Submitted by “The Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) development team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 3.5.13.1 of the Trinity Desktop Environment. The Trinity Desktop Environment is a complete software desktop environment designed for Unix-like operating systems, intended for computer users preferring a traditional desktop model, and is free/libre software.” Not the first time we mention TDE, but it’s basically the continuation of KDE 3.x. There’s a market for this.
Now, first I’ll start by saying that the subject wasn’t meant to be a comparison between the two. I was actually equally interested in both right from the start when KDE and GNOME decided to make such a major upgrade. Problem is, it seems that the Trinity desktop is barely getting any support; almost no distributions seem to support it in any way, let alone provide packages.
Even more disappointingly, this seems to extend to Debian–and if a package is not in Debian, then… well, that’s saying something. Debian has almost everything. Yet, the MATE desktop quickly gained support from Mint, Fedora is going to be supporting it, and several other distros have been released either with MATE as an alternative to or instead of GNOME 3. I’ve actually lost track.
What exactly is going on? Are that many people just really happy with MATE, Cinnamon, GNOME 3, and KDE4 to care about KDE3? Or is Trinity a victim all this excess competition in Linux desktops?
It’s also possible that there’s some requirement the Trinity devs have the bad luck to not meet. (eg. Maybe they don’t know who to ask or maybe Debian is currently fresh out of trusted package maintainers with free time.)
Either way, it’s a shame. I run their Ubuntu packages (they run their own copy of the launchpad build system) under a Lubuntu desktop and they’re an excellent workaround for the KDE 4 port of BasKet Note Pads being unusably buggy and the KDE 4 port of KAudioCreator being either nonexistant or not packaged for Ubuntu.
I think Hiev basically nailed it. While I hate the new Gnome interface, the problem is the philosophy of the design and not the technology. I suspect that there are a number of systems that Trinity doesn’t work with because its based on old technology. If they had forked Gnome 3 or KDE 4 they might have been in a better spot to be added to modern distros. As with any free environment, freedom does not guarantee making the right decisions. You are free to fail just as much as you are free to succeed.
The TDE site includes repos for Debian, Ubuntu, and a bunch of others.
Unfortunately, the Ubuntu PPA packages conflict with KDE4, so you can’t install them both to test.
This might be one of the reasons Trinity doesn’t get more love. MATE extensively renamed applications and libraries so they don’t clash with the newer equivalents in Gnome 3. I can imagine that distro maintainers aren’t too keen on a DE that wreaks havoc with one of the major ones.
There is a simple reason for that:
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2012/10/maintaining-history-d…
The Trinity project has forked Qt3 which all major distributions are getting rid off. It’s absolutely naive to think that a handful developers can maintain something as large as Qt and it’s even more naive to think that Debian and Co will re-adopt Qt3 just for the sake of Trinity.
Adrian
One of the main problem of Trinity is that it does not bring much value. Unlike between Gnome 2 and 3, where there is a huge difference, you can make KDE4 looks and feel almost like KDE3, while Gnome 3 is a radical change compared to Gnome 2.
It makes me suspect that there is limited user demands for trinity in comparison to MATE. I also suspect that the interest in MATE will fade once Cinnamon has matured a little bit more.
Maybe it’s a good product.
Personally I just start Razor-Qt with openbox as window-manager if I want a light-weight QT desktop.
For a all bells and whistles one with massive integration and blo^wsmart functionality for banging everything together I assume KDE 4 do the better work as long as you can throw enough RAM into it.
Aptly named, as both are inexplicable.
Wouldn’t have been easier to fork KDE4 and make it more like KDE3 instead?
No.
You are presenting such convincing arguments, I’m shock.
Hey, at least his “argument” to you wasn’t calling you a retard. That was basically my first encounter with him…
Anyway, they were able to do it with GNOME 2 (MATE); why would a KDE3 fork (Trinity) be able to work as well?
Edited 2012-10-16 02:23 UTC
You and Hiev, birds of a feather.
Because KDE3 did not have as much traction. Redhat/Fedora and Ubuntu focused on Gnome2. It’s just a question of popularity.
Edited 2012-10-16 08:19 UTC
Ubuntu or Fedora weren’t/aren’t everything in the Linux world. What about OpenSUSE, Mandriva/Mageia, PCLinuxOS, Kubuntu…
Also your typical KDE application use KDE functionality and as such I suppose a new version of one may not work with an older KDE environment.
Then you could argue that you can use Qt applications instead but yeah, then why run KDE in the first place?
Maybe it’s similar in the Gnome camp? I kinda have the feeling there’s more “GTK” applications and that they may or may not be that tightly integrated into Gnome and even if they used some things which has been developed for Gnome 3 it may be more separated from the complete project?
But I don’t really know. I don’t use Gnome.
OSnews fix your comment system!
Edited 2012-10-16 08:24 UTC
It seems to be cool and nice project. It gives you KDE 3 experience [which – in my opinion – was just great], it will be fast, responsive and clean, BUT … what about GTK3/QT4 integration? Besides – they are not releasing it on a regular basis, which – in my case – is not a good thing. I require regular releases to plan internal stuff. And I don’t trust projects which do release their stuff at any time. It just gives you a good overall view of their internal structure.
I’m surprised noone mentions this blog post:
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2012/10/maintaining-history-d…
Obviously Trinity is everything but not a successful fork.
Adrian
I wish Trinity supported Debian Testing. By now it is reasonable to assume that most Debian users use Testing.
Debian is currently completely getting rid of Qt3. It’s more likely that hell freezes over than Debian Testing getting any support for Trinity.
