"After the recent release KDE 4.1 beta 2 and openSUSE 11 with KDE 4.0.4, some critics have been especially vocal in expressing their displeasure with the KDE 4 user interface paradigms. The debate has grown increasingly caustic as critics and supporters engage in a war of words over the technology. The controversy has escalated to the point where some users are now advocating a fork in order to move forward the old KDE 3.5 UI paradigms. As an observer who has closely studied each new release of KDE 4, I'm convinced that the fork rhetoric is an absurdly unproductive direction for this debate."
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Member since:2006-09-25
Somehow when I decide to try KDE for a time I always end up using all Gtk apps, the only exception last time was VirtualBox.
All the good apps, which is very subjective, seem to use Gtk.
On the other hand these days the trend is toward web apps. I don't know the numbers but I never ever used Skype - every one of my contacts preferred Google Talk (the web/Flash based version).
Also, Google Maps can do everything Earth can, except for the 3D, which is unusably slow on Linux anyway.
Scribus is horrible but I digress...
I am guessing that the deployment in Brazilian schools is Mandriva/Conetiva, right?
I happened to go to a school which was equipped with 286s acting as X terminals and running KDE 1 on Debian. Welcome to the end of the 20th century in eastern Europe. The other half of the machines were Macs with OS 8 I think from the pile that Steve Jobs overstocked and could only sell or give as a gift to governments.
So actually KDE was the second GUI I was exposed to, but this didn't stop me from seeking alternatives. I borrowed a Linux CD and installed it at home. And on someone's suggestion I tried WindowMaker. What a relief! Seemingly vital parts of the desktop no longer randomly disappeared (I later learnt it's called a crash). (BTW I also tried Win95 at the time and it seemed worse than KDE.) The situation didn't change much in these approx. 10 years:
While scrolling with the mouse wheel in Konqueror, the cursor flickers. In fact Plasma makes the whole screen flicker. Plasma or the KDE 3 panel still crash on a daily basis. Not to mention that most sites don't work in the futuristic Konqueror complete with aquatic scrollbar effect. Most documents don't open in KOffice. And so on.
I know the technology is in there. WebKit will put KDE ahead probably in the browser area, or at least on par with epiphany. What matters is the really small details, and stability, and also leveraging others' work instead of writing the own version of everything.
And currently GNOME is comfortable to use and I fear that students in Brazil will choose GNOME too when installing their free copy of Linux at home. At least those who care about such things. Others might dismiss the whole idea of computers if they are unreliable and don't function as common sense would dictate.
That is what a lot of my classmates did after their exposure to KDE back then.
Member since:2006-09-25
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Member since:
2005-07-06
we actually focus on both, and that's pretty apparent in the improvements made in the last 5 years along both tracks.
like Skype or Google Earth or NX or Scribus? no, wait, those use Qt... to name a few.