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I was under the impression that those were just code names?

I'm not sure, but I hope they don't are just code names. This K this K that thing also really annoys me. It was perhaps funny in the beginning of KDE, but KDE has nore and more apps, and now it's just odd. Sometimes things like "Kontact" make both an English speaker and a German think that it's just a spelling mistake ("contact" in english and "kontakt" in german) :-(

Tom

There is an introduction to Debian Package tags here: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/192

There is an introduction to Debian Package tags here: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/192

ARRRGGHHHHHHH!

I can see how that would be useful to some really super detailed anal people.

But damn'd if it should be collapsed in the standard view, and even then there should be a link to explain to the noobs what tags are and why they might want them.

Because as is, that interface just confused the hell out of me, and without your link, if I used KDE, I might have just added things willy nilly.

I agree - it's the exact same reason why I switched to Gnome a while ago. It's much better in this part, although far away from being perfect. KDE just confused me too much at some point with all it's options & configurability.

Tom

Funny enough, I choose KDE over Gnome for the very same reason you're choosing Gnome over KDE.

Maybe it's me being unable to appreciate Gnome, but I really feel KDE as an integrated, coherent thing, while Gnome looks like just a bunch of GTK apps. Gaim or Gnumeric or Abiword are not GNOME apps: they're GTK apps that happen to have some Gnome integration. KDE apps are really KDE apps (think or KParts integration in Konqueror, for example). I guess my world looks like a Bizarro world to Thom (and vice-versa)...

Yeah, I chose KDE for that same reason. KDE applications are tightly integrated together, but I can see where both environments are incoherent.

KDE has a number of applications ranging from amateur to excellent that use only the Qt toolkit, they are made this way for portability beyond the realm of X11 and Xorg bound operating systems; however, it means that they don't share the same icons as all the other KDE applications, and they frequently use the rather unattractive and impractical generic Qt open and save dialogs. The key-bindings are also sometimes quite inconsistent.

Gnome on the other hand shares many of its non-core applications with a few other GTK based desktop environments. Those applications can very literally be transplanted from one into another and seem to fit in indestinguishably to the untrained eye. The thing is that those applications were designed with GTK in mind, but not necessarily Gnome, so they are much more independent from their fellow applications and have some subtle inconsistencies from the norm which many end users wouldn't notice.

Ultimately though, KDE does have some UI problems in its third party applications. One look at Adept is all the proof someone needs, it has a unique and very aggravating UI design. I'm surprised that Kubuntu uses it instead of Kynaptic which is much simpler, after all, the Ubuntu family of distributions aims to keep things easy.

"One look at Adept is all the proof someone needs, it has a unique and very aggravating UI design. I'm surprised that Kubuntu uses it instead of Kynaptic which is much simpler, after all, the Ubuntu family of distributions aims to keep things easy."

I was shocked when seeing Adept in Kubuntu Breezy that they'd made it too complicated: scrolling console stuff, lots of buttons. Kynaptic is a fairly nice, simple package manager that they really should have worked on, especially since it would just pump critical errors to standard error, but then I guess they went completely the other way and threw in every complicating aspect of package management, instead of giving a nice way of looking under the surface once in a while to resolve such errors.

Odd, I like KDE over Gnome for almost the same things you choose Gnome over KDE.
Maybe I have been driving around in it for so long I just know it well, but every time I try Gname, I get lost, and things do not work or have funky quirks.

I have tried Gnome on almost a dozen PC's (Home built clones and propriety systems) and never found it reliable. KDE on the other hand has always done me right.

But I do know of others who had the opposite results with Gnome working for them, but KDE giving issues.

My opinion..... 6 of 1 @ half a doven of the other...

it does tell you which password to enter in the title bar.

No, it does not. Root means nothing to normal people. It should have a clear-cut explanation of which password is needed, why, and what the launching program will do.

All of those lack in this dialog.

Maybe "root" means nothing to normal people - but somebody installing Linux isn't a normal person.

You asked a couple of questions:

"Which password? My personal account password? My administrator password? My god-mode password? Why is there no explanation which password, and why exactly you need to enter it?"

