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KDE GUI

KDE 1.1.2 is out 253

Posted by HeUnique from the KDE-updates dept.
Title says all. KDE 1.1.2 is out for the masses. Press release is here. Please use the Mirrors . (note: ftp.kde.org doesn't have the files yet, but ftp.de.kde.org. have it). Go get it. Try the themes and the new (and very colourful) icons, and enjoy. Update: Currently, it's available only as a .tar.gz, and .tar.bz2, and for Debian (Sparc & Intel). No binaries for most of the distributions yet. (RedHat - please make it faster this time - hint!)
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KDE 1.1.2 is out More

KDE 1.1.2 is out

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  • That's exactly what I was thinking. Claiming your desktop is superior because it's the de facto standard is obviously something Microsoft does quite well. At least Microsoft has something to back that up - they are the de facto standard desktop, with millions of users. KDE most likely doesn't even have a million users, so it's not a de facto standard anything.
  • I think KDE 2.0 will be based on Qt 2.0.
    And yes there are enough differences between 1.44 and 2.0 that would make trying to port current version of KDE rather large task.

  • www.plig.org/xwinman (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It has a pretty good overview.
  • Really? Today's GNOME cvs? I'd like to give it a try. I didn't expect it to work reliably/well, or even stably (hell, the "stable" versions crash) but I kinda expected it to get past the compiling stage, which on my machine, it didn't. I have a problem with GNOME though, and maybe you can explain it. How do you go from .33, to .66, to .99, to 1.0? The release was, as agreed by most of the Linux community, not exactly 1.0 material. KDE1.0 was STABLE. And I thought that our trump card against Windows/Microsoft was the Stability© that we have on our systems.

    Case in point, when I showed my mom GNOME, she said "Oh, that's nice. How does it do the ripply thingy?" I didn't even try to explain that GNOME doesn't do the rippling, because the ideas are a bit beyond her. But when she saw it crash to command prompt mode, because I tried to open the GMC, she laughed and made a crack about how maybe linux wasn't more stable after all. Linux isn't GNOME, but a LOT of newbies/uninformed people think so. And when they see it crash, they wonder why we like it so much. When I showed her KDE, she tried it out and she was amazed that the system could handle so many things at once; Internet browsing, emailing, graphics design (with the Gimp), 3D modeling I was doing on Blender, programming/compiling on another VT, and a load of little games on the last open desktop. And KDE showed it, but it held up. Which is why I admire it; it seems to be able to handle a LOT. And its file manager doesn't crash when I close one of its open windows.

  • I hate seeing all these flame wars about which desktop environment is better. People argue that gnome is unstable, it's completely stable for me. People argue over qt's license, etc. It's just plain stupid, people will always prefer what they like best, whether it's one of these 2, or something else completely, or even a mixture of both.

    I'd really like to see the gnome and kde developers get together and work on making it so that each other's apps will be able to optionally look like whichever desktop environment they are run under. ie. some kde/qt app using a gtk+ theme, or a gnome/gtk+ app using a kde/qt theme.

    These are just my opinions

    Mike
  • including potato stuff

    ftp://128.253.254.56/kde112 [128.253.254.56]

    SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers

  • The thing i like about KDE is that the rest of my family (mostly computer illiterate) can sit down at a KDE desktop and start using it directly.

    Most everything is where a windows user would expect it to be, yet it's different and more powerful enough for them to start recognizing the power of linux.

    KDE makes a newbie linux user feel at home, he's got nice menus for everything and a consistant look and feel among all applications - Things like a windows (or mac) user take for granted.

    So now i've started walking down the long road of converting everybody in the house to be linux users, KDE sure makes it a lot easier to convince them not to press the reset button every time they see something that's not windows.

    BTW, I dont think any one has the right to whine at other people's code. If you think KDE sucks, don't use it. But don't come insulting the developers, for releasing thousands of hours of hard work for free.
  • I would much rather see them being alternatives to eachother. It's great to have choices. It really annoys me when one group of users assaults the others for reasons which are clearly chalked up to personal taste.
    Like Rodney King said "Can't we all just get along?"

  • You can link with any license freer than GPL, but the whole package become GPL'd.

    So you can create a product combining XFree and the Linux kernel, and that monster would be GPL'd.

  • Excellent point. I'm glad you brought it up. Arrogance by those claiming to be the intellectual elite annoys me because it's so narrow-minded. And I see this type of arrogance so often in those who are proficient with computers.

    Some of the most humbling experiences I've had were when I have had opportunties to meet some truly talented folks who didn't display their talents in a flashy manner, nor did they boast of their great abilities, nor did they look down on others for not having their gifts. I've known musicians that fit in this category, graphical artists, chefs, carpenters, and others.

    I'm not lumping the whole lot of us in this category, of course. In fact, one of the aspects of the Open Source Community that has so drawn me in is the frequent willingness of its members to help those who are less knowledgable or at times less talented than they. I believe that is something that will carry our efforts a long way.

    Humility and selflessness are the outshoots of wisdom, rather than cliche or a warm-fuzzy feeling.

    Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth..

    --Jamin Philip Gray
    jamin@DoLinux.org

  • I know for a fact that Eterms work great in KDE. I use them everyday (I have a permanent E-term in my background). The only thing I dont like is the fact that you need to use Esetroot to get transparency. but it works great...
  • Goodie. Finally I can get transparent xterms with KDE. Hey.. admit it everybody.. that's the main reason alot of us haven't switched - KDE is butt-ugly (read: it looks like another well-known OS). Atleast gnome is nice and configurable. I say we merge the two projects - KDE's cleaned up backend and toolkit with gnome's beautiful looks.

    ah, wishful thinking... alas...

