“As the dust settles from aKademy 2005, the annual KDE conference, it’s a good time to take a look at what the KDE developers are working on. Though KDE 3.5 isn’t even out yet, developers are already working on KDE 4. Plenty of work has already gone into porting existing code to Qt4, the GUI toolkit upon which KDE is based, and KDE developers are working on projects that could radically change how [KDE] works.”
i hope these things will work out and KDE 4 will be a killer DE
since a long time, there hasn’t been a relatively mature DE that offered only half the flexibility and power KDE offers, and KDE 3.5 will complement that with outstanding (tough not finished) usability. KDE 4 will add performance and more usability, but also a lot more flexibility and features. i can hardly wait…
i hope these things will work out and KDE 4 will be a killer DE
I hope so too. KDE4 is quite an ambitious project, and I hope they will clear up the various gripes I have with KDE3. In any case, they are putting in a lot of effort and that is to be applauded no matter what
explain please…
what are the various gripes you have with kde ?
I have a few too, but I will list them ;
Some window decorations make the screen more sluggish, but others make it very snappy. Whats the story with that ?????
OK and Cancel positions being switched after a urpmi –auto-select
Apps taking a fraction of a second to start once clicked
Anyone else got a list ?
We all know what will happen in this thread.
I will give you a short version…
GnomeFanBoy: Qt license sucks and KDE will never be de facto desktop
KDEBoy: Qt license is fine. If you don’t like it don’t use it.
GnomeFanBoy: Qt license sucks and KDE will never be de facto desktop
KDEBoy: Qt license is fine. If you don’t like it don’t use it. Please stop trolling
GnomeFanBoy: It is not there is no proprietary software made with Qt!!!!
…
They are on their way to give us the best…GOOD LUCK BOYS & GIRLS…
…even though I have no real intention of using it. I think KDE4 will bring a lot of attention and new users to open source operating systems. And I anticipate GNOME will have a good response! Interesting times ahead…now if everyone could just stop arguing endlessly over opinions and preferences.
This is probably not the best place to bring this up, but isn’t Gnome stuck with (lack of) new ideas for v3? I remember reading about this some time ago. KDE seems to move forward, if one may call it so, much faster.
see project ToPaZ (three point zero) for ideas for Gnome 3 :
http://browserbookapp.sourceforge.net/topaz/
KDE does indeed have a headstart (not that it matters cause both desktops rock anyhow).
Wow, Project Topaz looks like the most useless desktop environment I’ve ever seen. The day that Gnome migrates this way is the day that Gnome dies.
ToPaZ looks pretty cool but it seems every program will have to create new menu objects and old apps wouldn’t be very compatible. There is also a question of stuff that doesn’t really belong to this kind of interface, games for example. KDE on the other hand is going to integrate existing software more tightly. Right now I’m using Gnome but KDE4 looks much more promising than Gnome 3.
It is alot easier to jump into KDE programming than Gnome. They have a pretty good IDE, great libraries, plenty of documentation, its MUCH easier to build, etc.
I don’t think it should be locked, but agree that the arguements about the QT licence are old and lame.
Its really good to see a lot of progress in the opensource DEs. I am looking forward to both KDE 4 and GNOME 3 because I believe a bit of competition is very good for both projects.
aRTS is gone in KDE 4! Woohoo!
> aRTS is gone in KDE 4! Woohoo!
Is this confirmed?
Yeah
So, have they replaced aRTS with the sound server provided by the MAS project? GNOME was talking about using it, along with a few GNOME distributors, but it never really actually turned into something concrete.
If it is being pulled out, is it being replaced by something? if so, what?
As teprrr has said KDE4 will offer KDEMM that will make it possible to swap backends. Only advanced sound apps will need to “know” and support the concrete underlying multimedia framework.
Then there’s the question of a recommended or default framework. IIUC it’ll be either Gstreamer (http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/) or NMM (http://www.networkmultimedia.org/). I’ve read GStreamer has a slightly better chance but I may be wrong.
I’d probably say that you’re right in regards to gstreamer; they have more mindshare, they’re working VERY closely already with GNOME and freedesktop; it’ll be simply a matter of practicality in regards to the adoption of gstreamer – the only concern is ensuring that there is a stable API for programmers to be able to write their programmes against – IIRC, it should be stablising soon – hopefully.
http://www.simplekde.org seems to be the answer…I’m waiting for a livecd featuring it, then I’ll give it a try! I’m really curious to see how it feels
I love these guys (and girls) – I think KDE is one of the best organized open source projects. They have excellent toolkits and a very open minded community – I never saw so many WOW! this is soo cool! kinda statemts in other developer blogs. If you read <a href=”http://www.planetkde.org/“planetkde, you’ll see what I mean: it is clear that kde developers enjoy working with qt tremendously.
[rant]I don’t know about GNOME – they appear to me more “elitist” with their HIG and whatnot. Not respecting user opinions like in the case of spatial nautilus for instance. In 9 out of 10 reviews the reviewer begins by turning that off – and still, they are at it. I’m a gimp user, and I love it, but it was a shock when I discovered that I cannot copy & paste a path into their open file dialog. If I have a dir full of pictures, I like to browse it in a file manager (so I can see all the thumbnails), then one click to select the path, another click to paste it, and then select the specific files. I tried to edit an icon, and it took 9 clicks just to open the damn file! What the hell were they thinking when they designed that dialog?[/rant]
I don’t see GNOME having a bright future – not because it their way is not a good way. It is not my way – but lately I see more and more politics instead of bright new ideas. See for instance http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=11995“>this – half of it is about bashing the other DE, instead of focusing on their own stuff. You won’t see that from KDE developers (I’m a long time reader of the dot and kdeplanet) – they’re focusing on their stuff, and they do it in a more future oriented way. Making code modular, more maintainable, more approachable to new developers. They do trainings, conferences, they consult users/artists and make code in progress approachable (klik) to usability people/artists. In other words, they focus on the whole picture: infrastructure (toolkit), communication (users/artists/usability folks), code development – everything. I don’t see that on the part of GNOME.
