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The KDE Future
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Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled. -- R.P. Feynman
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled. -- R.P. Feynman
Re:NT's not bloated??? (Score:1)
What does embedding have to do with functionality? (Score:2)
Re:I run KDE1.1.1 on a P166/32meg (Score:2)
Gnome.... well, lets just say I suspect some memory leaks are present in the Gnome/E combo. It runs fine at first, but after leaving it running for a few hours or days (which is typical for me), it becomes sluggish, unresponsive, and just plain SLOW.
Oh well. I'm sure it will (hopefully) get better.
And after all, who needs any of these?
On my system, there is a user called 'civ'. His
#!/bin/sh
exec
Civilization: Call to Power: it is its OWN window manager dammit!
Re:Anyone using IE uses them (Score:1)
Re:Some Thoughts on GNOME/KDE (Score:3)
Instead, I'm thinking about why I'm being sucked into a holy war. There is nothing in GNOME that I abhor, and nothing in KDE that I would die for. So why am I getting worked up?
I like KDE. I use it daily and do real work with it. Then I see a lie about it and I get angry. It's the same thing that happens when Microsoft tells a lie about Linux. We all get mad about that. But what's different about the KDE/GNOME war, is that it's my allies that are passing out the FUD.
Linux has given me my computing freedom back. Then someone comes along and tells me that I'm not truly free as long as I use KDE. "Turn from the dark side."
I'm currently writing a free application using the Qt library. I see a message fly by during a KDE/GNOME skirmish that says what I am doing is illegal. I re-read the GPL and QPL. I can't find anything, so I reply to the author asking for details. He's of the religious belief that anything that's not GPL is unholy. And he replies using Netscape!
I want to use KDE without anyone telling me that I'm evil for doing so. I get upset when people tell me that I am not free. I get angry when they tell me I am wicked. I didn't know this was a religion. I thought we had choice with Linux. Perhaps I should migrate to BSD.
It's interesting to follow the linux-newbie mailing list. A newbie writes in asking what GNOME is, and does it work with KDE? A week later another newbie writes in asking what KDE is, and does it work with GNOME? Newbies who've tried both write in to say thanks for giving them a real choice. For the first time of their computing lives, they're free.
We can learn from the innocents.
Re:GNOME/KDE what's the big difference? (Score:1)
That makes a BIG difference to newbies.
Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:1)
Isn't this the Microsoft argument? Isn't this how they justify the horrific numbers associated with Win2000 (or any earlier version of NT)?
I hope you don't criticize M$ for bloat, since you don't seem to mind it in Linux apps. That would be rather hypocritical, don't you think?
Personally, I hate the bloat in M$ slop and I won't tolerate it in Linux either. It's ridiculous. Pentium IIs shouldn't run like 386's just because of UI crap, IMO.
You're talking nonsense. (Score:1)
I have yet to see anyone back up the bloat claims with hard numbers ( ie what are the KDE processes and how much memory are they using ? )
Either get some real numbers for us or quit whining and play with twm. And leave us alone.
Re:One Final Thought (Score:1)
Re:Computing power, and Linux apps (Score:1)
KDE is a good thing (Score:2)
Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:1)
Re:Uhm, providing a desktop environment (Score:2)
And I heartily recommend anyone wanting to use KDE to dump KWM, and use WindowMaker instead - you'll save yourself a whole lot of RAM.
But then I dumped both Gnome and KDE - both starve your machine of RAM, and provide very little to the hardcore user.
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Bloat? Where? (Score:2)
Netscape is always my largest running process, unless it's one of those rare occasions when I'm running Applixware because I had to open a Word doc file.
KDE is running thin as can be right now. Adding dynamically (un)loadable objects to it isn't going to hurt much at all. Making more components interchangeable and shared (more dynamic) can only help the situation.
--Threed
perlQT ... help ! (Score:1)
Anyway, how do you get perlQT working ? what distro/compiler/shared-libs/qt-version/perl-versi
how about this... (Score:2)
And that little "K" icon in the windows "start" button position. Do I HAVE to have their logo there? I want a Linux penguin, or a Redhat logo, or anything else. Although possible to change, it takes too much exploring, poking and prodding that a newbie user doesnt want/know how to do. (And this advanced user doesnt really feel like it either.)
Overall, KDE is a GREAT collaboration of software, but I have a big pet peeve with nonconfigurable things like this.
Re:Sure, you are free to stick with a Vt420 (Score:1)
It's rather more like the choice between a VT420 and a VT420 that needlessly wastes resources. There is very little in the Windows/KDE/GNOME style desktops that wasn't there in less bloated offerings 10 years ago.
Re:Some Thoughts on KDE/GNOME (Score:1)
Re:Too Much (Score:1)
Oh yes, and KDE will now "officially" check for
You think KDE is slow or bloated? Rewrite something to make it faster and leaner. The TT Trolls have managed to snarf up a lot of the useful KDE classes and perhaps improve on them. End result? Qt gets marginally bigger, kdelibs slim down.
Re:KDE is not a corporate body! (Score:1)
Tried python's kde bindings. segfault.
I get the feeling linkages to C++ libraries must only work for the people who develop them, if that. Not that I don't see the value in having widgets in C++ -- compare gnome's "hello world" with qt's tutorial 2 (which has the same equivalent function). I was sold on Qt immediately. But this ABI crap with C++, where you can't link anything from a foreign compiler or a compilerwith a different version or whenever it just doesn't feel like linking
Re:Silent cries from distant places (Score:4)
Re:Redhat does not support KDE (Score:1)
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Re:Silent cries from distant places (Score:1)
> once and being able to apply it to any applicaiton.
Don't you mean the appeal of windows as opposed to Windows (as in MS)? There isn't much consistant in the desktops of Win3.x, Win95, and Win98 but those applications that follow CUA will be usable once you figure out how to start them.
I think it is time for the PlayStation and Nintendo to take the ball from Micros~1 and build a idiot proof system. Those who can think alittle can do use Linux. This will happen in less then 2 years IMHO. Linux needs a application installation utility that is desktop aware. That feature with the OpenLinux 2.2 install and Inet and retail application packages will take users by storm.
