 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 261, 14 July 2008 |
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Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! It's been a slow distro week, but not completely dead. We've had a few releases, several developmental releases, and a bit of news. We also have a guest writer with us this morning, Maurice Lawles. You might know Maurice from his TechieMoe website and hard-hitting distro reviews. Today he shares some of his thoughts on the KDE 4 situation.
All this and more in this week's DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!
Content:
 Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (14MB) and mp3 (13MB) formats (many thanks to Russ Wenner)
 Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch
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| Feature Story |
A Fork in the Road, with No Clear Direction?
(by Maurice Lawles)
There's been quite some controversy over the recent release of KDE 4, which brought with it sweeping changes to the way many very basic things work, including such fundamental elements as how icons are dealt with on the desktop (broadly speaking, they're not). Volleys have been thrown from one side and the next and casualties have been suffered, but one thing remains clear: the KDE development team is sticking to their guns. KDE 4 is here to stay.
The inclusion of KDE 4.0 in several major distribution releases (Fedora 9, openSuSE 11) has brought the new baby to unprecedented numbers of people, many of whom have noted that it's missing a few limbs here and there. 4.1 is supposed to fix that. There are those who are skeptical.
In light of this debacle, there are quite a few Linux folks out there wondering what the future may hold for their choice desktop. For those in the KDE 3.5 camp, a hard decision awaits. Do we hold on to 3.5 as long as possible and perhaps hope it will be forked? Do we embrace the new (warts and all) and trust that the KDE team knows what's best in the long run? Or do we consider jumping to another ship entirely? If you're unsure about where you might go, consider the alternatives.
Please note that I'm in no way trying to give an exhaustive overview of all the available desktop alternatives here. That would be (for lack of a better term) exhausting. I'm just hitting the more popular and feature-complete ones.
KDE 3.5
Yes, for the moment there is no "drop dead" date for KDE 3.5, so it's still a viable alternative if you're not a fan of Plasmoids. This version of KDE is still standard in Kubuntu 8.04 and comes as an option in most of the large distributions out there (openSuSE 11, Fedora 9). You will, of course, have to be okay with the idea that at some unspecified point in the future support for the 3.5.x branch will go away.
Gnome
The Gnome desktop is stable and feature-rich. It is the default in several high-profile distributions such as Ubuntu and Redhat Enterprise Linux. The interface is simple (sometimes frustratingly so). It's well-maintained and hasn't changed dramatically for a while. This is both a blessing and a curse. There are many long-term Gnome users (myself included) who are simply getting bored with it. No earth-shattering improvements have shown up in the last few releases. End-users know what to expect and we get it: nothing more, nothing less. Where is an adventurous Linuxer to go?
Enlightenment
It's not the standard desktop, or even available as a default choice in most of the major distributions out there, but it certainly can't be called boring. Enlightenment prides itself in making things interesting. There's even a LiveCD designed specifically to show off all its bells and whistles. If you're an Ubuntu fan, there's an off-shoot, OpenGEU that comes with it preinstalled and configured. In my personal experience, getting it pre-packaged is the way to go. Enlightenment is highly configurable, but the sheer number of configuration options can confuse the uninitiated.
The Lightweights
Gnome and KDE 3.5 offer not only a desktop but a suite of applications that go with it. Not everyone buys into that, and for them I present the Lightweights. They won't tax your RAM, your CPU, or your patience, just offer the bare minimum and stay out of your way.
The desktop of choice for the Xubuntu project, XFce is somewhere between a full desktop environment and just a window manager. It can be configured to use fewer resources than KDE or Gnome, but still offers creature comforts to those used to more resource-intensive GUIs.
When I really want to shut off the world and get geeky, I tend to use Fluxbox. It's minimal, configurable, and uses an incredibly small amount of RAM (less than 5 MBs on some of my systems). It sports an impressive collection of themes as well. It has a minimal number of distractions for when I really want to dig in and get work done.
FVWM is another small-footprint window manager I've run into from time to time. It's available as a failsafe session on some distributions, but it can be quite useful in its own right. Some lightweight Linux distributions use it to offer a more traditional application menu than Fluxbox. It can even be made to imitate other operating systems.
If your aesthetic taste lies somewhere closer to 1993, you might consider GNUStep, an OSS implementation of OpenStep. I've successfully run this on an old Acer Aspire (with a whopping 4MB video device) that I was given when someone cleaned out their garage. If it can work with those limited resources, anything of the Pentium II line and above should have no issues.
Conclusion
History will have to determine whether the changes made in KDE 4 are the right ones. Events like this are not without precedent in the open-source community. There's a real possibility that KDE's developers will build functionality in the future to better imitate what many people grew to love about KDE 3.5. At this point it's too early to tell.
The road to the next stable version of KDE is rocky, but perhaps instead of complaining that it hurts our feet we should consider an alternate path. Unlike some other operating systems, a Linux user need never be forced to use a desktop that no longer fits their needs. There are a number of excellent choices out there for those willing to explore.
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| Miscellaneous News |
Gentoo's False Start, Debian Day 2008, openSUSE Build Service 1.0
 The release of openSUSE's Build Service generated quite a bit of buzz around the Internet last week. The Build Service allows developers to create and maintain packages for openSUSE and several other Linux distributions. This 1.0 milestone expands its scope to building the entire openSUSE release and allows access to the entire distribution as the developers' full working copy is available. So, it's not just for developers anymore. Check out the full announcement on that if interested. In other news, openSUSE will be at the LinuxWorld Expo being held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on August 6. If you're in the area, you might want to stop by their first openSUSE Day. Learn all about openSUSE and pick up some nice swag too. Here's the full schedule for those lucky attendees.
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 Mandriva had a little oopsie with their GUADEC Spring Flash keys. If you were one of the lucky recipients, you'll have to fix it before you can install it and you might have to restart the display manager the first run. Oh well, at least it was a gift. And speaking of Mandriva and gifts, you might be able to win a Mandriva Flash (one of the fully functioning versions) if you'd like to offer some feedback. Mandriva says, "Mandriva wants to know its users better, so we're giving you the floor. We're opening a completely anonymous questionnaire for you to give your views on your favorite distribution. By giving a little of your time you can help us improve our products and services." You only have until July 17, so if you use Mandriva take the survey soon.
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 Debian Day 2008 is coming August 16 to commemorate Debian's 15th birthday. Celebrations are planned all around the world. Brazil is right on ball with four planned events so far and Portugal is planning one in Aveiro. Time is running short, but I hope we see more countries celebrating one of most important projects in Open Source. Thank you Mr. Murdock, and Happy Birthday Debian!
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 Ubuntu posted their UDS Intrepid Report on their wiki summarizing some of the plans cooking for the upcoming 8.10 release. Some of the current ideas include fixing bugs in Xorg 1.5, new features for Wubi, improved Flash support, improved Firefox KDE integration, faster boot times, and OpenOffice.org 3.0. Keep an eye on the wiki page if you'd like to follow the developments.
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 After the long awaited Gentoo 2008.0 release, many users were disappointed to find they weren't able to use it. The LiveCD for x86/amd64 couldn't copy the kernel when installing the system and the LiveCD for AMD64 wouldn't even fit on a standard 700 MB CD without overburning. Revisions were posted quickly, but not fast enough for some. Robbat2 posted some rough download numbers for this release. He calculates the total number of downloads to be 106450 so far.
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 Red Hat has announced a planned outage of their bugzilla.redhat.com servers on August 2nd, 2008 from 9:00 AM EST to 5:00 PM EST in order to update to the latest upstream code base. The announcement states, "During this time the web servers will be reinstalled with the latest OS updates as well as the latest Bugzilla code. Also the database servers will undergo a data migration to be made compatible with the latest Bugzilla code. The web UI, database, and all XMLRPC services will be unavailable during the migration." For those effected, please plan around that.
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 Speaking of KDE 4, Sebastian Kügler of the KDE e.V. Board of Directors addressed many of the concerns so loudly voiced last few months. Publishing an extensive article on Groklaw Friday, Kügler answers such criticisms as releasing 4.0 was a mistake, KDE needs to drop Plasma, and KDE needs a fork. See that full article for answers to these concerns and much more.
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| Released Last Week |
Absolute Linux 12.1.02
Paul Sherman has announced the release of Absolute Linux 12.1.02, the second bug-fix and security update of the stable 12.1 series: "Absolute Linux 12.1.02. Changes: Firefox updated to 3.0, this necessitated installation of XULRunner 1.9, which can also subsequently be used to build Firebird and other applications; MPlayer plugin on Firefox 3 is a wash - had to go with gecko-mplayer; updated PCMan File Manager with much more robust handling of file types; added isomaster for working with CD image files; added KFileReplace; added a few games (Monsterz, LBreakout2, Njam and BumpRace); added scripts and desktop files to convert FLV and OGG video to AVI; added lshw, along with script (run_lshw) that outputs in HTML format and opens the results in Links; updated to xorg-server 1.4.2; Fox (toolkit) and Fluxbox moved to CD2." Read the rest of the changelog for further details.
Absolute Linux 12.1.02 Desktop
(full image size: 51kB, screen resolution: 1280x800 pixels)
GoblinX 2.7
Flavio Pereira de Oliveira announced the availability of GoblinX 2.7 Standard, a Slackware-based desktop distribution and live CD: "After more than four months of development, as GoblinX 2.6 was released at February 18, we are pleased to announce the availability of the new stable edition... It includes five Windows Managers: KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, Enlightenment and WindowMaker. Main upgrades since rc01 edition: Corrected some small errors and bugs. Upgraded some packages and libraries, including some security fixes. Added extra folders to be used as package repository. Added media package repository to Slapt-getrc. Added interface to build module with Slapt-get help. Added GUI for deactivate script to let anyone remove modules of the livecd. Added directly autologin to Xorg as user for the installed system. Added package upgrade check to Xfce panel with Xfce4-smartpm-plugin." Visit the project's news page for the full announcement.
LinuxConsole 1.0.2008
Yann Le Doarè announced a new release of LinuxConsole, an independently developed, modular Linux live CD: "This '1.0.2008' release has been built from a new toolchain based on gcc 4.2.2 and glibc 2.7. The 2.4 kernel is not available for that release, but you can continue using 2007 ISOs if you have to install linuxconsole on very old computers. The kernel is 2.6.25.4, patched with squashfs (module format for linuxconsole) and aufs (can write on modules). Since bootsplash is obsolete, usplash replaces it. GNOME is available in 2.20 release, since it's very stable; an update to 2.22 will be available soon. KDE is in 3.5.9 release, but not present on CD (not enough disk space). You can install it with modules manager or wait the 'DVD' release... DVD release will be ready in September." Visit the project's home page to read the full release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Reviewed Last Week |
Among the reviews noted last week Linux.com concentrated on two small flexible distributions that have gained a lot of respect in Linux circles. CodingExperiments.com looked at Foresight Linux 2.0.2.1 and PlanetOSS reviewed SabayonLinux 3.5. And not surprisingly, the new Mandriva 2009.0 Alpha 2 got tested as well.
* On SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0 Linux.com concludes: The SliTaz developers have redefined what a micro GNU/Linux distribution can and should be, even if the developer's goals for the distribution may not be the same as the goals of a normal desktop or laptop user, who might expect wireless support, as well as video, office, and email applications by default. Not everything works perfectly -- for example, the Tazpkg package manager file dependencies and the Flash plugin for Firefox. However, Slitaz 1.0 does provide a fast, responsive, stable, and workable GNU/Linux system usable on older PCs. It also seems to be a great distribution to use as a rescue CD or to use as a baseline GNU/Linux system where you choose what additional packages you want to include. (It even includes a tool called Tazlito to create your own distribution.) The good impressions left by this first release guarantee that I'll be following further releases with keen interest.
* On Puppy Linux 4.00 they said: Puppy seems to have an application for just about every need already included. There are also hundreds of additional programs available for download via the Petget utility. The new Puppy 4.00 release is the cat's meow. Puppy Linux 4.00 is fast, reliable (on my systems it ran for days with no issue), has good wireless support, new scanner tools that work well, all the necessary multimedia codecs, and has a minimalistic yet usable approach that allows older computers to be functional machines again. Puppy also excels as a rescue CD or OS. Puppy also has good documentation.
* CodingExperiments.com wasn't very impressed with Foresight Linux 2.0.2.1. They had trouble with the installer as well as disappointment in the GUI: The installation process was fairly linear and simple, with an attractive theme. However, I am not happy with the partitioning system. I also specified to use the GRUB bootloader instead of the default EXTLINUX. I rebooted, and got, instead of a bootloader? "err3err4". Huh? I tried the installation again. This time, I left the bootloader with EXTLINUX, and everything worked fine.
Post-installation I briefly had a sense of relief, as things appeared only gone uphill from there, especially compared to the nightmares that I endured with 2.0. I had a window manager after the installation (metacity), and the package manager was a little bit better in terms of telling me what?s going on. So, yeah. That illusion was partially shattered when I rebooted.
* PlanetOSS reviewed the Gentoo-based SabayonLinux 3.5. They had this to say: The live DVD booting is a lot faster than the previous versions. This version also sports a new boot/installation/desktop themes. I was able to get the 3D effects running with just a single click.
Sabayon team developed a unique binary package management which makes it easy to install updates and applications. Entropy has a cursor based front-end "equo" and a GUI based front end "Spritz". The Spritz simplifies adding, removing and updating packages. The update notifier helps the users to update the system with three mouse clicks.
SabayonLinux 3.5 provides a truly "out of the box" experience. Sabayon brings the highly technical Gentoo to the masses. Though Sabayon may not be best suited for a first time Linux user, I highly recommend Sabayon for the users with some Linux experience.
Within hours of Mandriva's 2009 Alpha 2 release, three sites posted initial looks. Softpedia.com gave us lots of nice screenshots and a run-down of expected features while Blogbeebe dug a bit deeper to dredge up some early shortcomings. Lxer posted a first impression.
* Softpedia.com said: Mandriva 2009 brings KDE4 (default desktop), GNOME 2.23.4, and support for the newest NVIDIA and ATI/AMD video cards. Some of the interesting features that will be introduced [are] Linux kernel 2.6.26, GCC 4.3, Firefox 3.0, OpenOffice.org 3.0, revamped installer, and improved boot speed. There are also some rumors that X.org 7.4 and GRUB2 will be included.
* Blogbeebe wrote: Nobody seems to really dig in and use the distribution. If they did, they might discover that many of the latest distributions aren't just pretty, but pretty useless. Alpha 2 is also supposed to ship with the latest video drivers for both ATI and nVidia, which means that it should also support Compiz. Unfortunately alpha 2 did not, even though the current [stable] version of Mandriva does, and quite well. The first problem with this release is that I can't see /home directories. I then brought up Firefox and discovered that at least for KDE alpha 2 is still at version 2.0.0.15. And finally there's System Settings which I offer as but one example of the lack of polish in the KDE 4/4.1 desktop. Who knows when the situation will improve.
* Lxer posted:
All in all I'm impressed, both with Mandriva 2009.0, and it's only an Alpha release, and KDE4. Never thought I'd say that.
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| DistroWatch.com News |
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As you probably noticed, Ladislav is on his much needed vacation this week and I'm filling in. Some of you might remember me from last year. I'm Susan Linton and I'll be with you doing the weekly newsletter for the next few weeks. Thank you for your patience and continued support while Ladislav is away. If you'd like to share any good distro news in the next few weeks, you may email me at srlinuxx at gmail dot com.
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DistroWatch database summary
And this concludes the latest issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next installment will be published on Monday, 21 July 2008.
Susan Linton
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • KDE 4 and Groklaw's article (by Leo on 2008-07-14 12:02:59 GMT from United States)
The more I read about this, including the groklaw article, the more clear it becomes. All this little mess could have been avoided if KDE 4.0 had been released, as it was, at the time it was, but under a different name, maybe KDE 4.0_PREVIEW or something, that's all. A very explicit name. The chosen name, typically associated with golden releases, was too tempting, for some distros, not to jump into.
I think it was a mistake, made by the wonderful people who built the wonderful KDE desktop I enjoy in all my computers. In the end, this is a non-issue for me, and a negative but not a huge deal for the project.
2 • Wow (by Alan B. Cohen on 2008-07-14 12:04:18 GMT from United States)
So, nobody else is awake yet? Thanks!
3 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-07-14 12:07:24 GMT from Canada)
i like kde4
4 • please be patient (by arno911 on 2008-07-14 12:14:15 GMT from Germany)
KDE 4.0 was never meant to be used, but rather testet.
4.1 may work better, and have more apps ported, but will surely not be seen on my box.
4.2 is probably the first really usable and almost complete KDE4 experience. those of you, who dont wanna test but use the Desktop, be patient. I think it will be a great Desktop, 2009 will be the year of KDE.
GNOME has nothing to compete.
Mandriva 's 2nd Alpha can almost be seen as beta. Well balanced "cutting edge" and "solid as a rock". its gonna be a wonderful Distro.
Im pretty sure the next sidux will be better than Erebos. (Especially the XFCE Version, which has some small glitches in the current Version, will surely kick ass.)
Sabayon and Absolute: This used to be a good choice: a pimped up Gentoo and a pimped up Slackware. Technically, I cant complain: but, imho, both have been good looking Distris. Looking at the default Desktops now, imho its plain ugly. Another very good Distro, but looking like its made for a Kindergarten, is Myah OS.
