Ars takes the KDE 4.2 release candidate out for a test drive on Windows. The popular open source desktop environment has moved beyond Linux and is becoming increasingly robust on other platforms. Even KDE's Plasma desktop shell is now Windows-compatible.<BR><BR><a href='http://meincmagazine.com/open-source/news/2009/01/testing-kde-42-release-candidate-on-windows.ars'>Read the whole story</a>
Hands on: testing the KDE 4.2 release candidate on Windows
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Can you please label the pictures with the different themes. It's hard to tell the difference and despite running KDE 4.1 myself I can't tell which is which.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Specter64:<BR>Can you please label the pictures with the different themes. It's hard to tell the difference and despite running KDE 4.1 myself I can't tell which is which. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>I added labels and made each image clickable so that you can see the full size one. I'm sorry about the image problems. The new Ars CMS makes screenshot tours almost impossible to execute and it's hard to work around the bugs. :-(
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I'm looking forward to the continuation of this project. I love KDE 4 on my Linux installation, and I would love to have the KDE desktop on my Windows installation. Plasma would be great for my grandmother who's eyesight has continued to fail over the past few years. Icon scaling would be awesome for her.<BR><BR><BR> I would like to see an offline installation for this, though. Has anyone tried copying over the KDE directory to another computer to see if it is completely self-contained?
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This is really interesting that KDE is installable in Windows, but with the news that even Linus dumped KDE after the 4.0 jump, I think that its market share in the linux community is doomed to shrink. <BR><BR>Unless it can manage some sort of über-killer app or something.
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That's kind of neat. I was afraid that a windows KDE port was going to start with plasma and go from there. It sounds like I can cherry pick Kate and Amarok and leave the rest out. Finding a good Windows text editor is so bloody hard.
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It's great to see Plasma is being ported, but for the time being I'm sticking with good ol' LiteStep.
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"This is really interesting that KDE is installable in Windows, but with the news that even Linus dumped KDE after the 4.0 jump, I think that its market share in the linux community is doomed to shrink."<BR><BR>GNOME seemed to do just fine even when Linus told that he urges everyone to use KDE and that he hates GNOME with a passion...<BR><BR>That said, I think the "Linus vs. KDE"-situation has bee quite overblown. He upgraded his distro, and the new version came with 4.0. He found it lacking, so he started using GNOME instead. Well, I don't blame him. But it could very well be that when he next time upgrades his distro and gets KDE 4.2 (or whatever) he will switch back. It just happens that he dislikes GNOME less that he dislikes KDE 4.0, which, when considering the quality of KDE 4.0, is not really a ringing endorsement for GNOME.<BR><BR>Linus does not hate KDE4, he hates KDE 4.0. As 4 matures a bit, he will probably switch back, IMO.
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<blockquote class="ip-ubbcode-quote">
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<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Rendering is much-improved in the latest version and there are no discernible display problems when I load Ars. </div>
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<br><br>Ryan, you missed a <b>glaring</b> render issue with Konqueror. Go back and look at the screenshot. It still displays the *old* version of Ars! -- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif --<br><br>-- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif --
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div>
<div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Rendering is much-improved in the latest version and there are no discernible display problems when I load Ars. </div>
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<br><br>Ryan, you missed a <b>glaring</b> render issue with Konqueror. Go back and look at the screenshot. It still displays the *old* version of Ars! -- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif --<br><br>-- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif --
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perhaps kde 4 requires ars v4 -- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif -- I had forgotten just how rounded ars v4 was. Shows how quickly I got into the look of v5, if not the feel.<br><br>Shame I'm running low on disc space on my work PC. I'd like to try Kate again.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">This is really interesting that KDE is installable in Windows, but with the news that even Linus dumped KDE after the 4.0 jump, I think that its market share in the linux community is doomed to shrink. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>But Mr Torvalds did also say:<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The GNOME people are talking about doing major surgery, so it could also go the other way. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Source:<BR><BR>http://www.computerworld.com/a...myId=18&pageNumber=5<BR><BR>That sounds possible. See previous Ars articles referring to Gnome and GTK:<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Developers have grown increasingly frustrated with the limitations of GTK+ and have started to evaluate proposals for remedying its weaknesses and adding more modern capabilities. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>http://meincmagazine.com/open-so...ed-and-explained.ars<BR><BR>And:<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">His proposal points out that the current version of GTK makes it difficult to achieve pixel-precise control of software design, doesn't permit overlapping elements, and isn't conducive to creating rich visual effects. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>http://meincmagazine.com/old/con.../reinventing-gtk.ars<BR><BR>Doubtless the Gnome people hopes the "major surgery" will go smoothly. But presumably the KDE people had hoped the same thing.<BR><BR>But rather than "the Linux Community" you should say in X Windows. KDE was never limited to machines running Linux anyway, but on anything that would run X - its the desktop of choice here for example:<BR><BR>http://www.pcbsd.org/<BR><BR>But now, it seems, KDE wants to be potentially capable of running <I>anywhere</I> - and not just limited to any Intel desktop/laptop either, I take it.<BR><BR>I've tried it "natively" - i.e. not in X11 - on OS X and it's terrible there - not really usable at all. (The Windows versions sounds like it's a fair bit more polished.) But I don't really know why anyone would want KDE on the Mac anyway (and if they did they could run it on an OS on which, currently at least, it was happier in Parallels or Fusion virtualization software). But I guess that's not the point: the point for KDE would seem to be not whether anyone would actually want it on any particular platform but that it <I>can</I> run anywhere.
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Nice article, informative and to the point. Thanks. What comes out of it is an important general point. We are going to get to the situation which exists in Linux in both Windows and OSX. That is, one in which the desktop environment, look and feel, can be chosen independently of the underlying OS. So much of the Mac/Windows wars have been about nothing more fundamental than the style and usage of a glorified pair of file managers. Well, just as with Linux, the argument is going to become available, you don't like the way it works, swap it out. Of course to two companies like Apple and MS where control of the user experience, and keeping it different from the other, is a key marketing strategy, this is going to be enormously threatening. Great for users however.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by wookiehangover:<BR>This is really interesting that KDE is installable in Windows, but with the news that even Linus dumped KDE after the 4.0 jump, I think that its market share in the linux community is doomed to shrink. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>We're talking about the KDE that just became responsible for the entire Brazillian education system right? 52 million schoolkids plus teachers, staff and whoever spreads word of mouth? I don't think KDE has much to worry about myself.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I had hoped that I would be able to take advantage of the Fish or SFTP KIO slaves, which make it possible to edit files on remote servers. When I tested this with Kate, it failed to load and displayed empty error dialogs. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>This completely kills it for me. I only want this so I can use Kate in Windows, but without this feature I'm better off with jEdit...
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Is there a WindowsXP theme that I can use?<br><br>-- View image here: http://episteme.meincmagazine.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_razz.gif --
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> We are going to get to the situation which exists in Linux in both Windows and OSX. That is, one in which the desktop environment, look and feel, can be chosen independently of the underlying OS. So much of the Mac/Windows wars have been about nothing more fundamental than the style and usage of a glorified pair of file managers. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>And that's completely backwards.<BR><BR>The only reason anyone would use a Mac <I>is</I> for the desktop environment. When did you last hear anyone say anything along the lines of, "I'm buying an Apple machine because I want to get Darwin 9.6.0" or "I just had to get a MacBook because XNU is such a great kernel"? No one cares and that's not what they're forking out for.<BR><BR>And, you know, there are <I>reasons</I> for this. It depends partly on the languages that are used and the possibilities they afford. Linked from MacSurfer just today:<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Every graphical environment works basically the same way: a user with a keyboard and pointing device drags on a window title bar, types into text input fields, drags scroll bars, and so forth and so on. Each graphical environment finds unique ways to deal with this: some use straight C, others use C++, and of course Apple use NeXT's Objective-C.. ... The target-action paradigm [used by OS X] together with the concept of the responder chain affords a flexible, dynamic, context sensitive way to process messages. It's the kind of thing you won't find on other platforms using procedural or 'pseudo-OO' languages and is unique in the GUI programming world of today. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>If you think what you wrote above about "file managers" is true it only shows you have little prolonged and deep experience with the different desktop environments in question and no clue as to what you can - and can't - do with them.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The only reason anyone would use a Mac is for the desktop environment </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Um, I thought that they use it because of the apps...<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">When did you last hear anyone say anything along the lines of, "I'm buying an Apple machine because I want to get Darwin 9.6.0" or "I just had to get a MacBook because XNU is such a great kernel"? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Not that often, but I do hear them say quite often that "I use OS X because it has iLife" and so forth. I have also heard some say "I use OS X because I like the way it works". Or "I use OS X because it has no viruses". <BR><BR>I have never heard anyone say "I use OS X because I like the dock!". If they said the latter, then they would be using it because of the desktop environment it provides.