    --


  • ?package(gnome-control-center):needs=X11 sections=Apps/System\
    title="Mouse Properties" command="/usr/bin/mouse-properties"

    And RedHat has something similar. If you can't bother to make your package follow the distribution's policy you're going to have a package that looks poorly put together. WM-specific menu hacks are **EVIL**. See update-menus(1).

    Daniel
  • with GNOME or KDE you might think about doing nondestructive installs to test its integrity first. I tended to install the pre 1.0 KDE's right off, and suffered library conflict errors which made previously compiled KDE related apps not work with the new version of KDE. But ever since I put the old KDE in /opt/KDE/0.x and linked the new /opt/KDE/0.x.y to /opt/kde, suddenly everything worked fine. I copied the /opt/KDE/0.x/bin stuff over to /tmp/kde, copied /opt/KDE/0.x.y/bin stuff over to /tmp/kde (to ensure the latest version of preinstalled KDE apps superceded), and then copied it all into /opt/kde/bin, and you know, Murphy's Law is right...with all those precautions KDE worked perfectly from at least 2 whole versions before 1.0 and onward. I also did this with GNOME, putting everything in /opt/gnome/etc. No problems. Not even with the rpm version of GNOME/KDE. Murphy's Law, I tell ya. If ya don't do it that way you could be in for a WORLD of hurt with any major app - KDE, GNOME, X, etc...
  • ok. i'll reply to this one.
    [a] fine. i agree RPM is not a standard..but you have to start somewhere. i'll be fine if it works with deb/rpm/tgz whatever as long as the damn thing WORKS.
    [b] if every windows program asked you to pick an icon and drop it on the menu would you do it ? I want A STANDARD WAY FOR THE **APP** TO DO IT AT INSTALL TIME. Its unbelievably frustrating when there is no way of doing this.
    [c] From what i understand/saw in redhat 6.1 there was no standard way. i'll check on this.
    [d] Fine it has a help viewer -- SO WHAT ? what use is a help viewer if it doesnt have hooks to the application to add it's help pages to the help system ? I want A STANDARD WAY FOR AN APP TO ADD ITS HELP TO THE HELP VIEWER. And that means any desktop period. gnome/kde whatever.
  • and since when do applications have to be distribution specific ? I want a standard method of doing it - distro/architecture/wm independent. If windoze apps followed this policy every single version of windoze 95/95/SE/NT would need a seperate way to install every app. so we would have 10 different apps for 10 different versions of doze. This is crazy -- we dont do it for doze progs..why should be do it for linux progs ? After all linux is supposed to be **better** is it not ?
  • I have to say that after being a long-time Linux user I've just recently had the chance to really play with KDE.

    My review of it so far?

    Its still slower than CDE and windows, though it has become far more integrated than I remembered it. Over the past two days while I've been fighting with a new install, and a completely new X interface I was bouncing up and down whenever something worked right, and frowning and scratching my head whenever it didn't.

    I was scratching my head because KDE has become windows to a certian extent. Programs don't give error messages anymore, they just die silently, or worse, they never start at all. Searching my harddrive for clues turns up lots of core files, some of them with info, some of them 0 byte. I never used to have core files on my old install, and I'm not sure the prettiness is worth not knowing what the hell is going on.

    Back to the original point, "Time for war...":

    speaking from a warriors point of view, I can understand why they've said for years "We don't want your newbie questions, go away." I've said exactly the same thing quite a few times. This isn't just being a general bastard towards someone, its fighting the urge to give in and use a pretty desktop with pretty features, because once you've surrounded yourself with a pretty interface and you have no idea how the underlying system works, you've lost your ability to keep your own system running.

    *shrug*, thats the way I see it anyway.
    Happy day to the KDE users, I'll probably switch back to WindowMaker.

    whois
    ---
  • I must agree with you on stability.
    I installed Red Hat 6.0 + all the latest patches and Linux crashes hard every few hours. KDE is stable as a rock. I also run KDE on my Solaris Sun box and it is quite stable, although kwm from 1.1.1 won't work (I use kwm 1.1 and everything else 1.1.1).

    Hopefully 1.1.2 will be at least as stable and have better support for Solaris.
  • ...ah, grasshopper, but when you surround yourself with a pretty interface and you understand how the underlying system works, then you are one step closer to understanding the Great Mystery; this is called attacking the lion in its den.

    tongue, firmly, in cheek :P.
  • damn, just when the new linuxPPC comes out. blorf. oh well, just means i dont get it out of the box *shrug*



    -confidential

    AIM: confdntl98 ICQ: 150685 E-Mail: above... you can figure it out ^_~
  • Cookies, my man! It's all cookies. Whenever I end up re-installing netscape, I copy and paste the username out of the email slashdot sent me long ago, and use my default low-security password. Then, i never log out!
  • ummm, not to rain on your parade or anything :), but the guy you're flaming referred to US users because that's who the original poster cited for the 20 mil number. I feel quite sure that the flamee would be much more likely to accept a 20 mil world-wide figure....

  • Well the KDE projekt should not be flamed by all you GNOME people and vice versa. How come the two of them can't live together - maybe even work together?
    Yes, I know the QPL is not exactly the GPL - but what does it matter?
    KDE is one of the things that is very very good for linux!

  • Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth..

    for the rest of are going to the stars.

  • Actually, the help systems were not totally consistent. The original file formats used (before conversion to HTML) are Linuxdoc for KDE and DocBook for GNOME. Now, there is an effort underway to convert the KDE docs to DocBook which will make the formats consistent.
  • Check some facts:

    1. KDE is LGPL
    2. QT is QPL

  • I must agree with you on one thing. I run KDE on both Linux (after Gnome crashed it hard one time too many) and on Solaris. Downloading the source and building it on Solaris wasn't too bad. Gnome, on the other hand, is a mess. Libraries must be downloaded from all over the place (and a number of the reported links are broken). I've given up trying to compile Gnome for Solaris, and given my experience of Gnome on Linux I've given up the thought for now.