PLease, go, look for a Designer in your communities!
b.r.
arno911
5 • KDE4 has still a long way to go (by karellen on 2008-07-14 12:15:28 GMT from Romania)
I've tried the opensuse's implementation of KDE 4 and I was dissapointed by the overall look and feel; not to mention bugs (like the taskbar or whatever they call it now disappearing for good after changing the resolution). I'm waiting for the final release which is due lately this month, but I'm not too optimistic. for now KDE 4 seems like a stripped down version of KDE 3.5. I fail to understand why the KDE team chose this path (of reinventing the wheel) instead of focusing on KDE 3.5, which I find a very good, feature-rich and stable DE. just my 0.02$
6 • On two recent releases (by Dr. W T Zhu on 2008-07-14 12:16:39 GMT from China)
(1) Mandriva Linux 2009.0 Alpha 2
In my humble opinion, Mandriva made a mistake in there announcement. That's why I noted in http://distrowatch.com/4987 that it was "unexpectedly announced as 2009 Spring Alpha 2".
(2) Sabayon Pod x86/x86-64 3.5
It seems that on July 7, the Sabayon team announced a Pod 3.5 release (http://www.sabayonlinux.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14081). If so, that's a couple of days before Ladislav's departure, and I'm not sure why it was not reported on DistroWatch. Has anyone tried that?
7 • most perverse distrowatch story (by Anonymous on 2008-07-14 12:17:11 GMT from France)
it basically boils down to, let's exploit the present trouble that the KDE is going through, to hurt it as much as one can...
this behavior towards a free software project made by volunteers disgusts me...
Listen, KDE 4.1 is out in 3 weeks, KDE 4.2 is out in 6 or 7 monthes.
So whatever deficiencies the KDE 4.0 release had, will soon be forgotten, and are not a good indicator of the current state of this project. If you want to see how KDE is doing then follow KDE trunk (which is already heading toward 4.2 as 4.1 has already branched), not the first immature release from 6 monthes ago.
8 • kde4 (by gnomeuser on 2008-07-14 12:20:45 GMT from Austria)
I have to say that kde4 and plasma are a huge step forward concerning usability
nepomuk is great too
KDE4 developers
I will probably change my default working environment as soon as kde 4.1 hits stable because I really like the way kde4 puts up with things I don't like with kde 3.5 and gnome
9 • for Anonymous (by karellen on 2008-07-14 12:27:53 GMT from Romania)
so what you're basically saying is that an open source project is above criticism? interesting...
then why do we need users after all? I suppose the developers know better and they should play alone :)
I am a die hard KDE fan, using it since suse 9.2 professional, but that doesn't mean I am blind. as I said, the KDE guys hyped KDE 4.0 (and now 4.1) like a final stable revolutionary release. if it's not ready, why make it the default DE in the last mainstream distros like opensuse and Fedora?
stability is one thing and the ability to customize it is another. 4.1 may be stable when it's released, but if I remember correctly the developers said there won't be any additional features until the final release. the those actual feature I found lacking. that's all, my opinion, my likes and dislikes. nobody should love something just because it's new and different
10 • KDE4 will do just fine (by simfox on 2008-07-14 12:28:26 GMT from United States)
KDE4 is under heavy development and will emerge in time as an excellent desktop environment. I don't buy the bleatings of the nay-sayers who jump on a project as ambitious as KDE4 before all the kinks are worked out, and (without offering an ounce of their own effort) condemn the entire endevour or grip about particulars.
I'm still using KDE 3.5.x but I have kept a close eye on KDE4 development and have noted how Aaron and others have tried to steer expectations. I also try it out on occasion, and have not yet made the shift. But I'm excited about what I see, and will certainly change when the time is right.
--Simfox
11 • #7 - perverse? (by Susan on 2008-07-14 12:29:20 GMT from United States)
I think you are reading it wrong. As I understood it, Maurice was simply saying 'if you don't like KDE 4, either wait until it's polished more or use something else.' I don't have a problem with it.
12 • KDE-4.x (by Pig_Pen on 2008-07-14 12:34:12 GMT from United States)
i agree the release of KDE-4 was premature, and agree with the poster that said it should have been called "KDE 4.0_PREVIEW"
i am sure KDE-4.x will improve to be quite usable and good looking, but i will wait until it gets in to Slackware or Debian Stable, so it will probably be a few years before i try it installed on the harddrive, maybe later this year a liveCD or bootable USB thumb drive will suffice for just trying out and to watch the progress, i been a KDE fanboy since KDE-2.1.1 and am currently enjoying KDE-3.5.9 for its rock solid stability and ease of use, KDE has been around for a long while and i am sure they will work the bugs out of 4.x making it just as good as previous revisions...
13 • "I'm in no way trying to give an exhaustive overview..." (by Tony Johnson on 2008-07-14 12:36:42 GMT from Russian Federation)
Why have you bypassed LXDE? Is it so raw? I'd really like to read a review or opinion about it.
14 • KDE4 and Sabayon (by Snowman on 2008-07-14 12:37:09 GMT from United States)
I've been a Sabayon user for the last year and a half. I have to say it's my favorite distro. I like the fact that everything worked for me right off the bat. It not being a distro for new users is not really true. I've introduced it to brand new Linux users and they like it better than Ubuntu, SUSE and various other distros.
Kde4 is nice but not for me. I prefer the old 3.5.x but it doesn't mean I wouldn't give it more tries. I think XFCE is by far a better choice.
15 • KDE4 (by michael on 2008-07-14 12:41:15 GMT from Germany)
I agree with Maurice: if you don't like KDE4, don't use it. What bothers me is, that people complain about minimal issues ("wtf, I can't move icons in my panel???") that are about to beeing resolved, but fail to see the great innovations under the hood like phonon, solid, use of svg etc.
I am using KDE 4.1 on openSUSE 11 (factory-repo) and every time I upgrade my packages (btw: the new package-management rocks!) I'm thrilled to see the newest improvements. KDEs speed of developement is awsome at the moment. Can't wait to see all those apps that use those new technologies (e.g. amarok2).
16 • KDE4.0 in Opensuse 11.0 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-14 12:47:13 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think that many of the people writing angry rants about KDE4.0 not being stable or having been release too early are people who haven't actually used it. The KDE4.0 in Opensuse 11.0 seems to be very well configured, stable and feature-rich enough for me to do my day-to-day business.
I'm glad it is out in the open and being used and developed. The developers seem to have a good roadmap of ideas and are moving the Linux desktop forward.
17 • Openbox (by GODhack on 2008-07-14 12:49:24 GMT from Lithuania)
The Lightweights:
OpenBox!
18 • No subject (by anonnymouse on 2008-07-14 12:55:28 GMT from United Kingdom)
The problem with KDE 4 is that some distros have included it for end users when it has not yet been described as ready for such usage by KDE.org: the only people using it should be those that want to test or develop against it.
Once that is understood, then you will see that there is no problem with KDE 4 because it is not at the "release to normal users" stage.
19 • KDE 4.0 (by Matt on 2008-07-14 12:59:30 GMT from Denmark)
It is true that kde 4 isn't a stable and feature rich as 3.5 - yet.
It has however brought one glearing improvement: Speed. KDE 4 uses ressources much more efficiently than e.g. GNOME does. For that the developers deserve credit! Once KDE 4 has matured that will give it an important edge.
Personally I also like the KDE 4 design, but that is a matter of preferences.
20 • KDE4 (by Carl on 2008-07-14 13:01:00 GMT from Spain)
Everyone who says that KDE 4.0 was released as a final version is WRONG. That is not my opinion, it is a fact.
Everyone who says KDE 4 has abandoned support the traditional desktop paradigm is also wrong.
KDE 4 is under development. Release early, release often. Ring a bell??
Redesign means revolution. If you do not want to be part of the revolution, do not use it yet. But I find the Editorial tendentious and very much to be interpreted as an anti KDE piece. Maybe it was not intended to be so, but the writer is part of the open source movement and should at least know that what is happening right now in KDE is utterly logical and necessary.
21 • Sabayon 3.5 (by gurito on 2008-07-14 13:05:42 GMT from Germany)
Well, yeah, I agree, the distro is cool... But... Am I the only one noticing that it needs much RAM? I mean, alone Nautilus uses 6.7% of my main memory (1024MB) all the time... Why? WHY?
22 • Weakest DW weekly ever! (by Udo on 2008-07-14 13:08:19 GMT from Germany)
KDE 3.5 is still maintained. FYI 3.5.10 will be out in august. So there is really no point to the whole whining ..
Just use 3.5.10 or 3.5.11 until KDE4 suits your needs, but stop the girly whining already.
23 • kde4 and common sense (by dbrion on 2008-07-14 13:11:50 GMT from France)
In 2003, when I wanted to have linux installed on my desktop, I ask what to do and which desktop to choose and was answered "add some RAM, as it is more greedy than W98, and choose KDE,as it is less buggy than gnome" . One year later, perhaps I would have been advised to use gnome, as bugs are a transient (or perpetual, if one is realistic) state and need to be detected..and , if it is not tested, bugs never will get detected/fixed.
I know that, if one wants something without bugs, the best way is to wait for 1 year after it considered as stable....
I noticed (from Mandriva Spring 2008.1, as it was in an alpha state) that, from the beginning, once it was installed, one could choose between gnome, kde and icewm (unlike Ubu linux : some kind of antirelease anonouncements gMandriva, Kmandriva and Xmandriva without installing 3 times) and I found it very pleasant, as one could be comfortable with the DE one is accustomed to, try another desktop and have a 3rd desktop CTRW WM when one needs much RAM.
Do other distributions offer this kind of choice?
Was this feature (it is even more useful *now*) kept?
24 • @ 22----->+1 (by Made my day! on 2008-07-14 13:12:11 GMT from Australia)
>>>Just use 3.5.10 or 3.5.11 until KDE4 suits your needs, but stop the girly whining already.>>>
:-)
25 • Qu 22 Why do you whine about DWW this week? (by dbrion on 2008-07-14 13:23:05 GMT from France)
"stop the girly whining already."
There were rather common sense advices and links (even to a DE/WM I do not know => for the 1rst time of the year, it taught me something).
"Weakest DW weekly ever!"
Did you compare it to 6 previous releasees in {May, June, early July} this year? For seriousness, usability of info?
26 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-14 13:38:56 GMT from United States)
I'd like to comment on this idea that "You can't complain because it's a free software project. They're volunteers."
Believe me, we have every right to complain. The developers might be putting the project out there for download free of charge, but who cares about that?
Criticism of free software projects is done from the perspective of users. It may be a free download, but it's not free to use. Potential users should be warned of the problems they will face. Furthermore, it's impossible to separate the "users" from the "developers". Publicizing the problems might lead someone to fix them.
Or we could take the approach of sticking our head in the sand and saying "if it's free we should just accept lower quality software". Quite an insult to anyone who has contributed to the free software world. Low quality contributions waste the time of users and give other projects a bad name.
Let's stop spreading the myth that all of open source is done in Mom's basement after school lets out. A lot of the developers of free software projects are being paid to put out professional quality software. Microsoft and Adobe love that myth.
27 • For those interested in trying e17, another e17 Ubuntu-based distro is OzOS (by earlycj5 on 2008-07-14 13:50:26 GMT from United States)
OpenGEU is an interesting hybrid of Gnome and e17, OzOS is strictly e17 and based on Xubuntu to be exact.
OzOS webpage -> http://cafelinux.org/OzOs/
It's a very nicely done setup. The developers are friendly and helpful.
Enough with that, I'm typing this in Firefox which is displayed on my OpenSUSE 11.0 desktop with KDE 4.0. I dunno, I have mixed feelings about it. At first it seemed complete and nice but then the little things crept in. Kontact is still flaky and crashes, I have two separate panels, one on each monitor and the task manager on the left never displays the windows properly. It squishes it down into this tiny space despite having nothing at all constricting it to the right of where it's placed on the panel.
Other little gafs sent me back to KDE 3.5.9 on my Mini-Note, aside from not having Oxygen themes, it looks pretty much the same and functions better for me there.
I like the direction that they're taking KDE4 but it's not what I want to use on a regular basis yet.
28 • Constructive criticism instead of griping (by benjamin72070 on 2008-07-14 13:51:22 GMT from United States)
I think the point that everyone s missing is that in the open source community, the users that don't like the current state of a project need to drop the hostile attitude and provide constructive criticisms. That will help the project improve. Just saying that it sucks and will never be ready is stupid.
I am impatiently awaiting KDE 4.1 stable to be released in one of my favorite distros, but I am not going to be a billigerent ass about it.
29 • Constructive, yes! (by benjamin72070 on 2008-07-14 13:55:11 GMT from United States)
See, earlycj5 has the spirit.
30 • Whining (by Penguin chick on 2008-07-14 13:57:45 GMT from Finland)
Udo: "Just use 3.5.10 or 3.5.11 until KDE4 suits your needs, but stop the girly whining already."
Are you talking to me? I am a girl, and have written nothing about KDE here because I am an Xfce user. ;-)
31 • KDE: I'm NOT looking at alternatives (by PP on 2008-07-14 14:11:03 GMT from United Kingdom)
Not jumping ship over here.. Will keep using KDE 3.5 until the reports from KDE 4 are "good enough" to switch. It's simply the best desktop environment for me.
32 • Reply to #21 (by Amy on 2008-07-14 14:29:01 GMT from United States)
I noticed the same thing. Although its not as bad as 3.4 which was super slow on my computer the 3.5 does work and operate faster.
33 • @30: Sorry, ma'm! (by Udo on 2008-07-14 14:29:53 GMT from Germany)
I didn't know females frequent these spaces on the interwebs! I apologize.
34 • Reply to #28 (by Amy on 2008-07-14 14:32:35 GMT from United States)
That is what i am doing I posted a few things on KDE's forum.
Told them what i like about 3 and why I use 3 so that those things will be included in 4 at least thats what I am hopping for.
35 • I am also a female. reply to #30 (by Amy on 2008-07-14 14:35:43 GMT from United States)
At this time I use xfce as well just because it is faster.
how ever on my laptop I do use kde 3.5.9 and it works fine.
I do actaully like both xfce and kde and do not like gnome but thats just me.
People should be allowed to use what they want and what they like the best.
36 • Poor Misunderstood KDE.. (by davemc on 2008-07-14 14:41:34 GMT from United States)
Hey look, since when was Open Source Projects supposed to be about stability and reliability?.. Is there some written Guarantee somewhere on the projects website that it will always be stable and reliable for everyone?.. Ohh, what about getting your money back?.. Wait.. Uhh.. Thats right, its a free project so no love there!.. Point is, KDE4 is an innovative and, in some ways, revolutionary work, and as such in its early days is going to be unstable. Like any Open Source project, it needs feedback and strong leadership to keep it on track. BOTH KDE and its community are wrong headed in their attitudes of 1) What an Open Source Project is, and 2) How an Open Source Model should be properly lead and managed, and this has created an atmosphere of mistrust and animosity between devs and users. Its unfortunate, and strong leadership will be required here to step in and make the changes necessary to keep the project vibrant and restore confidence, while fostering transparency and open feedback channels. I say again, STRONG LEADERSHIP! This must must must be coupled with a more educated and understanding KDE community. Note that some effort will have to be made to ensure that flaming is not ever tolerated. Filtering and strong monitoring of feedback channels needs to be put in place as a result of the Communities actions, and devs need to be censored (most barely have any concept of what people skills are anyway).
My 2 cents, but think on it.
37 • Enlightenment (by Wode on 2008-07-14 14:46:07 GMT from Finland)
I've been using Linux for a long time, and most of that time I had Enlightenment as my desktop. There were a lot of great themes for it, you could make it look pretty much like you wanted.
Then themes.org died and Enlightenment went into hibernation, working towards DR17. I'm not sure how the next version of Enlightenment is getting along, because the website is rarely updated and shows few signs of progress.
I wish for some good news from the Enlightenment project soon, and hope that it will revive some of the creativity in theming and GUI design that was lost in the days after themes.org.
38 • KDE 4 (by Jesse on 2008-07-14 15:09:00 GMT from Canada)
I think KDE4 is coming along fine. The only problem, from my point of view, is the way distros pushed KDE 4.0 out as a stable release. Sure I use KDE4 and it's growing on me, but I think it was pushed to end users a bit quickly. And, despite what the above review states, Fedora 9 did not include KDE-3.5 as a fall back. It was KDE 4.0 or nothing. This sort of push doesn't help KDE's image.
However, it's slowly getting better and I hope 4.1 or 4.2 will be better suited for desktop users. It's almost there now.
39 • New Section (by Justin Whitaker on 2008-07-14 15:13:06 GMT from United States)
Love the new "Reviewed Last Week" Section.
40 • Desktop facility (by Steve on 2008-07-14 15:16:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well, the things I have always really wanted from a desktop are just - missing. So many are re-presented functional clones, doing the same old same old.
Perhaps I'm wrong - can anybody set me straight?
I want a desktop which works project-wise, like I do. I DON'T want all the icons on every desktop, just the ones I need for project X. Project X gets it's own desktop icons - and they don't appear anywhere else unless I ask. Perhaps a kicker bar, unique to each desktop.
That - and an inbuilt librarian, able to help me find my stuff from years ago. Something which dynamically indexes not just by simple words but by my own intent. The librarian needs build a directed network and will need to navigate it in context set by what I am doing. XML and metadata can do that - perhaps a simple database integrated to the fs - but, do we see it??