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While I've never heard "I use OS X because I like the dock!", I have often heard "I use OS X because it is UNIX!" or similar. Personally, I refer to it as "UNIX with easy wireless." That said, I am in academia, specifically CS, so I certainly have a skewed perception of Mac users.
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A small correction: While a GPL'd Windows version of Qt only became available with Qt 4 in 2005 indeed (thus enabling the Windows porting efforts), the Mac version of Qt was actually released under the GPL quite a bit sooner, back in 2003. In fact, there also were attempts to build native Mac versions of Qt 3-based KDE 3 apps back then. <BR><BR>The reasons why the porting efforts really only took off with Qt 4 and KDE 4 are large-scale cleanups in kdelibs and the adoption of the CMake build system. And specifically with regards to Mac, Qt 4 has also massively improved on the Mac platform compared to Qt 3.
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Personally, I like this. And, once it gets a bit more mature, I'll send my Windows-using brother a link to it.<BR><BR>If there's a unified "look and feel" across platforms, then the underlying OS becomes even more irrelevant -- and thus, somebody who's gotten used to KDE-on-Windows doesn't have as much of a learning curve switching to Linux. Plus, I think KDE has one of the more intuitive setups out there; I'd still be using Kubuntu if it wasn't for persistent rendering errors on 4.1 (that, and the complete lack of add-on plasmoids).
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You would run KDE on Windows or MacOS for the same exact reason that<BR>you would run it on Linux. There is some KDE app that you like. You<BR>find that you like Amarok or K3B. Although it's not an "all or nothing"<BR>thing. That's something else that needs to be clear. You don't have to<BR>throw out everything you like about your current environment just to<BR>use a single "alien" application.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Sho:<BR>A small correction: While a GPL'd Windows version of Qt only became available with Qt 4 in 2005 indeed (thus enabling the Windows porting efforts), the Mac version of Qt was actually released under the GPL quite a bit sooner, back in 2003. In fact, there also were attempts to build native Mac versions of Qt 3-based KDE 3 apps back then. <BR><BR>The reasons why the porting efforts really only took off with Qt 4 and KDE 4 are large-scale cleanups in kdelibs and the adoption of the CMake build system. And specifically with regards to Mac, Qt 4 has also massively improved on the Mac platform compared to Qt 3. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>As well as being released under the LGPL, Qt 4.5 will also have a native Cocoa backend in addition to the previous Carbon backend on OSX. Though I don't know if this will have much practical effect beyond allowing 64-bit Qt apps on OSX.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cro Magnon:<BR>And, you know, there are <I>reasons</I> for this. It depends partly on the languages that are used and the possibilities they afford. Linked from MacSurfer just today:<BR><BR><BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Every graphical environment works basically the same way: a user with a keyboard and pointing device drags on a window title bar, types into text input fields, drags scroll bars, and so forth and so on. Each graphical environment finds unique ways to deal with this: some use straight C, others use C++, and of course Apple use NeXT's Objective-C.. ... The target-action paradigm [used by OS X] together with the concept of the responder chain affords a flexible, dynamic, context sensitive way to process messages. It's the kind of thing you won't find on other platforms using procedural or 'pseudo-OO' languages and is unique in the GUI programming world of today. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR> </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Isn't the signals and slots system in Qt (the GUI toolkit underlying KDE) a somewhat similar dynamic binding as the message passing in Objective-C? That being said, AFAIK Qt doesn't have an equivalent of the "responder chain" in NeXTstep, but again AFAICS this is due to the toolkit design, not something inherent in the ObjC language. However, Qt signals can be connected to an arbitrary number of slots whereas ObjC actions can only be bound to a single target, so I suppose you could emulate some kind of responder chain in Qt if you wanted. <BR><BR>Anyway, I'm far from an expert on GUI development, so what do I know..
