday had a piece on OS/2 version 5, due out mid-May. Journaling filesystem and all, OS/2 is far from dead. I use it all the time, along with DOS, Linux and assorted versions of Winblows. Heterogenous computing environments rock. Cyberdiversity forever!

    You don't have to expound upon the virtues of OS/2 to me; I was a long time OS/2 user, and one of my machines still runs it about half the time. It is a great all-round operating system, although lacking somewhat in stability when using PM/WPS. That said, OS/2 Warp Server for e-business and Workspace on Demand are the only versions of OS/2 5.0 that will be made available, as far as I can tell. There is nothing about any new "fat client" anywhere on the official IBM OS/2 web site [ibm.com].

    The fate of OS/2, mismanaged, mismarketed and mistargeted as it was by IBM, is the strongest argument I can think of why open source is crucial for operating systems, and why proprietary software is a trap.

    So, OS/2 lives on, a shadow of its former self, likely for not very much longer. What would be great is if IBM, after it decides that OS/2 has reached its end, would GPL what source code it can, and if some of that great SOM/WPS technology could make its way into KDE and GNOME.

    --
    Get your fresh, hot kernels right here [kernel.org]!

  • Question is, when will decent word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications be ready.

    StarOffice, [stardivision.com] although not Free, is a decent, very full-featured, if somewhat bloated, office package, and includes presentation software.

    Also, Corel [corel.ca] has ported WordPerfect [corel.ca], and is porting the rest of their WordPerfect Office2000 [corel.ca] suite, as far as I know.

    Then, in the Free Software world, there is Siag Office [siag.nu] and, of course, KOffice [kde.org], which, while not finished, look promising.

    So, we do have usable tools now, and great Free tools on the way.

    --
    Get your fresh, hot kernels right here [kernel.org]!

  • Every Microsoft OS release gets lots of press. Aren't those all bug fix releases?
  • (I wanted someone to comment on KOffice before I said anything)

    On the Gnome side of things, progress is being made. Bonobo (the CORBA-ized component model) is nearing an initial (developer) release.

    A Guppi Bonobo component is being added to Gnumeric [gnome.org] (which is looking nice these days) to enable charts. This might also make it into Genius [5z.com].

    Go [umich.edu] is being Bonobo-ized also, and (I hear) is pretty usable.

    And work is being done on a nice mailer too.
  • The problem is that the changes that would be need to gmc are pretty major, and the last message I had from Miguel (on the MIME issue) was that he didn't have enough time to work on all the stuff that needed to be done. I'm seriously considering writing my own file manager (using libvfs of course!) this summer..time permitting as usual..

    Daniel

  • Re:Stability (Score:4)

    by Daniel ( 1678 ) <(dburrows) (at) (debian.org)> on Saturday May 08, 1999 @06:09PM (#1899506)
    There are only three things that I can think of in Gnome that need work (in decreasing order of importance):

    * gmc. The more I work with it, the more I get the feeling that we *have* to replace it entirely. The only thing I really like about the current version is the libvfs stuff (and the pretty icons). Currently it has (at least) the following architectural problems: singlethreaded (so one long operation bogs down the UI), poor handling of multiple selections (especially MIME type actions on them), inconsistent menus (the desktop icons behave differently from the rest of the program), and a general feeling of non-modularity and inextensibility. (see continual postings about "how do you add items to gmc right-click menus" on gnome-list..which brings me to my next topic..)

    * Not modular enough. It's already pretty modular but it seems like CORBA isn't used in places where it would be useful or clever--for example, a CORBA interface for menu generators would be useful.

    * Icky menu system (not that they're alone here..) A hierarchically configurable menu system was proposed on gnome-list a few months back (see "My Little Wish List for Gnome") but no-one has had time to finish it.

    Once gmc gets its act together (or possibly gets rewritten) I think I'd feel fine about recommending Gnome to newer users; the rest of the core works perfectly well. It's kind of embarassing for something so central as the filemanager to feel as klunky as gmc does, though..

    Daniel

  • Exactly.

    Gmc is precisely what I was thinking of when I said "a ways to go."

  • Now, first of all, this is not intended as flame bait, just an comment:

    The KDE 1.1.1 bug fix is probably recieving real press because right now it is the only GUI system that could probably be used, with minimal frustration, by someone whose talents do not lie in computer science. This is news worthy due to the whole "Is Linux going to topple Microsoft?" fad that is going though the media.

    Now, as flame retardant, I feel thst I must add this: I am not saying "GNOME sucks" or anything similar. Just think of it as "GNOME has a ways to go yet." KDE 1.0 was pretty rough as well. GNOME may very well become as usable as KDE for non-computer oriented people in the future, I don't know. I'm just talking about the present.

    And in the present, KDE is a very good and really suprisingly stable desktop. GNOME is getting better, but still has some problems.