Adrian
I don’t think that’s a reasonable assumption. A lot of people use Stable plus backports (I do) A lot skip testing and jump right to Sid. I believe (I may be wrong) that Sid users out number Testing users, as most of the time the software in Sid is newer.
Testing is frozen ATM, thus it is a lot safer than Sid and a lot more recent than Stable.
P.S. Apologies. When Testing is frozen, there isn’t much change in Sid either.
Edited 2012-10-16 13:28 UTC
What do you mean most of the time. Software moves from sid to testing, not testing to sid.
I communicate with a lot of debian users and the trend I’ve noticed is most people using testing, then stable, then sid. Of course there’s no real way to know what the usage statistics are for certain but that’s what I observe.
Yes it does move from Sid to testing, that’s why after a few months after testing is released as stable, Sid has newer software, as it is where new software is vetted, and then eventually moved to Testing. It takes time to move from Sid to testing, hence in my experience you get newer software in Sid. As the freeze approaches, Sid and Testing begin to come closer together, as new software going into Sid slows down, and the process begins all over again
Not to dismiss the great work of these people, but if you want a traditional desktop in KDE.
Why not just set folderview as your desktop and switch to the classic menu style in KDE4?
I think that really hits on why Trinity hasn’t gained more adoption. When KDE4 first came out it was buggy, but the overall design was good. By the time the conservative distributions had adopted KDE4 most of the bugs were worked out. Running KDE4 with “low fat” settings and the classic desktop look is close enough to KDE3 in style that people can transition fairly easily. the only folks who are likely to use Trinity are those who are very stuck in their ways and who don’t mind dealing with dependency issues that arise from trying to run older software on a modern distro.
Agreed. KDE 4 feels like an attempt to make a better KDE 3, while neither gnome 3 nor unity were attempts to make a better gnome 2. Sure, they’re aiming to make a better desktop environment than gnome 2- but that’s not quite the same thing.
That is not even remotely the same thing. That’s the equivalent of saying “If you don’t like Vista just put an XP skin on it and call it XP”
That being said, a fork of KDE4 as Cinnamon did to Gnome 3 would be a better path. You could fix what is fundamentally broken by design in KDE4 and still benefit by what they did right.
I would say that is not only the looks, it is also the architecture, KDE4 comes with Activities, Nepomuk and other crap people don’t use and get in their way, KDE3 is better in this area.
I use KDE 4.9.2 currently, and I disable all that stuff, I disable Activities, Nepomuk, etc.
I also set folderview as my desktop layout and enable the classic menu style.
I couldn’t be happier with it.
I doubt it.
You doubt what?
I didn’t know activities could be disabled, I know you can get rid of plasma menu with a third party tool, If there is a way excuse my ignorance.
Nepomuk can be dissabled, sure, but you are limited to not use the applications that depend on it, cause as soon you start one you will have conflits or Nepomuk will be started automaticly, and since the use of Nepomuk is a trend in KDE applications it makes it more difficult to get rid of it.
Edited 2012-10-16 15:41 UTC
Yeah those things can be annoying, I wish there was a way to remove those components completely.
I don’t disable activities completely, I’m not aware also if there’s a way to do that, but if someone know please let me know.
What I do is, I disable Nepomuk and then I remove the activity icon in the taskbar, then after that I ignore activities completely, but it’s still there.
I also have a minimal install of KDE, that is, I install kdebase which provides the plasma shell, konqueror, dolphin, then after that I install amarok, phonon-vlc, etc.
Edited 2012-10-16 15:55 UTC
If only you could actually disable those. Even in 4.8 when I turn those off, every so often (often enough to annoy) I get a stack of 4 “error” messages saying that it failed because it was disabled.
Choosing a folder view for the desktop is fine unless you like double click to open behavior, and then its just jarring when the icons press and depress with each click.
Isn’t it the world upside down that you have to disable them to make your desktop usable?
Pathetic would be my choice of wording there.
I agree… in fact, I recall garbage like Nepomuk and Akonadi being the primary things that pissed me off and tarnished my view of KDE4’s stability since the early days. And I still occasionally see them crash, giving me bad memories of the original KDE 4.0.x, 4.1.x, and even 4.2.x (hint: everything about those series of releases sucked, though 4.2 sucked noticeably less–they were horrible; just the thought of them is a bad one). And even worse, neither service seems to be worth a damn or useful at all; we got by for years without them. And pretty much every other desktop to this day gets by without them and their crashes.
Because then you still have the additional overhead of CPU usage as well as much higher memory usage… KDE4 is still going to be KDE4, no matter how you have your desktop and icons set to behave.
You can much more comfortably run KDE3 on hardware with a less powerful processor and much less memory, and if you have more resources to spare, the desktop will breeze by while leaving much more memory for what really matters: your programs. All of this leads to a much better experience, with the desktop staying out of the way.
The main system I’m using has only 1GB memory and 64-bit AMD Athlon 3800+ dual-core processor from around 2006, so I’m not sure how well it behaves on more modern processors, but in my experience with what I have access to, KDE4–while tolerable–often irritates me with its performance. Sad, because KDE3 was pretty much the same minus all the additional eye candy, and made working on the computer quite pleasant.
openSUSE 12.2 managed to persuade me to give KDE4 another try (which I really do like, it’s just too… bloated), and I will most likely be switching to another desktop soon… probably back to either Xfce or Openbox. Currently considering which distros have the best implementations of each while having an underlying foundation that I don’t mind using.