I've tried to get this going on everything I feel is stable enough to use - Win98, XP, KDE2 and 3. The pre-Sun "integrated" StarOffice (anyone remember 5.2?) came very close. But none succeeded, alas. It would be a killer app, but is a longer project.
I use Linux because it is familiar, mostly stable, interesting and free (in every sense). But most of all I need a distro to help me work, not rave about the new wonder theme. I use a desktop to do work; a non-computing job. To earn my $$$.
(so in the great KDE 4 debate - I'm with 3.5.9 and will be for some time)
But, can anyone help?? Is my dream desktop available, tucked away in a corner somewhere???
:)
41 • #39 - Reviewed Section (by Susan on 2008-07-14 15:19:38 GMT from
United States)
Thank you Justin!
42 • Re: KDE 4 (by kilgoretrout on 2008-07-14 15:47:08 GMT from United States)
I think there's a lot of revisionist history in the kde camp regarding the representations made with regard to the level of finish of kde 4.0 at release time. Here's the official release announcement for kde 4.0 made on January 11, 2008:
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/
Read through it carefully and ask yourself if that announcement fairly warns potential users about the state of kde 4.0 as of the release date. I submit that it plainly does not and that's why many users are angry.
43 • @6 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-07-14 15:56:34 GMT from Canada)
No, it wasn't a mistake. This is indeed Alpha 2. As you know, we decided not to release Alpha 1 publicly, but it did exist, and then the plan was always to release Alpha 2 according to the initial schedule. The next release will be Beta 1, again according to the initial schedule.
44 • @23 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-07-14 15:57:37 GMT from Canada)
When installing from Free or Powerpack, yes, you are given a choice of desktop. When using live CDs, obviously you can only install one desktop as each live CD only *contains* one desktop.
This has always been the case with Mandriva and likely always will be. I know OpenSUSE does the same, and I believe Fedora does too (though I don't know for sure).
45 • Gnome an alternative ? (by Marius on 2008-07-14 16:09:43 GMT from Romania)
You must be joking, right ? Well maybe some , very few, KDE people will go with Gnome but most will certainly not. I've once stated that if it comes to that I'd rather go with Windows rather than Gnome.
I just don't like it , don't like how it looks , don't like how it works. But that's just me , I can understand that there are people out there who do like it and I respect that.
As for KDE , I'm looking over some bugs and stuff from KDE trunk and yes it's still quite buggy but it looks and works very nice IMO. KDE 4.0 was more of an alfa if you ask me and KDE 4.1 will be the beta but they needed to be out there , it's how open source works , they had to be tested and pushed to the end users.
I'm sure KDE 3.5.x will do just fine untill KDE 4.x will be stable which will probably happen somewhere around the 4.2 branch.
46 • KDE4 and a comment about lxde (by Bill on 2008-07-14 16:15:07 GMT from United States)
1)KDE4 - I'm using KDE4.1 beta (openSuse factory on 11.0) as my de and it and kwin are stable as heck BUT some of the apps have a ways to go re: functionality and stability (eg: Konqy, Amarok and Knode - but its a beta so ........), so I'm using the occaisional kde 3.5.9 app.
1.a) KDE4 icons on the desktop - as somone who never used them extensively I don't really miss them (and found using the quick acces plasmoid an ok altenative) BUT I don't understand why they're removed (weren't they in the 4.0 release?). Personally hate the folder view since it jus eats space and can't be minimized (might be wgy I like the quick access widget)
1.b) KDE4.1 probably won't satisy the masses since there's probably still gonna be missing apps and functionality but 4.2 will rock
1.c) Plasmoid or widget - which one is it and why isn't there a consistency in the naming?
2) LXDE - played a little with TinyMe and found the lxde desktop pretty functional and attractive had never hear of it previously
47 • Using kde4.1 beta (by Sharique on 2008-07-14 16:17:35 GMT from India)
I'm using kde4.1 beta. Although Alot of things don't work.
What is the mistake we have is that AFIK
1. kde4 is never been tested throughly before release of 4.0, all major distro should have provided it as another option beside kde3 and gnome.
2. There are alot of rewrite is done 4.1 because of changes in Qt4.4 , which is making 4.1 beta less usable because a lot of user are expecting that only missing features of kde4.0 might not work correctly.
3. There is lack of planning in core change 4.1 (I think.)
I believe that kde4.1 is going to best desktop experience ever.
Big changes take big time.
48 • Blah (by The Average Joe on 2008-07-14 16:17:57 GMT from United States)
This whole KDE nonsense is nothing more than flame bait to get the spoiled brats of the OSS community all rilled up. We want what we want, when we want it, and exactly how we want it.
Exactly what is the point of his KDE article again? KDE 4.0 is the beginning of a new direction. It was never intended to place KDE 3.5. this early in its development. If it was, they wouldn't be spending so much time keeping 3.5 up to date. If you want to blame someone, blame the distros that ship it as default in a lame attempt to increase their coolness.
The sad part is the writer probably knows all of this already, but logical articles aren't nearly as popular as the provocative ones.
49 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-07-14 16:41:06 GMT from United States)
"KDE 4 is under development. Release early, release often. Ring a bell??"
Microsoft? Just kidding, I just had to say that...
For them it's more like "Release early, release every 6 years."
Back on topic... well it seems like there's a lot of misinterpretation going on about KDE4 being a failure, but apparently the KDE team has been saying all along pretty much (according to some people--I haven't been keeping track) that 4.0 would be relatively buggy and feature incomplete. If that's true, it does change things somewhat, but it still doesn't change my opinion that they should have picked a name that would distinguish it from a complete version. Someone above mentioned appending "-PREVIEW" to the version number--I kinda like that one.
KDE wanted to get as many users as possible to test the environment, which is understandable, but I still question the final naming/versioning. They didn't want to label it "beta" due to negative connotations (ie. buggy, incomplete, which KDE4 is/was), and the word "preview" has a forward-looking while still descriptive of the software's maturity and not having such a negative connotation to it.
But the more I think of it, the more I just don't care. It'll get there eventually, and from what I've heard of its development speed, that'll be soon enough. Being an Xfce user myself, I'm sitting back watching the KDE4 development from the sidelines hoping for the best. I really do see the potential; I like KDE3, and I know that the majority of its features--and then some--will make their way into KDE4. It's only a matter of time. Once most of KDE3's features are re-implemented, I expect to see good reviews of the desktop environment. Personally, I can't wait to try the first full-featured version myself.
50 • KDE4.0 (lighten up, please) (by BeastOfBurden on 2008-07-14 16:52:38 GMT from United States)
I have been very disappointed with the overly self-righteous yet clueless way the KDE 4.0 release and KDE4 in general have been maligned on this site by Ladislav and the other contributors. Anyone who seriously believed the KDE 4.0 release would be anything other than massively buggy is seriously deluded and expecting WAY too much of the KDE team. The bugginess of the code, is not the point at all. The point was to get the code into users hands with the API locked down so they could provide feedback and start porting/writing more apps.
Please get a clue:
CLUE #1: KDE 4.0 was a ground up re-write of KDE.
CLUE #2: KDE 3.5.x is the culmination of 6+ years of refinement of the KDE3 codebase.
CLUE #3: KDE is coded mostly by VOLUNTEERS!
Therefore, expecting KDE 4.0 to be as good or better than KDE 3.5.9 is ridiculous, especially since KDE4 contains multiple new technologies (Phonon, Plasma, etc.) that need refinement that can only come from user feedback. The distros which packaged KDE 4.0.x with their latest releases understand this - why can't Ladislav & co.?
Instead of kicking the KDE team when they most need momentum to finish the job, why don't we accept that KDE 4.x is a work in progress that will EVENTUALLY not only surpass KDE3 as a desktop on *nix, but will also be a viable alternative on other platforms like Windows/OSX (remember, KDE4 uses Qt4 + cmake, which allows KDE4 apps to be trivially ported to any platform), so please FILE BUGS and stop bad-mouthing the KDE team. At least clarify your criticism by acknowledging the bold goals the KDE team had for KDE4. Using words like "debacle" or "disaster" is an unwarranted kick in the teeth for a project that isn't trying to just replace KDE 3.5.9, but is working towards supporting the desktop for the next 10-20 years on multiple platforms.
Besides, nobody is twisting anyone's arm to use KDE 4.x or to upgrade your box with the latest release from your distro. If you are an early adopter, by all means try it out, but don't expect perfection unless you are willing to roll up your sleeves and HELP.
I personally don't plan to touch KDE 4.x for daily use until at least KDE 4.1, mainly because my wife (a Linux newb and KDE 3 user) would not take kindly to such a radical change without much more stability, but I support the KDE team all the way, and I will be testing the Win32 ports of KDE 4 (http://windows.kde.org).
Take the long view, people.
51 • Reviewed Last Week (by Kanishka on 2008-07-14 16:54:59 GMT from Italy)
I agree with #39, it's really interesting! Please keep it ;)
52 • About the name of kde4 (by Amy on 2008-07-14 16:57:30 GMT from United States)
was thinking after reading comment 49 that I wonder why they did not call it RC as that's what a lot of other software developers do after a beta.
53 • KDE3 and KDE4 (by LXTest on 2008-07-14 17:06:41 GMT from United States)
I for one am very appreciative of all the hard work the KDE community has put forth on both KDE3 and KDE4. KDE3 for it's usability and stability, KDE4 for a glimpse of what my future computing world will look like.
I'm glad they released KDE4 like they did, and that they've gotten tons of feedback / bug reports to work from, their development speed and quality was probably doubled because of it.
Less griping and more helping would probably make things much better for both KDE and it's users.
54 • Mandriva KDE 4 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-14 17:49:53 GMT from United States)
I've had the opportunity to play around with the latest KDE 4 in Mandriva. I played with the KDE 4 in the opensuse 11 release candidate and it was still a piece of junk.
There has been a lot of progress made. The first thing I noticed is that the interface is so much better, it's no longer a cheap Vista impersonator.
The functionality is coming together. There are still some crashes (and apps that don't open at all) and many apps are not finished. Nonetheless, it is getting close to being a fully usable environment, almost to the point of being in beta stage.
Give the project six more months and I think it will be realistic for distros to include it as an alternative alongside KDE 3.5 and GNOME.
55 • Smaller Distros Should See More Light (by Anonymous on 2008-07-14 20:30:18 GMT from United States)
I am appalled at the size of the modern distro. Looking for something to run on my laptop I tested 17 distros. In the end I settled for Mint Fluxbox. I knew I wasn't going to carry around a mouse so it had better be a menu driven system. Years ago I spent a good deal of time toying with XFCE. It was great and it was fast, now even that has bloat creep.
I'm still looking for that next great distro. It will probably run Fluxbox without all the bloat. I hear somebody at Mint is working on another version, maybe I'll be interested. Seems like XFCE has all the attention right now in the lightweight arena, probably why it is getting fatter.
There needs to be something else, another ROX maybe but whatever someone comes up with if it has a small footprint, menu driven and looks right on those new smaller notebooks, I think they'll have a winner.
I've seen some of the other lightweight desktops out there. They require Openbox underneath, now isn't that a step backward?
After the desktop the rest of the emphasis should be getting online quickly. I downloaded a promising distro the other day that had no wifi drivers, winblows or otherwise, no wvdial, etc. It's like getting a Christmas present that takes batteries only sold at the tractor store which won't be open over the holiday weekend. Com-on guys? What are you thinking? Get your priorities right, either you want someone to use your distro or not.
If I can't get online in 5 I start to loose interest. That is the strength of the micro-distros they'll have you booting and online in 10, smiling and wondering why can't everyone do this with so little?
Thanks, I couldn't think of a better place to post my opinion.
56 • @ 22 etc (by DeniZen on 2008-07-14 21:22:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yep,
I dont like KDE 4 - yet - not at all.
So I'm using 3.5x until 4.x is cool.
It will be.
it aint gonna die.
the devs *want* it to be brilliant - for the end users.
Obviously they do.
KDE4 should not have been released under the likely impression it is 'ready' for anything - other than testing - thats the mistake.
But ..
No doubt, this conversation will not be happening in 12 months.
If you like KDE - and there is a lot to like eh .. you can still use 3.5.x in the meantime.
Mistakes were made - but Life is too short - and a few more months is nothing.
57 • Jeez .. (by DeniZen again .. ;) on 2008-07-14 21:30:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
I just saw someone post above - that they would rather go with Windows than go with Gnome.
Nothing wrong with going to Windows - if it is because you prefer to use Windows over Linux (or OSX, or ..)
But to make such such a fundemental choice - just over a DE?
Sorry, but that post is not a post from a Linux user - and frankly just sounds like one of the most truly feeble and pathetic posts that I've read in a while.
Get a grip!
58 • Smaller distros (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-14 21:30:47 GMT from Greece)
#55 There are a lot of excellent smaller/medium sized distros (ie smaller than Mint)
antiX (MEPIS/Debian Testing, uses some Rox apps), TinyMe(PCLOS), Wolvix (Slackware), Puppy and others.
59 • Lightweights. (by M on 2008-07-14 21:59:47 GMT from Australia)
17 • Openbox (by GODhack on 2008-07-14 12:49:24 GMT from Lithuania)
The Lightweights:
OpenBox!
So simple.
No ugly panels, no desktop clutter.
Dead easy to configure hot keys to organise the whole desktop.
If only there was a non KDE equivalent to Katapult.
Gnome-Do is big and buggy.
The Run-Command in E17 is the closest match.
60 • RE: 44 @23 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-14 22:18:32 GMT from United States)
Adam,
I wish Mandriva made a Xfce live-cd with ICEVM or Flux.
I told them so in my questionare. ;)
KDE 4 could use to lose about 256 pounds.
XFCE could aford to lose a few too and have a few more widgets.
61 • Fedora 9 shipped with gdm which could not be configured by an average user (by No gdm-setup on 2008-07-14 23:40:50 GMT from Australia)
....and one had/has to do a lot of googling in order to find tips and hacks for cli editing of config files in order to get an autologin function. I was unable to get a gdm login with face browser, too.
Another (mal) function in Fedora 9 that bugged me was the way it automounts all hdd partitions every time the Nautilus file browser is started as root from a normal user account. Having 8 or so partitions dumped on a user desktop and the chore of having to unmount them makes me think that Fedora Devs did not rationalize too deeply about what they were doing!
Also - right across all distros - the latest Gnome System Monitor is, IMHO, a joke. Why haven't the "Analysts" analyzed it and commented on its very obvious shortcomings? The resource tab is supposed to measure the system resources and NOT OVERLOAD the CPU! The Gnome programmer/s got ahead of themselves with fancy graphing function! Nice Graphs, Shame About The Functionality! :-)
Lastly, the "Analysts" should really take a look at Xorg and the way it is developing. Everything is auto-configured ("configured monitor", "configured device", etc) and familiar xorg configuration tools disabled in the Debian/Ubuntu family but one is left scratching their head when the auto-configuration does not work.
62 • @50 (by PP on 2008-07-15 00:11:25 GMT from United Kingdom)
+5 insightful
63 • DWW & 26 • by Dick Cheney (by Verndog on 2008-07-15 00:12:59 GMT from United States)
Thanks for filling in for Ladislav. I enjoyed reading this weeks DWW.
Some of the comments here take life and there favorite DE and distro way to seriously.
Ref#26! That was a good read. Thanks whoever you are.
64 • KDE 4 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-15 01:13:52 GMT from United States)
I fail to see what the problem with KDE 4.0 is. I do not recall seeing anything anywhere on the net that KDE 4.0 was released for daily use. I do remember that is was release so developers could port their KDE 3.5.X apps to KDE 4.0. I also do not recall kde.org making a statement about KDE 4.0 being a replacement for KDE 3.5.X. Where is everyone seem to get their info regarding the usability KDE 4.0?
If you actually take the time to think about it, KDE 4.0 is not going to be as functional just yet as KDE 3.5.X for a new reasons. One is that KDE 3.5.X has had about 5 to 6 years to mature, KDE 4.0 has not. Two, KDE 4.0 is a port of KDE to QT4, which is no way a simple task. Three, there is new technology in KDE 4.0 that is still in development, and as time goes on will make KDE 4 far better than KDE 3. Its really rather clear, don't see why everyone got so completely confused.
I for one am looking forward to KDE 4 and can not wait until its ready. I think the KDE developers are the best and are very talented.
For those of you who are still confused please read the following...
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080710131440951
65 • Re. 52 (by uz64 on 2008-07-15 01:31:18 GMT from United States)
"was thinking after reading comment 49 that I wonder why they did not call it RC as that's what a lot of other software developers do after a beta."
The main problem with the label "release candidate" is that it typically means a program is just about ready to go, and may or may not be declared final (depending on whether any major bugs pop up or not). This means it's reasonably feature-complete and bug-free. KDE4 just doesn't, to me, yet seem like it's reached that point. Sure, its development may be going fast, but there's still a lot of apps/features to be completed. Therefore, I would consider its current state more of a beta or "preview" than anything.
BTW, I was the writer of post 49... kinda got carried away with typing and forgot to fill out the name/title fields... heh. Oops.
66 • RE: 64 (by IMQ on 2008-07-15 01:49:29 GMT from United States)
From their own announcement here:
http://kde.org/announcements/4.0/
About KDE 4
KDE 4.0 is the innovative Free Software desktop containing lots of applications for every day use as well as for specific purposes...