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Hi.<BR><BR>Couple of quick dolphin questions:<BR>1) Last time I installed dolphin (4.1.3) on winxp, search was painfully slow. How is it now?<BR>2) I was unable to permanently add locations to the quick-bookmark column on the side because of bad path apparently hard coded into dolphin (something like /usr//.local/something). Is that fixed in 4.2RC?<BR><BR>thanks,<BR>john
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by The Kings Raven:<BR>We're talking about the KDE that just became responsible for the entire Brazillian education system right? 52 million schoolkids plus teachers, staff and whoever spreads word of mouth? I don't think KDE has much to worry about myself. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Well, given that they probably haven't run KDE3, it might actually work for them.<BR><BR>I've been a KDE user for more than 10 years, and I have to say: KDE4 is a clusterfucking abortion. Shit is missing, and when it isn't missing it's broken.. What a disappointment. It's worse than what MS did with Office.
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Easy dude! They are working on it. If you have a suggestion or a bug, report it.
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WTF would anyone want to hang the colostomy bag that is WinBlows XP on the side of a nice, clean<BR>GUI like KDE???<BR><BR>Like dressing a hog in a Brooks Brothers suit.<BR><BR>Just grow a pair, read Welch and Werzenius' "Running Linux", and start running a <I>REAL</I> OS.
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>WTF would anyone want to hang the colostomy bag that is WinBlows XP on the side <BR>> of a nice, clean GUI like KDE???<BR><BR>Because Windows is the best place for open source. Everything is better on Windows. Only OSS crusaders and posers would settle on inferior platforms like BSD and Lunix.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by M8R-n7iecd:<BR>WTF are you talking about? This isn't 4.2RC it's 4.1.96. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>4.1.96 = 4.2 RC<BR><BR>More details here: http://windows.kde.org/news.ph...CforWindowsavailable<BR><BR>and here: http://www.kde.org/info/4.1.96.php
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I've been a KDE user for more than 10 years, and I have to say: KDE4 is a clusterfucking abortion. Shit is missing, and when it isn't missing it's broken.. What a disappointment. It's worse than what MS did with Office. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>Are you talking about KDE4 as a whole or some individual release of KDE4? Because while your words talk of KDE4, your comments seem to be about the latter. I mean, you might find KDE4.0 or 4.1 to be lacking, but does that mean that KDE4 as a whole is lacking? No. Do we judge KDE3 based on KDE3.0?<BR><BR>And I do assume that you have filed bug-reports?<BR><BR>That said, you really should give 4.2 a try. they have fixed and added A LOT of stuff. The amount of progress KDE has made in a year is staggering.
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I'm a Linux/KDE guy who's stuck in Windows for work (I have a laptop that is so bogged down by security utilities that it takes like ~9 minutes just to reboot). Let me just say that having access to Kate in Windows is AWESOME! Notepad++ is OK but why settle for less when your favorite editor is available? =)<BR><BR>IMHO, the Windows port of KDE actually has serious potential for use in Enterprise environments (as opposed to just geeks and hobbyists). Once they've got Kontact ported and stable that will enable IT departments to have ONE Outlook-like PIM app to support across all platforms that has a consistent look-and-feel. Menus and options will always be in the same place whether you're on Linux, a Mac, or in Windows and that can save a lot of time and money with support calls (not to mention the money saved in licensing costs).<BR><BR>I know it is a long-term thing that will require new releases fixing bugs and adding certain key features (Exchange/MAPI protocol support) but I'm hopeful that the KDE team will get there. In the mean time I'll do my part by adding bug reports and adding helpful comments to existing ones (and voting =). I recommend everyone else do the same (and if you can code in C++ go to it!).<BR><BR>-Riskable<BR>http://riskable.com<BR>"I have a license to kill -9"
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Actually, Gnome's making some impressive strides in getting Evolutions Exchange/Outlook compatibility to an Almost-Ready-for-Prime Time status.<BR><BR> When there is finally a viable FOSS alternative to Outlook/Entourage, I firmly believe that will be the beginning of the end of MicroLimp's dominance of enterprise desktops
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