And there the troll came in
Congrats, molnarcs :p
Gnome isn’t elitist. It is however based on different ideas. Gnome is my favourite because it goes the same OO-way as OS/2 WPS did. But other people like KDE, which is quite fine. KDE has a nice IDE… really nice (actually it’s better than sex.. well, almost). The Gnome HIG is not something you’re forced to use, but it is actually a very good idea. Always make applications as easy to control and use, without sacrificing power. And the HIG does a good job on that account.
Many KDE apps has a behaviour close or similar to that suggested of Gnome HIG.
There is obviously a lot you don’t see about Gnome, but that’s okay. There is a lot of good stuff to look at in KDE. But don’t get me wrong. Gnome will be around even in 10 years from now (and so will KDE).
dylansmrjones
kristian AT herkild DOT dk
BTW: Don’t go try to start a flamewar again. Be nice
You are pretty quick to label me a troll. I know that comparison between the to major DEs is a touchy issue, but that is not my fault. I raised specific issues about the way developers disregard user opinions… I realize this is a good way to start a flamewar, but that is not my intention. I’m just curious about the justification behind dropping support for copy and paste in a file dialog – why does that help any user? The ability to imput path in a box was considered confusing? And I see a number of decisions that are unexplained and make both the casual user of GNOME apps (which I consider myself) and regulars bewildered.
Anyhow, I don’t really care one way or another. Maybe GNOME will be here in 10 years. I don’t see that very likely, not in its current form and with its current management. That does not mean that there won’t be something taking up the best traditions (if you like those traditions – I don’t) of GNOME … in fact, there is one already: xfce. Now they only need a good filemanager, something like rox, but with sane shortcuts (no CTRL-X for deleting, which flies in the face of an important HIG premise: don’t frustrate your users!).
Yeah, there is obviously a lot of things I don’t see about GNOME – the logic behind some of their decisions is one among them: spatial, button order, 7 clicks to open a damn file. Yes, I talk about these. This can be interpreted as a flamebait. But then, some of their developers don’t seem to have an issue making broad generalizing statements about the rival DE (and contrary to my position, they have a vested interest, which imho makes their case worse) – see the interview I linked to above.
I was playing around with Gnome the other day on FreeBSD 5.4 and I noticed that just like every other release of Gnome I’ve used over the years, prints an ungodly number of warnings and error messages to the first virtual terminal. I’m not a Gnome expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I am curious as to the seriousness of alot of them. I’ve historically had odd crashes with Gnome (yeah in KDE as well, but nowhere near as many) and I can’t help but get the impression that quality control in that project (Gnome) is lacking.
I like the look of Gnome, I like the simplicity, I despise spatial and it’s *always* the first thing to go. But KDE just seems more stable to me, and *way* more integrated. My only gripes with KDE are poor printing support (not that I print much anymore, but hey, others do), and the fact that there are several different programs included in the default KDE distribution that do the same things. Kinda bloated IMO.
I guess I’d best be served sticking with Macs, if not for the desire to go with a pure OSS solution when needs don’t dictate otherwise.
Meh. All software sucks 🙁
I noticed a tendency at kde@freebsd to split up various kde ports into smaller chunks – if you are careful with the order of installation (or install kde-light metaport) – you can select what you want to be included. The system is not perfect, but at least I can have juk – from kdemultimedia-juk port – without the horror that is noatun and friends. Also, use ermixer if you want to have a mixer (I installed the entire kdemultimedia port just to have a freaking mixer!).
Which reminds me: packaging kde is up to the distributors. The KDE project offers their own “default” packages, but a distributor can do whatever it wants with those packages – including rearranging them. So bug your $Distro_maker if you’re not satisfied with the defaults.
Well, your post could be considered trolling because it brings up the same old points with the same old argument (“I don’t like it”).
For what it’s worth: in the file open dialog and nautilus, pressing CTL-l should bring up the “open location” where you can copy-paste, or just type with tab-completion working. It’s not obvious, but it’s there.
The fact you don’t like the button order doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The fact that I do like it (and the verb labeling that goes with it) doesn’t make it’s good either. Now, if the majority of gnome users didn’t like it, it would actually show that something is wrong but I doubt that’s the case. For the actual explanation of the button order, it’s essentially just saying the default button should always be in the bottom right for consistency and the idea was actually taken from the mac.
The spatial mode doesn’t have to be the default and ubuntu breezy makes browser mode the default. So this specific issue would actually be more a distribution one. In gnome 2.12, improvements to both the spatial and browse mode have been done, showing that no one is left behind:
http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/gnome-2-12/
f!
Well, button order was not one of the major arguments I made. Also, I’ve been offline for quite some time – I’m not up to speed about recent trends in flame-inciting topics (though I admit that based on my past experiences, I should have known).
Tried CTRL-L – it works! Thanks!
I’m glad to hear that they try to accomodate all users – it was my _impression_ (and I might have been wrong) that they tried to push ideas without properly researching the need of the users – Ubuntu, perhaps the most popular linux distro these days just proves that point.