Well, they clearly said "for every day use..."
The problem with KDE 4.0 was obviously the way KDE team represented it in their announcement.
I am very certain people are much more understanding and much more accepting if KDE 4.0 was announced as preview or beta or alpha, just like some of the posters here already said.
67 • RE:66 (by nemo on 2008-07-15 02:24:11 GMT from United States)
I use KDE4.1 every day, and is now one of my favorite DE.
68 • "Mandriva 2009 Spring Alpha 2"? (by Dr. W T Zhu on 2008-07-15 02:55:00 GMT from China)
Hello Adam, thank you very much for your reply (#43) to my comment (#6). In my humble opinion, "Mandriva 2009 Spring" will be released in April 2009. Since currently it's only July 2008, it's far too early to label something as "2009 Spring Alpha 2". Anyway, good luck.
69 • KDE4 rampage (by Silly on 2008-07-15 03:12:39 GMT from United States)
Started on mandrake 9, flipped at some point to gnome, rediscovered KDE, threw up on 4, went back to gnome...
Looking forward to KDE kicking some posterior and having an excuse to enjoy it again. 4.2 may very well be the number to watch.
Flibertygibbet!
Point is, options rock and they're really what set the whole experience of being a linux user apart from anything else. Rising tides float all ships.
Thank you devs. You're certainly keeping things interesting.
70 • @68 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-07-15 04:22:39 GMT from Canada)
Yes, you're right, sorry - I totally missed the "2009 Spring" bit. That part is a typo. It's meant to be 2009.
71 • @60 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-07-15 04:25:23 GMT from Canada)
Any graphical install of Mandriva comes with IceWM as a fall-back, actually. That includes the Xfce, KDE and GNOME One CDs.
72 • "Free" and "Volunteer" (by dialup on 2008-07-15 04:28:40 GMT from United States)
I cringe when I see these and similar words used to defend Linux. That's exactly how Microsoft would like the public to view Linux ... as a free, second-rate operating system (and software), written by unreliable amateurs for hobbyists.
73 • Gnome 3.0 (by Blah on 2008-07-15 05:52:21 GMT from United States)
I can't wait for Gnome 3.0 to be released just to see the pseudo-journalists talk about how bad it is and how everyone is going to stay with 2.XX. Maybe Linus will call the Gnome developers idiots again....
74 • M$ marketing machine (by capricornus on 2008-07-15 07:32:51 GMT from Netherlands)
[...]how Microsoft would like the public to view Linux ... as a free, second-rate operating system (and software), written by unreliable amateurs for hobbyists.
In biology, fortunately, when the DNA of organisms is being bombarded by photons and gets mutated, the system seems to act like an unreliable amateur: much change causes death or crippling, but one out of many makes it happen: the organism changes for the better, bolder, more beautiful (you name it).
I think in Linustan, +/- the same rules apply and once in a while we are treated with an important improvement, just for free, just like that. As in biology, just wait. And look how the M$ dinosaurs are dying.
75 • DWW, KDE 4... (by Muhammad Fahd Waseem on 2008-07-15 08:22:42 GMT from Pakistan)
Not sure if it's just me but the link to the latest DistroWatch issue 261 in the right hand 'Archives' column at http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20080714&mode=67 points to the older version 260. Just a quirk I noticed...
Dr. WT Zhu and Susan seem to have taken over the News and DistroWatch Weekly quite well...
Any more new ideas for DWW, Susan? That 'Reviewed' one was good, and I can see it was pretty well appreciated. Zabardast! (Urdu for "Great!")
I'd like to join the KDE 4 debate (if it can be called that). The fact is that the implementation of KDE 4 in the distros matters a lot too. In Kubuntu, KDE 4.0 acts like an opera singer with a slit throat. In Fedora, it's much the same story. But in OpenSUSE, it's much better. Not only better, it's good enough for me to use most of the time. Of course, this is highly relative, but all these KDE 4.0 distros were used on the same computer, so maybe there a point.
Actually, I'm quite enjoying my KDE 4 experience. I like the direction KDE is heading in. The new look may not be everyone's piece of art but for me, it certainly is. The functionality is not yet mature, admittedly, but it's gaining superiority fast. The few crashes are there - but it's a new kid on the block, and one with a high IQ, at that.
"Girtay hain shah sawar maidan-e-jang main
Giray kia woh tifal jo chalain ghutnon kay bal"
(Only the great riders ever fall on the battleground
How can those who crawl on their knees fall?)
Pretty applicable here: only the KDE team was brave enough to risk venturing into new territory and challenge pre-concepts... The naysayers are happy just to stay where they are.
Great work, KDE 4.0 team!
76 • Reviewed Last Week (by Alexandru Popa on 2008-07-15 08:44:51 GMT from Germany)
I found the section "Reviewed Last Week" very interesting too.
77 • @74 - M$ dinosaurs (by Personne on 2008-07-15 08:56:50 GMT from France)
For M$ dinosaurs to die, it would need some armageddon.
78 • KDE 4 (by Lechuan on 2008-07-15 09:18:30 GMT from United Kingdom)
I clearly understand the rationale of the KDE team, and there's nothing wrong with the approach of 'release early, release often', but who cares about what you put into the release announcement when you have a misleading name? Why not name the new release 'Gnome 3' and tell the user in the statement that it is not?
Open Sources projects are largely carried on by volunteers, I believe, and for some of them it is really OK to ignore the users--but not for KDE, which has such a large user base, whose love for the DE goes to various levels. The general attitude seems to be that if you don't love KDE, you'd better shut up, because it's free software; but I say, if the software does not come with warranty, be prepared to face a lot of whiners anyway (at least this proves your popularity...)
I am a Gnome user and I never really liked KDE, but I was holding high hopes for this release. I have no problems with the bugs (I was thrown to a white screen when I logged in under Arch...) but each time I tried this KDE 4.* I was disappointed. The team, it seems to me, is reinventing the desktop (unneccessarily? at least for me...)
I am not opposed to changes. I migrated to Linux a year and a half ago, and I just learned Dvorak a month ago--I love these changes. KDE 4.* seems to me to be more revolutionary than really superior--it just changes--for no good. This is just my opinion. I know there are a lot of people who love this release of KDE, but there will always be haters as well.
79 • RE: 50 • KDE4.0 (lighten up, please) (by BeastOfBurden (by Béranger on 2008-07-15 09:21:37 GMT from Romania)
> CLUE #1: KDE 4.0 was a ground up re-write of KDE.
> CLUE #2: KDE 3.5.x is the culmination of 6+ years of refinement of the KDE3 codebase.
> CLUE #3: KDE is coded mostly by VOLUNTEERS!
> Therefore, expecting KDE 4.0 to be as good or better than KDE 3.5.9 is ridiculous,
> especially since KDE4 contains multiple new technologies (Phonon, Plasma, etc.)
> that need refinement that can only come from user feedback.
Cool. So, to get a quality/stability as good as for KDE 3.5.9, we should check back with KDE4 in... 6+ years?
What are we going to do in these 6 years, stick with KDE3, which will become unmaintained?
And: it's not only about KDE, it's about all the other applications that need kdelibs! What should we choose in 1 year from now?
(1) A stable KDE3, with unmaintained kdelibs3-based applications?
(2) A crappy KDE4, but with some 3rd-party kdelibs4-based applications up-to-date?
80 • RE: Reviewed Last Week (by Béranger on 2008-07-15 09:26:35 GMT from Romania)
Why on Earth is everybody still reviewing "SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0", when the "current" ("cooking": http://download.tuxfamily.org/slitaz/iso/cooking/) builds are since then TREMENDOUSLY EVOLVED, and they use LXDE instead of JWM?
All kind of people review the latest Alpha builds of all the other distros, but they stubbornly review only the "stable" release of SliTaz. Are they stupid, or what?
81 • RE 44 : Thanks for the list of desktop choice at startup (by dbrion on 2008-07-15 09:58:44 GMT from France)
I knew it from Mandriva 2008.1 (an alpha ), and could therfore find a comfortable DE and a low RAM greediness WM (I have the choice, just after booting).
It is nice to know other distrs have this opportunity to choose after install, while booting.
It is nice to know, too, that this feature has been kept, as it seems more useful (KDE4.x) than usually.
It is about the same topic (DEs), but, three months ago, I bought a magazine whith a comparison of DEs : I was very surprised, because the tables were inconsistent with the text (ex: in the text :"xfce is less RAM greedy than KDE", and, in the table, the recommended RAM size was , for *both* DEs, 784 M)... This weeks DWW has no such inconsistencies....
82 • RE 80 Slitaz reviewing... (by dbrion on 2008-07-15 11:07:19 GMT from France)
"Are they stupid, or what?"
Or what?
Perhaps they suppose Slitaz is for peole who have a W95/W98 PC.... That makes a very conservative audience... and their old Pc has no HD space enogh to download alphas/betas (Greek should really protest with the way half baked stuff is named)...
This is not a hint of stupidity, but of common sense....
83 • @79 (by Carl on 2008-07-15 12:40:59 GMT from Spain)
Béranger is his usual outspoken self. You interpret what you want to interpret and then draw the conclusions to underline your own point. Nobody stated that KDE4 would take 6 years to develop. Nobody stated that it would be crappy in a year from now. Don't like KDE4? Fine. But please do not try to morph other people's reasoning to fit in with your own opinion.
84 • @83 (by Bill on 2008-07-15 14:01:50 GMT from Germany)
Don't feed the trolls.
Beranger is an idiot .. he writes about being one in his blog.
85 • Mepis? (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-15 14:52:21 GMT from United States)
Is Mepis still an active distribution? I haven't heard anything about that project in ages and it is falling rapidly in the DW ranking. Checked the website and there is no news about development. I could not find a schedule or anything.
Note to Mepis fans: anytime I post questions about Mepis development, I get flamed for spreading rumors about it dying. I know it's a touchy subject for you, but if you do respond, don't expect me to care if you curse me or call me names. I will appreciate any actual facts you might have. I no longer recommend Mepis to newbies because I don't want them to find out a few months down the road that their distro is now dead. Not exactly a way to inspire someone to give up Windows.
86 • KDE4, new technology? (by dialup on 2008-07-15 15:54:20 GMT from United States)
KDE4 is a different desktop metaphor, not new technology. (LCD displays, for example, were new technology.) It's not yet stable and/or feature-complete enough for me to decide if it's a metaphor I'm comfortable with. The Gnome spatial metaphor was not. To me, the older-than-dirt tree metaphor.was more intuitive. And, the Gnome project did accomodate users, as it appears the KDE team will do to some extent.
My main concern is mentioned in #79, the KDE applications. It's naive to think there are resources available, to spend much time on backwards compatibility. (That's either way, the apps with the desktops or visa versa.) While Fedora was criticized for their "cold turkey" approach, Imo it was the more realistic.
87 • KDE 4.0 (by tom on 2008-07-15 16:45:20 GMT from United States)
The KDE team's approach to releasing software is disappointing, as is the response of many here.
Open Source software should not need excuses provided by enthusiasts who are willing to accept buggy products. The acceptance of this software and KDE's release policy actually is counter-productive, as it encourages more buggy Open Source software.
The KDE evidently did describe 4.0 accurately because they wanted lots of people to try it and to provide feedback. The feedback that they need to see is that their policy stinks.
88 • KDE 4.0 corrected (by tomt on 2008-07-15 16:47:43 GMT from United States)
Please excuse wording of original post #87... it should be...
The KDE team evidently did NOT describe 4.0 accurately because they wanted lots of people to try it and to provide feedback. The feedback that they need to see is that their policy stinks
89 • Mepis? (by tinyfish on 2008-07-15 16:57:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yes Mepis is still alive and version 8 is currently being work on by the developer warren,the mepis website dosent seem to get updated very often at all so does not provide any useful updated information.
The majority of the discussions and updated information appears on the mepis lovers forums,the community are trying to take a larger role in the devlopement of mepis and are setting up a community repository.
There is a lot of frustration over at the forums because the community would like to do more but are being hampered by very poor communication from warren woodford.
There is no current release date for mepis 8.0,or whether it will include the new kde 4.1 even though warren seems to be packaging for this version.
The best part of mepis is the excellent community and if it wasn`t for them,i would have jumped ship a long time ago.
90 • Mepis!! (by Amy on 2008-07-15 17:35:40 GMT from United States)
Yep Mepis is good and still being worked on. It is still one of my favorites mainly do the the hardware compatibility it has over others.
there are very few distros that I found that work with all my hard ware out of the box.
Infact Mepis and saybayon are the only 2 that I found that do.
Myah linux said they could get my wireless card working but after getting frustrated at the forum i went back to my good old Mepis.
91 • MEPIS (by Carl on 2008-07-15 17:56:23 GMT from Spain)
MEPIS is still alive thanks to the excellent community with a couple of front fighters that never give up. Movements are visible that imply a larger involvement for the community. The community repo is actively being worked on and is a major asset.
Warren had to get a job, has less time and energy left for MEPIS and is admittedly a bad communicator. My personal opinion is that MEPIS would be a lot healthier if Warren were more eager to actively involve the community, but that is the way it is.
For new users, MEPIS remains a safe bet, since the community is very active.
92 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-07-15 18:07:31 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the info about Mepis. It seems that there is a desire on the part of the community to be involved more. How about a community distro using Mepis as a base (like AntiX, but instead a distro for speedy hardware with KDE 4 and GNOME)?
93 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-15 18:08:50 GMT from United States)
Forgot to sign comment 92. I will always sign my posts from now on, after (probably) getting blamed for the actions of other anonymous posters on several occasions.
94 • About MEPIS (by IMQ on 2008-07-15 18:38:28 GMT from United States)
MEPIS is based on Debian (testing, I believe). So if MEPIS were to stop being developed, the users could give Debian a shot.
Debian Lenny is pretty, pretty good at the moment on one of my boxes.
Or check out SIDUX, an excellent Debian based, almost pure. I have one SIDUX 2008-01 Preview 1 installed and has been updated since with practically no problem.
Actually, I also have SIDUX 2007-03 on another box and has been updated since without problem. Truly an impressive work by the SIDUX team!
Disclaimer: I am not a fan of any distro. I like a variety of distros so I have quite a number of them installed on several boxes. Ubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, CentOS, Absolute, DreamLinux, Vector, Scientific, Fedora, Pardus, Zenwalk, etc. Not to mention a dozen or more of Live CD/DVD. :)
95 • About MEPIS II (by Carl on 2008-07-15 18:54:34 GMT from Spain)
MEPÎS is based on Debian Etch. The unique paradigm it is based on, is stability and up to date packages. The latter mainly thanks to the community. I recognize that Debian is good, but not for the non-initiated.
No easy install, no assistants, no hardware auto-detect and configuration, no cleverly tweaked KDE, no live CD with a well balanced set of packages.
I like Debian, a lot, but MEPIS adds the extra touch that makes it accessible to new users. In that, I daresay it is unique....
96 • Uncertain distro futures? (by GL on 2008-07-15 23:35:08 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the update on MEPIS! It used to be my favorite, but I dropped it when it changed (briefly) to being Ubuntu-based and development slowed. I'm using Debian testing now and haven't looked back.
Debian has a democratic structure that has shown it is bigger than one person. It is not the hot new distro that will fall off the charts as development falters because its champion "no longer has the time."
Is anybody else reluctant to commit to a distro like MEPIS, Sabayon or PCLinuxOS that is the product of a single person's vision and drive?
97 • RE: 95 (by IMQ on 2008-07-15 23:39:24 GMT from United States)
Have you tried out Debian Lenny weekly-built lately?
I just had it installed on one of my box a which has only access to the net via a Belkin USB Wireless. It detected the USB Wireless device but I had to install the firmware that is downloadable from Debian repos.
After that, I was able to configure WPA for the wireless network and I was good to go.
I had to do the same with SIDUX but Ubuntu, Mandriva, and openSUSE work out the box without the need to install the firmware.
98 • KDE 4.x (by JeffM on 2008-07-16 01:21:18 GMT from Canada)
I'm not overly impressed with KDE 4.x so I switched back to gnome until it becomes more usable.
Isn't that great...actually having a choice? :-)
99 • Mandriva (by Paul Bruce on 2008-07-16 02:08:54 GMT from United States)
My Toshiba cable modem bit the dust. I had signed up with Comcast for their triple play. So I had their modem ready to use. A re-routing of ethernet cable and a telephone call soon had me back in business. As a result I fell back to wireless for my main windows computer. This computer also has SuSE 11 on it. SuSE will not recognize the old Netgear (MA111) gadget.
Mandriva recongnizes it on my laptop. So, it appears that Mandriva will replace SuSE on my main computer. Is Mandriva the only distro that can effectively use wireless? I don't know, but I am going to find out.
100 • RE: #71 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-16 03:44:36 GMT from United States)
Adam, I think the point he (#60) was tring to make is that they need a live cd with XFCE as the primary and maybe JWM as a fall back.
Removing the KDE and Gnome, been there done that.
I had a pain of a time uninstalling the KDE and Gnome that was stuffing the machine. Next time I'd just order a DVD if I had to do that one again.
101 • @100 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-07-16 05:18:29 GMT from Canada)
We do have an Xfce live CD, and as I noted, it has IceWM as its fallback.