I suggested that the title bar informed you that it was the "root" password which was being prompted for - something you actually acknowleged by calling it the root password dialog in the first place!

Saying that root means nothing to users is different from claiming to not understand which password is being saught.

I'd easily agree that the dialog is not good, as you say it doesn't explain why you need it. It doesn't give enough details at all.

But it does do what you claim it did not. It tells you which account the password is being requested for.

So whilst I agreed with the points raised in the article I'm not going to watch you change the question afterwards.

Maybe "root" means nothing to normal people - but somebody installing Linux isn't a normal person.

So what's grandma/grandpa do to when they're using the box that their grandkid set up for them?

And you're also missing the point behind the whole Ubuntu movement -- Linux is for normal people.

More and more linux is being used by "normal" people who are sick of windows and it's confusing and frustrating (easily fixable) stuff like that that makes the Linux learning curve needlessly steep.

I've setup Linux for "grandma" before and I'd say that either a) they would have been given a tour and had the basics explained to them, or b) they'd never need to use root for the email checking + websurfing.

I know Ubuntu/KUbuntu is aimed at normal people, its not there yet, but getting closer each release.

I'm certainly not saying that shouldn't continue - I just that that the password dialog argument was really draining the barrel.

But in Kubuntu you only have one password: your password, so it is correct. If you're no sudo-user you'll get a dialog box which states that you might not have the necesary permissions.

Besides, even if you know what root is, the titlebar still doesn't tell you what password you need to enter. You don't always enter the root password to run an app as root. Consider sudo.

There is no "root" in Ubuntu. Everything is done by using sudo.
So, normal people don't need understanding what root means. The password is *your* password, really.

There is "root" in other distro's, and this is a critique of KDE *not* Ubuntu, so point still valid.....

> There is "root" in other distro's, and this is a
> critique of KDE *not* Ubuntu, so point still valid.....

No, it's not valid. This dialog version _is_ specific to Ubuntu, and Thom is aware of the fact that he is not reviewing KDE proper but what Kubuntu has made of it: "this column is based on the KDE as shipped in the latest Kubuntu release."

On Debian for example kdesu asks you explicitely to enter the password of the _root_ user. That's the normal non-patched version of the kdesu dialog.

Actually, thom, it does tell you clearly which password you need to enter: your password.

Which user were you logged in with? That user's password is the one you need to enter.

There's no root password on kubuntu.

-- edit --

Granted, it could be made better, by for instance spelling the name of the user, perhaps like this: "thom, please enter your password", where "thom" would be that user's login.

Edited 2006-06-18 21:42

Yes, the "Run as root" dialogue needs to be explicit, even if there has to be some kind of extra work done to work out whether the system wants the actual root password or the user's own password. The ambiguity compounded an issue I had with sudo not being set up on previous Kubuntu releases: which password did it want? Initially I assumed it wanted the root password, but only after digging deeper did I realise that it wanted my own password... and a working sudo configuration, of course.

While this is a relevant gripe it is a Kubuntu issue NOT a KDE issue.

Kubuntu is not KDE and this does not happen with (for instance) Suse. The dialogue box in Suse clearly asks for the root password where you want to see it.

Kubuntu is not KDE and this does not happen with (for instance) Suse. The dialogue box in Suse clearly asks for the root password where you want to see it.

Yes. And guess what this article was CLEARLY about?

The article was CLEARLY part of a series about Desktop Environments. I understand you have a hard time with Linux compared to MSWindows and Mac because you only have to deal with one distro for the last two.

The 1st sentence in the article
"This is the 3rd installment in my series on deficiencies in common desktop environments. After GNOME and the Mac/MacOS, it is now KDE's turn"

You don't mention which distro you used for GNOME there. Can I assume that your next commentary on a DE will obscure this fact about KDE as well? This is not a series of articles about DE's, then, so much as it is about different distros'. From your title I was expecting a comparison of DE's not distros.

"Whilst I admit the dialog box you use as an example does need some love it does tell you which password to enter in the title bar."

So what does the ignore button do?

Well, it should probably be renamed to "Skip", but I don't think it that confusing if you stop and think about it - just annoying and badly designed.