For the most part Linux configurations make more sense to me then what Microsoft puts out and that makes it easier to learn. Learning the MS way you have to use tons of memorization techniques because there is little applied logic can do for you.
Re:You're not paying even minimal attention. (Score:1)
no, it is not. X can use more or less depending on what you have going on within your desktop. If you run the pixmap themes, X will probably take up much more space. Also, KDE and GNOME do a fair bit of caching (ie the root windows). The caching will have an impact on your "free" report, but no impact on performance.
Also, idle processes (eg audio servers, dormant file managers ) impact the output of "free" , but not performance. The kind of thing that will hurt performance is active processes swapping. But this will not happen with KDE/GNOME if you have 32MB or more ( yes, I've run KDE on 32MB, and it runs fine though it takes a while to start )
I take your point that KDE and GNOME use up some space, but you are making it sound a lot worse than it really is.
The Road To Bloat (Score:5)
This is ridiculous, in my judgment. It seems more like pandering after the Microsoft model rather than sticking with the Unix way of doing things. Yes, there's a great deal of reuse possible in all this stuff, but the genius of Unix is as much in its focus upon small, highly-specialized programs that can be combined in ways never imagined by the original developers. Where is small in KDE/Gnome? Where is "lightweight"?
I can't bear it. I know this is all my personal subjective evaluation, and I might be somewhat offbase on some of my criticisms, but I just can't bear the bloat. 64MB should be plenty for just about any moderate level of work without hitting the swap. Having it all sucked up by a silly "desktop environment" is one reason (among many) why I abandoned M$ products.
No thanks, KDE/Gnome. I'll stick to Window Maker: just enough fat to give me some nice features, while leaving over 20MB of RAM free (what are KDE/Gnome doing with it????)
Configurability option that I want (Score:1)
I'm pretty passive about most "little" things, like which icon is used where, doesn't really bother me.
But one thing that annoys the crap out of me (it's one of the main reasons I don't like to use Windows and I was horrified at a couple of "hints" that Gnome seems to be heading there) is when the system assumes I'm an ignorant moron -- when it tells me something I already know, in the form of an annoying message box. I *HATE* message boxes. (Re: Gnome, I'm referring to that message you get if you startx as root, warning you about the dangers of being "root", AAAARGH!)
Sure, it's basically impossible for the system to know what I know, and newbie users need that sh-t. But I *would* like some global "experience" setting somewhere, where you can select that you are "novice/beginner/intermediate/advanced/guru" etc
Just my rant for the day. (On the whole I am very impressed with both KDE and Gnome, although Gnome still needs a bit more time to mature.)
Re:Which Gnome object model (vapour) (Score:1)
I guess it is as much vapor as Qt2.0.
Oh well.
You've come a long way, baby (Score:5)
1.1 was rather a rough release, and a little buggy IMO, but 1.1.1 solved those problems and I am very pleased to use it every day. The memory leaks I experience with 1.0 were gone, and I now have more control over my desktop than I had before.
Now I read about 2.0. Wow! The KDE guys have been very busy. While some of these features may not appeal to hardcore CLI fans, or folks who like a very lean X environment, they will definitely have appeal for corporate desktop use as well as the average Joe. The KOffice suite, when it is ready, is the one thing that will push me over the edge to stop using Windows NT altogether.
I am becoming increasingly of the opinion that KDE is going to become the "killer app" (when bundled with KOffice anyway) that pushes Linux over the edge.
Gnome won't ever get there. Gnome is an exclusive club. Don't get me wrong, Gnome is coming into technical excellence of its own. But from the very start, Gnome was a Gnu-only club and the attitudes of the "religious zealots" will chase away the folks outside the circle.
And the beauty of KDE over Gnome is that the developers have gone to great pain to ensure that KDE is happy on any platform. I can run it on my RS/6000 or my Sun UltraSPARC. No problem. We may very well see commerical *NIX vendors dumping CDE & Motif and bundling KDE with KOffice.
Think about it. A Sun box running KDE and KOffice for a lower price than a huge Intel box running NT Terminal Server. Having done a lot of network administration and support on both environments, I can tell you without a second thought how much I'd prefer the Sun solution provided we had quality desktop apps like KDE.
BTW - For the naysayers that call KDE a pig, it will run GREAT on a $350 computer. I use it at home every day on a Cyrix 233MHz machine with 64MB of RAM and it hauls. Take a $300 machine and toss in a 64MB chip for a little over $50 and you'll have anywhere from 80 to 96MB of RAM in your machine, which makes a $350 box that is capable of running KDE and KOffice with VERY pleasant results.
Kudos, guys, and keep up the great work!
Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:2)
Well, if you want similar or better functionality relative to Windows (embedded browser, object embedding), it only stands to reason that you're going to have similar system requirements. (If someone has disproved this, please let me know, because I haven't seen it.)
Take comfort in the fact that at least you have other options.
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Re:Too Much (Score:1)
Re:~/.kde/share/apps/kpanel/pics/go.xpm (Score:1)
And by the time Linux does get complete mind/body/spirit recognition, it should be able to predict everything I will think/do/want to do/etc and just go with it...
:) That's the obligatory smiley for those not recognizing the sarcasm. But imagine a computer like that; would it just be a user simulator, sending out emails to your friends about the picnic planned for the next fourth of July or whatever...
Re:KDE/Gnome bloat (Score:1)
"Bloat" as I understand it means either inefficient code or useless features. If you are saying that the code is inefficient, you need to show that it uses considerably more memory than something with comparable functionality. Your example (fvwm) does not use much less memory ( about 8MB diff at most) and doesn't have comparable functionality. On the other hand, if the features are useless for you, don't use them. But it's worth mentioning that to the mainstream desktop user, the features *are* useful.
The respondents aren't conceding that there is bloat ; they are conceding that KDE needs more memory *because* it does more . a kde session runs several processes, *including* a window manager. They are conceding that you will need more memory to run KDE because the extra processes need some memory to run in. They do not concede that KDE is woefully inefficient.
Re:I guess KDE is ok if you really want MS Windows (Score:1)
Not really...but...