  • Go to http://www.pricewatch.com and look at all the
    cheapest systems with pre-installed OS. They are
    mostly Linux and a lot of them are using KDE.
  • StarOffice, although not Free, is a decent, very full-featured, if somewhat bloated, office package, and includes presentation software.
    Also, Corel has ported WordPerfect, and is porting the rest of their WordPerfect Office2000 suite, as far as I know.
    Then, in the Free Software world, there is Siag Office and, of course, KOffice, which, while not finished, look promising.

    Unfortunately, I'm using LinuxPPC. That means no StarOffice, no WordPerfect. I can't get ABI to build, Siag is kind of fun (I figured anything called "Pathetic Writer" deserved a shot) but a long way from useful.

    I really wish companies would port more enthusiatically. Applixware is the only one that seems interested. I have high hopes for KOffice, though.

  • I totally agree with you here. The only two differences, really, between Gnome and KDE are the communication mechanism and the enforced application toolkit. The latter is why I prefer Gnome; although GTK isn't nearly as mature or stable as Qt, GTK *does* have bindings for many languages (C, C++, Python, PERL if I'm not mistaken, and several others, and its design allows it to be bound to practically any language), whereas Qt is C++, end of story. It's easy to wrap C in basically any language, but C++ has a lot of issues (such as the vtable, name-mangling, and other implementation-specific things) to deal with.

    Another advantage of Gnome is that it uses CORBA, so it could theoretically be ported to systems which don't use X. I don't know what inter-client communication mechanism KDE uses; could someone please clarify that? I'm too lazy to find it on kde.org. :) Of course, this is just, as you said, another interface like a file. In the case of TCP/IP sockets, the interface doesn't even need to appear different except in the way the file is opened, at least in UNIX. Dunno how it is in Windows; I'd imagine that Windows, which is based on interfaces specific to the hardware instead of the nice consistent general file interface for everything, has its own set of APIs which would need to be wrapped.

    Whatever. Anyway. Cooperation between the various usability projects is vital.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • Re:End User Apps (Score:4)

    by Pascal Q. Porcupine ( 4467 ) on Saturday May 08, 1999 @04:46PM (#1899512) Homepage

    Even moreso, it doesn't even matter if people use the same suite (KDE or Gnome) as long as they use open file formats and can be made compatible with one another. Cooperation, and not competition, is VERY important to both KDE and Gnome. Myself, I don't care much for either, and I don't want to have to run KOffice under KDE to read someone's document any more than anyone wants to have to run MS Office under Win'98.

    UNIX is great in that file formats have always been *open* and relatively easy to deal with. I mean, there's several dozen commonly-used mail programs out there, and practically all of them use the Sendmail /var/spool/mail fileformat to store everything. PINE, ELM, Mutt, mail, etc. can all read and write to my various mail folders without a problem, and so switching programs isn't a daunting task. (Wish the same could be said for Netscape Communicator, but I've not used Netscape for reading mail ever since Netscape 3.0 consistently corrupted all my messages and did other unpleasant things.)

    I mean, okay, I don't need to run KDE or Gnome to use KDE or Gnome applications, but that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that just because a program is available now and is free doesn't mean one should be locked into that single program. It'd suck if I were stuck using PINE forever and ever, for example. (I want to try Mutt someday.)

    That said, perhaps some work should be done in deciding/drafting formal document format specs. We already have a perfectly good word processing format (namely TeX) and many word processors which can use it (such as LyX/KLyX, and even some lesser-known Windows word processors such as Scientific Workplace)... but what about spreadsheets? Are the formats of GNUmeric and (whatever KOffice's spreadsheet program is) compatible? What about StarOffice? Whatever happened to 'sc'?

    What about groupware programs? It's hard enough to deal with KDE/Gnome flamewars on Slashdot. What about in the workplace where the manager wants everyone to use a KDE-based groupware app but all the Gnome zealots want to use a Gnome-based one, and then all the desktop-agnostics (which I currently am) want to just use one which works under fvwm2?

    (Yes, I know there's better WMs than fvwm2. But I have it setup to work nicely with my Datahand [datahand.com] and I don't feel like learning how to configure another WM right now.)

    Many things to think about.