By the way, the default box comes with a more descriptive message which explains the Ignore button saying:

The action you requested needs root privileges. Please enter root's password below or click Ignore to continue with your current priveleges.

Kubuntu clearly tried to modify this dialog box to fit in with their "root doesn't exist" approach, and completely screwed up user-friendlyness in the process.

Edited 2006-06-18 20:12

The dialog is clear. <sarcasm> Maybe you should know that (K)ubuntu implements sudo to run privileged commands. </sarcasm>

It says "Please enter *your* password" and yes, it means your personal password. Otherwise, the dialog says, enter administrator or root password etc.

Well, he is looking at it from a usability point of view; if you showed that to an average user, will he know what he is about to do? lets say its a trojan, and it requesting the password, why does it ask the password? well, joe user is unsure about computers, and he assumes that the computer knows best, so be puts in his password, and voila, rooted system.

Firstly, the dialogue needs to be headed up with "Application [name] requests Super User Privilages", then in the dialogue box, a small repeat of that, and a preamble as to what it actually means, such as, "[application[ is requesting, what is known as, super user privilages - to allow this to happen, you need to put in your password, BUT, by putting in your password, you are granting access to the whole system to the application, this is very risky as the application could be a virus!"

Its about notifying, educating and providing options; the dialogue box included gobbly goop like su, and so forth, which the average user would find completely over their head.

> so be puts in his password, and voila, rooted system.

That could never happen in that case, since only kdesu, by using sudo, has the ability to let you act as if you were "root" by using the password of the normal user you're logged in with. No trojan could be able to do the same.

That could never happen in that case, since only kdesu, by using sudo, has the ability to let you act as if you were "root" by using the password of the normal user you're logged in with. No trojan could be able to do the same.

Geeze, simple things do need explaining:

Clueless user downloads application, clueless user installs said application, clueless user loads application, he is presented with said dialogue box, said user assumes this is part of the 'normal' process of running an application, what said user doesn't know is his system is about to become rooted.

Clueless user downloads application, clueless user installs said application, clueless user loads application, he is presented with said dialogue box, said user assumes this is part of the 'normal' process of running an application, what said user doesn't know is his system is about to become rooted.

...which is a great argument in favor of software repositories, which alert you when a downloaded package's digital signature does not match the official one.

KDE was first called Cool Desktop Environment but that conflicted with CDE sooo they went on with Kool Desktop Environment etc

The vertical text has its advantage: look at Amarok: because the put: context, collection, playlists, files... vertical you just have a small bar. Otherwise they'd have to have big bar with just four options, so a loooooot of space lost. Besides when it's just four options it's ok, it used to be six and that was a problem so they adressed it.

Edited 2006-06-18 15:34

It may feed well in amarok, but not in Konqueror, kmixer, [insert kluttered app. here], etc. is to over abused.

BTW. It is actually spelled Absorbaloff according it it's inventor.

Stephen

When I booted SuSE 9 for the first time, I got a tip of the day that read "The K in KDE doesn't actually stand for anything. The letter K is next to the letter 'L' in the Roman alphabet, which stands for our favourite thing - Linux!"

That's only one of many hints you get while starting KDE or its apps for the first time. I've used every version of SUSE since 8.1 and I've never seen that particular tip. But I agree it is lame.

Suffice it to say that the plethora of options and every dialog being really separate (must apply each setting dialog at once and will even warn you if you switch dialogs) make for the greatest annoyance I have.


I think the problem with KDE is that they try to make everything simple to do. A better approach would be to try to make common tasks simple while making sure that the rest is not impossible.

I dont think there is so much problems with the KDE control center anymore. It have been rearranged, and cleaned up numerous times. I doubt going over it again would improve it much. Hopefully most people spend much more time in their applications than configuring the system, so this is where the developers need to focus.

My favorite example on how, this make everything simple complicates life for an ordinary user is how drag&drop in the file manager. If you drag a file and drops it in a folder, you get a popup menu asking you to "Move here", "Copy here", "Link here" or "Cancel". Why not just move the file, no questions asked. That is what most users would want to do. It is the operation that best fits the desktop methaphore. It is how it works in most other desktop environments.