Perhaps an example would help. (This is going to sound a lot like MS Word and Outlook).
What I want is the ability to go into KMail and select via an option what I want to use as an e-mail composer/viewer. Basic options like "Built in" would be compiled (perhaps) into the program. But what would be neat is if you could change it to KWord (is that the name of the program?) so that you could do text formatting (with automatic conversion to/from text/plain or text/html).
This is kinda possiable now as KMail developers can get the code for KWord and incorporate it into the program. However this creates code duplication (bug duplication) and means that I am still restricted to using either the ones that KMail people send with the program or I must find a way to incorportate it on my own (assuming I am a good developer). And then there is the the _really_ scary possiability (from non-developer standpoint) of somebody rewriting KMail to use parts of the KWord code to get a better composer but it is released as a patch. So now I (as a simple user) must download but the correct KMail sources, and the patch, recompile and install the application.
As for myself I would not mind recompiling a program to get extra functions. But we must realize where Linux appears to be going. In order for it to become #1 people _have_ to have the ability to download pre-compiled packages from the net and run them though some sort of GUI installer. If KOM works the way I think it will I can still have KMail pick up KWords extra functions WITHOUT HAVING TO RECOMPILE. After I install KWord it registers itself saying "I can be an HTML or plain text editor" and next time I start KMail I can reconfigure it to use KWord.
Perhaps KOM cannot do all of this but I hope it can.
A few problems, as usual (Score:2)
Bzzzzzt
Gnome uses GTK+ theme engines. Only one theme engine does pixmaps AFAIK. Theme authors, of course, tend to use the pixmap engine, because they often can't or won't write code. KDE can't change that.
It also talks about how some Proprietary apps now do KDE DnD - then it says DnD will be "standardised" in KDE 2.0 --
What does "standardised" mean, well it means XDND of course, same as Gnome 1.0
So why would a proprietary app want KDE-style DnD? Good question, and one KDE users might ask themselves...
Finally, the "Political" motivation for KDE 2.0 is that finally they will be able to re-use GPL code.
Ever wonder why "Kimp" didn't see the light of day? Because it's Gnu and can't use Qt 1.x -- Same for dozens of other products. Eventually KDE 2.0 will be able to re-use the same GPL code that GNOME has been able to use all along...
Re:KOM eh (Score:1)
Re:Exactly (Score:1)
That sort of functionality does not require the bloat that is the modern GUI.
Re:Your 64MB figure is way off (Score:1)
This was on a total of about 60-65 processes, give or take. As for Apache: same number of processes in each case (I know because I'm not a web server; I run Apache for devel purposes only, so there are only connections when *I* am using it). Since I did these tests I did actually reduce the numbers of httpd processes; I didn't need them all for my purposes anyway.
I know KDE can run in less. I used to run it in 48MB (but it was sluggish).
Regardless, as I've said elsewhere the bloat is simply undeniable no matter how you parse the RAM. No one can reasonably say that Gnome or KDE is as fast as a non-Gnomified window manager. It just ain't so. The difference is distinctly obvious. If you think otherwise, you're just...wrong.
Too Much (Score:1)
Linux in general and KDE specifically are getting to the point where you can't run them on low-end systems anymore. It's not just bloat, either. A lot of KDE's enhancements are truly necessary. Integrating CORBA and "Microsoftian" aspects of the OS are going to be required as that's what people have come to expect, but I still use Linux because it runs great on my old P120 with (only) 40 MB of RAM. KDE already uses too much memory (so does it's rival GNOME). Features should not have to be added at the price of system capability.
It seems to be a general trend in Linux application programming, the idea that more features == better. Most applications that I use are very old versions that did exactly what I needed without any extra features that I didn't particularly need. A select few, like Window Maker, I keep up-to-date only because they keep adding functionality without sacrificing performance.
Perhaps the writers of KDE and other Linux GUI managers/apps/tools should take a page out of Alfredo's book and focus on really making their programs efficient, not just working.
Re:I still don`t like QPL (Score:1)
Firstly, a GPL'd shared library can not be used for commercial projects end of story, so for a commercial developer, the QT license is more generous than the GPL.
Secondly, what is your "too much" assesment based on ? The QT license costs less than a week of a programmer's time (btw, it's $1300). So buying a QT license for each developer on the project is cheaper than paying each developer for an extra week. Moreover, there's nothing to stop you using it to write 101 commercial apps once you buy the license. And ( unlike motif ) your users don't need licenses, just your developers.
Whether or not the price is "too much" is a question of accounting/management that could go either way, but it's certainly true that if QT is, for your purposes, substantially better than any other toolkits, it is not "too much". I'd pay developers for an extra week of work to put polish on a commercial app. And I'd pay a week's (it's less than a weeks but I'm feeling generous ) worth of man hours to use a polished toolkit.
Re:Certainly (Score:1)
Re:I guess KDE is ok if you really want MS Windows (Score:1)
18:29 (Score:1)
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Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:1)
KDE 1.0 ran with 8MB of ram on a P100 !
Slowly, running netscape was not recommendable, but it ran.
Since then KDE has gone thru 2 revisions it is faster and smaller now. I would say the minimum ram for serious work is like 16-20 MB, if you run only light weight apps.
Next time try actually configuring it ... (Score:1)
As for the flickering, I assume you're running at
8bit colour depth. Try starting you X server up with the following:
startx -- -bpp 16
This should stop it flickering.
Chris
(KDE and Gnome fan)
Chris Wareham
Re:The real target audience for KDE (Score:1)
There is not the slightest doubt that this is true. As soon as you can plop a CD into a PC, answer the single question "Do you want to install Linux on your PC? (yes, no, expert)" then basically sit back and wait 10 minutes for a beautiful, stable gui to pop up, there will be an incredibly massive migration to Linux that will completely eclipse last year's exponential increase. We're maybe 5-6 months away from that.