102 • SABAYON HELP (by meat home on 2008-07-16 08:39:05 GMT from United Kingdom)
Well I tried the help page. Introduced myself and no response for at least 4 mins. I thought I may have lag so pinged (as is usual on irc) to see if I was lagging. An unhelpful guy I pinged it appears (trent or trench) complained. I must admit to asking him his problem as pinging was a common and acceptable way of checking lag. Briefly he/she banned me - GREAT! no kick for what he saw as unaccepatble. I am unable to get help so sabayon for me is a nono. Perhaps they should vet the ops in there. Back to SuSE.
a very disappointed brief user of Sabayon
103 • Blag 9000 (by mikkh on 2008-07-16 08:48:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
This reads like a final release, but it's far from it.
Before I go on, I've followed Blag for a long time and I like previous releases a lot, so this a double disappointment for me.
It's probably the best single CD version of Fedora out there - or used to be anyway, with access to NTFS, ability to play so called restricted formats like DVD's and MP3's by default and one of the best looking Gnome desktops around IMO.
This 9000 release is buggy and tacky with 4 broken packages before I've even touched anything. and NTFS-3g packages that don't want to install.
Why they're not there by default as in previous installs remains a mystery.
I rebooted and found the desktop icons missing and programs not working any more.
This is awful beyond belief and if I hadn't seen previous releases, I would have dismissed this as third rate crap. Come on you guys, sort it out
104 • @40, Interesting idea! (by Alan B. Cohen on 2008-07-16 14:25:11 GMT from United States)
I'm in the same boat; notice no answers - yet.
An idea to try;
When on the job, I work from a file manager session. I create a folder/directory for each project, keeping all documents and links I need there. This also simplifies backups of my project related data. When I roll off the project, I simply compress the whole folder into an archive and move it to my 'Old Projects' data store.
It isn't as pretty as a desktop, but it has most of the functionality.
105 • KDE 4 (by Blue Knight on 2008-07-16 15:08:49 GMT from France)
I'm sorry but KDE 4 is just a bunch of crap!
@arno911: "I think it will be a great Desktop, 2009 will be the year of KDE"
No, I think rather 2009 will be the year the beginning of the fall of desktop Linux...
106 • will desktop linux fall in 2009? (by dbrion on 2008-07-16 15:46:34 GMT from France)
As far as Solaris is concerned, it might rise, as it is Gnome-oriented.
The first alphas of PC-BSD were quite usable, though the 1rst one had no top, the second one had a broken ps. The 3rd alpha, based on KDE4, was announced as full of bugs, but I only noticed that Konsole had no prompt, and that no command worked.... How can one detect the other bugs?
Perhaps it is like a butterfly, with very ugly stages of growth...but, on a long term, very nice looking.
107 • @79 (by BeastOfBurden on 2008-07-16 17:05:52 GMT from United States)
>> CLUE #1: KDE 4.0 was a ground up re-write of KDE.
>> CLUE #2: KDE 3.5.x is the culmination of 6+ years of refinement of the KDE3 codebase.
>> CLUE #3: KDE is coded mostly by VOLUNTEERS!
>> Therefore, expecting KDE 4.0 to be as good or better than KDE 3.5.9 is ridiculous,
>> especially since KDE4 contains multiple new technologies (Phonon, Plasma, etc.)
>> that need refinement that can only come from user feedback.
>Cool. So, to get a quality/stability as good as for KDE 3.5.9, we >should check back with KDE4 in... 6+ years?
>
That's not what I meant. My implication by this statement is that to expect a ground up re-write to have the polish of KDE 3.5.9 by now is ridiculous. In 6+ years of development, many strange corner case bugs that are fixed in a stable codebase are usually re-introduced in a ground up re-write, plus you introduce new bugs every time you make API and infrastructural changes (of which there are many in KDE4). This is normal in software development, and is especially true in a codebase as large as KDE.
Also, since KDE4 is attempting to somewhat re-think the desktop paradigm, it should be expected that there have been design decisions made in the KDE 4.0 codebase that will need to be completely re-thought in KDE 4.1 (example: Plasma) and later. This is why it is better for them to release KDE 4.0 as it was to get the kind of feedback they can only get by having the larger community try the code out.
My main issue with the harsh tone of the criticism levelled at KDE 4.0 is that it seems to be looking at the bugginess of KDE 4.0 and then drawing the conclusion that since KDE 4.0 was buggy, KDE4 as a concept should be thrown out the window.
I believe the real proof of the viability of KDE 4 as a concept will be proven out mostly in KDE 4.1 and ultimately in KDE 4.2 and later, because they will incorporate all of the user feedback from KDE 4.0 and subsequent releases.
>What are we going to do in these 6 years, stick with KDE3, >which will become unmaintained?
>
No, I believe that in 6-12 months KDE4 will be in a state where KDE3 can be left behind, but I expect KDE 3.5.x to be maintained in maintenance mode until then (ther are already plans for KDE 3.5.10). If you don't want KDE 3 to be abandoned, why don't you pitch in and help maintain it?
>And: it's not only about KDE, it's about all the other applications >that need kdelibs! What should we choose in 1 year from now?
>(1) A stable KDE3, with unmaintained kdelibs3-based >applications?
>(2) A crappy KDE4, but with some 3rd-party kdelibs4-based >applications up-to-date?
In point (2) you assume that KDE4 will always be crappy, and this is where I disagree. Releasing KDE 4.0 allowed 3rd parties to begin porting to kdelibs4. Wait 6-12 months and see how many apps have been ported and how well they work, and by then I believe KDE4 will be a true viable replacement for KDE3.
Just in case anyone remembers, the transition from GNOME 1.x to 2.x was not the smoothest of transitions. I didn't think GNOME 2.x was at all usable (it was slowwwww and buggy) until at least GNOME 2.6. In a similar fashion, GNOME 2.x threw out most of the GNOME 1.x codebase and started over. Now, GNOME 2.x is one of the most popular desktops on Linux (via Ubuntu), but it has been a progression from buggy to usable to polished, just like any other large software project.
The reality is that the future of KDE is Qt4, unless some other group of people decides to fork KDE3 and maintain it themselves. Anyone has the freedom to do this, but don't expect the KDE team to abandon KDE4 - there are too many benefits that will come from it eventually.
If you don't like KDE4, don't use it, but don't just bad mouth it unless you also plan to help make it better (also directed @105).
108 • Re. 107 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-16 17:35:37 GMT from Canada)
Reading what you wrote making me feel that the problems Vista had were not too bad after all. My feeling, after using Linux for about 2 years, was Linux was everything but reliable. And I agree with #105, 2009 will be the beginning of the fall of desktop Linux.
109 • RE 108 : linking KDE's problem with Linux is soo logical (by dbrion on 2008-07-16 17:45:08 GMT from France)
as PCBSD uses KDE, too...
The comparison with Vista is thoroughly biase, too, as Windows does not ship applications (but for 2 expensive exceptions) while one can find in many free distributions useful applications (I know they are mostly W$ ported, but one has to install them by oneself)
As I am not an astrolog, deducing from the difficulties of a DE (among #10) the future of Linux is as efficient as using cauris or beef livers....
110 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-16 17:51:32 GMT from United States)
> but don't just bad mouth it unless you also plan to help make it better
And in the meantime, while newbies are trying KDE 4 under the impression that stable releases are meant to be used rather than just tested, what should we tell them when they run back to Windows?
Or is it the case that free software projects are not to be criticized under any circumstances? One of the great features of the FOSS world is that the users speak their minds. That's the only way it can work. You know the saying, "If you don't want to hear complaints, don't give users a reason to complain." (Something like that.)
FOSS is about the software. It's not about devs feeling good about themselves, accepting low quality, or censoring criticism. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Frankly, I don't care if some devs' feelings are hurt. They're the ones that released garbage, not me.
111 • RE: 105, 108 2009 will be the year the beginning of the fall of desktop Linux? (by Eddie Wilson on 2008-07-16 18:08:39 GMT from United States)
And your expert opinion is based on what? This is directed more at Blue Knight because 108 is an Anonymous Toll that can be dismissed. KDE 4 doesn't work for you, correct? Why in the world would anybody think that it could work now? Hell half of the apps. are not even finished. Are your heads in the sand? I just skimmed over KDE 4 and I didn't like it at all but I'm a Gnome user so I really don't care. I would just like to know why you would make a statement like that? Is it to drive people away from trying or using linux? Its just so stupid. What do you plan to do in 2009? Go back to MS Windows?
112 • @107 (by Blue Knight on 2008-07-16 18:17:09 GMT from France)
From 107:
"since KDE4 is attempting to somewhat re-think the desktop paradigm"
This is stupid! "re-think the desktop"... rather kill the desktop!
"This is why it is better for them to release KDE 4.0 as it was to get the kind of feedback they can only get by having the larger community try the code out."
"I believe the real proof of the viability of KDE 4 as a concept will be proven out mostly in KDE 4.1 and ultimately in KDE 4.2 and later, because they will incorporate all of the user feedback from KDE 4.0 and subsequent releases."
Ok, so KDE 4 is beta for now? Why have they released as stable and not as a beta by announcing for example: "we give you KDE4 so you can try it but it is a beta version which is not finished"...?
"you assume that KDE4 will always be crappy,"
Yes, it is and it will be.
"GNOME 2.x is one of the most popular desktops on Linux"
Hmm Gnome is not free from reproach. There would also things to say about it...
"If you don't like KDE4, don't use it, but don't just bad mouth it unless you also plan to help make it better (also directed @105)."
Hmm you moron.
Are you also have become Nazi that developers of KDE (and Gnome) at the point of wanting to prevent people to express themselves?
Yes, there are still people with a little common sense who opens their mouth, even if it is to criticize your beloved KDE4! :D
113 • MEPIS/antiX (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-16 18:47:30 GMT from Greece)
MEPIS 8 is being worked on, a quick look at the ftp mepis site shows kde4 is to be used (at least in tests). Sure, development has slowed down, but it is far from dead or even dying.
Meanwhile, antiX a MEPIS supported distro has just released for testing, antiX-M7.5-test2. This version has a more 'user-friendly' controlcentre and a pre-configured, customised icewm desktop, which in my obviously biased opinion is the best customised icewm desktop out there! (hit F1 at login screen to toggle to icewm as fluxbox is still default).
Why not give it a try. Best suited for 128MB RAM and above (sorry, k5/k6 still won't work)
114 • Sense of entitlement (by BeastOfBurden on 2008-07-16 19:07:02 GMT from United States)
>>"If you don't like KDE4, don't use it, but don't just bad mouth it >>unless you also plan to help make it better (also directed @105)."
>Hmm you moron.
Ok, I'm a moron. You win. I can't compete with name calling.
> Are you also have become Nazi that developers of KDE (and
> Gnome) at the point of wanting to prevent people to express
> themselves?
> Yes, there are still people with a little common sense who
> opens their mouth, even if it is to criticize your beloved KDE4! :D
Oh, I'm a moron *and* a Nazi. I'm overwhelmed with your debate skillz.
Never mind. Keep the destructive criticism coming, and make sure you don't give anything else back to the community other than negativity. I'm sure the actual developers will appreciate it and become highly motivated to keep you happy.
I would ask you to leave the constructive criticism to us moronic Nazis, but then you might call me a Fascist or some other name, and that's more than I can handle.
115 • 114 (by Blue Knight on 2008-07-16 20:08:53 GMT from France)
> "I'm sure the actual developers will appreciate it and become highly motivated to keep you happy."
I'm not so sure... At the time of KDE3, developers were known to listen the users (unlike Gnome) but now it is rather: "WE KNOW what must be the desktop and if you do not like it you are stupid and go look elsewhere".
BeastOfBurden, I'm sorry but your words still support my point of view. Thank you very much.
You are quite at your place in the "new KDE"...
I did not want to be too personal but sometimes I have some difficulties not to respond to those who wish to stifle the voice of "mere mortals"...
Case closed.
116 • Stifling criticism? (by BeastOfBurden on 2008-07-16 21:23:33 GMT from United States)
I never said don't say *anything* negative. I said don't *just* bad mouth. Feel free to bad mouth all you want, just try to keep it constructive, and if possible, help out by filing bugs and/or contributing code. This applies to *any* open source software project, not just KDE4, but especially for any project you get to download and use for *free*. My personal belief is that the constructive approach gets better & faster results. We can agree to disagree on that point.
I also realize it is much easier to sit on the sidelines and complain, and there are users like that for any software project, but the ones who get their voices heard are the ones filing bugs and/or giving constructive feedback. If you are not contributing anything positive, is it any wonder that you feel you're not being listened to?
117 • Extra-lucid (by Blue Knight on 2008-07-16 22:16:30 GMT from France)
> "If you are not contributing anything positive"
How do you know that someone does not contribute? Maybe you are "extra-lucid"?
Don't draw hasty conclusions and avoid attacking people who criticize your "toys".
And about filling bugs reports to KDE, just a quote from the web:
"Why we should fill bug reports if those bugs are considered features by the KDE team?
Why we should fill bug reports if the KDE team consider that we are wrong and they are always right? Why if a bug report which has aprox. 850 votes it's marked WONTFIX, RESOLVED?
We are tired of this crap!"
118 • Random and a RE:101 (by Landor on 2008-07-17 00:37:04 GMT from Canada)
RE: 101
One thing I do have to say about the inclusion of icewm is I couldn't believe how, well, honestly, ugly it is..lol No offense please. I bought a couple copies of Linux Magazine and gave them (along with 2008 PWP of course, to a couple friends. My son also bought a copy of it for himself, he was interested in the remastering articles for that mont. Anyway, we both installed the PWP on our systems and I could not believe how horrible the icewm desktop (in asthetics) is compared to the others. I'm quite sure Mandriva could've put a bit more effort into making it prettier, by far.
On to other stuff.
It never ceases to amazing me the negativity that abounds in this community. People forget the meaning of the term, well, until it suits them, then they expect us all to form up, grasp hands, and become like a band of brothers, locked together in "their" struggle (as they see it). Until then though, ignorance abounds.
This week we see someone calling one not only a moron, but also a nazi (which includes others as well).Other times we've seen peoplo bash Ladislav for having some kind of secret alliance with companies for monetary gain. There's been bashing of projects, devs, etc, with little to no base in fact other than some personal, biased view. People come and complain here without showing in some way how they've been constructive, or helpful in regard to the their complaint, and even some still continue to use said distro.
We also saw how Mint is trying to exclude anyone using their name in a "particular" fashion, while feeling that using the word Linux themselves is totally in the right.
What an amazingly cooperative and helpful community we have here. It truly shows that it really understands the reasoning and effort put forth by Linus and those that helped him try to bring such ideals to light.
Kudos for making it better to all that fit in with the above!
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
119 • Ref#118 (by Verndog on 2008-07-17 01:11:36 GMT from United States)
If we only knew their age or even a picture would do. Some pre-teens make their way into DWW and post all kinds of nonsense, name calling, endless rants.
It never ceases to amaze me the endless drivel of just a few. Criticism or sound debates is a good thing. Mindless chatter is another.
120 • 118 (by Blue Knight on 2008-07-17 01:55:00 GMT from France)
Landor, I'm sorry but a sentence in a post by BeastOfBurden struck me a little, I've received it as something aggressive.
Then he has insisted with something like: if you are just a end user and you don't contribute to any project, shut up!...
So I have reacted.
Now, I am french and sometimes my English is not always accurate and I can not understand well some expressions as they should be.
In this case I am sorry.
But facing someone who wants to prevent me to say something with a false pretext, I could not fail to react. Plus how can he know if I contribute or not? Maybe he is "extra-lucid"? And even if someone just uses something, he does not have the right to speak? What is this attitude?
121 • Re. 118 (by Nanlee on 2008-07-17 03:05:22 GMT from Canada)
Landor:
I agree with you that moron, nazi or troll should not be used as a way to express disagreement in here. But, there is nothing wrong for someone to put forward their "personal, biased view". The fact is most comments in here are people's "personal view" about the issue, and that is perfectly OK, I think. Someone's personal view not in agreement with yours or mine, doesn't make it wrong. Being bias is also normal. Most people look things from their viewpoint, it maybe bias due to their knowledge, experience, needs or interest. There is nothing wrong with it. We try to be unbiased, but there is no guarantee that our view is not biased. It is just that we think that is not biased. This is human nature and limitation. We can discuss our differences, express our objection or suggest an alternative opinion to correct what we think is biased view. What is important is doing that in a civilized manner.
122 • RE: 120 and 121 (by Landor on 2008-07-17 04:53:42 GMT from Canada)
RE: 120
My son posted here once, about a year ago I think, maybe a bit less. He was 14 at the time and I told him to watch how he acted/typed to others, because I wouldn't come to his aid if it wasn't apropriate. I don't think my son would've ever became ignorant or rude (he's an outstanting child that's been taught respect, honour, and of course, personal pride), but so many are not the same. I'd eve hazard a guess that many of the "students" in college or university can be prone to becoming almost pubescent in nature when posting here.
RE: 121
I took personl offense to Nazi (nor do I like being called a moron of course) because I am half German myself, and know my family was frowned upon for their heirtage during, and after the war, even when one of them fought and died fighting for Canada. I don't mind troll as much, when it does fit the case. Meaning, when the person continually spouts off some rhetoric with little to nothing to provide any basis for it.