Let's look at this a little closer. The "Cancel" item. The only reason that is needed is that you have a pop up menu in the first place.

The "Link here" item is very rarely used. I would guess that on the average Unix system the share of links is less than 1/1000 of all files in the file system. Many of thes links are created by intall scripts, and not by drag and drop in KDE. I would also guess that it is far more common that sysadmins make links than ordinary users.

So essentially there are two choices in that menu is almost never used, that is there just to make it simple to do everything.

A much better aproach would have been to just move the file, and handle the other options with "Copy", and "Paste" just like in all other applications. The link option could then appear as "Paste as link" in the "Edit" menu".

KDE developers need to identify what ordinary users (not sysadmins) do most frequently and make sure that they works smoothly.

Why not just move the file, no questions asked. That is what most users would want to do. It is the operation that best fits the desktop methaphore. It is how it works in most other desktop environments.

NO. NO. NO. NO.
That's exactly something I *hate* of other DEs and a part of why, even if not using KDE as a whole DE (I'm on XFCE now) I like Konqueror so much (I love to say it's my own Linux "killer app").

Saying that moving is "what most users want to do" is a senseless sentence to be polite. Users do actions on files according to what they need to do. Sometimes it's copying. Sometimes it's moving. It depends. It's not that "moving" is more trendy. I really love the fact Konqueror gives me each time the chance to choose what I want to do.

Yeah that's a number one feature for me too!

I would mod you up if you weren't already at +5.

If you drag a file and drops it in a folder, you get a popup menu asking you to "Move here", "Copy here", "Link here" or "Cancel". Why not just move the file, no questions asked. That is what most users would want to do. It is the operation that best fits the desktop methaphore. It is how it works in most other desktop environments.

That's what I like best about Konqueror. On other environments if I drag and drop I don't know if it has been moved or copied (it's most likely been moved), and if I specifically want to copy it I have to go through the utter tediousness of right-clicking, selecting copy...... This way I can do either really easy. It's a major advantage of Konqueror in my eyes, and those of many others and it isn't hard to figure out at all. It makes file management much, much, much easier. It's one of those nice surprises, where you expect Konqueror to work in one way and it turns out to be much easier than you thought.

Let's look at this a little closer. The "Cancel" item. The only reason that is needed is that you have a pop up menu in the first place.

The cancel button is there because otherwise, you'd have to click on something else to get rid of the pop up. That's not hard to figure out either. They could just make the pop up disappear when you took your mouse out of its area though.

The "Link here" item is very rarely used. I would guess that on the average Unix system the share of links is less than 1/1000 of all files in the file system.

The equivalent on Windows is the 'Create Shortcut', and few people seem to complain about that. Maybe it needs a better description.

I would also guess that it is far more common that sysadmins make links than ordinary users.

Sys admins are users as well, and I see no reason why you can't make it straightforward and easy for both sets of users.

A much better aproach would have been to just move the file, and handle the other options with "Copy", and "Paste" just like in all other applications. The link option could then appear as "Paste as link" in the "Edit" menu".

It's tedious and it's slow and it's a right pain in the backside when it comes to file management.

Edited 2006-06-18 20:09

My favorite example on how, this make everything simple complicates life for an ordinary user is how drag&drop in the file manager. If you drag a file and drops it in a folder, you get a popup menu asking you to "Move here", "Copy here", "Link here" or "Cancel". Why not just move the file, no questions asked. That is what most users would want to do. It is the operation that best fits the desktop methaphore. It is how it works in most other desktop environments.

Microsoft spent millions to find the actions people most likely want to do when dnd'ing a file.
The result? I use right-click dnd to get the menu and most non-computer experts I know use copy&paste exclusively to get around Windows' "I know what you want" attitude.

Thom:
Take Kopete, for instance. I think it is miles ahead of Gaim 1.x and even Gaim 2.x in terms of functionality, and I really like it-- however, it is just Kopete. It does not feel as if it is part of a greater whole; whereas Gaim integrates much better with the rest of GNOME (still not as good as i.e. iChat integrates with the MacOS, but still). The climax of this is Amarok; it even has its own live CD.