    Gnome looks great. It has a few things I really like, (lots of cool apps for the tool bar) and some things I don't like (instability). One thing I'll say about KDE is that it is clean. The UI is clean and to the point. The source tree is also clean. Just download qt and the KDE source files and that's it.

    KDE has been running fine for months on my Solaris box with no crashes or lockups (once I downreved kwm to 1.1 from 1.1.1). I've even run out of swap and the system gracefully recovered.

    I look forward to compiling KDE 1.1.2. I just wish the KDE folks would update their bug database better.

  • KDE w. Enlightenment (Score:3)

    by mulle ( 30054 ) on Monday September 13, 1999 @09:46AM (#1684385)
    For those of you using E without following the development, the next release is supposed to have support for KDE hints. It's currently in a feature-freeze so it should hopefully be out soon.
  • Everyone remember, if you all hit KDE's ftp servers, no one will get anything! Use the mirrors! Use the mirrors! Thank you! OK!

  • Re:Broken (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Compile and install kdelibs first before trying to update kfm. "displayName()" has been moved into kfmlib.h from kfmclient.cpp.

  • KDE / GNOME (Score:3)

    by jelwell ( 2152 ) on Monday September 13, 1999 @09:48AM (#1684389)
    I think it's high time that KDE be a little more configurable. It would be nice if the KDE folks could work on the next release to integrate E - which is really the only real reason anyone runs gnome :) That and the whole silly license thing. But seriously, KDE's installation needs to ask some more questions - and so does redhat's installation of kde. Like do you want kpilot & lots of k apps that just eat memory over the defaults - like konsole/xterm?

    The ability to configure is really what people want.
    Joseph Elwell.
  • Umm, hate to tell ya- but with over 20Mil users (which is a rough estimate) in the US alone, and more all over the world (especially in Linux-happy Europe) I'd say it's a pretty damn easy estimate that at least 5Mil users run KDE. Which is not too unreasonable at all; maybe it's not the 250M that M$ can claim, but I'm happier with Linux than I EVER was with Windows, any version. The only thing I lament is that I can't play all the sweet DirectX games from Windows. But I can live without games; I can't live without my programming. And programming is FUN, man. Maybe not to the average Joe user who just wants to do email/web browsing/word processing, but it is a really cool thing to a college student with lots of extra time and a spare computer.

    Peace!

  • I think the comments system should just automatically make the first post an automatic troll
  • You don't understand. I'm not talking about a small minority off in the corner compiling all their stuff for fun. I'm talking about most Debian users, most Slackware users, and a fair chunk of the users of other distributions. And that's a sizeable portion of the Linux community.
  • b. Adding an app to the K-Menu can be accomplished by picking up an icon for the app, and dropping it onto the menu. It just doesn't get any easier than that.

    I infer from "like a shell script call from an RPM" that the original poster wanted a standard way to automatically add an item to the K menu when an application is installed, not a way for a user to manually add an application to the K menu.

    From a quick look at the "Configuration file handling section" [debian.org] of the Debian Packaging Manual [debian.org], Debian also has a mechanism to run scripts during the installation of a package (it seems to talk about creating configuration files, but I don't know if that means it's incapable of editing existing configuration files), and the *BSD package facility also has such a mechanism, so a feature such as this doesn't depend on using RPM.

    Then again, Debian also appears to have a mechanism to let you add items to all "well-behaved" window managers/desktops, as shown in the Debian Menu System documentation [debian.org], which it appears the script run when a package is installed could use; I don't know if KDE is "well-behaved" in that sense, i.e. whether Debian packages for KDE include scripts for /etc/menu-methods.

  • guess I'll be statically linking licq and compiling kdelibs with qt 1.44 so i can use kmysql. ( not a kde person )

    --

  • Re:Its too big! (Score:4)

    by nitehorse ( 58425 ) <clee@c133.org> on Monday September 13, 1999 @11:09AM (#1684398)
    I don't know what you mean; I've got a 64MB machine here, and although I don't run Caldera (too corporate for me) I do run Linux + X + KDE. And here's the part where I set the record straight:

    1) KDE is a bit large; but the installation of KDE doesn't take up THAT much space, binary-wise. I don't know the exact numbers but last time I checked it was close to 30MB; you are correct. But it's an entire user environment, with MANY utilities. We can't compare it to Windows because a) windows is at 4.1 (or so they claim) and b) KDE is already better than it, despite being at 1.1.2. When I say better, I mean that it has more apps, it's more stable, and it looks cooler. What else matters? Oh, and it's a helluva lot faster than Win98 on this machine at least (overclocked Celeron300A).

    2) Linux takes up less than a meg. The kernel fits onto a friggin' floppy! It's not that large, really; the source code to it is, but on my system at least the entire kernel (once compiled and made into a binary) which is 2.2.6, is less than a meg. How large is the Win9x one? I don't know offhand; some figures would be nice though.

    3) yes, X is large, but when I downloaded version 3.3.4 (yup, downloaded it over a 56K... crazy me) it was about 30M (still compressed). I don't know how large it was when uncompressed, because I didn't bother to check, but I'll bet that the source code was pretty large too. But the binaries! That's what this is really about in the case you've made. The binaries for X are not that large, really; and it doesn't take up that many resources on my machine. I can run X and three Konsoles, all compiling different software, and my machine doesn't even break a sweat. (God bless Linux.) Personally, I run Blackbox with KDE stuff (the panel and the FM) because I notice the speed! differences. BB is FAST, man. And perty, too.