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C bloat vs. C++ bloat (Score:1)
Re:The OS/2 way...... (Score:1)
I think it was 1994 when a coworker said he couldn't use OS/2 becuause his wife wouldn't know how to start her Windows-based word processor for school. I created a new folder called "Wendy", his wifes name, I created a template for here Windows-based word processor and a folder tempate in the "Wendy" folder. All the other folders on the desktop were dropped into a new desktop folder I called "System". Only 2 folders were on her desktop, one called "Wendy" and one called "System". How hard is that?
The problem today is that people don't want choices. They want to be told what to do and how to do it and Micros~1 is there to 'help' them. They haven't made Billions of Dollars selling solution, they did it selling problems. IMHO
Re:I guess KDE is ok if you really want MS Windows (Score:1)
To give a specific example: Yesterday I needed some information from another organization. I loaded their intranet page in IE and clicked on a link to a MS Word document. After 3-5 minutes IE had morphed into a IE-Word combo with the 99 page document displayed. I pressed Ctrl-F which in Word would have brought up the Word find dialog box. Instead it brought up the "Find Files" dialog box which searches the hard drive. I had to go back to the web page, right click and "save as" the Word document, then load the Word document from my hard drive to search for the text I needed.
It sounds like KDE views this as their goal. Since Microsoft has already achieved it why is KDE trying to do it? They ought to have some goals beyond just mimicing Microsoft.
Re:KOM eh (Score:1)
Re:I guess KDE is ok if you really want MS Windows (Score:1)
I still don't think it's a good idea to integrate the two. So I'll just keep using Netscape (hopefully Mozilla will add CORBA support) and bash like always.
Component GUI/Monolithic X (Score:1)
IMNSHO, its X that's the bloated pig - since I only have one machine, why do I need all that networking code in there? Not to mention the code to translate between endianesses, etc, etc.
The price to pay (Score:3)
easy to use better UI => some bloat
and many of us are beginning to accept the penalty. It a simple thing to write a small command-line tool, but to make an application easy to use, a lot more UI has to be added, and this necessarily means a bigger applications.
Is it worth it? Like I said, many of us are increasingly accepting the price.
It is beta, but available (Score:1)
Re:Quit complaining about KDE... (Score:1)
You're assertion is just plain false. The interaction of wmfinder and dfm and WM for example rather demonstrate this. dfm itself is built with 2 widget libs and WM runs on yet a third while wmfinder uses a fourth.
Due to standards compliance (offix dnd) they can all do that spiffy DnD GUI desktop thing together.
Better standards and wider standards compliance is the answer rather than something that cripples older machines.
Even MS itself has managed to deliver similar functionality without quite so much in the way of bloat.
Re:Silent cries from distant places (Score:1)
On the desktop, Linux and Unix have some catching up to do.
At least that one is done: (Score:1)
HTH
Re:You're not paying even minimal attention. (Score:1)
Hmm... What's this? (Score:2)
Hmm... This is not quite correct. Andrew has been able to do this since the beginning of time, and StarOffice does this as well. It would seem that the KDE team is starting to spin as well as any other corporate body.
Re:Not at all (Score:2)
You can. But it means trouble for (potential) redistributors of binaries produced from your code; see the Debian analysis [debian.org] for chapter and verse. That analysis deals with the old Qt license, but the QPL is similarly incompatible with the GPL.
Re:I still don`t like QPL (Score:1)
Say proprieraty when you mean that.
Re:More advanced software deserves less support?? (Score:1)
Re:Qt and KDE 2.0: WHEN? (Score:1)
I would guess KDE 2.0 to be released in usable form perhaps close to end of 1999.
It all depends on wether somebody has a really really great idea that only means "a little more hacking" (or rather how many of those will happen before everyone is bored
Not everything Microsoft does is bad. (Score:1)
There are places where this kind of integration is not only useful, but *essential*. Office apps are a good example, but there are others ( cutting and pasting binary data ) MS *are* ahead of linux on the desktop. Their (desktop) technology is quite good, the main drawbacks are a lack of flexibility and a lack of robustness in the underlying OS. The linux desktop environments are providing both power and flexibility, which is a good thing. And because of the flexibility,
-- AC
Re:Too Much (Score:1)
I've got a copy of LEM for use on my laptop which only has a 300 Mb drive (as I rember the base LEM distro is under 20Mb) and needs to win 95 partition. Why bother? well because occasionally I need to do wierd network stuff and a small linux setup is fantastic for that.
Finally I have a one floppy installation of linux - can't remember the distro name but its linked somewhere off the LEM pages. This disk is our last resort recovery tool in the office - with it I can boot any PC and mount the hard disk and get network access... ie I can ftp important documents off the harddisk and then see if the installation is savable.
Its got vfat and ntfs drivers included so I can try it with either our NT servers a standard 9x system. I'd recomend all sys-admins to have a look at these micro linux distros as they have the potential to save huge ammounts of hassle.
It might be that mainstream distros are moving away from base hardware... but thats very different from not being able to use the linux on those machines. You just got to dig a little you'll be amazed at whats out there.
Tom
Re:how about this... (Score:2)
I sure wish people would be a little more grateful for something that has been created by a Free Software project. If you don't like it, don't use it, or fix what you don't like, and contribute the changes. Or at least complain to the developers, instead of on a public forum.
Sorry. I just really get tired of the KDE developers getting raked over the coals, and I think they deserve a lot of credit for what they've done. They've invested a lot of time and energy over the past 3 years, and did not have anyone hiring them to work on it.
--
Get your fresh, hot kernels right here [kernel.org]!
World domination: coming soon to a computer near you!
Re:I still don`t like QPL (Score:1)
This is mor or less impossible the way QT is currently licensed.
So IMHO a core component (User Interface) of an open-source operating system like GNU/Linux should be 100% free (GPL).
(a) QT is 100% free ( even RMS said so ... )
(b) who said that anything has to be GPL'd to be free ? are you trying to say that NetBSD and FreeBSD are not free either ? Don't be so narrow minded.
Re:More than Win95 (Score:1)
1) X11 Windowing System, provides much more functionality then Windows, including remote Windowing (try that with a standard Win95 config), support for more flexable
2) More Services on by default. Do you have SendMail or Apache running? It's will to bitch if you have those services enabled under Linux, but disabled under Microsoft Windows.