Speaking of basis though, that was the point in my comment about a personal biased view. Someone comes in here, and it's quite normal here weekly, and says this or that in a negative manner, with little to no base (as I said previously) to substantiate their comment(s). This to me is a personal, bias view that isn't even worthy of posting in an ongoing discussion of a topic. No details about the problem, no infromation on how they tried to correct the issue, just an outward attack because they feel justified in some way that they can and havve a right to. I think anyone who criticizes a project, a function, the functionality, a dev, etc.. has truly no justification for it unless they've tried to make some actual attempt at correcting the issue.
This is the way it should be, honestly. It's all free right? It's a volunteer project "for the most part". Why should anyone feel they have a right to critique some other's effort when they can't put an ounce in themselves?
So in that, I think a personal biased view, with 0 put forth to substantiate the view, and 0 done to correct the problem they're complaing about is wrong, completely. That happens a lot here, sadly, and the community on a whole.
There's an article I'd love to read, one based on the Linux Community on a whole. Something in the area of "Linux, Is Our Community A Boon, Or A Bane Ovreall"
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
123 • RE: # 45 (by Anonymous Penguin on 2008-07-17 05:36:43 GMT from Italy)
"You must be joking, right ? Well maybe some , very few, KDE people will go with Gnome but most will certainly not"
Well, you tell that to the Ubuntu boys. For them Gnome is the best thing after sliced salami.
124 • RE 117 Third (or more) hand "arguments". (by dbrion on 2008-07-17 06:03:55 GMT from France)
quote
"And about filling bugs reports to KDE, just a quote from the web:
"Why we should fill bug reports if those bugs are considered features by the KDE team?
Why we should fill bug reports if the KDE team consider that we are wrong and they are always right? Why if a bug report which has aprox. 850 votes it's marked WONTFIX, RESOLVED?
We are tired of this crap!"
"
Endofquote from 117
Just four questions
a) What bug does THE Holy web make allusion to?
b) Perhaps it has an IT adress?
c) Why did you OMIT this IT adress?
d) Is it really a bug?
As for KDE4 killing the desktop, there are other desktops, and people not hesitating switching to Gnome/../.../Icewm if needed (and can any one convince { not repeat again and again, just convince, with rational, easy to verify arguments} that KDE4 will be buggy/incomplete within 2 years and sell his cristal ball)
125 • Re: #37 - Enlightenment (by Ariszló on 2008-07-17 07:54:05 GMT from Hungary)
Now you have GET-E.org & E17-Stuff.org:
http://www1.get-e.org/Themes/E17/
http://www.e17-stuff.org/
126 • Vive le Mandriva! (by RoachBoy on 2008-07-17 08:47:41 GMT from Kenya)
Speaking of Mandriva, we should cut Ladislav some slack for apparently changing his tune about Mandriva. For many of us I'm sure, Mandriva, formerly Mandrake, has tended to be a disappointment. I started out with Mandrake 10, found it rather buggy, but then decided to try out Mandriva 2006 Powerpack when it came out. Since I actually forked out money for Mandriva 2006, I was especially disappointed when it did not live up to expectations. So it was with some scepticism that I decided to try out Mandriva 2008.1 (Free) over the weekend, and boy was I blown away! The eye-candy is outstanding, but more importantly, 2008.1 is stable and the speed is something else. Clearly, the reorganization that has been going on at Mandriva is bearing fruit. There does appear to be a problem with the spellcheck in Openoffice.org but perhaps this is only in the Free version and not the Powerpack version. As things stand, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Mandriva 2008.1 to newbies as well as experienced users. Vive le Mandriva! (Just don’t screw up with Mandriva 2009!).
127 • Re 126 Is Mandriva a French linux? (by dbrion on 2008-07-17 09:19:38 GMT from France)
Meseems it is rather Brazilian now, or South American, if one counts the paid developpers or (or Anglo Saxon, if one considers the origins of the software they ship) ... and it has no consequences (or positive ones).
The place where the walls are situated and the origin of the CEO (Nissan has/had a French CEO but their cars are not considered as French) are not that meaningful if developpment/support can be done from anywhere...
I agree that Mndrv 2006 Powerpack was not the best thing in the linux world (I have kept it, and worked around the logrotate bug) and that they have better quality versions (since 2007.1) now (I buy for my relatives/friends). The 2008.1 version seems to be usable even for a professional workstation -I sometimes use it, without problems, but people complain about ... ImageMagic -this is not Mandrivas fault!!!-).
(PS I would writte "vive Mandriva" if I were in love with her, but I make much more errors in English....)
Deducing the future of anything in the Linux world from its present (more or less sad) state is not that rational.
128 • Eh? (by mosno on 2008-07-17 09:32:12 GMT from Australia)
The last I checked, Fedora 9 does not support KDE 3.5, only KDE 4.0.
129 • @122 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-17 11:26:55 GMT from France)
> "I think anyone who criticizes a project, a function, the functionality, a dev, etc.. has truly no justification for it unless they've tried to make some actual attempt at correcting the issue.[...] Why should anyone feel they have a right to critique some other's effort when they can't put an ounce in themselves?"
Ok so for example, I buy a car and as I know not to build one and that I am not involved I have not the right to say anything? OK a car is not a free project but the principle/idea is the same.
I'm not agree. I believe that everyone has the right to speak even someone who does that using a project and which does not necessarily have the skills to participate.
He has the right to speak and give his/her opinion on the "product / project" he/her uses.
Wanting to prevent him from speaking because he/her does not contribute is unacceptable!
> "It's a volunteer project "for the most part".
And what? Because they are "volonteers" nobody has the right to say that their project is crap on the pretext that this person is just a end-user? I don't buy this mentality...
130 • RE 129 Perhaps it would be better (by dbrion on 2008-07-17 11:38:05 GMT from France)
if, ustead of saying/repeating/repeating again and again and again
"it is crap" he explained *why*.
In the case of a prototype, and a given one, it might be difficult.
Deducing the future of KDE from its present state (a prototype being tested, to know what is missing/broken) is irrational, unless you have serious arguments
(not car ones : broken cars lead to life issues ; a broken/unpleasant free DE leads to differed downloads, and one can switch to another).....
131 • #118 ugly icewm (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-17 12:08:52 GMT from Greece)
Landor, like most icewm can be made to look pretty.
Have a look at it in antiX-M7.5-test2.
Here is a screenshot.
http://www.imageposter.com/uploads/get/442010
132 • #131 icewm (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-17 12:11:05 GMT from Greece)
Whoops
Here is a screen showing icewm better in antiX.
http://www.imageposter.com/uploads/get/439146
133 • RE:130 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-17 12:14:33 GMT from France)
Maybe yes... if you want :D
> "not car ones : broken cars lead to life issues"
OK, then not a car, maybe this was not the best example. You can take any other example, as you prefer, but the idea remains the same ;-)
134 • Well, let us take another example :Is it a good idea? (by dbrion on 2008-07-17 12:28:33 GMT from France)
If you tell that a perfume gives you allergia and makes you sick, you might
* be bashed as using other nocive substances
* sued (there are diffamation laws)
unless you can prove it .
Is *any* analogy, in the case of a prototype, valid?
And, in the case of KDE, the sooner (and the more intensively) they test, the better as new applications are added to KDE.3 (if they had waited 2 more years, it would have been more ... difficult... to port, and complex software, even if it WORKS (the meaningless argument by essence: it can work in given conditions) needs to be updated/rewritten, thus leading to a transient regression.
OTOH: I noticed that the KDE4 lovers (I am not) were kinder than Renault (who had problems with automatic brakes and ...senile ...girlish ...drunken ... drug-addicted drivers, of course....)
135 • Better example (by Anonymous on 2008-07-17 12:53:30 GMT from France)
I'm not sure your example is completely good.
I thought rather as example at someone who uses any object and who does not like how it was designed or materials used...
As he/she has not made this object or did not contribute to this object therefore he/she has no right to say that this object is crap...
(that the object in question is for test or not does not matter.)
136 • Whatever the example one chooses in the industrial world, (by dbrion RE 135 on 2008-07-17 13:11:15 GMT from France)
One is likely to be sued (or told as asocial by well paid PR experts) if one does not have very serious arguments when telling an object is not perfect (the idea of cars was yours....unless you find a better example : there are hundreds of objects in a supermarket=> would make ... hundreds of posts)
As for prototypes, deducing the future of an object (the Fall of THE Linux Desktop!!!! cf posts 105, 112 and many, many, many other insightful ones) from its present state is absurd, to remain polite.
137 • Criticism (by RC on 2008-07-17 13:14:47 GMT from United States)
I don't believe anyone is saying that someone doesn't have a right to complain about a software project. Criticism is a necessary part of the creative process. It is HOW someone complains that is the issue. Are you putting forth criticisms that are specific to features or actions that are defined and offering possible solutions, or are you just saying that it is a piece of crap and will destroy the future of Linux? The first is constructive and useful, the second is argumentative and fairly useless.
138 • Feedback vs Criticism (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-17 13:34:04 GMT from United States)
I just want to echo some other comments here, given that I stated an opinion a couple times above.
It is wrong to say that a project cannot be criticized. However, I refer only to criticism that provides feedback. Stating something that is a problem (apps don't work, for instance) is feedback because that tells the devs what to do. They should not release without working apps.
I do not consider it to be criticism to say "KDE 4 is a piece of junk". That is just rambling. It does not tell us what you don't like.
According to m-w.com, the definition of criticizing is
1: to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly
2: to find fault with: point out the faults of
139 • @all (by Anonymous on 2008-07-17 15:19:52 GMT from France)
I agree with all this but someone has the right to express his/her opinion, even in a manner a little *excessive*. Then if he/she does not wish or can not (yes there may be reasons) polemics hours on why, it is his/her right and this does not prevent him/her to speak. If you can not accept it then ... it's a pity. Personally I do not see any problem, although of course I'd like to have more explanation on what he/her dislikes.
Now, I think from each side there was no malicious intent, just maybe a reaction a little too "excessive"...
I think it is useless to discuss endlessly on this subject. Again someone can express his/her opinion and if he/she does not wish to or can not go further, it is his/her right.
Case closed. :D
140 • Arch linux (by Anon on 2008-07-17 16:08:33 GMT from United States)
Is Arch an active distribution? Meaning.. is it maintained so it is kept updated and current? Looks interesting.
141 • No subject (by arno911 on 2008-07-17 16:14:09 GMT from Germany)
anon, arch IS interesting :) and actively maintained.
142 • No subject (by arno911 on 2008-07-17 16:18:51 GMT from Germany)
i should add, its not for a beginner, unless he likes to read and learn a lot. it can be configured nicely, but comes very unconfigured.
b.r.
arno911
143 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-17 16:19:47 GMT from United States)
>> is it maintained so it is kept updated and current?
Actually, it's a rolling release, so of course it is updated and current. You can search the repos on the right side of the Arch homepage if you want to see how updated the packages are.
BTW, they just added 10 new developers, and had to turn away dozens of applicants.
144 • @129 • @122 Anonymous (by john frey on 2008-07-17 17:10:53 GMT from Canada)
I find car analogies very useful.
Instead of buying the car let's say someone gave you a used car. If there were problems with the car would you tell the giver, 'Your car was crap. It runs like shit and drives like a turd. You should think again before giving me a piece of crap like that. Your gift sucked and you suck, used cars suck and the whole auto industry sucks.'
If that's the way you want to treat a gift then you for sure won't get another one from that person. You likely won't have that friend either:(
It's the relative anonymity of the internet that allows people to behave like spoiled children or adults with no social skills.
If you receive the gift of free software and something disappoints you then by all means let the giver know what you would have preferred. But don't, for god's sake, curse Arch Linux for not giving you an easy GUI install, for example. Know what the giver is offering and criticise based on that.
With free software and Open Source software as well, you are free to be an asshole. If that's what you want to be then go ahead. I aspire to something a little higher up, but that's just me;)
145 • @140: Arch Linux (by Adam on 2008-07-17 17:51:25 GMT from Australia)
I regard Arch to be among the best distros out there. And although people will warn you that it's not a distro for beginners, it in fact has an EXCELLENT Beginners' Guide:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
And then there's the package management system: Pacman. If there's a system out there that can blow APT away, this is it. Upgrade your system (as root, of course) with:
pacman -Syu
Install Firefox:
pacman -S firefox
Remove Firefox AND all to-be-orphaned packages installed as dependencies:
pacman -Rs firefox
This last feature - fully automatic dependency removal - is the killer. I realise Debian's aptitude also sports this, and even apt-get can be invoked with an autoremove switch, but in this day and age I can't for the life of me see why this functionality is so hard to come by.
In my opinion, this makes Arch very good for beginners: You can try out packages and then, if you find something more suitable, purge them very cleanly.
The Arch community has set up a so-called ArchLinux User-community Repository, or AUR. Packages from this may be voted into the official repositories. But Pacman does not access the AUR. So if I may offer a little advice to make things more interesting:
Install a Pacman wrapper-programme named Yaourt. Think of it as Pacman-Plus, with full AUR support. You can install Yaourt manually, which is fiddly, or you can take the sensible route:
1. As root, edit /etc/pacman.conf, and add the following to the file:
[archlinuxfr]
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/i686
2. Update Pacman's repository database to make it aware of the new repo:
pacman -Syy
3. Now install Yaourt with Pacman!
pacman -S yaourt
Yaourt is yours to command. :-)
Don't be daunted by Arch's reputation. Take the plunge. Just make sure you print out that Beginners' Guide first. (And of course, it makes things much simpler if you have your partitions set and ready to go before you begin the installation process.)
146 • @John Frey (by Anonymous on 2008-07-17 18:15:34 GMT from France)
I didn't want speak again about that, I thought it was enough but I think you don't understand my point. And you talk about "a used car" but KDE 4 is new not "used"! A "used" gift and something new, it is not the same thing. Rather compare with a new product... And you do easy shortcuts.
Try again, the last. I need a mixer, I obtain one and as I use it, I realize that this mixer does not suit me., I hate it :-)
As I did not participate or contribute, I can't say that I regard this mixer is a crap?
"free software and Open Source"... yes, I thank those who make these different projects but it is also often a bulwark to criticism: What? You say this is not good? You do not ashamed to say this about "a gift by Open Source software" etc...
And Open Source or not this is not the problem. Someone has the right to say that something does not suit him/her, he/she considers such or such thing as crap, if he/she thinks so (and no, this is not insulting developers) If you disagree with that, I think nobody can anything for you... :-p
147 • 144 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-17 18:37:59 GMT from United States)
That analogy would be good except that free software is not a gift. Person A contributes one part, person B contributes another, person C yet another. All three contributions are put together and then persons A, B, C, and D use the software. Person D tests the software, writes documentation, and provides feedback about what works and doesn't, provides financial support for persons A, B, and C, and markets to person E. Person E uses the software and gives his opinion about what works and what doesn't, then later contributes financially and with his time.
Then person B says in an email to the rest, "You guys are using my software. You have to bow down in homage and cannot complain about anything. My contribution is a gift."
148 • Landor Should Be Banned (by Anonymous on 2008-07-17 19:33:33 GMT from United States)
He contributes nothing but strife, discord and mayhem.
149 • @146 & 147 (by john frey on 2008-07-17 19:38:47 GMT from Canada)
An analogy is always imperfect and if you don't like mine or want to change it, feel free.
I think you can clearly read that I said criticism is allowed. You are free to say something is crap if you like. Some things are crap, I agree.
You are free to defend your right to call whatever you want a piece of crap. Thanks for the contribution to the discussion.
150 • RE: 131/132 & 148 (by Landor on 2008-07-17 20:49:43 GMT from Canada)
RE: 131/132
Hey Anti :)
Thank you for posting the screenshot. I liked the choice of background and colour theme. It's smart as well, since as you're probably aware (and a reason for the colour choice(s)) that the colours used in both have an effect on CPU/RAM resources. It's a nice looking desktop for sure.
I did know it could be made to look nicer though, and that's why I posted my comment. I was shocked that for Mandriva and the PWP edition it wouldn't tweaked a bit more on the asthetic side for those that may actually be interested in installing it.
RE: 148
I hope the above comment didn't create too much bedlam for you personally......"Anonymous"
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
151 • @118 / 150 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-07-17 21:36:51 GMT from Canada)
The default IceWM you get on MDV is icewm-light , a very stripped down version designed to be just a fallback emergency WM. If you install the 'icewm' package you get a somewhat more full IceWM. I don't know exactly how it looks right now though, I haven't checked it out for a bit.
152 • @127 (by Adam Williamson on 2008-07-17 21:38:19 GMT from Canada)
Paid staff are split fairly evenly between France and Brazil at the moment, plus a few guys like me who work remotely from somewhere completely different - me and Vincent Danen in Canada, Walt Pennington in the U.S. (San Diego), and a few others in Europe.
153 • RE: 177 - Branding and identity issues (by Clement Lefebvre on 2008-07-18 09:25:40 GMT from Sweden)
"We also saw how Mint is trying to exclude anyone using their name in a "particular" fashion, while feeling that using the word Linux themselves is totally in the right."
Hi,
Everything we develop, everything we do, we share with everybody. We also encourage initiatives around our distribution and derivatives based on Linux Mint. The problem here has nothing to do with giving back or sharing, it has to do with taking responsibility over something we're not in control of. If something is done, and we have nothing to do with it, then this something being called "Linux Mint" is indeed a problem... because it confuses people as to whether or not we're behind it. It's as simple as that.
