New Qt Based Desktop Environment 241
aglider writes "Phoronix has an interesting piece of news about a new emerging desktop environment. And it's Qt based! From the project home page: 'Razor-Qt is an advanced, easy-to-use, and fast desktop environment based on Qt technologies. It has been tailored for users who value simplicity, speed, and an intuitive interface. Unlike most desktop environments, Razor-Qt also works fine with weak machines.' Someone has already tagged Razor-Qt as 'a KDE ripoff.' What we have so far is version 0.4, ... and ... a number of easy ways to install and test it on a few main Linux distributions.
Maybe time has come for something really new in the desktop environment arena almost completely occupied by GNOME and KDE."
The project site has a few screenshots, and the source is available under a mixture of the GPL and LGPL. It looks pretty pedestrian in its current form, but then XFCE wasn't much to look at in its early stages either.
It looks awesome. (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one welcome new razor-qt overlords.
Seriously though, completion is the best, and its really time to teach Gnome folks the lesson.
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Featuritis will make it grow, soon (Score:5, Funny)
"It looks pretty pedestrian in its current form, but then XFCE wasn't much to look at in its early stages either."
Wait. Featuritis will make it grow, soon... ;)
Video (Score:5, Informative)
http://youtu.be/n6Ro1Qc4UaE [youtu.be]
Article (hungarian):
http://hup.hu/cikkek/20111219/razor-qt_qt-alapu_gyors_desktop_kornyezet_telepitese_ubuntu_11.10-re [hup.hu]
Rip-off? (Score:5, Funny)
Someone has already tagged Razor-Qt as 'a KDE ripoff.'
Oh no, someone call the police! Someone is ripping off an idea from an open source project! We must stop this "open" madness!
Re:Rip-off? (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed - it looks like it's reusing a load of artwork from KDE *which is good*. With open source there's no reason not to slot in existing professional artwork straight away in a new project. They're even planning to make it easy to contribute their patches to common code back to KDE, so they're even being actively co-operative, which is always nice to see.
If they come up with something that looks nice and is lighter-weight than KDE then I might want to install it on my ancient netbook or in virtual machines. KDE is still my preference on my desktop.
Qt is a nice toolkit and it's good to see more development based on it. There's also the Trinity Desktop Environment, for folks who want a KDE-like lightweight desktop - it actually *is* KDE 3, further developed. It looks like (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Trinity#Trinity_Build_Dependency_PKGBUILDs) that's based on Qt 3, whereas Razor-Qt can presumably use newer Qt versions from the start. Variety is nice, it's all cool.
Re:Rip-off? (Score:5, Insightful)
My complaint about that is that...
A project focuses on making a new desktop environment based on a GUI toolkit used by one of the major desktop environments, but with the aim to be lightweight...
And they are calling it a KDE ripoff? Shouldn't it be an XFCE ripoff?
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My complaint about that is that...
A project focuses on making a new desktop environment based on a GUI toolkit used by one of the major desktop environments, but with the aim to be lightweight...
And they are calling it a KDE ripoff? Shouldn't it be an XFCE ripoff?
Technically, this isn't a desktop environment, any more than fluxbox is a desktop "environment." To be an environment, you have to provide additional services and functionality. Xfce is an environment, but not as feature rich as Gnome or KDE. So,if you want to be accurate, this is not a KDE ripoff, but an LXDE ripoff (which is also not a true desktop environment).
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They call it a KDE ripoff because it does look a look like KDE, because they borrowed a lot from them in terms of artwork. To be honest, looking at the screenshots, I know I could be fooled into thinking these are KDE screenshots. The only difference is in the lower left part of the taskbar, as far as I can see.
Window close/minimize/maximize buttons (Score:5, Interesting)
Why the heck all the Linux Window managers are copying Windows 95-XP with the placement of the window close/minimize/maximize buttons ?
Also - why are all the GUI shortcuts With Ctrl and not Alt or Meta ?
Is Windows THAT GOOD so the purpose of all those GUIs are to become a perfect copy of it ?
Re:Window close/minimize/maximize buttons (Score:5, Funny)
Why using windows at all? All computers do this. Maybe get rid of monitors after all... Content is made available by a combination of morse code and whistles.
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Because every possible alternative is worse.
Re:Window close/minimize/maximize buttons (Score:4, Insightful)
Because every possible alternative is worse.
This. IMO there is nothing wrong with the placement of close/minimize/maximize in Windows. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Besides, transition from Windows or other DE's with the same placement is easier that way. That goes for keyboard shortcuts too.
Re:Window close/minimize/maximize buttons (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to just being different for the sake of being different?
Does it really matter what order minimise/maximise/close is? I mean, can you actually give a good logical reason why the order or placement should be anywhere else? If not, then why not just keep it the way everyone else does it?