3) Netscape Bloat. Most of that can be blamed on Motif, although Netscape Communicator 4.5.1 is bloated on all platforms (just as bad as Internet Exploiter too)! On the Mac OS Communicator wants around 13-16 megs of RAM, and on Windows it wants about the same. OF course Mozilla is soon ushering a whole new era of speed and smallness in web surfing... Also if you are using KDE check out Kommander, the intergrated browser in the KDE file manger. It's comming along nicely, although it's not yet even close to Windows Internet Explorer.
5) OLE on a 386/486(33mhz) is a joke... it's completely unusable unless you have alot of free time (importing OLE on a 386 machine can take a half hour in Word 6).
The fact is features require memory. Linux uses a fair chunk of memory for features, Windows just wastes memory on unefficent code.
Of course disable anything you don't need in Linux, upgrade to the lastest stable versions of everything, and watch your machine run faster, more stable, and better then a Windows machine.
I tend to agree, but... (Score:5)
But, at the same time, I am equally impressed with both what I can do at console on a 386, and some of the really fancy new GUI stuff comming to Linux. And, I am sorry to say, and it goes against everything I have always felt, but 64M of RAM in May of 1999 just isn't a "comfort zone."
Seriously, check out PriceWatch [pricewatch.com], because I was sort of shocked with my last memory order. $82 will get you a nice 128M SDRAM DIMM that will be happy at 100MHz bus speeds. And memory is the truely unsung hero of the computer. All these people talking about how they overclocked thier Celeron to 500MHz or more, and I just tend to sit back and go "Yea, so, you spent all that money, time, and frusturation, and you have 32M RAM??! I would be happy with half that speed and 128M to 256M RAM, because that's where I feel it most."
Yea, it's a bloat. I did a test last night on this very issue. Identical systems, one with 32M of SDRAM, the other with 128M of EDO, and ran RedHat 6.0 w/KDE and Gnome, and WHAM... Light-years of differance. Well worth the $82 I spent on the test, and you can't ever find a way to convince me to go back to less than 100M. (matter of fact, I will be shifting another 64M into that box later this week).
Swap is no match what so ever for even the cheapest slowest RAM. And that is what it basically comes down to. RAM is getting affordable, and to get all the GUI bells and whistles, you need the RAM for it. If you are offended by it, there is still fvwm or wm2, and vi to fill your needs, and I am not saying that as a put-down (because I find them very useful on my 386SX20 w/ 6M)
Re:As usual, Gnome supporters flip-flop (Score:1)
Everyone here doesn't consider Miguel's actions the "breath of God" and everything the KDE team do as bad. If they did you wouldn't post this, eh? Or all the others that are constantly whining about how mistreated KDE is on Slashdot or by Redhat or by Americans or by the green marsian conspirators or by
What's interesting is how Kurt Granroth's claim that gtk's theme support is pixmap based will go down considering how much critique Miguel got for saying "pretty much tied to C++".
PS. Kurt is of course not lying about GNOME/Gtk+. Probably just didn't know enough about the theme support. Seems like a fair and reasonable guy too. DS.
Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:2)
The most troubling thing to me with KDE and Gnome is their astonishing bloat. Neither of these environments can reasonably be described as "lightweight." On a 64MB RH6.0 machine starting Gnome up immediately sucks all my free RAM; KDE is very little better.
While I certainly wouldn't call GNOME lightweight, I have a very similar setup as you (64MB RH5.9 machine), and GNOME is very nice to my RAM. Usually my X Server takes up as much memory as all my GNOME programs combined. Even running Netscape with GNOME, I've got a comfortable 15MB-20MB for disk caching. From everything I've heard, KDE's memory usage is similar. You might want to run Top to see what really is eating up your RAM.
The place where GNOME and KDE both hog space is on the hard disk. But with recent hard drive prices, that's alot less of an issue.
Silent cries from distant places (Score:4)
I know these thoughts are immature. But I can read between the lines of some of these posts.
I, at least, are critical of these improvements. The problem is, ironically, they are too good. A personal problem for me, is that both KDE, Gnome, and several Window managers are doing things a standard way. The way it is done everywhere else. I converted to Linux for something different and don't want to see it evolve into... Windows (Yes, I know KDE and Gnome are beyond Windows, but the same similarities are there).
Also the performance issue. To run KDE apps, you have to have the KDE libs and qt installed. But for low-end computers, can things like themeing and OpenParts be turned off and not create a performance hit?
I will look forward to these changes. They will definetly increase Linux's appeal for the desktop. But I have a few things I wish. That apps are created and ported to each desktop (Kinda strange since Linux is suppose to be one platform. That peformance can be increased by turning things off. That something new comes along in the Linux GUI. And that we will never have a standard desktop.
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The Road To Bloat: A Followup (Score:3)
That's not necessarily a crime -- IF you don't criticize Microsoft for THEIR bloat.
On the other hand, some folk seem to think that the bloat is necessary and/or inevitable if Linux is going to be used by the masses. They may be right. As at least one or two of you said, though: I do have a choice, because it's Linux. And I'm glad for that.
My concern (besides the issue of us being hypocritical in criticizing M$ bloat while endorsing our own) is that I'm not sure it *must* be this way. I'm not sure that the best way to position Linux is as a bloated OS[1] that just doesn't crash. I would hope that we can do better than that. Perhaps as Gnome and KDE mature they will return to look at speed/size optimizations; both are young projects after all.
I would like to think that we can do better than bloat. I would like to think that we can do better than excuse bloat with cries about cheap RAM and the rigors of the command line. But maybe I'm mistaken.
[1] I know that the GUI isn't the OS, but Joe Average (for whom these GUIs are supposedly intended) can't/won't distinguish between the GUI and the OS. When they see the bloated GUI running slow, they'll conclude that Linux isn't fast at all. They'll be wrong, but who's going to convince them?
Certainly (Score:1)
Hope this helps.
Re:I guess KDE is ok if you really want MS Windows (Score:1)
'Course if you don't like a specific feature of Konqueror's don't use it, or find another feature.