I'll take another example. People can more or less say whatever they want here on DW and when someone crosses the line or acts a bit too passionate it's usually ok. But what if somebody started calling himself Landor? What if people were to associate what he says with who you are? I hope you understand where we're coming from. We're basically saying do make derivatives, do create websites about Mint, but please don't confuse people as to who we are, just don't call yourselves with what defines us.
As to "Linux" itself, it is an important matter and I'm glad you brought it up. If I wanted to call myself Landor I would go and make sure you're ok with it first. Since we decided to call ourselves "Linux Mint" we made sure that was ok with the LMI: http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=159
On a more personal note: We contribute to make this desktop better and this is what we're putting all our efforts in. I'm working on this distribution as a second job, between when I go home and when I get to play with my kids. We're not talking about a multinational here with the sole purpose of annihilating its concurrent. This is a lot of fun, and it started as a hobby. Sometimes we do get serious around certain issues because in the end of the day our purpose is to improve our distro and also the way we work. Don't take this as a negative thing, as I said on the blog, enforcing our identity will benefit not only our distribution but the ones derived on it and the websites about it in the long run.
Clem
PS: On a totally unrelated news, Mint 5 XFCE CE RC1 was released yesterday.
154 • Mint (by Volore on 2008-07-18 14:47:43 GMT from France)
I agree with Clem about this "story".
Landor, you are quick to denounce others, maybe you could start by applying it to yourself?
"We also saw how Mint is trying to exclude anyone using their name in a "particular" fashion, while feeling that using the word Linux themselves is totally in the right."
Bravo to throw this kind of sentence, fortunately you talked about "respect, honour, and of course, personal pride"...
155 • Re 146 Crappy mixers and KDE4 (ça devient surréaliste) and (by Anonymous on 2008-07-18 15:07:45 GMT from France)
"As I did not participate or contribute, I can't say that I regard this mixer is a crap?"
You may have the right to say this (sellers protect themselves against this in the *real* world, where one buyes, either by laws or by rather low PR -ex. Renault's brakes in 2005-), but it would be much, much more convincing if you told
*why*
, with rational arguments (you can take anything from a supermarket as examples, it might be the same answer).
The special case of free prototypes, needing lot of work ( KDE is more complex than a mixer) makes your analogy very unconvincing.
@147 Dick Cheeney, you wrote "Then person B says in an email to the rest, "You guys are using my software. You have to bow down in homage and cannot complain about anything. My contribution is a gift.""
Of course, such allusions have a serious origin (devs may be arrogant), and one can find an IT adress where such mail (perhaps not the verbatim version you gave) can be found. What surprises me with KDE4 disliking is that, when I ask where such arrogant attitude from the devs is alluded, one has no proofs and one does not know whether it is some mail extracted from other projects, nor the context (if I *need* some development, I manage to ask for it -by saying "your work is very good {i admire fr lines and lines}, but it might be better if you added instead of substracting.....", not by kneeing....- when the devs are not overworked and in bad tempers....
If I do not need, why ask? why be surprised ones demand is dismissed?)
156 • RE 152 Present "nationality" -if this has sense- of Mandriva. (by dbrion on 2008-07-18 15:33:39 GMT from France)
"Paid staff are split fairly evenly between France and Brazil at the moment,"
at the moment in the main point... and I think Brazil is likely to evolve faster than France. You answered one of my posts (sorry, I did not know the numbers), where I was surprised to see Mandriva associated with France (leading to absurd things:
like Linux Identity Kit is an US society selling distributions install CDs + well written how-tos on paper; they sell even at French railways stations, in French.
They advertise in DW, and , as they seem to have noticed I am French, they give me a picture of only Mandriva - I can be interested by other distrs and I know they successfully sell Slack, Debian, OSuze papers-
If I did not know it already, I would think they have a very naive -to remain kind- way of linking distributions with locations).
157 • RE 146 (by Volore on 2008-07-18 16:45:37 GMT from France)
I am sorry to say that in terms so rude but are you stupid?
No matter what analogy is taken as example, this is not the problem! (and anyway it will always be more or less imperfect) No matter also the subject, project or another. No matter also if it is Open Source or not.
Someone says that something is a crap. It's his/her right to say and think that. Then if he/she doesn't want explain why, it' also his/her right. (he/she can have some reasons...)
It's that simple!
Now, I agree that if he/she had explained why he/she thought that, it would be better. :-)
158 • No subject (by Volore on 2008-07-18 16:48:10 GMT from France)
I'm sorry, my last post was for 155 not 146. My bad :D
159 • SliTaz One Sweet Boot (by Anonymous on 2008-07-18 18:18:43 GMT from United States)
I was laughing pretty hard last evening when I booted up SliTaz. I couldn't imagine what they could have done in under 29 MB. I figured it might boot to a command line that had a few basic utilities. I was mightily surprised to find that it booted to a full good looking desktop! How did they do it? Checking the memory it was using all of 47 MB of memory. I sure hope these bloat builders take it to heart. This is a good example of what can be done to minimize space and memory requirements. Certainly would give new life to aging or shelved units that the third world so desperately needs.
160 • Giving too much Mind Share to Landor (by Anonymous on 2008-07-18 18:27:46 GMT from United States)
He's like the sick dog of the moment. Stop engaging him and his world views.
161 • Blag is back!! (by hh on 2008-07-18 22:25:33 GMT from Italy)
Great kick in the ass to all Buntu's
162 • @146 (by john frey on 2008-07-18 23:04:33 GMT from Canada)
There's only one thing more useless than calling something crap and not giving any details. That is arguing about having the "right" to call something crap.
You're free to call something crap but you are not entitled to respect for it. Not on any level. That's what you people don't get.
163 • RE: 153/154 (by Landor on 2008-07-19 03:19:30 GMT from Canada)
Reverse order here, RE: 154
How did I not act with respect, honour, and personal pride?
RE: 153
Hearing this news as you could understand left me with a deep sense of someone trying to control something in a manner where they were of absolute power, and absolute power always bothers me. (maybe it's my belief in the Canadian Social Government Basis,.I don't know). Anyway your comment actually left me with more concerns and questions. Of course you don't have to answer them, or belay them, but I hope you will.
When did you apply to use the word Linux in Linux Mint? Linux Mint has been around since 2006 and it was only recently you had approval.
You used Ubuntu branding/or logos that you didn't remove from Linux Mint for some time before you eliminated it, did Ubuntu/Canonical ever try to force you from using their branding? If so, can you provide reference to it? Did you have permission from Canonical/Ubuntu? If so, again could you provide reference to it?
The above questions strike me as important, and the fact that you deleted a comment from your blog about the Ubuntu issue. I read that you didn't like a remaster having some Linux Mint logos, branding, whatever in it. I have to wonder, and honestly, why are they any different from what you did with Ubuntu early on. Also, and why now. I know you stated you're growing, but I can't help but feel it's partly due to the fact that you can, because now you actually have your own authorization from LMI to use Linux in Linux Mint.
As I said, I'm not trying to offend and I know my questions, or concerns can offend, but it all smells of something heavy handed to me, truly. A "Well yes, did it, but now that we're recognized, nobody else can" situation. Not saying that it is, but...
One last question which might help more. Let's say I remastered Linux Mint (which would be quite easy) and put E17 as the desktop, called it Lanix, and you seen it on DW's page as a release, which it had Linux Mint splash, login, etc, but the Desktop was different. What would happen? How would you approach me, if at all? Also, since the latest Linux Mint is based on 8.04 and Ubuntu has slated it LTS, what would you do if I continued for say 6-8-12 months, similar to what you did with Ubuntu and disregarded any of your first (if any) contacts with me over the matter.
Hope you're enjoying your weekend with your family.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
164 • RE 163 (by Volore on 2008-07-19 04:37:35 GMT from France)
> "How did I not act with respect, honour, and personal pride?"
Simply by swinging this "bomb"... This is sufficient. (I'm talking about your sentence about Mint)
165 • Bomb Sight or Site? (by Landor on 2008-07-19 05:52:50 GMT from Canada)
You're obviously not using the Norden Bomb Sight, because you're nowhere near the intentional target, in "your" perception.
I'm not convinced that Mint is doing anyone any justice, except themselves, over this news. Nor am I trying to offend at all. I'm actually speaking and discusssing the matter with Clem without personal ignorance or slanderous comments/innuendo directed at the person(which I've yet to see you do in your discusssions),trying to find out the information that will tip the scales of understanding. Maybe you should try that approach sometiime.
RE: 162
Your wisdom never ceases to amaze me, or make me smile. Have a great weekend John
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
166 • XP Wireless is not always an easy walk in the park (by Suseuser on 2008-07-19 07:32:25 GMT from Australia)
My Intel 2200bg mini pci wireless card on Acer 1640 series laptop is a PITA with XP and pretty sweet with Linux (openSuse 10.3). Line dropouts, reduced speed to 1/4 available and tricky setup. I have spent nearly a week of spare time to configure settings and try various driver versions and also update firmware on adsl router (Siemens 6520 - BigPond issue). The Netgear w111 usb matched adapter that came with the router also works poorly on xp (short range and reduced speed) and I gave up trying to use it on Linux.
I have tried a few live cds of the DebianBuntu family and could not get a wireless connection working but using the latest Mandriva One 2009 Alpha 2 live cd was simple and easy to do right from the cd. Unfortunately, Mandriva 2009 (as well as all the DebianBuntu recent editions) still has xorg display issues with this machine. I also tried the latest CentOS 5.2 Live CD but could not find the intel 2200bg wireless listed in the network setup section but the display was detected and setup correctly. Thus I will stick with opeSUSE 10.3 on this machine but CentOS looks promising and maybe version 6.0 will be the Linux distro that goes to the grave with this machine. :-)
167 • RE: 166 (by Landor on 2008-07-19 08:02:22 GMT from Canada)
For the display issues, is the card itself detected and configured properly for you? If so, it could be a simple measure of some hands on and copying the appropriate section for your monitor from the CentOS xorg.conf over to the Mandriva xorg.conf, if of course it's Mandriva you want to go with.
Hope this helps in some way.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
P.S....I've had nothing but flawless wireless with Linux when it's been configurred properly and I can't say the same for Windows with any of our computers and their respective cards/dongles.
168 • 165 (by Volore on 2008-07-19 12:59:13 GMT from France)
> "I'm actually speaking and discusssing the matter with Clem"
Ok but just after the post from Clem. Before you write your sentence without explanation... e.g How? What? Why? Where?........
No, just an affirmation launched in the middle of a post...
> "Maybe you should try that approach sometiime."
Don't worry about me, lol :D
169 • Qu 168 Is your beloooved Mint of any use. (by dbrion on 2008-07-19 13:17:12 GMT from France)
"How? What? Why? Where?......."
Did Mint acknowledge the work done upstream (you know, Frugalware announce they ship a new version of Octave, of VMplayer.... these are just examples) which represents 99.9999% of what is shipped. They seem like a child who, when asked "whence does the milk come from", answers "from the supermarket/shop".
Are they fair, or just (algebrically) added go-betweens, trying to draw all the benefits of many others work?
Do they contribute , when ythey find bugs, to upstream?
Are their bug reports (if any)/corrections (if any) accepted? In what proportion?
Il n'y a pas de questions auxquelles une absence de réponse n'apporte de solution" Balladur, le Bébête Show, ca .1995.
170 • RE 169 (by Volore on 2008-07-19 13:31:18 GMT from France)
> "Is your beloooved Mint of any use."
Maybe yes, maybe not, but just I precise that I don't use at all Linux Mint! ;-)
171 • Re 170 Thanks (by dbrion on 2008-07-19 13:34:18 GMT from France)
You just show the intellectual value of Mint fanbois.
172 • RE 171 (by Volore on 2008-07-19 13:58:48 GMT from France)
> "You just show the intellectual value of Mint fanbois."
What? What would you say? You don't believe me when I say that I don't use Mint? For information my PC is in dual-boot between Parsix and Frugalware... No trace of Mint.
173 • RE 158 Human rights according to Monsieur Volore 's opinions (by dbrion on 2008-07-19 13:59:57 GMT from France)
"
Someone says that something is a crap. It's his/her right to say and think that. Then if he/she doesn't want explain why, it' also his/her right. (he/she can have some reasons...)"
And it is the right of *any* rational man to be sure that someone saying something is crap without seriously explaining is a fool, dismissing his own opinions.
174 • RE 173 (by Volore on 2008-07-19 15:04:35 GMT from France)
You can call who you want a fool if you feel like it.
Dbrion, you're still on this story? Try switching to something else... ;-)
175 • Mint Fanboy! (by awong on 2008-07-19 17:07:41 GMT from Canada)
Currently I'm a Mint Fanboy and I'm quite happy using it! All the Linux distros I have tried out having interesting features or ideas; you can use defaults or tweak to your heart's content. I'm glad that there are choices available for everyone.
176 • RE: 55, 58, et al. Smaller distros/DE's (by awong on 2008-07-19 18:06:00 GMT from Canada)
Thanks for posting the information on lightweight DE's. I agree that XFCE (on distros like ubuntu) has become bloated with respect to it being able to run on older hardware. Many of the online reviews for distros that work with older hardware are several years old, so I'm doing my own tests with a 192Mb RAM environment in Virtualbox. I realize that this won't give me an accurate account for processing speed since I'm testing on a P4 (I intend to install on a Celeron 400 laptop) but it will give me an idea of whether I can load the OS or not. So far, I have gotten OzOS and Mepis 7 to work, but I have yet to try others like TinyMe or Wolvix. I know that DSL and Puppy work well, but I want something a little heavier.
177 • RE: 176 (by Landor on 2008-07-19 19:45:49 GMT from Canada)
My son just did a fresh install of Gentoo on his system and used E17 for the DE. He's actually quite happy with it so far. I'm thinking of firing it on a partition myself and seeing how it works out. I didn't mind the few times I used it on his system. When I do, I'll post back here with the stats for CPU/RAM usage from the basic desktop settings/graphics and modified settings/theme/background for his system.
If anyone has an install of XFCE on a non-bloated system (very few services etc running), or even LXDE, I'd appreciate seeing any info/stats on actual performance.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
178 • RE: 176 Small Distros (by IMQ on 2008-07-19 19:46:06 GMT from United States)
Have you tried CrunchBang (Ubuntu-based with Openbox), GoblinX (Slackware-based with KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, Enlightenment and WindowMaker), or AntiX (MEPIS-based with Fluxbox/IceWM)?
There are other light weight distros but those are the one at the top of my head at this moment.
Check them out.
179 • 177 xfce on a non-bloated system (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-19 20:28:25 GMT from Greece)
Landor,
I installed antiX-M7.5-test2 (fluxbox and icewm) in VirtualBox, set it to 256MB RAM
then used the included smxi script (sidux users will know of it) to install xfce, kde-lite, fvwm-crystal.
xfce uses about 60MB of RAM idle (antiX fluxbox/icewm less than 30MB idle) and with apps running less than 80MB.
180 • #179 (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-19 20:54:50 GMT from Greece)
Landor, and anyone else who is interested.
Using VirtualBox, set to 256MB RAM.
Boot to desktop, according to conky, left to settle (idle), RAM usage.
icewm=29.7MB
fluxbox=30.2MB
fvwm=30.7MB
fvwm-crystal=44MB
kde-lite=49.8MB
xfce=58MB
So xfce is definitely getting to be a bit of a RAM hog compared to others, even a kde-lite.
181 • Landor's question about XFCE4 (by KimTjik on 2008-07-19 22:57:09 GMT from Sweden)
I'm probably one of those running XFCE4 on top of a more slimmed, even though not extremely slimmed system. No need to actually since I got an efficient enough CPU and amount of RAM, so that's not why I choose XFCE4. I simply like it better than KDE and Gnome. KDEmod is what I would use if I had to; it's snappy and low on resources, but it's still not my cup of tea. XFCE4 has a flexibility, modularity, non-dependency that I appreciate. If not XFCE4 it would be a tiling one like Xmonad.
System: Arch i686. As default this is what I get:
xfdesktop = 15 MB
xfwm4 = less than 1 MB
xfce4-panel = 9 MB
So total for these components = 25 MB
But once again: I'm not using it for its so called lightness. To keep it light there's a lot of alternatives depending on how much work you want to put into tweaking it, if it's not the system default: from good old fluxbox to the new LXDE. For those who say that XFCE4 is becoming "a RAM hog" I suspsect it has a lot more to do with how the system overall is configured. Yes, they've added more features to XFCE4, so it's more of a full fletched DE nowadays, but I get the impression by using it that it keeps on being well balanced in the resource/feature point of view.
182 • RE 180 (by Volore on 2008-07-19 23:03:20 GMT from France)
Interesting! Have you tried also Openbox (as Fluxbox?), Window Maker?
About XFCE, the newer versions are more greedy than before. It is closer to "the 2 big".
183 • xfce and others (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-19 23:23:24 GMT from Greece)
#181 KimTjik,
I'm not knocking xfce, but in my test (yes very basic I know), xfce performed worse than kde-lite, at least RAM-wise. (yeah I over-exaggerated the hog bit :) )
I refuse to put gnome on my box even for testing purposes!
xfce is still a very good desktop environment, but just not a lite as it once was.
#182 Volore
As above, xfce is greedier than kde-lite, not sure if it is greedier than a full kde.
I have found openbox and Windowmaker to be on a par with icewm and fluxbox as far as RAM use is concerned. I'll install tham to the same 'box', and let you know the RAM usage.