Anyway, I wish them good luck! It is in _my_ best interest (not only GNOME fans) for GNOME to succeed – after all, I think KDE was influenced in a positive way by some of the ideas coming from the GNOME project. A just have some concerns right now about the developer community (and I haven’t even mentioned the eugenia vs. gnome devs. fiasco). It is my belief that what makes a project future proof is maintainability of the codebase, which goes hand in hand with clarity, documentation, low barrier for new programmers, etc – and in this respect … well, I’m not sure about GNOME to put it mildly.
Also, I saw more and more people using GNOME talking about xfce as the future of GNOME (even though I know it is a separate development group). And since I like trying out new things, I installed it (though I haven’t started it too many times) – and I liked what I saw. I can recognize something that others might find very usable yet is not suitable for my own requirements – xfce is like that. So, what is GNOME offering that xfce is not?
You can change the shortcuts in ROX fairly easily. You do have to edit a config file once, if you go into the options menu in ROX select “Menus” and then “Set keyboard shortcuts” it will tell you what change you have to make, and then you can just go to the menu item and press the key you want to associate with it. However XFCE will have a new filemanger (Thunar) in the next release.
cool! thanks – I thought about it, but use it relatively rarely (rox on top of fluxbox actually – as a lightweight alternate solution to KDE).
See for instance this interview – half of it is about bashing the other DE, instead of focusing on their own stuff.
While the fact that you’re trying to start a flame-war in a thread devoted to comment a KDE piece of news should be just fine, eh?
I’m very glad that “you won’t see that from KDE developers” (to which I subscribe 100%), because some KDE users still don’t seem to like a constructive free software environment. I’ll stop at that.
rehdon
Ok, you have a point – and I’m sorry if I offended someone…
I’m just tired of this … I mean, there are certain topics where you can’t say certain things without starting a flamewar (whether it is your intention or not). I think that one of the main characteristics of a troll or a flamebait post is that it makes broad generalizing statements without giving any specific details. I don’t think I fall into that category, but I’ll shut up (maybe I should have shut up in the first place) if this is such a touchy topic.
As to being offtopic – well, to a certain extent I am. We are talking about the future of one desktop: KDE. Mentioning another one, just to see the different trends, directions, etc that various *nix desktop takes is not a problem (should not be a problem) imho. And that is what I did. I think we can talk about a lot of things in conjunction with this article. Even GNOME, or the future of DE technologies in general. Or Enlightenment – which is quite different from KDE, but they have already shipped exciting new technologies, and at the very least you can’t say that they are not visionaries. One cannot help but be excited about the future possibilities of e17. I can’t say the same thing about GNOME – I find nothing exciting about its future, I don’t see its own developers excited about its future – which is the biggest problem I think.
Anyway, I’ll stop here before I cause any more trouble.
Well my friend, GNOME is what it is thanks to its philosophy I can grant you that GNOME will continue simple because they are not following nobody they are trying its own idea like the button order I like to much.
They are not scared of trying something new like SVG graphics, Cairo and GStreamer, thay are alway the firsth one trying new stuff, that’s what I like of GNOME. KDE by the other hand are promising to much and that can blow in ther faces like a search engine better than OSX or Vista, they are offering Plasma that at the end its nothing but more aye candy, I predict to things:
1.- KDE 4 will be delayed or won’t have all they have promised.
2.- TrollTech will have to hire more KDE developers to work on it full time.
It is dangerous start promoting something that is still far from reality, look what hapenned to lonhorng, delayed and won’t have all the promised.
And other thing that will make GNOME continue is simple the license, I can tell you that it is easier to fix GTK than TrollTech change Qt license.
I put my money on GNOME.
It is dangerous start promoting something that is still far from reality, look what hapenned to lonhorng, delayed and won’t have all the promised.
It’s dangerous start promoting something that is stil far from a decent Desktop ,look what happened to GNOME,ugly heavily full of first lady programmers.
Gnome have lost many users do you know ?
The problem with longhorn was that nt’s infrastructure didn’t support the promised features very well. They have to “reset” the hole process, and begin with the code of win2k3 codebase.
The promised interface of KDE4 is not finished – some parts haven’t even began. But they are doing things in the right order. QT4 is there – which will support the new things they plan. Many parts of KDE are already ported to QT4 – even some parts of koffice (kexi for instance, I just downloaded the _WINDOWS_ demo of it). Trolltech pays one developer to work fulltime on the xorg side of things – and again, you see the results. In other words the core is there. Work is progressing in almost every area on top of QT that must be there for KDE4. In fact, some of the things planned for kde4 will be available for 3.5 as well. KDE4 is not promiseware, because for some time now, you could (well, if you look for it) see the efforts devs put into it. Many of the “wow this is soo cool” kinda blogs are bout new stuff related to KDE4.
As for trolltech’s need for hiring more developers: one of the thing that makes KDE futureproof is the relatively low barrier for new developers – and the apparent joy of working with their tools. That’s the most important issue GNOME needs to address. KDE has become arguably more attractive for new developers in the past few years. And that’s what makes OpenSource projects tick.
Forget about the license issue – it’s GPL! I myself prefer BSD, but then, I can very well see the point (and the genius) behind the design of the GPL license. Not only that, but software companies can actually by a license to allow closed source development. If you take a look at Trolltech’s customers – adobe, volvo, European Space Agency, etc. – I’d say they are doing pretty well
) I don’t see high-profile software houses catering to gtk just because it’s LGPL.
1.- KDE 4 will be delayed or won’t have all they have promised.