    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • Well, koffice is getting better every day. A BETA version should be out soon. Maybe 1.0 will be out there at the end of this year, maybe I'm just dreaming ...
  • Nice to hear that KDE so many people write about KDE. But there's still a long way to go - if you really want to compete with Microsoft on the desktop market, you do have to have a good office product. Honesty, I don't like Word Perfect (and, well peple need more than a word processor) or Applix (the ever tried to make a more complex presentation?) or StarOffice (can you spell slow?). I personally feel fine with all those command line apps (tex, gnuplot and so on), but the average user will need a fully integrated Office product. KOffice might be he way o go, it looks really good and should be ready not too far from now. This would be a good opportunity to make the KDE and the GNOME people work together - GNOME should really think about integrating such a fine office product. I personally prefer KDE, but GNOME 1.0 is really useful and it would be a pitty if users turned away from it just because of the office suite.
  • you mean they actually fix bugs?
  • I wonder why I haven't heard anyone working on integrating mozilla with qt/kde? I guess kde users will have kfm and Opera

  • Bugs (Score:1)

    by jwhyche ( 6192 )
    Well they fixed a few but put in one or two. Slashdot banners anyone?
  • I'm actually a big fan of (the option to) double click. I understand it's not for everyone, but it requires infinitesimal effort, prohibits accidental openings of files, and easily differentiates between DnD and open.
    What i'd also like to see in KDE is perhaps some sort of NetInfo-type database. NetInfo is, IMO, a Windows registry done Right (and first), I loved it since NeXT and I love it still. Combined with the existing application framework for handling MIME-types in KDE, we can get a decent interface for registering file types to be opened (as opposed to WordPerfect asking to tamper with magic numers, etc). It's something which may turn me to Mac OS X (both Mac and NeXT were very good about automatically associating files) for desktop purposes.
  • What I love about KDE is how accessable it does make a command prompt when you want one, either to launch an X client or to run a command with no output. Alt-F2, and pow, up pops a little window (complete with history, now we just need completion :) and enter your command there. Great for starting kvt^H^H^Hkonsoles when you don't feel like messing with the mouse.
  • Here's something concrete, and trivial: Help menus should be on the far right side of a menubar. This is a sort of X standard, and some toolkits even enforce it by automagically repositioning a menu item named "Help".

    The help browser needs mousewheel support. Seems lots of other widgets support it, this seems to be an omission.

    And how about some color in the button icons? All that tan and khaki makes it look as drab as CDE.
  • What a stunning riposte. So masterfully executed, it didn't need to be backed up with an actual rebuttal.
  • It's an exceedingly rare thing to see an Exchange server running MAPI-only, even in the most pro-Microsoft shops. Unheard of on an ISP. I really don't see that Linux needs to support a proprietary protocol that isn't even required to access mail on 100% of ISP's and 99% of other shops.
  • What you really meant is that linux has no office suites that you like since you listed 3 office programs in your troll^H^H^H^H^H post, right? Then, you go on to refuse to even look at Applix because it's commercial, and in the same breath, recommend we go back to windows/macOS/amiga (commercial OSes) it's been a while since I saw a good open-source office suite for windows... And exactly what do you mean by "lack of a modern web browser"? Is Netscape 4.5 old? Is Mozilla M5 old? Nice of you to back up your "netscape sucks" with FACTS Also, hate to bust your bubble, but Motif is not a web browser. "Linux remains a system for ... nerds to use at home." Yet you come trash it on Slashdot... does the phrase "news for nerds" ring a bell?
  • It matters not if KDE or GNOME is used exactly.
    It matters that us end users have well documented,
    easy to use applications that take the place of
    MS Office and MS Outlook. When both run the same
    apps the selection of desktops will be a personel
    one to make. Soon, I hope.
  • I don't think they actually changed anything or applied special patches, they were just extra careful in compiling with it. Plus, it requires a 2.2.x kernel and glibc 2.1 (prolly cause that's what comes with 6.0)
    hope that helps
    rhavyn
  • Although I agree that it would be wonderful if both camps were using the same component model. I just wanted to let everyone know that there is actually a lot of cooperation going on these days between the KDE and Gnome developers. In fact, I would like to give a big thanks to Preston Brown at RedHat for helping out in this area.
    ---
  • There's no such thing as a Pentium II 200.

    You gotta wonder...
  • Netscape does no good for connecting to Exchange
    servers, if neither IMAP or POP3 is enabled.

    Linux needs a MAPI client...

    Richard
  • Wow.. you aren't kidding. I didn't realize that there were so many vendors on the Linux bandwagon. For $344 you can get a k6/300 with 32 meg running Linux. 4 years ago you gould get a P100 with 32 meg running windows 95 for around 2k. Isn't competition great!