The beauty of Linux (Score:1)
Regards,
Macka
Embedded Applications (Score:2)
You can disable the IE/MS Office monstrosity by changing a setting in View+Options (auto launching a MS Office doc actually bypasses certain anti-macro security). Or just right click.
Speaking of security, it sounds like KDE is building a MS OLE clone. It would be interesting to hear what they are doing to prevent Melissa virus-like applications.
{Melissa worked like this: Word document was sent to Outlook user. User opened document with embedded Word. Auto-run macro in document scripted Outlook to send document to a bunch of people. }
--
Re:KDE is not a corporate body! (Score:1)
Re:usability (Score:1)
Personally, I think that scalability is the key. The canonical example is accelerator keys. Sure, to save your work you click on the "file" menu, then click on the "save" item. But after seeing "Alt-S" next to "save" repeatedly, more advanced users can quickly use the shortcut, and not take their hands away from the keyboard (assuming that they were typing).
I was dead serious when I said that a program is a failure when you needed to consult the documentation. I resent having to type "man foo" to find out the name of an option, or to learn what options are there. When you are coding, man pages are the right thing. But GUIs are apparently useful for this - a friend of mine recently told me M$ visual C++ product is really good. He definitely knows his stuff - he recently helped me hack the redhat 6.0 install so I could install directly off my paride cd-rom.
By the way, here is some evidence:
[kip@chimera kip]$ history | cut -c 8- | cut -d" " -f1|sort | uniq -c | sort -rn|head ;-)
139 fg
115 jobs
99 ls
98 l # aliased to ls -l
73 cd
66 nls # basically nfrm
50 less
36 pine
26 cly # lynx -color + a pun
--
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Actually, (Score:1)
As far as I know, Red Hat employees one KDE developer, Preston Brown, but his job doesn't consist (at least solely) of working on KDE.
Red Hat has made a contract with two persons to work on speeding up the KDE port to Qt 2.0, but they are not full time Red Hat employees, but just temporary contracted programmers.
If anyone from RH is reading this, feel free to correct me.
This is better then MS Windows if like OpenDoc (Score:2)
I'm so glad that OSS is taking this forward because data is what we should be concerned with. Micros~1 has us thinking application, application, application. I want to be able to tear off a template of a text object, drag it to my working folder and open it up to start writting. When I realize that a graphic may help me then I want to embed a graphic using my perferred graphic package right into the document. If a part of the graphic needs text then in goes another text object which uses the same editor as the original document. Not some slim-featured editor built into the graphic app.
This technology can change alot about computing that is bad today. This technology is what will allow me to move from OS/2 to Linux and get the same or better productivity out of it. This is not MS Windows by any means.
I had been hoping that Java would have picked up the OpenDoc ball. Think about it, you get a link to a document that you don't have the viewer to. Your system looks at a well known site and find the viewer ( a Java-based viewer ) and asks you if you want to fetch it to be run as a application or as a applet(secure/safer). Now you are viewing the data. Everybody gets equal access to viewing the data but not to creating or editing it.
I'm going to get this stuff.
Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:2)
Ye olde MacOS was lean, but it was also in non-portable assembly language and ROM chips.
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Re:What is the ratio 1:8 ??? (Score:2)
KOffice works for the most part right now, but not completely usable for the general public. So, rather than releasing anything like a version 0.1.93; they just leave it in CVS for developers/testers that know how to work CVS and there's no mentions of it on Freshmeat and the like. Some people want more releases (like Mozilla's releases), others prefer the current model.
In part, it's the modest way many KDE developers are that causes the lack of stories on KDE. They just want a solid program before going completely public.
Quit complaining about KDE... (Score:5)
- KDE is only *one* option of many
- KDE is probably not out to rule the world
- KDE very possibly is not for you
The way I look at it, KDE is first and foremost an attempt to gain a cohesive and consistent look and feel across applications. It is also much more, because once you get a consistent look-n-feel, widget set, etc., other more advanced technologies follow that are simply not available from applications that are from different libraries, approaches, etc.
It sounds like Obi Wan, but let go of your hatred. If you don't like KDE..... GREAT!!! It has zero (nada, zip) to do with Linux, Unix or anything else you and I love about our wonderful kernel. Like much of what builds what we call a Linux system, KDE is just one *optional* component. Unlike Windoze, if you do not like the UI (or desktop environment) in Linux, you can change it--even without rebooting!!! For those of you drawing comparisons to Windoze--there is no comparison when you are not locked into KDE!!!!!!!
If you can not add anything of value to a discussion about something that you have no intention of using, then please think about the fact that you are cluttering up a discussion forum for people that actually want to use this thing!!!!
If KDE user (probably) = Linux user (and definitely != Windoze user) then you should be happy that there are people in your corner--they just may like to use different applications than you!
Re:KOM is nothing like OLE, Baboon is based on OLE (Score:2)
Could you provide a link describing how this works?
--
usability (Score:5)
- Ease of use for newbies. Consider the file manager/web browser. How many CLI utils does it supplant? Well letsee, theres man, ls, file, pwd, cd, pushd/popd, mkdir, cp, mv, rm, chmod, tree... (BTW: some of these are implemented in the shell, but thats not relevant to my point) True, KFM doesn't have as much functionality/configurability as these tools + scripts and aliases. I bet that 99% of the time when you use the 'ls' command, you don't use any of these functions (not counting alias ls='ls -kitcnsink'). For a linux newbie, KFM is much easier than remembering/learning:
- Bloat is good. Lets say it costs you, a Linux user who "knows where his towel is", $100 to upgrade your computers RAM to run KDE or Gnome. Lets assume that you spend 10 minutes a day remembering the names of common commands, reading man pages, mis-spelling 'chmod', using the wrong one-letter options (let me tell you, when I first started using gcc I figured gcc -o foo.c should do what gcc -c foo.c does. oops), reading and understanding error messages, etc. Lets further assume that these mistakes are eliminated by going to KFM, so you save the 10 mins a day. If you time is worth 10 bucks an hour, you save 10/6 = $1.6 a day. You only need 100/1.6 = 60 days to recoup your investment. After that, its pure profit, baby! This doesn't take into account subjective improvements, like ease of use.