184 • more tests (by anticapitalista on 2008-07-20 00:05:59 GMT from Greece)
Some more RAM tests.
e16 (Debian testing)=30.6MB
WMaker=32MB
pekwm=32MB
Ratpoison=29MB
openbox=40MB!
185 • RE: 177-184 Lightweight DE's and tests (by awong on 2008-07-20 01:29:27 GMT from Canada)
Thanks everyone for all the ideas and RAM tests. I have a lot of your research to investigate. This will kill all my spare time for the next while!
186 • Linux System Requirements Higher Than XPs (by According to Novell on 2008-07-20 08:09:40 GMT from Australia)
System requirements
A minimum installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop containing the most basic, essential software and a very minimal graphical user interface requires at least:
* Intel* Pentium* III, 500 MHz
* 256 MB of physical RAM
* 800 MB of available disk space
* 800 x 600 display resolution
A standard installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop including the desktop environment of your choice (GNOME or KDE) and a wealth of applications requires at least:
* Intel Pentium IV, 2.4 GHz or higher or any AMD64 or Intel EM64T processor
* 1-2 physical CPUs
* 512 MB physical RAM (or higher)
* 2.5 GB available disk space
* 1024 x 768 display resolution (or higher)
http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=O4laI0St6AA~
BLOAT is ONE of the problems Linux on the DESKTOP needs to overcome if it ever is going to see "the Year of the Linux Desktop", which Linux promoters/evangelists have been imagining for over a decade, IMHO!
187 • re 186 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-20 11:53:06 GMT from Canada)
Linux System Requirements Higher Than XPs
It's not Linux, it's just Suse and probably few other distros that are bloated. If you check DistroWatch's list you can find many more Linux distros that are light and require much less than XP.
But then again XP was released when the computers were far less powerful than today's computers. And you compare today's Suse with 2001's XP.
188 • 186 (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-20 12:36:07 GMT from United States)
You do realize that Microsoft's current OS is Vista, don't you? Windows would look even less bloated if you go back to Windows 95. SLED is probably the heaviest Linux desktop in existence.
And BTW, I'd never run XP with only 256 MB of RAM. I tried a couple of times, but once you get that third app running, the darn machine slows to a crawl. Opening menus and changing programs is a nightmare. Install Vector Linux with 256 MB of RAM and it will fly with 15 apps running.
189 • MEmory greediness (by dbrion on 2008-07-20 12:55:35 GMT from France)
As Mandriva 2008.1 offers the choice (during install, you can ask for as many desktops as you want; after install, you just have a menu to choose which DE/WM you want to use), I tried under VMpalyer Gnome,KDE, XFECE and ICEWM. I was quite surprised by xfce, as it was almost as mem.greedy than KDE or GNOME (the difference was less than 20M ).
Only Icewm (It seems interesting for compiling/memory greedy tasks, or if one VMplays -to give more Ram to the host system-, even if one finds it ugly) had a ca 50M gain...
As for Linux requirements, it depends on which services are activated...
XP can run slowly with 256M RAM, I managed to have KDE with Mandriva working with 170 M (but skilled people can go much below, by suppressing unused tasks).
The only issue remains with the install (especially from a live-CD, which is getting fashionable : the live CD is kept alive and eats RAM, the install processes too)....
As far of "The year of the linux desktop" or "the Battle of The desktop " are concerned, they will written in blogs, when there is no inspiration, for years and years, even if everybody uses ... laptops (can go on working even with power cuts).
190 • RE 259 SliTaz One Sweet Boot and 3rd world deperate needs. (by dbrion on 2008-07-20 13:19:09 GMT from France)
"Certainly would give new life to aging or shelved units that the third world so desperately needs."
There are quite different needs in The 3rd world (access to drinkable water in some countries, electricity, freedom where there is a dictature) and PCs are one of the most secondary needs...
Anyway, shippping junk PCs can be more expensive than buying new ones, specially if divides the price by their life expectancy and if one takes into account electrical power needs (main supply can be expensive or subject to cuts in Africa, at least one century ago -and fuel for generators can be higher).
Would you be happpy if one give you a junk PC (there is a growing middle-class in some 3rd world countries, and it might be a blunder....
In Sahelian counties, keyboards should be dust (I saw 1 cm of dust in one night, like ,I suppose, in Oklahoma in the 1920s) and water (huge showers) proof.
These are the same anticommercial requirements than a coffee drinker's one, in any developped country... Nothing to do with an OS, just HW requirements and user friendly commercial policy .....
The greetest needs of low HW requirements I see is with people not wanting Vista (they were quite satisfied with XP), and trying to change to Linux with odl attics PCs.... just to test, and discovering Linux, now, seems to need as much RAM as XP (and sometimes more to install).
When I tried to install Slitaz cooking, I was surprised there is no RAM check (perhaps I missed it,but the timeouts are too short to read a menu), as their audience is likely to have RAM badly plugged (and many other linuxen doffer this option).
191 • Recommended minimum hardware requirements for Windows Vista (by Lower than SLED on 2008-07-20 14:28:53 GMT from Australia)
Recommended minimum hardware requirements for Windows Vista
Windows Vista Home Basic
*800-megahertz (MHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 800-MHz 64-bit (x64) processor
*512 megabytes (MB) of system memory
DirectX 9-class graphics card
32 MB of graphics memory
20-gigabyte (GB) hard disk that has 15 GB of free hard disk space
Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, and Windows Vista Ultimate
*1-gigahertz (GHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 1-GHz 64-bit (x64) processor
*1 GB of system memory
•Windows Aero-capable graphics card
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919183
http://www.pc.ibm.com/au/microsoft/vista/sysreq.html
NB: SLED (Linux) needs P4 2.4 GHz CPU and Vista needs 1GHz CPU.
IMO, Linux needs to trim some excess FLAB!
192 • re 191 (by Anonymous on 2008-07-20 14:51:23 GMT from Canada)
IMO, Linux needs to trim some excess FLAB!
I already poineted out that Suse != Linux. It's Suse that needs to trim some excess FLAB not Linux. Are you stupid? Do you want me to draw it for you?
193 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2008-07-20 15:00:24 GMT from Canada)
I have a friend that runs Vista on 1.5Gz with 512 RAM. It's horrible. Sometimes the system doesn't even boot. It's much slower than the slowest turtle in the whole world. I don't know how you can run it on lower specs. My guess is that Microsoft is lying about the minimum requirements. And Novell is more honest, although Novell and honesty can hardly fit in the same sentence.
194 • to Landor (by Clement Lefebvre on 2008-07-20 17:22:45 GMT from Ireland)
Hi,
Ubuntu have a trademark policy and so does Linux, and most of the distributions. This is something I never liked to think about because I'm not at ease with the concept of intellectual property but it's also something that I've come to face because it was necessary at some stage in the making of Mint. We're still lacking such a policy but we've learnt a lot, complied with the ones we needed and started to define our own. I understand that new projects are not familiar with this and they too will need some time for this, I don't intend to harass them or to waste time over this, I simply recognize the need for what I do to protect its name and so logically this is what occurs. Thanks to this I've already helped three websites which content is related to Mint to forge their own identity and avoid confusion as to whether or not they were maintained by us. I even designed one of their logo. These websites are part of our ecosystem, our user base appreciates them and we're directing as much traffic towards them as we can. This is a good thing for them, for us and for our user base. It is. I know that. We're in partnership with one of them and closely tied with the two others.
I'll be happy to reply to any question you have and you can contact me at root@linuxmint.com if indeed you're interested in Mint's policies and in me justifying/explaining the choices I make.
I prefer to leave it here as it is. I've been bashed by dbrion by the past and as he's taking part in this discussion I feel it's appropriate for me not to join in. I'm probably the biggest Mint fanboy there is (understandably) and God knows how much he hates them.
About the blog, I only delete offensive comments, so if there's a comment that didn't appear yet, it's probably just held by the moderating system (thanks to which we don't get spam). I'll have a look.
If anyone else is interesting in getting answers from me about my choices please don't hesitate to contact me. I do reply and I'm always happy to explain myself. There's no need to jump to conclusions. Just because we happened to be based on something else, to include codecs or to be successful doesn't mean we're the new bad guys in town. Controversy is exciting, don't get me wrong but it's quite disappointing to be given a bad image for no good reason.
Clem
195 • btw (by Clement Lefebvre on 2008-07-20 17:39:01 GMT from Ireland)
By the way, just to be clear about that.. I don't intend to waste any time with this more than to define that policy. If you happened to release something based on Mint the very first thing I would think is "great, another similar desktop.. let's see if we can learn from it". We didn't learn much from Pyrolinux or from Ultumix.. unfortunately. Maybe we'll learn from Maryan. We learn from all the big distributions and if something is made by Ubuntu or one of their/our derivative then it's even easier for us to adopt it. Similarly we learn from people who adopted our technologies. For instance we learn a lot from LSI which was forked from mintInstall. So as you can see we're happy to see initiatives around Mint and we're happy to share ideas because that's how these ideas grow and evolve faster. Now, if you were to keep the Mint branding, the splash screens for instance, it would create a problem for us. If we were to see people talk about us based on their experience with one of "our" release (the one you would have made for instance) then this would become a problem as well. Would I contact you to tell you about it? Probably. What would I do if you didn't care? Probably nothing but I would make it clear, publicly that we're not happy with that and that you've got nothing to do with us. That's as far as it gets really.
By the way, it's a problem not only for Ubuntu but for Mint as well when people talk about Mint as an Ubuntu flavor. You can see how it's in the interest of both distributions that their identity be clearly distinct. It's exactly the same for Mint derivatives.
As for the websites, we encourage their growth. In a similar way, if they confuse users as to whether we're maintaining them, then we simply stop helping them.
There's not going to be any lawyer involved or phone call made. We're stating our policy to be able to refer whith how we'd like things to be. It's up to you whether you agree with it or not. If you go against simply don't expect us to be on good terms with your project, it's as simple as that really.
Anyway, you're welcome to contact me about this or anything about Mint. I'll be happy to answer. Thanks.
Clem
196 • No subject (by Dick Cheney on 2008-07-20 17:41:58 GMT from United States)
@Clem
Thanks for Mint, for some reason it works much better for me than Ubuntu. Not sure why, but then I never bothered to investigate.
@191
Are you trolling? Or just 'uninformed'? You do not run any version of Vista with 512 MB of RAM and an 800 MHz processor. Those system requirements are the absolute minimum necessary to install and boot Vista. There is no way you get anything close to acceptable performance. My wife bought a 512 MB, 1.73 Ghz Vista laptop. Even after bumping the RAM to 2 GB the performance is not good. You definitely want a dual core.
197 • RE: 186 and 191 - Sometimes you need a reality check (by KimTjik on 2008-07-20 18:22:57 GMT from Sweden)
Theoretically a lot of thoughts seem right to some, digging their nose deep into books, afraid of getting the nose exposed to the cooled winds of reality; you might get a flue, you know the one telling you we're lied to to or fooled.
Seriously, what you show is a piece of paper not worth anything until proven, so what's the point of making any fuss about it? And why do it here? Isn't that a bit naive? The again: what does "basic Windows Vista feature means? Notepad maybe? A joke of course, but set those Microsoft recommendations against the complaints they've received for deceiving customers on this matter. Hence you better ask yourself: who's honest enough to tell the approximate truth?
XP isn't even interesting as a comparison, because then you probably should look for the few distributions based on the 2.4 kernel. Even Slackware is running a 2.6 kernel nowadays. Frankly the technology leap between XP and a modern core Linux installation is pretty wide. I've some good XP installations running at home and at work, but they've all needed a lot of tweaking to be good performers. Most users aren't computer literate enough to do that, so they end up will snail-systems. Compare a home-user used Linux system to a XP one, and you'll sometimes notice a horrific difference, and it's not to XP:s advantage.
Still if you continue to think about it: if you really want to make use of all the so called inventions in Vista will you be even close to that with a 1 GHz x86 CPU and 1 GB of RAM? Can you make use of all the Linux (I'm not only talking about the kernel) technology on such a machine? Yes you can, if you're not thinking that Compiz Fusion is the best and most necessary thing ever invented. Microsoft realizes the dead ends with Vista and while stop selling XP they didn't have any other choice but to resurrect XP and develop it, tweak it, so it could keep Windows a float on PC:s like the Asus Eee PC and similar. This doesn't mean that XP still is in 2008 such a great operating-system, no only that Microsoft doesn't have any other choice.
I installed one of the more bleeding edge distributions on my father's Thinkpad with a Pentium II processor. New kernel, JFS file-system and some pretty cool technical features added, and yes it runs better than the previous Windows 2000 system (and that is a slimmer system compared to XP).
Lastly as others have pointed out: SLED is SLED, one flavour of Linux among many others. The most curious thing about your comments is this sentence:
"BLOAT is ONE of the problems Linux on the DESKTOP needs to overcome if it ever is going to see "the Year of the Linux Desktop", which Linux promoters/evangelists have been imagining for over a decade, IMHO!"
OK, so what other new operating-system of 2008 would you then recommend? Oh, sorry there's only OSX and Vista, and BSD of course, but BSD must be in the same bloated boat according to your conclusion. Sorry pal, but there's nothing for you to run then. And that's fine, why do you necessary need a computer, because it's not crucial to life anyway.
198 • Mint saloon opsychology (by Anonymous on 2008-07-21 06:25:02 GMT from France)
"been bashed by dbrion by the past and as he's taking part in this discussion I feel it's appropriate for me not to join in. I'm probably the biggest Mint fanboy there is (understandably) and God knows how much he hates them.
"
199 • Suite 198 : this is not hatred, this is despise.... (by dbrion on 2008-07-21 06:30:02 GMT from France)
For copying a Debian downgrade without acknowledging the origins of the softs and, at the same time, claiming to be recognised as a brand for their loooovley paperpaints......
For, in 140 lines (posts 153,194,195) of "langue de bois" Quatsch, not conveying any useful info.
200 • re198-199 (by Clem on 2008-07-21 10:05:43 GMT from Sweden)
"Langue de bois" maintenant.. I was slowly getting used to see you bash what we've been working on for the last year or so (paperpaints as you put it) but I see it's getting personal.
La langue de bois c'est pourtant pas mon style. Si je ne representais pas cette distribution et que vous vous permettiez de m'insulter face a face comme vous le faites sans cesse ce n'est pas de la langue de bois que je vous enverrais dans les dents. C'est incroyable cette capacite que vous avez a me rendre aggressif. Votre mepris je vous le rends bien. On pourra m'accuser d'etre impulsif, de nourrir le troll.. mais la langue de bois.. elle est bonne celle la :)
A bon entendeur.
201 • RE 200 You are getting lower and lower, that astonishes me (by Dbrion, dit le bon entendeur on 2008-07-21 10:18:10 GMT from France)
Vous auriez été mieux inspiré de dire:
quelles sont vos contributions "en amont" (correction de bugs, développement, etc...). C'est très différent de "splash screens", et autres gadgets....
Si ces très éventuelles contributions sont acceptées.....
Ces contributions servent à tout le monde, pas à Votre cour.
Au lieu de ça, des dizaines de lignes de bla-bla bien pensant.
Pitié, ne recourez pas à la violence... même si c'est votre façon naturelle d'argumenter.. Et "votre" distribution est construite sur le travail réél de milliers d'autres qui sont, eux, respectables...
202 • Strategic error (by Adam on 2008-07-21 11:06:12 GMT from Australia)
No! Clement, you're engaging him on his own turf!
Lure him into English, then pummel him with impunity!
203 • What's the point really, see you all elsewhere. (by Clement Lefebvre on 2008-07-21 11:11:19 GMT from Sweden)
Tout le monde est "respectable", il n'appartient qu'a vous de faire preuve de respect ou de continuer a m'insulter.
Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle. La seule chose qui m'interesse ici c'est de trouver un espace de discussion entre utilisateurs de Linux et cross-distributions. Sauf que la je perds mon temps, mon energie et ma credibilite a me battre comme un gamin avec vous. Encore une fois je me resigne a contacter Ladislav et a lui faire part de ce qui va suivre. Si je ne peux commenter sur DWW sans que vous ne cherchiez a me sortir par les yeux alors je n'ai qu'a m'abstenir.
Le forum est a vous. Je fais place libre encore une fois. Ma langue de bois et mon bla-bla bien pensant ne vous manqueront guere, pour les autres s'il y'en a ici qui sont interesses par mes contributions (sait-on jamais) je serai heureux de participer aux conversations sur d'autres forums ou de repondre directement par email.
"@+ tout le monde" comme on dit chez vous. Tachez d'y aller molo sur les insultes en mon absence, ne serait-ce que par decence. Merci.
Clement Lefebvre.
204 • to Adam (by Clement Lefebvre on 2008-07-21 11:16:38 GMT from Sweden)
Well then just a final comment cause I'm already on my way out of here..
"He brought me down to his level and beat me with experience!"
Take care and talk to you elsewhere.
Clem.
PS: He also sucks at French, but that doesn't stop him. Don't underestimate that guy, he's got talent when it comes to bring the worst in me.
205 • RE 202 Asking what Mr Lefevre contributions to Open Source are (by dbrion on 2008-07-21 11:20:59 GMT from France)
Why does His Majesty feel insulted.
By contribution, I mean accepted bug detections/corrections....
not copies, 10 wallpaints, a 3 menus and tons ofQuatsch
Messeems Open Source is not even acknowledged in this UBUlinux remaster...
That seems rather reveaing of His great skills...
Number of Comments: 205
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