    Well, just more of my $0.02.
  • It's the de facto standard for commercial distributions, Red Hat excepted. The extra lead time KDE has on Gnome means it's more stable, so companies that are trying to put together a guaranteed working distro are much better off with KDE. I run Gnome at home for the aesthetic advantage, but it IS pretty flaky compared to KDE, which I run at work and have never had a problem.

    I definitely see KDE as the standard shipped desktop, especially for corporate use, because it feels more standardized than Gnome. Gnome has a more organic feel, and I'd expect it to be preferred by people that like to tinker.

    Okay, I'm done stating the obvious for today.

    (I'm judging by 1.1.1, BTW - haven't gotten a chance to check out 1.1.2. It may be very fun to tinker with, for all I know.)

  • Thx for the URL, and thx to Franzo!

    But, can we d/l this from a mirror?

    Just trying to be a good citizen...
    -----

  • You're awfully high-strung.

    The US is an incredibly self-sufficient country, and we lead the world in many (of course not all) technological areas. Did you know that Microsoft has a market capitalization greater that that of the entire GNP of Spain? That's just one company! If California were a separate country, it would have the sixth-largest economy in the world. That's just one state!

    Of course we don't think we're the only computer users in the world. But look at any graduate science program at any college here, and you'll see it's filled with non-US citizens. Now, do US citizens go to Finland, India, Russia, or China to get their degree in CompSci? Hardly.

    And as far as you in Europe having "technologies that ...americans will only dream of and will never touch", umm... name one?

    You may be surprised to know that your mobile digital cell phones are quite popular here, too. I know Europeans have a high rate of cell phone usage, but that's because your local residential service charges by the minute - unheard of in the States for residential service. You need to ditch your lazy-assed State-run telecos and allow private companies to compete for the service.

    What sort of strange intense rage is it inside of Europeans that just busts out whenever a US citizen lazily refers to the rest of the US as 'everybody else'. If only you guys could work up that sort of intense rage over fascism, or high taxes, or your crappy little socialist beaurocracies, then you'd be onto a good idea.

  • For linux, it's FREE.
  • Most people buy a computer to be productive.

    If most people bought a computer to be productive then we'd all be running 486's. The average home user buys a computer for multiple purposes, usually with some sort of spoken intention of improving their productivity, but with the real intent of playing games, going online etc... How many non-programmers do you know? Too many people come home from work to go play on their computer all night, not come home to work out their budget all night.

    Joseph Elwell.
  • I highly suggest windowmaker for a good all around WM if you don't want to deal with the extra problems of KDE or GNOME... And even if you do I've run WindowMaker successfully with both Desktop's and it works well.. WindowMaker is light, easy to configure (with wprefs at least) and has a big following.
  • You are fighting alone. I've never said that the GPL weren't restrictive... reread my original post....
  • I mean it. If you follow what that other OS has done in every way, you become it. I never wanted my Linux as a better Windows.

    And as a coder, I'm sometimes suspicious about the crowd of ppl who rush things: what is the average talent of KDE / GNOME coders? When I code I always make sure the proggy is smoking and steaming, what about these people? Those object models are definitely under-rated.


  • hehe...okok... kde.tdyc.com = yuma.tdyc.com = horde.tdyc.com = ....(too many names) :) I've beaten the crap out of that machine and the ISP doesn't love me anymore. and I screwed up the Packages.gz files on the kde site. I need to get those fixed.
  • You are forgetting a big point though, sure a full install of any distrobution is huge (SuSE 2+gig if I remember correctly) and the size of a minimal windows 98 install is a little under 200MB but what does windows come with? Absolutely nothing besides the base utilities most of which are worthless.. Install the number of apps that comes with linux distro on windows and I guarantee things will even out... Heck install office 2000 and watch your hard drive shrink magically.

    -Aaron
  • Mind you, this is only a measure of the number of Debian users. People who have to go *out of their way* to install and use KDE.

    Of course, once you add the sources.list line, it's no problem at all to hit it repeatedly. I use potato, and run apt-get a couple times a week. There's so little work involved, why not run it often?
  • I don't know about you, but I'd rather have two factions competing for my desktop environment of choice. This encourages competition and improvement of all products involved (ie, people said "GNOME is pertier than KDE"; result: KDE/Qt hackers spend a lot of time and effort putting themes and other pertiness into KDE). Having only one choice in anything is not good. It leads to stagnation and poorer and poorer quality products because they're the only game in town.

    :)


    -----------------
    Your attention please everyone, if I could just say a few words... I would be a better public speaker.
  • I grabbed it from CVS and compiled it. It works swell. (In fact, I'm running it right now.) KDE window hints seem to be implemented fully. Unfortunately, the kpanel still uses a different method of communicating with applications from the method used by E/GNOME, so the kpanel is basically useless under E. The KDE and GNOME projects have announced their intention to standardize on a CORBA method of communication between the window manager and the applications, so hopefully this incompatibility will be straightened out in the near future.

    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • deb http://ruins.tdyc.com potato kde deb http://ruins.tdyc.com slink kde (hopefully my ISP won't kill me) :) Just kde 1.1.2 currently until the new home for kde.tdyc.com is up
  • friggen html...ack

    deb http://ruins.tdyc.com potato kde
    deb http://ruins.tdyc.com slink kde
  • Yeah, and then they turn around and use 0L instead of NULL everywhere.