- KDE vs. M$ - true, the enhancements listed here already exist in M$ winblows. however, I want to point out that
- KDE doesn't have a marketing department (despite the tenor of the 2.0 annoucement). Therefore KDE developers can focus on the features users actually want, not what somebody thinks that the users think that they want.
- As KDE is opensource, incremental change is "free" and continuous. This last point is actually very important, as the little bugs are really the most annoying/disruptive.
- Finally, (and this point actually distinguishes between KDE and Gnome), it appears to me that KDE is more focused on actual usability. Take the whole 'themes' mess for example. Ok, so Gnome has better theme support right now. So what? Themes are counterproductive, IMHO. If every user has different keybindings and widgets that look and act differently, that is definite lossage, when it comes to usability. (note that I don't have experience with themability, I might be wrong about this). However, I think that we will all agree that Enlightenment's excesses are gratuitous, and, ultimately, useless eye-candy. (sweets are good...but my P 100/ 40MB ram laptop is on a diet) And another thing. Quoting Object-Oriented Software Construction (Bertrand Meyer): "Correctness is the prime quality. If a system does not do what it is supposed to do, everything else about it - whether it is fast, has a nice user interface... - matters little." If a program crashes, it is not correct. KDE appears to focus on this more than Gnome. (read this book. Even if you only read p.3 - p.20, on the definition of software quality.)
well, thats my 2 cents. Don't spend it all in one place!- what the commands are called (btw: note cd/chdir/md/mkdir inconsistency)
- how to use them
- how to get help on them
- how to decipher/grep through the resulting man page
- how to save options (i.e. with aliases)
- how to do things to groups of files (if you try to figure out mv *~ tmp from the man pages, you need to wade through the bash documentation. The KDE help docs say that I can select multiple files by right clicking on each, but it doesn't say anything about the edit>>select command (where I can type in *~))
This is all well and good for newbies, but what about the power users? well, the command line isn't going anywhere. And if you can accomplish 90% of your goals in a simple, consistent manner, more power to you. I may be a relatively sophisticated linux user, but that doesn't mean that I want to read man pages. This brings me to my second point:One more thing: one goal of user-interface design (especially GUI design) is to make the system "self-documenting", i.e. its pretty intuitive how to do simple things, and when the user wants to do more complex things, he is exposed to more stuff and it is pretty clear how to proceed. Its usually easier to mess around with a program than to read a manual (or man page, eek). In fact, if a user needs to read documentation, the program is a failure. This is just an elaboration of the 'subjective enjoyment' point above.
(OT: this new version of lynx is great, I love being able to use emacs for doing form input. The old way truly was bletcherous.)
--
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Some Thoughts on KDE/GNOME (Score:3)
I just love KDE or GNOME threads. Sure things have calmed down compared to six months ago, but it's still a seething cauldron of raw emotions. FUD everywhere. Why?
I sense a certain attitude from the KDE developers (why hide behind the AC?) of frustration and jealousy over the fact that GNOME is getting all the praise. It's somewhat justified, they have put a lot of hard work into writing some great software. The problem is, that attitude is alienating people, driving them further away from open support and praise of KDE.
There seems to be a feeling that the KDE folks are insular, self righteous, self aggrandizing and need to be 'taken down a notch or two.' The GNOME folks are friendlier, more open, and (perhaps more importantly) the underdogs in this 'race' and therefore more deserving of support.
People who say that the open source movement is a strict meritocracy are ignorant of human sociopolitical realities.
My point is this: as a community that is based on the freely given work of a relative few people, we need to be compassionate and supportive of the people who donate their time for all of us. Vicious, cuththroat competition and on-upsmanship have no place in the open source community.
If you look at the games and recreation of most tribal people who haven't had a lot of contact with us westerners, you will find that they aren't competative, they are cooperative. When a game has an element of competition to it, like tag, for instance, they make sure not to take it too far (if someone has been 'it' too long, the other players slow down and let themselves get tagged.)
Can we do this? Can we really try our hardest to make this fun and rewarding for all the people who contribute, despite our political ideas and our ingrained western habits of competition and disrespect? The true 'open source revolution' isn't about a product, it's about a process, an attitude, and a community.
KOM is like OpenDoc not OLE! (Score:2)
As for the minutae of the interaction with each file type, well, I would suggest that you download and compile the code (you *DO* know how to do that?) and see just how things are done. At that point you can take up any problems/suggestions you might have with the relevant developers. However, if you are just criticizing for the sake of it, I'd suggest you wait for the working code.
As for the MS Windows comparison - it really is silly just to discard everything that MS has done as bad. MS did not discover all this stuff for themselves, most of Win95/8/NT4 interface details have a long lineage through to the Xerox Star. The KDE developers have consistently shown that they are able to take other peoples ideas and provide working open source solutions that can run on a wide variety of hardware platforms. One thing that the KDE team has also shown that it is not that hard to provide an internation desktop for free.
I am probably wasting my time trying to convince a slashdotter that perhaps some other view is even one quarter has valid as his/her view - call me quixotic.
Bruce.
The real target audience for KDE (Score:5)
Since most desktop gains will probably be converts from windows, having an interface that is similar in behaviour to windows will ease the transition for those who choose to switch. Once they've switched, and start to become familiar with Linux, they will start to see not only the power of the platform, but also the far greater number of choices in the interface, etc.
I suspect that many will start to use Linux _because_ of KDE, and many of those will see the other WM's, like WindowMaker, Gnome/E, etc. and will discover that they have a choice that they didn't have under Windows.
KDE is efficent for it's purpouse (Score:2)
Your 64MB figure is way off (Score:2)
Secondly, check to see if you have 101 server processes swallowing your memory. Apache on the default config can eat about 6MB ( since it starts several servers )
FYI, the whole KDE thing runs in less than 16MB (about 8MB), excluding X. kwm takes about 2MB the other components take a few MB each.
I want RAM to run stuff BESIDES the UI (Score:2)
There may be some caching going on, but the numbers for Gnome don't go down below 60-ish. Window Maker's go up, but as I close apps it slowly returns to the 40s.
Gnome is sucking RAM. There's no getting around it. So does KDE.