Quite possibly – just look at Vista! It’s a lot of work, but the work has been identified and now it’s all hands to the pump. Identifying what needs to be done is all part of the work, and certainly Gnome 3 is a long way from that if you read the plan.
2.- TrollTech will have to hire more KDE developers to work on it full time.
Possibly, and they have realistic amounts of money to do that. But then again, how many people work on Gnome full-time at Red Hat and elsewhere and how many proclaim this to be the right thing to do?
It is dangerous start promoting something that is still far from reality, look what hapenned to lonhorng, delayed and won’t have all the promised.
Some, but not all, Gnome devs have been doing this for years, and fortunately, it seems to have died down to realistic levels.
Certainly, at least with the work already done (Plasma, the new Kicker, Qt 4) and the firm basis of Qt 4 there is a realistic chance of getting all these new features done and dusted. GTK 3 hasn’t been started yet.
I’m sure the KDE people are very conscious of promising all of this though, and you’re right there.
And other thing that will make GNOME continue is simple the license, I can tell you that it is easier to fix GTK than TrollTech change Qt license.
I am very much afraid, not. Here’s why, and here’s why KDE’s usage of Qt is eminently sensible:
To fix GTK and the surrounding Gnome libraries a huge (cannot be underestimated) amount of work will need to be done to optimise, clean and then maintain something new. That costs a lot of money and investment in full-time developers (that’s what optimisation and maintenance work is like – unglamorous), and it is something that cannot just be done by people in their spare time.
Now – who’s going to spend that money? Red Hat? Novell? Sun? Well, they’re not doing it, and realistically, they’re only maintaining enough so that it works OK in their own products. And that’s fine. They’re not going to put massive amounts of unrealistic investment into something that will have no realistic prospect of some payback. Certainly, Red Hat’s developers working on GTK and Gnome are overworked as it is, and unfortunately, many fanboys simply take their work for granted. That work is something that will never be finished either, so it’s not as if you can put some temporary investment in place.
That’s where Qt’s licensing model scores. The licenses payed for Qt ensure that badly needed, and mostly unseen, optimisation and maintenance work actually gets done and that it is realistically funded. That optimisation and maintenance work starts with your development tools at the core.
Some people may not like that, but there it is.
Unfortunately, the article does not say much about simplicity apart from “usability experts right from the start”. IMHO, the biggest problem with KDE is that it is not easy enough to use. I don’t want to customize every possible setting. I want to get my work done. Most buttons and controls eat up valuable space which could be used for *real and important* information. SimpleKDE is only a starting point and I hope that KDE4 will go *much* further.
Oh dear, here we go again. Simply, this is FUD. Is KDE holding a gun to your head, saying “you must customise every possible setting!”. Nope. It’s there if you want it, if you don’t want to do that, then don’t use it! Simple. How hard is that to friggen comprehend? KDE isn’t Gnome. Never will be. If Gnome wants to dumb it all down and make it such a clean interface that it has nothing in the menus, they can go for it. It doesn’t mean that the desktop environment isn’t any easier to use etc. It just means that it has less. Big difference there. I get sick and tired of hearing this comment from non KDE users. Really annoying.
Dave
I seriously doubt that my trusty old dell laptop (p3-700, 8meg ati rage128 gfx card) would be able to do all that new, shiny eye-candy…
I seriously doubt that my trusty old dell laptop (p3-700, 8meg ati rage128 gfx card) would be able to do all that new, shiny eye-candy…
Then either buy a new laptop or don’t turn on the eye candy. Your talking about a 4-5 year old system here.
buy a new laptop
i would, if i could.
I’d give it a try before saying it won’t happen, I’ve been pleasently surprised to see just how old of a system KDE runs smoothly on.
Before getting my new computer about two years ago I was running KDE on an old Celeron 466 w/ 128 mb of ram and a 4 mb integrated video card. Also I don’t doubt that you would be able to choose the level of eye candy presented to you so you can run KDE on older systems, current versions of KDE already ask you that at the first log in.
Mark me a troll but this needs to be said.
You hiss at MS putting in eyecandy to Vista,
yet you welcome the same eye candy in KDE4 (transparent/glass all over the place)
Hate Microsoft for a bad product, not just _because_ they are microsoft. Vista is a good product any which way you look at it.
Vista isn’t yet a product. It could end up being good, bad, or mediocre.
Either way, a hardware accelerated windows with new kernal that at least brings up to a better competing level with OSX is a good thing. I’d rather that, than Windows XP v2 x_x
“Vista is a good product any which way you look at it.”
We dont actually know that yet, do we.
Beta looks good. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. I highly doubt MS are going to dump the entire new hardware accelerated engine a few days before launch now are they 😐
I don’t think you really know what you’re talking about.
You should listen more and speak less.
the eye-candy is in the X server, not KDE for a start.
also
this Vista you talk off, where can I buy it ? Does it look good on YOUR pc ?
If you are talking about the Vista BETA, then it does look OK on my pc, nothing special, just ok. And that is with a nvidia with 256 ddr ram.
X.org 6.8.2 coupled with KDE 3.3 look years ahead on the same machine.
I sort of agree. But not all the eye-candy is in the X server, some of it is in KDE
I set my card up to use render and compositing under X, and use xcompmgr for transparancy and dropshadows, however, this is supported under KDE and I have not seen the same thing in GNome.
This is what parent talks about (and this in kde 3.4.1)
<a href=”ftp://hatvani.unideb.hu/pub/personal/screenshots/kcompmgr1.avi“>…
<a href=”ftp://hatvani.unideb.hu/pub/personal/screenshots/kdetransp.avi“kde…
This is why windows isn’t ready for the desktop – I open these files in Windows Media Player (I’m a windows refugee at work), and it can’t play it – it gives “unknown error”. 90% of the video files I try to play on this piece of crap come up with the same problem. Mplayer on linux plays anything.