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Which "everyone else" ?
It's different on Motif, NeXTStep/OpenStep, Win 3.x, MacOS Classic & MacOS X.
Microsoft just copied OS/2 (and switched the buttons around)
Let me tell you a reason: "Cascading" Windows. If you have a lot of them, if you want to select one of the windows in the middle of the stack, you're likely to push the "Close Window" [X] button. Never happens when the close window button is on the left.
As all the displays are now Wide Screen, something like WM2 [all-day-breakfast.com], with the window controls on the s
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"Everyone else" is the majority of computer users out there, i.e. Windows. I know, it sucks but no matter what way you swing it, it does have 90%+ of the desktop market. The server market is different, but who cares for UIs on a server?
I also disagree with your cascading windows suggestion, it doesn't make a huge difference because the "Exit" button is on the side of a window, all that really differs is which side. Plus, on today's widescreen monitors, the "gap" between the left and right side of the window
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I remember when Microsoft put the close button on the windows, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth as people claimed they'd always accidentally close the window instead of maximising it... and I'm sure there were, but people quickly got used to it.
Change it to something else, there will be much wailing again, but they'll get used to it readily enough again.
(I quite like the idea of moving the title bar to the side, but on the right hand side, as a 'handle' like the ones you get on all applianc
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That would be a bit unfortunate for left-handed people, who already have to deal with a lot of stuff designed for right-handed people (layouts, mice, default controls, etc.), but there's no reason why it couldn't be a configurable option - it's not like the program itself has to set the placement of UI items like that.
Re:Window close/minimize/maximize buttons (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, can you actually give a good logical reason why the order or placement should be anywhere else?
Because destructive operations (like close) should be kept separated from non-destructive ones (like maximise/minimise). NeXT (and by inheritance WindowMaker) get this right. Fortunately most window managers also make it easy enough to change, which I usually do.
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Good point, I can't say I disagree with that.
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Says who? Your opinion. A valid one, but there are different ones, which also have some merit, e.g. to be able to access all controls when the windows are stacked in a way that one corner is always covered.
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Says who? Your opinion. A valid one, but there are different ones, which also have some merit, e.g. to be able to access all controls when the windows are stacked in a way that one corner is always covered.
Apple used to actually have human user interface engineers working on usability in a scientific way. They worked out the close-button away from the others was the least likely to cause accidental data loss.
Your point is fair: they valued the avoidance of accidental data loss over the value of window mani
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I am always a bit skeptical when someone claims 'usability in a scientific way'. Apple and Microsoft have absolutely no interest in best usable software. Their primary interest is best sellable software. And this is not necessarily the same. Best sellable software focuses on new users, shallow learning c
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Apple used to actually have real researchers, Human Interface Group, Advanced Technology Group, etc. and they did real research (which wasn't always abided by). Steve Jobs disbanded them all and announced that the product teams could always do their own research. But as you point out, that's not really the case. Jobs really just didn't want to have any people with data to override his sensibilities.
Microsoft currently has a Research Group that is similar, except they seem even less product-focus. Googl
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Actually, it IS that good. I've always thought Windows XP managed to obtain a very nice interface that allowed efficient window, program and file management. Windows 7 just added extra stuff but still kept the basics because if it works well, why rock the boat? Linux doesn't have to be totally different in GUI - GNOME 3 and Unity should be enough evidence that trying something different for the sake of change isn't nec
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Damn right in every respect.
Re:Window close/minimize/maximize buttons (Score:4, Insightful)
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1- Why not ? You have inside info on where god intended them to be ?
2- Same: why not ? Ctrl is easier to find too, on the edge of the keyboard.
3- Well, if what you're anxious about is windows control placement and shortcut key, Windows is as good as any OS. And it don't hurt to keep things familiar, changing things for the sake of changing them is pretty gratuitous. BTW, you can swap ctrl and alt via a keymap, if you're really hurting for it.
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No, I did not.
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I'm not one to blindly copy Windows, but neither am I one to change simply for the sake of change. I've grown rather accustomed to the buttons on the title bar, and they've been pretty common through a lot of UIs, WMs, etc, and that even predates the "copy Win95 era".
I'd like to see someone "do the OS/2 WPS UI right" some time, even though everyone seems intent on "doing Windows right." The OS/2 WPS was the one GUI that managed to attract me away from the command line more of the time than any other. I'm
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Do you seriously use xterm in place of Gnome Terminal, or, better yet, konsole? Why?
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Pssst.....
Hey....
Ratpoison [nongnu.org] runs on linux.
Damn facts, getting in the way of a perfectly good sanctimonious rant.