Now perhaps someone might care to compare Gnome/Window Maker with Gnome/Enlightenment, which is the default Redhat setup. It may be that E is the big pig here. I didn't try Gnome under WM because I wasn't very impressed; I don't think it really added much to an already pretty elegant UI.
Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:2)
The problem with the "small, highly specialized" model is that it takes a bit of skill, talent, and experience to make it work--things that are always sadly lacking in many folks. So things bloat and multiply because "it's just easier" when everything you need is integrated into one package. (EMACS, anyone?)
Other posters are right when they say Linux needs an easy-to-install-and-use GUI frontend. Bloat is not going away anytime soon, as the 128MB minimum for running Windows2000 sadly points out. At least you can run KDE with 32M, and if the disk chatters too much for your liking, go back to the % prompt.
KDE's a very widely used GUI at the moment, but it will be interesting to see how Windows users react to it in the long term. I've been using KDE for a couple of weeks now and I'm still not nearly as comfortable with it as with Mac/Win environments... I tend to follow my own advice and do most everything from a kterm session.
Re:The Road To Bloat (Score:2)
Yes, there's a great deal of reuse possible in all this stuff, but the genius of Unix is as much in its focus upon small, highly-specialized programs that can be combined in ways never imagined by the original developers. Where is small in KDE/Gnome? Where is "lightweight"?
"Lightweight" is just where you've come to expect it, from the command line, and all of the small, highly-specialized programs you've come to know and love are still there. The purpose of Desktops is that they're supposed to remove the sense that every app is a special case. This is all well and good for nice, specialized command-line utilities, and undaunting for experienced users. The integration and similarities of applications that a desktop such as KDE or Gnome introduces benefits users who don't want to feel that they're relearning something totally different with every application they run.
I think KDE and GNOME make good on what they're trying to do, even if they don't fit the old mold of specialization and uniqueness. Though perhaps I'm jaded, since I'm one of those freaks that thought that the only thing that Microsoft did right with Win95 was the UI - even if it wasn't their work.
Just my $0.02....
Re:I tend to agree, but... (Score:3)
-- Seymour Cray commenting on virtual memory
Why would you want free RAM? (Score:2)
Re:Uhm, providing a desktop environment (Score:2)
Exactly. And what am I missing? Or rather, what do I gain by these things you mention? What do I gain by an object model? Why do I need another file management approach? I'm not suggesting that there are no benefits to be had. I am suggesting that there are frequently other ways of doing this stuff that don't require the bloat. I am suggesting that "integration" of GUI apps is so expensive in terms of resources that either the integration is superficial and limited (so as to preserve some performance), or it is extensive (and consequently bloated).
One thing I am missing when I run Gnome or KDE is lots of free RAM: it's been sucked up.
I ought to say that I personally don't care whether someone uses KDE or Gnome or fvwm or even twm (or even none of them :-). This is a matter of personal choice.
But apart from my personal predilections, there's this larger question of hypocrisy on the part of many Linux folk who bellyache about M$ bloat but who don't seem to think twice about Gnome or KDE bloat. How can you criticize M$ for bloat, for fat & slow apps, and yet rave about the wonders of Gnome or KDE? I'm no M$ lover by any stretch (my box is M$ free), but if we're going to criticize them for something then we ought to criticize ourselves for the same. The bloat is there. And it's growing. I don't want the power of my box sucked into providing UI. I want a Pentium II to BE fast, not crippled under bloatware.
If you can't say anything constructive... (Score:3)
If you don't like KDE, don't use it. For that
matter, if you don't like Gnome, don't use that
either. Do whatever you like, only don't whine
like this.
Free software, of whatever stripe, is one of
the greatest developments in the history of
mankind. The people who write KDE/Gnome/Linux
etc are doing it simply out of the `goodness
in their hearts'. They are putting in vast amounts
of time and specialized knowledge into creating
a product that will bring them no benefit except
the satisfaction of making life easier for
people who don't have their skills.
And all you can say when you hear this is...
I cannot change the icon, so it sucks. What kind
of mentality is this? If you think that is an
issue, why don't you contact the KDE developers
with specific suggestions? Or better still, why
don't you help out by contributing whatever
skill you have to the KDE (or whatever is your
pet ) project?
Free software needs not only programmers, but also
artists, designers, tech writers and salespeople.
Re:I guess KDE is ok if you really want MS Windows (Score:2)
Unfortunately, as open source OS's become mainstream, people are going to want features like that. Joe/Jane Schmoe Secretary doesn't want to remember that
KDE and Gnome exist primarily for the Schmoes of the world. The goal they seek has little to do with those of us who truely prefer a command line to a GUI. Heck, I only start up XF86 and FVWM to use Netscape or Gimp. 99% of the time I'm in console mode. Does that make KDE and the like less valuable or good? No. Does it make me personally not want to use KDE or Gnome? Yes. But, there's only one me and there's a whole lot of Schmoes.
What a bunch of whiners! (Score:5)
Most of these complaints are trivial. Get a life people! Learn to use your computer. So what if you don't like the "K" logo. Use another. It's just an icon. You don't have to be a programmer to make an icon. Don't like the fact that clicking on an icon opens up that icon? Don't click on the icon!
A week ago, people were compaining that KDE didn't have true themes. Now they're compaining that they're not exactly like gtk themes. They previously kvetched about lack of CORBA. Now they're concerned about embedding. Last week they ploudly proclaimed that KDE had no future. Now they're worried that it does.
And learn to think for yourselves! GNOME is not necessarily the holy grail for humanity. Not everything that isn't GNU or GNOME is evil. Freedom is about choice. This bears repeating: freedom is about choice. This means that it's okay for there to be other desktops besides GNOME. Dynamically linking to a non-GPL library does not make KDE non-GPL. Those who are complaining that KDE looks and acts just like Windows have obviously never used KDE or Windows. Those that think that GNOME is better because it doesn't have those things that makes KDE windows-like have obviously never used GNOME.
For those of you aren't whiners, my apologies. I just had to get my whine out about whiners.
~/.kde/share/apps/kpanel/pics/go.xpm (Score:3)