My biggest problem with how MS does these things is they don’t bother to think about existing customers.
No matter how fast AMD and Intel make their processors, Microsoft will find a way to slow things down again.
You seen the system requirements for Vista? Jeez, even Apple can add in these features with some efficiency in mind.(even though it seems that apple and ms are in a war for the fattest code)
Personally, I don’t think KDE/etc should be putting the eye candy in there either, but I understand the goals. The end result I *do* agree with.
the 3d desktop. 2d performance in today’s video cards….. when was the last time you saw a reviewer talk about 2d performance, or nvidia/ati tout it’s increased 2d performance?
Making the desktop fullon 3d will increase performance dramatically as it’ll take even more work away from the CPU and put it on the GPU.
After a certain amount of time, you have to leave old customers behind, wipe the slate clean, etc.
But with a requirement of 2gb of ram, I ***KNOW*** KDE and it’s devs can do better.
The thing is most people will get Vista when they get a new PC, which when it launches, 2GB RAM is going to be normal. That doesn’t mean to say that it’s right to have such outrageous specs, but Microsoft want to move forward, the most important thing about Vista is not vista itself but the Avalon platform. When you see a wall of videos rendered in 3D all written using XML, this is where things are going and Microsoft are delivering it.
This is about standing on the shoulders of giants type work. What people do with XAML is going to be far more mind blowing that all of vista’s UI candy put together.
KDE is also going this same route – provide the power, but make it manageable. But credit must be given to Microsoft. Nowhere else can you write ten lines of XML and make a video rotate around a spherical orbit. XUL+SVG cannot do this, not in XGL yet.
Microsoft are aiming for content creators – that’s the way to grip the market by the balls. If you pardonnez moi expression.
Last time I checked, most users hated these unless the product became a super-duper one.
Gnome 3 needs to focus on speed instead of features, IMO. If Gnome 2 was a complete rewrite, the entire 2.x series should be devoted to adding usability features. We just got a menu editor and clipboard, Cairo built into Gtk+, and maybe 2.14 can include a Metacity with built in XCompmgr support. The 3.x line of Gnome should be devoted entirely to the speed and stability, IMO. Especially on non-Linux systems.
Radical changes are fine and good, but what KDE needs are not so radical changes. If KDE 4.x had nothing but changes to introduce proper icon and menu item spacing, a culling of overly-filled toolbars and context menus, and a more asthetic spacing between UI elements, it would be a worthwhile release.
Is that your complaint? I don’t get it. You and Eugenia, “s p a c i n g , s p a c i n g , s p a c i n g .” I like the current spacing. It saves time. I don’t have to move the mouse 60 feet to get from “File” to “Edit”. If you like Gnome’s/ OS X’s “spacing”, use them (which I’m sure you do) and stop trying to wreck my user interface.
Dude, it’s called “mouse acceleration” it was invented like decades ago…
Tight spacing isn’t “more efficient”. Its the kind of ignorant logic that makes people put giant exhausts on their Honda Civic because they think its reduces their 0-60. Layout is an art, and underlying it is solid scientific rules about human cognition. It’s not a completely developed science, like anything based on psychology, but a framework of rules and guidelines have been created that point the way to the “correct answer”. KDE generally flouts those rules, because some people think that their intuition trumps what is written in a book. It’s pseudoscience at its best.
Look at a well-typeset book sometimes. Notice the ample amounts of blank space. The large margins, the large inter-line spacing, the generously-sized letters, the section headers, etc. All of these things take up space, but are designed not only for asthetics, but for readability. The human brain is best at processing a visual field that is of a particular information density. Get any tighter than that, and you slow down cognition. Get any looser, and you waste space. If books were typeset by your average KDE developer, we’d have inscrutable tomes that had eight-inch margins, 6-pt fonts, no headers, negative line advances, etc, all in the name of ‘efficiency’.
I’m actually looking more eagerly at E17, but this new KDE4 looks tempting.
I seriously doubt that my trusty old dell laptop (p3-700, 8meg ati rage128 gfx card) would be able to do all that new, shiny eye-candy…
Perhas not, but then again some of the later improvements to x.org like EXA will help some.
More importantly the main point of KDE 4 and plasma are not the eye-candy, it’s functionality and workflow. The developers are very conscious about making everything work efficiently, even on low end hardware. Even if you loose some eye-candy all the important stuff will be there. Besides from what I have seen on mailing list discussions, your p3-700 are much more powerfull than what the developers consider as low end.
Some window decorations make the screen more sluggish, but others make it very snappy. Whats the story with that ?????
The short version, they are all implemented in C++. Having different degree of complexity and scope, some have efficient code while others have not. Naturally the default and widely used decoration will get more attention in form of profiling and optimizing than the lesser used decorations. I’ll guess you will see some improvement in 3.5. As lots of the common functionality now are shared/library code, rather than having different implementions in every decoration.
of course………..
I did not think some decorations or styles would be un-optimised as I used the ones that came with the distro. I can understand it if I had downloaded something from kde-look.org and it was not optimised, but I took it for granted the ones from the distro would all have had the same amount of optimisations.
ANYWAY
is there a list of the fast compared with the slow ?
http://img127.imageshack.us/my.php?image=taskbartaskbasket26bu.png
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/2164/extender2oi.gif
http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mockup13sz.png
http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/2646/searchdock22ps.png
http://img396.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kdemockup7sj.swf
the last one is interactive.