It looks like other KDE apps, behaves like other KDE apps and uses kio and that stuff, so what should they do differently? Note: I use neither Kopete nor Gaim so I have no idea what you're talking about and it would have been nice if, instead of 3 paragraphs about what is not coherence but consistency, you could have spelled out what in this special case coherence should be.

2. The password dialog:
You're on Kubuntu, there is no root password.
btw. the non-Kubuntu dialog goes like this:
The action you requested needs root privileges. Please enter root's password below or click Ignore to continue with your current privileges
Which is better imho. It makes clear that root is a user.

3. Don't forget the config dialogs of the panel clock

4. Kubuntu has a different, much simpler dialog for (un)installing software in its control center

5.However, something as elementary as setting icon size for desktop icons independently from the rest of the file manager is impossible!
It's not. Konqueror->View->Icon Size
Btw. you can set the number of lines Konqueror should use for filenames in the filemanager config.

6. They solved the problem of getting toolbars back into position in KDE 3.4. As long as you drop it in the right region it ends up where it should. At least I haven't had any problems with toolbars since 3.3

7. Set the KMenu to "descriptions only" (panel configuration->menus).

Out of your complaints 3. is the only good one. 1. needs more explaining, 2., 6. and 7. is just grasping for something to criticize, 4. is not really valid and 5. is wrong.

FreeDesktop.org does work on a desktop-neutral virtual file system: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fdvfs

lol... klutter. That's the only reason I haven't tried KDE yet, every screenshot I've seen of it looks really cluttered, it seems that the buttons/widgets/bars take up like 70% of the screen space leaving no room for any acutal work. I'm sure that it's just because everyone seems to use that 'candy' theme but it's put me off.

Use ThinKeramik and derivatives, appropriate font sizes and smaller toolbar icons and you will find that KDE can do just fine in terms of screen real estate.

It's impossible to do the same with GNOME because the applications are designed from the start to be inefficient in terms of screen real-estate and not a single GTK+ theme is compact (they are all varying degrees of oversized widgets).

6)Lock toolbar is available in Kubuntu, richt click on kicker and there's an option: lock the toolbar, difficult to find he :s.

That option is placed in Kicker because it, well, only applies to Kicker.

> 4) Adept is to me a way better package manager than
> Synaptic, the tags stuff, ok, I don't know what it is,
> but for the rest it's way more usefull, I prefer the
> adept tools above the synaptic-add/remove stuff... but
> that's personal probably.

I guess he just meant the extremely cluttered interface that doesn't even remember that I hid the options I never use (e.g. the tags). I prefer Synaptic on KDE too.

> 6)Lock toolbar is available in Kubuntu, richt click
> on kicker and there's an option: lock the toolbar,

But that locks everything. You can't even add a new icon to the toolbar. :/

IN OS-X the sheme is at least in an understandab le order:

iThis, iThat, iFoo, iBar.

With KDE you have:

Kthis, thisK, Khis, thiK.

A total mess.

But MacOS does not have:
iSafari
iUpdate
iConsole
iDashboard
iSearch
iDock
iTerminal
iSystem Preferences
iFinder
iPages
iKeynote
iSherlock
itexteditor
iProgram environment, ibattery statusetc...
Annoying, isn't it?
Its not just most KDE programs that have that noming scheme, its all of them + plus every Komponent that is a piece of the system.

Why? Apps doesn't have to be named after a certain scheme.

KDE naming is a mess. Sometimes a letter is replaced with a K (konsole), sometimes a K is appended before (kcontrol), sometimes a K in the name is just written in upper-case (amaroK). KDE devs should really name their apps better instead of just desperatly trying to get a K in their names.

Apple apps usually have good names; finder (find files), iTunes (play tunes), iPhoto (manage photos).

KDE apps usually doesn't; Konqueror, K3B, Kopete etc.

Who cares? What difference does it really make? People go on and on about the naming but I have yet to see one single valid reason. Inconsistency is not a valid reason. The names are spelled with K's to make them distinctive and interesting. The K doesn't impart any extra information about the program except that it belongs to KDE. So it doesn't really matter if sometimes you replace a letter, and sometimes you prefix a K, etc. The pattern is based entirely on aesthetics.