    No thanks; personally, I'd rather use GTK+/Gnome, at least that one can be easily used with other languages than C++.
  • People seem to be wondering about GNOME status. Please see this page on the developer site [gnome.org].
  • Doing the full distro of anything is going to be big. Go through the components and only install what you need. I use slackware, and when I installed 4.0 I skipped a lot of X development stuff, all the stuff for tex and emacs, and my install had a useful and nearly full set of programs and development (including KDE) in just a couple hundred megs. It was far more functional than the equivalent windows-install of the same size (NT 4.0's minimal install is equally big, but includes next to none of the programming tools.)

    As for the memory usage, yeah. You're right. KDE is awfully big. I have a weird problem with X, though, and my running X always takes up around 24-25 megs. Maybe it's something I've set up wrong (1024x768, 32bpp, using windowmaker?), but it doesn't seem to give any performance problems regardless. Swapping in Linux makes the system a little chunky sometimes, but never stalls it like under NT. With 64mb of ram, the computer is still far more responsive with linux/KDE than NT.

  • What do many of us get paid for? That's right, knowing more than the average person about computers. I don't care who wins the GUI wars as long as it's not microsoft. I get tired of telling people to "reboot and call me if it doesn't work." We get paid for tech support. Isn't the goal here to get people to eventually move away from microsoft? And what will people expect? That's right, to sit down at their already running computer, fire up their word processor and start typing. How many of them are going to compile software? None, they will call one of us and have it done, that's what we get paid for. Wouldn't it be cool to live in a world where formatting C and re-installing windows wasn't a way of life? So leave them alone. Let KDE and Gnome market to the masses... they'll still be calling us to install things, but this time we'll only have to do it once, and won't have to be checking back for months. What a wonderful world this could be.
  • Ah, but MS would never admit to quote bug fixes end quote. Fixing bugs doesn't sell software. See: Microsoft code has no bugs [cantrip.org]
  • How long did it take KDE to get KDE2.0 pre-alpha out after 1.0 was released? Remember KDE has been out quite a bit longer than GNOME. I like gnome a lot better than KDE due to the way it looks and it's license. I concider KDE an evil until QT2 is released. But after that, it's to each his own.
    I was looking at some of the KDE2 is it just me or does it look substainially more like GNOME? hmm
  • How do FUD posts like this get moderated up?

    "You always read about Miguel de Icaza going to this press conference or that GNOME presentation. But you never hear anything from the KDE guys. Maybe it's because they're too busy coding and getting things to work right."

    If you would bother to check on the GNOME status reports you would have noticed that there were over 1000 CVS commits between August 30-September 7. Does that sound like the GNOME hackers are sitting on their hands?

    Also, anyone else notice the lack of a GNOME2.0 pre Alpha version? I have.

    1) Version numbers are arbitrary and almost meaningless. 2) GNOME had a much later start than KDE 3) 1.0.50 (roughly equivelant to KDE 1.1.2 in amount of changes) is well on its way towards release. Bugs are being rapidly slayed as we speak. 4) GNOME 2.0 is already on the discussion table

    Why people want to spread missinformed FUD about free software projects is beyond me. GNOME and KDE are both thriving and competing and will be for a long time to come, deal with it.
  • that doesn't mean it's okay to make RPM the "standard". If you're going that route, why would you choose anything other than .tgz packages (which Slackware uses) as standard? Everyone has tar and gzip...you wouldn't even need something like alien.

    The LSB does not need to specify a packaging system. All I'm saying.
  • and since when do applications have to be distribution specific ? I want a standard method of doing it - distro/architecture/wm independent.

    In the Debian system, at least, it appears that applications - in the sense of "the actual application code" - don't install menu items, a script in the package run by the package installation code installs the menu items.

    Thus, the application doesn't have to be distribution-specific...

    ...only the installation script does.

    If applications are distributed as both RPMs and Debian packages, that's not an issue.

    However, if it's possible to just ram an RPM through Alien and install it on a Debian system, one could possibly argue that it'd be nice not to have to distribute applications as both RPMs and Debian packages, in which case a non-distribution-specific menu-installation scheme would be required.

    (And, yes, such a scheme - one at least as independent of which window manager or desktop you're running as Debian's - sounds as if it'd be a good idea.)

  • KDE might be butt-ugly, or at least non-impressive, but you can keep it running for weeks. I remember having to start Gnome a lot, but those borderless transparent eterms almost made up for it....

  • Is that you can't tell it to install 'this' package in 'this' location.

    It is apparently possible to make things relocatable, but no-one ever does.

    (It is high time that the packaging systems, build systems etc. were put closer together.)


    John

  • could anybody detail where these assembly statements are -- I haven't got myself KDE 1.1.2 yet, not gcc 2.95, since I'm on a 56.6k modem with metered phonecalls, and go back to uni. in 2 weeks (so I'll wait...).

    Also, how does it compile on non x86? If there are C alternatives, then can you simply tell the system to use those?


    John

  • The beautiful looks of GNOME come mainly from E.

    The themability of the widget set is poorly done, and in any case only allows you to redefine some of the drawing routines.

    E can do its own internal widgets, but these appear to be a little simple and slow. That said, moving dialog layout logic into the window manager is IMHO a very good idea, since this makes consistency between widgets and decorations much much simpler


    John
  • FYI here in the UK we did ditch our 'lazy-assed State-run teleco'. We instead replaced it with a lazy arsed privately run telco monopoly who screws us out of every penny they can. BT has enough resources to implement broadband services such as ADSL, but wont because, well, its not as profitable to give people faster cheaper net access when they make lots of money by giving us slow overpriced net access.
    Meh, now I need to relax, just my pet rant =P

    Nick
  • Take a look at kmail in 1.1.2

  • Some people, heck, MOST people will *forever* need to have their hands held when it comes to computing. It's not that big a deal to them. They don't care to comb the depths, and learn the ins and outs. They have other talents, and other interests.