GNOME thread: KDE fanboys bashing GNOME
KDE thread: KDE fanboys bashing GNOME
most posts….
everyone bashing the bishop
>And other thing that will make GNOME continue is simple
>the license, I can tell you that it is easier to fix GTK
>than TrollTech change Qt license.
What is the problem with Qt licence?
You have 2 free licence: GPL or QPL(not copyleft)!
I took it for granted the ones from the distro would all have had the same amount of optimisations.
Since they from a functionality view are duplicates, the most important and the one to get most attention are the default. For the rest it’s more based on different developers interests, some are actively maintained and developed. While others only get the necessary attention to stay functional and relative bug free. Some live in the kdebase module, while others in kdeartwork which also to some degree dictates the attention they get. And as a developer it’s more reasonable to spend your time on the default, rather than someting like the OpenLook or CDE decorations.
Some of the decorations are really old, originally made for KDE 2. The only development on some of those have been porting to never versions of the libraries. Some are new and have fresh developers/maintainers, like Smooth Blend(New in 3.5).
is there a list of the fast compared with the slow ?
Not that I know of, but if you compile from source you can try the benchmark tool in kdebase/kwin/tools/decobenchmark.
Some depends on the complexity of the style. I think Keramik are said to be one of the fastest ones, while Glow have(had?) some speed problems. And while the Web decoration looks fast with it’s simplicity, it’s not one of the top preformers.
Personally I prefer the Laptop decoration, even if it looks slightly dated with the square buttons and no gradients. It’s one of the more innovative decorations, with the double size of the important buttons(looks like Vista is doing someting like that) and left side close. Sometimes I use Glow, I don’t notice any problems with it’s performance.
Linux Desktop Environments are too much sucking the arse.
I think they forgot that they were window managers.
Window managers manage windows. They don’t manage file systems or Sound configurations.
– Jesse McNelis
Linux Desktop Environments… forgot that they were window managers
So what is your problem? Are you complaining that desktop environments are doing more than only managing windows?
Well, that is the reason they are called desktop environments not window manager.
(Duh! 😉
I ask myself why those[1] perfectly legit replies were modded down, but I guess that’s the freedom of speech according to the gnomers.
[1] http://osnews.com/read_thread.php?news_id=12004&comment_id=36900
Really, E17, KDE4… I think finally our eye candy problems in Linux are solved…
“Radical” changes? What? More bloat? More complexity? More sluggish performance? More of the same stinking crap from the same type of Linux geeks who have zealotry to spare but no sense of asthetics whatsoever?
Wanna be really radical? Shut up and make a version of KDE that has all the polish of Windows XP while running faster and taking up less space on the hard drive as well as in memory.
That’s a challenge I predict Linux geeks will never be able to achieve. Yeah, never is a mighty long time but there it is. NEVER. N-E-V-E-R.
Yeah, never is a mighty long time but there it is. NEVER. N-E-V-E-R.
10? 12? I’ll give you 14. After all, it is around the start of puberty.
Do you actually know how much disk space KDE uses compared to XP? Get your facts straight before spewing. And for a true comparison don’t include all the KDE apps which Windows doesn’t have.
If you don’t like it, don’t use it. KDE 3.4/3.5beta1 is faster on my hardware the XP. (and never goes into a brain dead mode for streches.)
At least Plastik has been made faster by reducing repaints during its lifetime. And I think Keramik is also one which has been optimized by some core devel guys.
Well, there’ll be KDEMM architechture which allows multiple backends and at least the first one ported to use it was aRts… So yes, it’s gone in KDE4 way that it isn’t default, but I think you can still use it if you want.
Take a look at my last comment, it describes the current situation: http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=12004&comment_id=36983
As teprrr said:
Well, there’ll be KDEMM architechture which allows multiple backends
Of the possible backends you can have things like aRTS, gstreamer or MAS. But the most exiting ones are the possibility to use alsa directly for soundcards supporting hardware mixing and NMM. The technology of NMM are just amazing, the definite choice in a networked environment. Tech with real cool factor:-)
As teprrr said:
Well, there’ll be KDEMM architechture which allows multiple backends
Of the possible backends you can have things like aRTS, gstreamer or MAS. But the most exiting ones are the possibility to use alsa(directly for soundcards supporting hardware mixing) and NMM. The thecnology of NMM are just amasing, the definite choice in a networked enviroment.
Then there’s the question of a recommended or default framework.. IIUC it’ll be either Gstreamer or NMM. I’ve read GStreamer has a slightly better chance but I may be wrong
Personally I hope you are wrong, for several reasons. The architecture and technology of NMM are way ahead of gsttreamer. Not to mentioned all the cool things you can do whit it on a networked environment. Besides looking at the different sound engine drivers in amarok, it looks like something close to 1/4-1/3 the size of the gstreamer code.
KDE 4 may woo me back from GNOME. I value useability extremely highly, so if this is a focus, I (and presumably, many others like me) will be won over.
Incorporating artists and others with an understanding of aesthetics and user issues will give the DE much more depth and appeal to a wider base of users than just the early adopters (which is where Linux on the desktop seems to have stalled for some time.)
My sincere best wishes to all the KDE developers worldwide!
The funny thing about the feature-itis (that some feel plagues KDE) is that its a result of the true developer-friendlyness and powerfulness of the KDE framework (aka the core libraries that make up most KDE applications). It’s just too easy to put in a bunch of crap figuratively speaking, That’s why KDE4, and I guess to a lesser extent KDE 3.5, is focusing on getting artists, “usability experts” and others together.