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because they're a good placement style. as opposed to osx style for example - or even beos style.
maybe they should go osx and place the buttons at upper-left corner - to be different you know. and then in their own built in apps move those to be on top of each other. and then place another fill-screen button at the right corner?
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I totally agree. With the advent of wide-screen monitors the layout is all wrong. Vertical space is at a premium, so the "panel" should be to one side or the other. I have a number of ideas on how this should be laid out to make it useful. Notice that browsers have adopted "tabs" because the traditional win95 method of switching tasks sucks - or they maximize the browser be
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Why the heck all the Linux Window managers are copying Windows 95-XP with the placement of the window close/minimize/maximize buttons ?
Razor is not a Window manager. The placement of the buttons comes from kwin or OpenBox or whatever wm you chose to use it with.
Not for KDE users (Score:2)
With KDE, even KDE-4, moving the OS widgets around and even removing the useless maximize widget, is easily accomplished in the GUI--no gconf voodoo required.
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Not all Linux window managers follow those conventions. Try window managers based on non windows environments. For example WindowMaker.
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Well, if you take for example, Windows 95 as the starting point, the opposite corner is the lower left. Doesn't sound very logical to me.
I understand the reasoning, but how ARE you going to arrange the buttons then? It's just as bad to put Close next to the Window Menu on the left. Would you move the Window Menu to the right where Close it now, and vice versa? I guess that would work.
Any of these ported to Windows? (Score:3)
This might be a really stupid question, but has anyone ever ported any of these UI's (KDE, Gnome, etc.) to Windows?
Now before you tell me off for being stupid, there would be a good reason for it - anyone that prefers *nix and has to use a windows machine (say at work) can at least get some of the familiarity by using their favourite GUI. For those of us, like myself, who have tried to switch from Windows so many times but got cold feet because everything is so unfamiliar and different, it'd be a great way to familiarise with it.
Sure, there's a lot more to *nix than just a different UI, it's almost a different ethos, a different way of working - but every little helps.
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No, the problems with Window's UI go far deeper than which side of the title bar the close button is located. Someone familiar with UNIX who finds themselves on Windows would do best to just install Cygwin.
KDE is. (Score:5, Informative)
KDE is ported to Windows. Check http://windows.kde.org/ [kde.org] for the installer. It works sort of like synaptic, where you pick the applications you want and it deals with dependencies for you.
Some things in it work better than others, and you'll have to download a lot of Qt and KDE dependencies at first. The applications generally work pretty well but aren't all feature-complete compared to their *nix counterparts (but Kate and IOslaves work! aweosme.)
I'm not sure about the state of Plasma itself (the desktop, widgets, etc.) but it's been available for a while. I don't think Kwin is available, so it will still use the normal Windows window management (ick)
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mod parent up, i got sidetracked reading about how to actually go about putting kde on windows and ended up posting much less info, five minutes later
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell_replacement [wikipedia.org]
http://windows.kde.org/ [kde.org]
etc.
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Lack of class and design (Score:2)
My biggest problem is the complete lack of actual class and design and refinement with most open source projects. They are all done by techie, mostly youngish males, without any sense of design or art. I mean, a pizza cutter? Really? Seriously, this is the kind of thing that has bugged me since the early 90s with Linux and it just never gets better. With a unified vision and goal look at where OSX was able to come in relatively short order while Linux still flounders around creating 200 desktop environments
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Says the being, evolved via chaotic natural selection... Clearly, your own existence proves you wrong.
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Well, I sure as hell would hope that after 2.3+ million years Linux would finally have some great design. I guess that makes my 21+ years waiting seem minor in comparison.
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you do realise the goatse man was a product of this natural selection process too.... I don't think you can hold us up as an example of perfection quite yet (not until we've achieved transcendance like today's motd says)
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Uh...Linux and open source projects are made up of many, many different people who are building on Project A,B,C, etc. because it reflects their own personal vision or goals or accomplishes tasks they want done.
There is no "unified vision" because there is not and can not be a unified purpose/goal. Some DEs are for research environments, others are for standard workstations, others favor people that desire total flexibility, and some are geared towards trying to merge completely contradictory dichotomies, a
it built & installed and runs just fine (Score:3)
it seems to run okay (fast and stable), it makes a nice lightweight desktop, it wants to use Openbox to manage applications,
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And say what you want about Windows: Windows interface is to this moment unsurpassed in it's functionality and simplicity (at leat the classical 95/2000 on which KDE is based). OSXs finder with all it's annoyances and ,,so shiny/no content,, is, unfortunately gaining terrain with copycats (god save us).
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If you can't make a point without insulting something then your point isn't that good to begin with.