    I'll take issue with that last sentence...I, for one, am known by my friends as the only person they know that runs Linux. They also seem to think all I do is compile my kernel (they have no real idea what that means, as a general rule). Yes, I do love to tinker with my computer, but I also have other interests; I'm currently a sophomore psychology student at (bleh) the University of North Dakota. I also crave knowledge in the fields of genetics, evolution, cell biology, and theology. Aside from other interests, I have other hobbies too! I love flying my r/c plane, baseball, model railroading, etc.


    Yep, I'm a nerd. But I *do* have a life outside of computers. Don't generalize an entire culture of people based on what you know about a few of them.

  • Re:Time for war... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But when it comes to computers people a lot of people are proud about knowing nothing and the refuses to learn even the most basic things.
    They read an error message that says something obvious, the call tech support and asks what it means, the tech support answers by repeating the error message word by word and now they understand!

    People bother to learn all other tools before they perform any serious work with them, but when it comes to computers they do the opposit. 10 year old kids know a whole lot more than people that are payed to use a computer!
  • KDE and Qt? I don't think so. If our software group wants to use the qt library, it's $1550 * ~30 developers.

    You want TrollTech's programmers to work for free? Well, you first. Stop collecting a paycheck and you can write all the Qt apps you want.

    Gee, I could get Microsoft NT and Visual Studio for each developer...for less!

    Maybe, but then the user evironment costs money. Unless you're shipping boxed software or something similar, where the user isn't really your concern, it comes out cheaper in the long run. It takes less than a dozen users per developer to make Qt cheaper.
  • The thing i like about KDE is that the rest of my family (mostly computer illiterate) can sit down at a KDE desktop and start using it directly.

    Most everything is where a windows user would expect it to be, yet it's different and more powerful enough for them to start recognizing the power of linux.

    That's exactly what I don't like about KDE (and all similar projects). It tries to mimick Windows, which has simply a bloated, far too complicated UI. People need to get used to many completely unintuitive UI quirks to use Windows, and the same is true for KDE. Just put someone who *isn't* used to using computers at all in front of Windows or KDE and see for yourself... If you think that it isn't possible to operate complex things like computers with simple, intuitive interfaces, consider that most of the time, you don't control *all* the features of the computer, although the UIs seem to want to force you to by putting buttons, menus etc. under your nose, while at the same time they prevent you from doing some things for no particular reasons other than sloppy design (for example: can I hide all those useless tray icons? can I change the background color of all windows, without making it impossible to see the contents of those windows that insist on having particular foreground colors? etc. ...). If this is a PC disease, I hope that we'll soon have many simpler task-specific devices for getting our jobs done...

  • On the contrary I am saying that GNOME shouldn't be slandered because it doesn't have the magic number 2.0. These number games are stupid and pointless, evalute software based on its features not its version number. Nowhere did I say to forgive GNOME because of its late start, for I don't think there is anything to forgive (It is rock solid and functional for me). But it is just plain STUPID to expect GNOME to have a 2.0 release out a few fscking months after 1.0. Silly.

    GNOME is a viable desktop for end users right now, its not just marketing. I use it daily and havn't had it crash in as long as I can remeber. Weeks. I like its configurabilty and flexabily more than any other interface (no, its not just a pretty face)

  • I had the same problem with KDE 1.1.1. However since then I have upgraded to gcc-2.95.1 and the latest binutils (the latter to hoepfully resolve some linking problems elsewhere). However I have not got round to trying a compiling KDE again, as I knew that 1.1.2 was due anytime.

    What versions of gcc, binutils, glibc did you use?
  • >Also, anyone else notice the lack of a GNOME2.0
    >pre Alpha version? I have. Also, the GNOME cvs
    >version didn't work right for me; it skipped all
    >of the IDL related
    >items, and I bet that could be one of the
    >reasons... something CVS complained about was
    >file permissions incorrectly set.

    There is no GNOME2.0 pre alpha because gnome was started a year after KDE
    and no one should use CVS expecting a stable product so there is no reason to complain.

    I am using todays CVS gnome and finding its advances quite nice, though as Enlightenemnt does more it's begone to take over the desktop portion of GNOME (or KDE).

    It will be interesting to see what KDE's themes do for looks, esp. how well will gtk themes match real gtk. From the screenshots I've seen of KDE, even with the latest themes, I find it a bit gawkey (personal oppinion :-)

    The thing both do is bring new applications to linux which is in everyones best interest.

    --Ben
  • It would be much smarter for them to specify set of common commands like pkgadd, pkgremove etc that would be implement transparently on every conforming linux system. On Redhat it would basically use RPM on Debian DEBs etc ..
    That way one would could simply say "Download package for your system(RPM,DEB whatever), type pkgadd name and you are done"
  • Yes, the standard KDE distribution is a bit large, but please remember that it includes a LARGE number of utilities and other things. For instance, not everyone needs the Graphics package or the Games package. Most of the stuff that comes standard with KDE is not really needed per se (Terminal and Konsole, for instance are redundant with Xterm and each other. Also, you don't need kmail and krn if you already have a mail and news client you like. (Although the mail reader I like better than kmail is mutt)

    Besides, I use Caldera 2.2 with KDE, and it is far more responsive and STABLE than NT or Win98 on the same machine. And I only have 64 MB....
  • God no! This is just a cheap CDE clone. I mean, they even use the same icons as CDE! I want at least a gram or two of originality.
  • Absolutely! Mirrors are the way to go, and each and every time the KDE folks make a new release that's the first place I go. I go to several of them, in fact!

    Several, because whenever there's a new release of KDE, the mirrors are conspicuously entirely void of any whisper of the new version that's just been announced.