  • [please excuse semi-kindling response]
    I had so much trouble getting kde 1.0 to work and when it did it was very crashy and sucked troll balls. THe pics looked very familiar and 9x-esque while gnome looked oh so unfamiliar. However I I have switch to gnome and it is stable and the background pics are cool and Propaganda was so easy to get. I am using E-Mac E and GTK+ theme and it feel like i am on my old mac. IT rools.

    ok that's about all i can stand to do. my point is that both DE's are far better then they once were. both have integration. both are customizable. while my personal preference lies with gnome, that's all it is. personal preference.

    frankly, reading this post was worse then listening to the average born again christian. a born again KDE zealot. ouch. all the signs are there:
    'gnome is more worried about flash then stability'
    no, gnome is just more flashy and wasn't stable in 1.0, that's all.

    so while you're wandering around themes.org as instructed by the above poster, look at GTK+ and themes for E. and Propaganda. and KDE themes. you'll see that the beauty of linux lies in it's diversity.
  • The trouble with linux GUIs (for me, happy LinuxPPC R4 user) right now is that there's no standard "Command set" which provide basic operations using the same keystrokes in any program. Examples from commercial OSen:

    MacOS: no, Apple didn't invent undo/cut/copy/paste, but the same keys do the same thing in every program! *If* a program under GNU/LinuxPPC/KDE allows these commands, it does it its own special way. I have to keep looking down at the keys, thinking "Is it alt-V, option-V, ctrl-V, cmd-V" every time. What a bore.

    Windoze: Alt-F4 quits whatever program I'm in. "I'm Done, let's go". There's no (obvious) GNU/LinuxPPC/KDE counterpart.

    Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that if something's misbehaving, I can kill [9] anything. The *control* I have over my system is fabulous. I just think some commands should be "global" to the User Interface. Don't tell that I can set them up in a .profile either, because then when I sit down at another desktop (the goal is World Domination, r'mber) it'll be different.

    $0.02 from me. Don't forget to give me my change.
    jaz

  • Why not both... (Score:3)

    by Zoltar ( 24850 ) on Saturday May 08, 1999 @08:46PM (#1899533)
    Ah the debate goes on.

    I wonder why we can't settle on both KDE and GNOME as the standard Linux desktop. I kinda like the freedom of choice option. In fact, why not throw WindowMaker and Afterstep in the mix too. It seems to me that one of the major benefits that Linux has to offer over the commercial OS's is the freedom to tweak it into whatever you want it to be.

    Newbies will do more playing than anything else when they first get a PC. One of the first things that newbies do under windows is to go in and associate sounds with certain events...Well...I think newbies would get a real blast out of being able to go in and play with several different desktops. The trick is to make it "stupid simple" for them to do that. I think we are well on our way.

    Viva la choice....

  • Agreed! (Score:3)

    by extrasolar ( 28341 ) on Saturday May 08, 1999 @08:48PM (#1899534) Homepage Journal
    I tire very quickly of K-this and G-that. We don't need two of every application just so it can go with our desktop enviroment. Thats the kind of crap that happens in propietary software. But I guess that is the way it goes with competing desktops. Sure, choice is good, but this is really hurting that World-Domination thing.

    --

  • Right now StarOffice is Free for personel use. I would d/l it on a T1 line or better, it took me 4 hours on a 48k line. I have used it for 2 months now and love it. The main reason is at work MSoffice rules and StarOffice will save files in Word6.0 format. I can do my work w/o rebooting into Windows.
  • Dear friend, you are so way out of line, it is almost beyond description.
  • Try this url:

    www.stardivision.com

    Get your free personal edition of StarOffice 5.01 for Linux, there's enough in this little baby to keep even the most devout M$ Office addict happy...

  • You don't really think that any magazine, online or paper based, always conducts the level of testing they say they claim to - do you???

    I *personally* know of a well respected paper based IT magazine in Australia that frequently publishes tests on hardware and software the staff have never seen - written purely from the information in Press Releases...
  • I'm not sure if I would go so far as to say wm works "fine" with kde, it works, yes, but it really doesn't integrate into the kde environment as seamlessly as the default kwm (nor would you expect it to). I've found that even using the versions of wm with the kde extensions added it noticeably detracts from the performance and stability of the environment.

    I have no doubt that this will change with time - as all things do - but my experience is that quite often with products in the constant flux of development, which definitely applies to both kde and gnome, the default really is the way to go, unless you really want to be on the bleeding edge, in which case you are sacrificing stability for individuality.
  • Yep, tried it dude, same deal, it does work, but not to the standard of integration I expect from a Window Manager within the kde environment...

    0.53 does work nicely by itself though, but I think that's missing the point :-)
  • I agree totally!

    When the desktop guys and the window manager folks remember the reason we all got on the Linux "Train", to escape the cutthroat commercialism and proprietary ransom of the M$ monopoly and it's shoddy products, I am sure they will get back on the right track and form at least a defacto standard, then we can have the best of all products, and as you say, that will make it "stupid simple" and Linux will begin to assimilate desktops like it already has done to servers worldwide.

    Oooh, I can hear it now:
    "We are the Penguins, your workstation will adapt to service us, resistance is futile..."
  • I had thought /. was reserved for Gnome stories.

    KDE is great. It looks like Gnome will be great. Question is, when will decent word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications be ready. AT the moment all we have are glorious desktops and no way to have an envelope addressed!

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