I’ve been using Gnome for about the past 3 years almost exclusively, I just installed kanotix http://www.kanotix.com yesterday after being very disappointed in Ubuntu – colony 5. I think I’ll be sticking with KDE 3.4 and then KDE 3.5 for a while.
To me KDE is really about being a “platform” and a “framework” that really differentiates itself from Gnome. End users that don’t care about the gritty technical details should care about the framework thbecause it’s all about giving developers the tools they need to bring you your apps.
Gnome is really about a bunch of libraries, a couple “killer” apps (Firefox and OO), and some lower-level technical standards such as Dbus and Cairo and more close association between freedesktop.org and the Gnome.
So both Gnome and KDE compliment each other in a way. I still think a single unified desktop would have been the way to go years ago, but it’s too late now. the gtk-qt-engine makes gtk+ apps fit in right at (home at least visually), and I have some “killer” gtk+ apps like xchat, Firefox, Gaim and OO to as part of my desktop platform. But at the end of the day KDE has the close intergration dcop, kparts, kioslaves…that make it just a better platform to host gtk+ apps.
There’s some interesting co-op stuff going on like dbus, which should eventually make it into KDE4 maybe, and what the article talked about where pure native toolkits can hook into the KDE framework (even gtk+) if its available via services.
A couple of minor remarks.
1. Firefox is not a Gnome application. If you wish you can even compile it without gtk. Not that it would be particulary useful (terribly crashy in my experience), but just to drive the point home…
2. OpenOffice and xchat, like the gimp, are also not Gnome applications.
3. As a general note, I’d really, really like to see the gnome nuts stop trying to spread the misconception that all applications that use gtk by default are Gnome apps. This hi-jacking of other peoples work in order to draw attention to themselves is NOT very becoming.
Honestly, I don’t think there ever was a chance for joining forces if you consider the pretty constant badmouthing coming from one side, (yes, Gnome has ALWAYS been Anti-KDE, that’s why it was founded…) and the different focus of the two projects.
I don’t know about other people, but for me, the platform quality of KDE is the whole point with it. This makes for a level of integration between different applications that is hard to match anywhere, which not only provides lots of functionality for developers at a low cost (in effort), but also reduces bloat in the form of less duplication. I suppose the reuse of well tested components is one of the reasons that KDE with the exception of major version relases (like 2.0) has been surprisingly stable in my experience.
WRT KDE 4 I’m really looking forward to it, hopefully gcc4 will be more widespread by then and help cutting down on the time spent building it. That and some cleaning up, and it’ll be great.
1. Firefox is not a Gnome application. If you wish you can even compile it without gtk. Not that it would be particulary useful (terribly crashy in my experience), but just to drive the point home…
2. OpenOffice and xchat, like the gimp, are also not Gnome applications.
Yeah, they are gtk+ apps, because that’s the toolkit they use. But Gnome isn’t an integrated framwork like KDE – that’s the whole point. The Gnome gui libraries are going to move completely into gtk+ eventually, further bluring the line. But I hear your crap from bitter KDE people all the time.
3. As a general note, I’d really, really like to see the gnome nuts stop trying to spread the misconception that all applications that use gtk by default are Gnome apps. This hi-jacking of other peoples work in order to draw attention to themselves is NOT very becoming.
Stop your crying. You have nothing to do with these “other people” and have no right to be pissed off for them.
Right.. “Shut up, you have no right to tell me it’s wrong to steal since I don’t steal from you.”
f–king lame. What a dickhead you are.
Yeah, they are gtk+ apps, because that’s the toolkit they use.
Considering that Firefox is getting a Qt/KDE front-end, does that make Firefox a Qt app? I don’t think you’ll see anyone on the KDE side making that claim.
The Gnome gui libraries are going to move completely into gtk+ eventually, further bluring the line.
Well no actually. Certain libraries will be moved into GTK to enable it to become a complete framework, but it has to be cross-platform, and then the Gnome people have to build something sensible derived from that framework that is recognisable as Gnome.
KDE has already done that all that. The chances of that happening with GTK and Gnome? Close to zero. It’s a major, major re-architecture of the whole system and the development tools surrounding GTK/Gnome and it’s about much more than just pulling separate libraries into one. That’s something that should have been done from day one – nearly ten years ago.
But I hear your crap from bitter KDE people all the time.
Well, unfortunately it’s true though as you well know. I think we’ve all had enough crap over the years from the Ximian people, and idiots like ESR and Timothy R. Butler and statements telling us how many corporate deployments of Gnome there have been. Where’s all that now? Into /dev/bullshit, that’s where.
It’s time for all that rubbish to end, for desktop Linux users to have a desktop that actually works, is built on solid technology that programmers can actually use and is reliable for users, and is realistic about it’s standing the world today and what’s required to move it on.
I’ve seen more useful ideas in the past couple of weeks around KDE than I ever have around Gnome. Klik, Plasma, Karamba, HotNewStuff and the whole integration between them. These people are actually thinking about the problems that need to be solved and the direction to go in rather than doing really cool things like cloning a whole Microsoft development framework that has zero chance of standing on an equal footing.
Basically, it’s time for KDE 4 and the stuff in this article.
AMEN.
Considering that Firefox is getting a Qt/KDE front-end, does that make Firefox a Qt app? I don’t think you’ll see anyone on the KDE side making that claim.
Where is it? Oh, its not there.