    This is especially frustrating, as the mirrors never seem to actually *get* the complete new fileset 'til AFTER the "everybody's downloading from the master site 'cause it's not located on any mirrors" syndrome has passed....

    It'd be great if, PRIOR to the big announcements, someone made sure that at least some of the mirror sites actually had the new stuff so as to spread the load, etc. 'Til then, it'll continue to be a frustrating "catch 22"

    *sigh*

  • Re:KDE w. Enlightenment (Score:3)

    by grrussel ( 260 ) on Monday September 13, 1999 @12:02PM (#1684456) Homepage Journal
    For your information, the latest version of rxvt, 2.6.0 or above, can do transparency. It beats Eterm, since it does not require any special program to set the root window - ie it works with KDE's kbgndwm or xloadimage or whatever. See www.rxvt.org [rxvt.org] for a latest version.

    There are patches to KDE's wallpaper setter floating around which make it work with Eterm. Search the archive of the KDE user mailing list (on the web at www.kde.org [kde.org])

    Thirdly, the konsole program in KDE 2.0 supports transparency - so if you download the CVS versions, have fun.

    HTH
    George Russell (russell@kde.org)
  • Are you even talking about the same desktop as the rest of us?

    a) Interoperability with Gnome is in the works as we speak. Remember that it wasn't until RMS gave his official pronouncement of "free" that the Gnome guys would even speak to the kde guys. Some still won't.

    b) I haven't looked yet because I'm at work, but are you sure that it's not already there? Most kde apps I install with rpm add a menu item automatically.

    c) There is a way, switchdesk, and it's used by Redhat and Mandrake. It's GPL so feel free to rip it off for your own use. Or use kdm/gdm and choose the desktop at login. Or use any of a half-dozen other wm choosers out there.

    d) Ummm, the help is standardized. Everything's in html under $KDEDIR/share/doc/appname. Since kdehelp is a html browser, it makes sense that the kde help files be html. However, most sources include the sgml version as well, and use the ksgml2html tool to generate consistant help manuals.
  • Before anyone asks - kde.tdyc.com is a name alias yuma.tdyc.com. In case no one else can resolve kde.tdyc.com :)
  • Please note that the themes in KDE 1.1.2 are kwm themes, not Widget themeing, ala Gnome themes. For widget themeing, please check out the alpha CVS code.

    HTH
    George Russell
  • according to the website for the voodoo3 Xserver:
    Why does it use so much memory? Ps and top report the amount of memory being used by the number of pages mapped to your process. Because the Banshee has 16MB of framebuffer and 32MB of control registers the process size will be at least 48MB. Of course, this is using almost no RAM in your system since it is real memory or registers on the board.

    i don't know if this is generally true or not, but if the numbers you have for memory usage by your x server seem unreasonably high, this may be the reason...
  • Mind you, that 20 million figure is estimated Linux boxes, not Linux users. This includes people with 8 Linux boxes, as well as corporations with 500-box clusters. As the previous poster mentioned, it's highly unlikely that 7% of the American population uses Linux. From my experiences (which happen to be among mostly technically oriented people), the average is around 2 or 3%. Among the general American public (many of whom don't have any computer at all, much less a Linux one), I'd guess it's probably less than 1%.
  • Yeah, I remember how much I hated the phones there. BT needs competition. You can see the results in the US in long-distance service, where a zillion companies compete to sell you 5 to 9 cent a minute long distance service to anywhere in the country. I suspect when BT was privatized there were huge barriers placed to entry of competition from other companies.
  • From the ChangeLog:

    Update: kwm Author: Matthias Ettrich
    • Fixed color gradient on big endian machines

    It's going to look a lot better on your PPC now...

  • I haven't tried to compile with gcc 2.95, so I can't tell you where exactly these statements are. But since you don't have gcc 2.95 you shouldn't experience any problems with the assembler statements. I compiled KDE with egcs 2.91 and everything works fine. I will wait two or three months before I upgrade to gcc/egcs 2.95. I hope that until then these problems will be fixed.
  • "I want A STANDARD WAY FOR THE **APP** TO DO IT AT INSTALL TIME" ... "I want A STANDARD WAY FOR AN APP TO ADD ITS HELP TO THE HELP VIEWER."

    As for all the shouting, why don't you "just do it"? I do believe there's a standard, but since I work with Qt and KDE/Qt, I can't say for sure. If there isn't, WRITE ONE YOURSELF AND SUBMIT IT TO KDE AND BE THE HERO OF THE DAY! If you're a developer, and you say you are, this should be a piece of cake. Everything already goes to standard directories and everything already uses standard files and everything uses standard formats. This isn't Microsoft. It's Open Source. It's Free Software. It's a community. That means if you have an "itch" and you can code, you go code and leave the whining to AC's.
  • I mean, could anything better happen to linux? The market mavens moan about a newbie-friendly desktop as being the big missing piece to take more market share and we got 2 contenders beating the hell out of each other for the title.

    On! On! I'll be in the bar watching it on the Biz channel. First person I meet with source in either tree gets a free beer on me.

  • LIGHTEN UP (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Damnit would you guys lighten the hell up . I looked though all of your posts and they mostly are a bunch of whiny snivelling crap.KDE is too big, IT runs too slow, the themes don't work like I want them to, use black box,GNOME is better,BLAH BLAH BLAH..... The KDE team is creating a very well done GUI for all Unix. KDE runs on more that Linux !!! KDE could be the thing that Unix needs,the same look and feel for all Unix systems(if that is what you want), and ease of use. They are putting tremedous work into this endeavour and should be congratulated!!! Remember KDE is being done GPL and completly for FREE. Why do you complain about the QT license? Linus has said what license people use is their own damn buisness. If you guys think you could do a better job ;well then why don't you ? Dazzel us with your code.
  • If it's so new that you tell us in the feature about a bunch of servers it's not even AT yet, perhaps it shouldn't be on slashdot yet. What's a few extra hours?