Well no actually. Certain libraries will be moved into GTK to enable it to become a complete framework, but it has to be cross-platform, and then the Gnome people have to build something sensible derived from that framework that is recognisable as Gnome.
No they don’t
KDE has already done that all that. The chances of that happening with GTK and Gnome? Close to zero. It’s a major, major re-architecture of the whole system and the development tools surrounding GTK/Gnome and it’s about much more than just pulling separate libraries into one. That’s something that should have been done from day one – nearly ten years ago.
But once again, they don’t have to do that.
Well, unfortunately it’s true though as you well know. I think we’ve all had enough crap over the years from the Ximian people, and idiots like ESR and Timothy R. Butler and statements telling us how many corporate deployments of Gnome there have been. Where’s all that now? Into /dev/bullshit, that’s where.
But Sun, RedHat, and Novell keep on making deals to put the Gnome desktop on many corporate workstations. So your usual bullshit is put into /dev/null
t’s time for all that rubbish to end, for desktop Linux users to have a desktop that actually works, is built on solid technology that programmers can actually use and is reliable for users, and is realistic about it’s standing the world today and what’s required to move it on.
If you mean KDE, then they already have it, but with the Qt license being problematic KDE will never be so dominant as to be a standard
I’ve seen more useful ideas in the past couple of weeks around KDE than I ever have around Gnome. Klik, Plasma, Karamba, HotNewStuff and the whole integration between them. These people are actually thinking about the problems that need to be solved and the direction to go in rather than doing really cool things like cloning a whole Microsoft development framework that has zero chance of standing on an equal footing.
KDE 4 is vaporware.
Basically, it’s time for KDE 4 and the stuff in this article.
It’s not time yet, because KDE 4 is vaporware.
Where is it? Oh, its not there.
I still don’t see anyone claiming Firefox to be a Qt application.
No they don’t
Yes.
But once again, they don’t have to do that.
Yes. That’s what rolling these libraries into GTK is for, and rolling libraries together isn’t enough – as I’ve mentioned. Err, McFly?
If you mean KDE, then they already have it, but with the Qt license being problematic KDE will never be so dominant as to be a standard
Users want a working desktop with working technology, not a license. That’s the only way an open source destkop is going to work.
I’m afraid that’s just covering you’re ears and whistling a happy tune. Due to the right, solid, working technology at the right time KDE will come to be the standard – which is why you don’t like it.
KDE 4 is vaporware.
A lot of code for KDE 4 is in place and Qt 4 is completed. Where’s the code for Gnome 3? Where is GTK 3? Gnome 3 is not so much vapour as non-existant, and the Gnome 2.x series has technology that simply does not work reliably enough for people to use it as a desktop. Now that the pressure is on a bit more for the open source world to actually produce a working desktop environment you’ve heard the Gnome side go a bit quiet.
It’s not time yet, because KDE 4 is vaporware.
Yer, whatever. Gnome 3 is non-existant whereas code has been written or is underway for KDE 4. What more can I say?
I know you don’t like it, but Gnome has had its day and its chance over the last few years. That day is over and it’s time for an open source desktop that works.
Where is it? Oh, its not there.
I still don’t see anyone claiming Firefox to be a Qt application.
No they don’t
Yes.
But once again, they don’t have to do that.
Yes. That’s what rolling these libraries into GTK is for, and rolling libraries together isn’t enough – as I’ve mentioned. Err, McFly?
If you mean KDE, then they already have it, but with the Qt license being problematic KDE will never be so dominant as to be a standard
Users want a working desktop with working technology, not a license. That’s the only way an open source destkop is going to work.
I’m afraid that’s just covering you’re ears and whistling a happy tune. Due to the right, solid, working technology at the right time KDE will come to be the standard – which is why you don’t like it.
KDE 4 is vaporware.
A lot of code for KDE 4 is in place and Qt 4 is completed. Where’s the code for Gnome 3? Where is GTK 3? Gnome 3 is not so much vapour as non-existant, and the Gnome 2.x series has technology that simply does not work reliably enough for people to use it as a desktop. Now that the pressure is on a bit more for the open source world to actually produce a working desktop environment you’ve heard the Gnome side go a bit quiet.
It’s not time yet, because KDE 4 is vaporware.
Yer, whatever. Gnome 3 is non-existant whereas code has been written or is underway for KDE 4. What more can I say?
I know you don’t like it, but Gnome has had its day and its chance over the last few years. That day is over and it’s time for an open source desktop that works.
Whoops, commenting went a bit awry there.
But Sun, RedHat, and Novell keep on making deals to put the Gnome desktop on many corporate workstations.
Yer, I completely missed that old chestnut again because it’s just old and tired.
Did you not read what I wrote? Sun is not signing any deals, the deal in China is non-existant, Red Hat isn’t signing any desktop deals (they’ve all but pulled out) and Novell is now KDE oriented because they’ve worked out what everyone else knows – KDE works. Don’t believe me? Look at openSUSE and look at flagship products like OES. They’re very much KDE oriented and that’s the reality. And before you talk about the NLD, no Gnome is not the default desktop – there isn’t one. Funnily, I’ve not heard too much about the NLD too much.
Can you list these deals that Sun, Novell and Red Hat have signed for Gnome with some evidence that the deployments have actually happened? That’s what I meant when this has now gone straight to /dev/bullshit.
So your usual bullshit is put into /dev/null
Quit regurgitating my stuff. It’s lame.
I want it to be faster than windows. And I want cooler apps (all kde apps look the same). And a thinner interface (5 buttons max). And more themes. And more templates. I just want to click click click.
xinelib has a very good chance as well. SuSE is pushing that one.