  • Packages for Debian (Score:3)

    by InvisibleCraterFunk ( 29222 ) on Monday September 13, 1999 @09:50AM (#1684506) Homepage
    For all the potato heads out there but miss KDE:

    Add

    deb http://kde.tdyc.com [tdyc.com] potato kde kde2 contrib rkrusty
    to your /etc/apt/sources.list.

    They had 1.1.2 days ago. There are also binary KDE 2.0 snapshots available there.

  • More importantly, the kde/gnome BS has created some great apps for linux. Which is better or has a better license or whatever is not the point (here), the point is that the competition is creating some really wack ass apps out there.

    In a way it's like linux vs ms... the mindcraft benchmark fiasco basically made linux say 'oh, gotta get better' and we did, and everyone benifits right?
  • If you had read the post I was responding to, he cited 20 million as the number of U.S. Linux users. It would make very little sense to be talking about Europe, as you suggested, when discussion estimates of U.S. Linux users, now wouldn't it?

  • I prefer the source releases myself (Score:3)

    by Aleatoric ( 10021 ) on Monday September 13, 1999 @09:53AM (#1684515)
    Even though I'm currently using the Redhat dist, I still prefer to install the majority of my software from the sources. I like the additional control I get, and to be honest, I'm not all that thrilled with Redhat's package manager (Even though the update feature usually works, I find myself uninstalling the old RPM's first anyway, or I tend to get undefined behaviour, and I don't have these problems when I compile).

    Compiling lets me provide further optimization for my platform (using PGCC, for example), and with apps like KDE and Gnome, every little bit helps to keep them running as fast as possible.

    On another note, Kdevelop (a quite cool IDE) isn't included in 1.1.2 (although it had been considered), since the Kdevelop folks don't think it's quite ready. While a few might be disappointed by this, it is an example of one of the core OSS philosophies, that if it isn't ready, it won't be included, and IMHO, that's a very good thing. For those who want to try it (and don't know where to find it) http://www.kdevelop.org.

    I am currently using the 1.1 beta, and it is very good, only a few rough edges. It will be an outstanding addition to KDE when the developers think it's ready.


  • It is available as RPM from Mandrake (Score:4)

    by Allnighterking ( 74212 ) on Monday September 13, 1999 @02:02PM (#1684544) Homepage
    Mandrakes new version 6.1 (currently called cassini to be called Helios) is in beta testing and has RPM's for KDE 1.1.2 available. Just head over to http://www.linux-mandrake.com and check it out. I've been using it for about two weeks and it's a vast improvement.
  • As a developer i'd like to see the following :
    [a] PUH-LEASE PLAY BETTER WITH GNOME !! At least have a standard way to communicate with gnome or something. and the same goes for you gnome guys.
    [b] Have a standard method we can use to add an app to kde menus (NO, the stupid .kdesktop file (or in the case of gnome the .desktop file is NOT the answer DAMMIT.)...something like a shell script call from an RPM will be nice -- work with redhat. the same goes for gnome. Note that RPM is probably going to be the standard for the LSB.
    [c] Standard way of switching between desktops (gnome/kde/afterstep). usekde scripts are NOT THE ANSWER. Use the control panel thing to switch if possible...allow the user to do it without editing .xinitrc.
    [d] STANDARDISE THE HELP. Including the documentation which RPM automatically makes the devloper put in %doc in the specfile is nice. A nice text/html/sgml integrated help viewer is nice too.

  • Component Model (Score:3)

    by Nicopa ( 87617 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `reiamthcil.ocin'> on Monday September 13, 1999 @10:09AM (#1684555)

    I've never used KDE and I've used GNOME very litttle, but I'm interested in the subject of component models. I was an OS/2 user and the WPS had a truly object oriented backend, that worked with SOM (a CORBA ORB!). Then OpenDoc showed up as the next big promise. The feature list was impressive. It was cool, it as CORBA based, it promised todestroy the concept of "application" as we know it (everything was going to be a component).

    Enough for an introduction =). What are the directions KDE and GNOME are taking about these things? Are they just targeting a pseudo document oriented desktop as the one included in that OS we all know? I remember having read that Bonobo is based on OLE 2.. is that true? is KOM/OpenParts cool? It would be very interesting to have these things replied, at least for me.... bye! =)

  • I'm glad to see a new version of KDE come out. I don't use it and don't like it much but there are several people I know who use it and like it.

    I really am baffled by all the fuss about Gnome and KDE and their 'integrated desktop enviroment'. As far as I can see a whole lot of effort is going into providing arriving Windows wienies with a "drag and drop' desktop. Is there more to it than that?

    I use a 'homemade' version of WMaker, did you know there is a configureator deal in the later WMakers, I was just told about it and yes it is there ... hmmm I don't like it, I'll stick to editing text files thanks. Anyway I hate icons too they screw up my cool desktop pictures and take up space.

    The point I'm trying to make is that there is something for everyone here. I love the flame wars as much as anyone and am guilty of starting quite a few of em' .... but they got to be FUN or there is no point.

    We are getting a _lot_ of newbies now and they are complaining about the dumbest things so we need a lot of patience now.

    I'm not sure 'taking the desktop' is worth it to tell the truth ... how does that go now ... "To gain the world yet loose your soul" ... somthing like that ;).

    CC

  • That's correct, KDE 1.1.2 will *not* build with QT2. It still requires QT1.44. The QT2 based version of KDE is KDE2, which isn't out yet... but it looks like the coolest thing since sliced bread, to use a shockingly non-technical cliche.

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