At the very least learn about whatever you are insulting so you don't look stupid and we could take you seriously. I use OS X and Linux and I like my OS X desktop just fine. I don't want widgets on my desktop. The ones I do have are out of my way on the dashboard. I do not use "missi
Re:KDE ripoff? (Score:5, Funny)
"If you can't make a point without insulting something then your point isn't that good to begin with."
"At the very least learn about whatever you are insulting so you don't look stupid and we could take you seriously."
Interesting two sentences to write next to each other.
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And say what you want about Windows: Windows interface is to this moment unsurpassed in it's functionality and simplicity (at leat the classical 95/2000 on which KDE is based).
What's so simple about having to reboot your computer every five minutes? You are talking about older versions of Windows, although you still need to reboot whenever you install or update anything whatever, unlike Linux.
What's so simple about having to reopen all your programs and documents after a boot? KDE opens to the same state it
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Unsurpassed in it's functionality and simplicity. Uhhmmmm - that would be the Classic theme, right?
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Re:KDE ripoff? (Score:4, Interesting)
Look to [bunch of old OSes] - get something new already
Ummmmmm. Okay. If you're that desperate for something new, how about coming up with something new?
There's also something to be said for not fixing what ain't broken. New for the sake of new is why we end up with so many bugs, and pieces of awful, incomplete, crappy window managers like Unity and Gnome Shell being used in stable release versions of popular Linux distros when they are nowhere near ready for prime time.
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Windoze sucks!!!!
It is not intutative at all, it is not simple, and barely functional. Blow OSX all the crap you want, my mom can figure it out - it is unsupassed right now under version 10.6.x.
Look to NeXT, BeOS, Amiga, DragonFly, - get something new already. Look beyond the mundane. Linux people are to the point where they are hoping they can make their little linux box look like windoze. OOOOOOO - get windoze then.
I want a better OS and a better GUI - no more of the same old crap.
Parent should not have been modded down. He has some valid points and touches on key issues. Beating parent on the head with a stick is childish and does not improve the discussion.
I happen to disagree that OSX operations are discoverable by the novice. It seems to me by observing novices that Windows UP THROUGH XP was, with the exception of certain operations, extremely easily understood by novices. Reasonable people can disagree on this, but one thing they cannot reasonably disagree on. A huge portion of
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Parent might have had points but "Windoze sucks!!!" doesn't help advance the conversation.
As for the advantages of familiar vs. better I think Gnome's comment was the best here, "You have a certain of difference points you can spend on your interface. Too different and people just hate it. So spend them carefully". The Windows interface made a lot of sense which is why even prior to KDE, Linux desktops sometimes had a windows feel. FVWM's FVWM95 was extremely popular with early distributions, RedHat e
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Well, thank you Mr. Grumpy. Actually, thank goodness, he has other options than to listen to your ultimatum. There are any number of DE's already available that break new ground and that anyone will agree (pro or con) are not "more of the same old crap."
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I don't believe Razor-Qt is a KDE ripoff. As Razor-Qt doesn't force the user to run those bloated monstrocities called akonadi and nepomuk, and as it doesn't show any nasty rendering "artifacts" which plague KDE4 since the 4.0 days, it is a considerable improvement when compared to KDE.
If only it had a network/wifi manager...
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It looks more like LXDE than it does KDE, anyway. And it appears to be using nm-applet for the wireless manager, in at least some of the screenshots. :)
I question the *need* for another system like that, but I don't question the work they've done. It looks pretty clean to me, and like it's a good alternative. But considering that I use E17, I'm definitely not in their target market, nor would I consider switching, when E17 will happily run on a PII-250 with 64MB of RAM and still be quite zippy, even with th
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Neither does KDE force to run akonadi and nepomuk. You can disable them if wanted. Only some KDE applications demand those like now kdepim applications.
But KDE Plasma, KWin and other KDE applications do not force you to run them.
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Trolling much? Since kmail2 (akonadi-based) imap fetching works fast. And nepomuk+krunner is awsome (yes, I know where my doc are, but why should I care: alt-F2, type their name, and there you go).
Why should I have to wait for a stupidly slow file-based system just because some idiots like you do not understand the limits of some software architectures? The data is still stored in mdir format...
Morons who would like new features, but not the computing cost of those features (and would like the features impl
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Maybe KDE was a "Windows rip-off" for 1.0, but the latest releases look nothing like Windows. Microsoft did not and never claimed to have created the concept of the window-based GUI -- even they credit Xerox/PARC with that.
I'm not a fan of KDE myself, but I am a HUGE fan of the Qt approach to applications development, having spent almost 15 years working with an older commercial product called Neuron Data Open Interface that had the same goals back when portability meant X/11 for Unix, Apple, and Micros
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I really don't like your attitude, that KDE is just a Windows ripoff.
Unfortunately, as time passes, it seems that you are right. I really don't like that Plasma desktop, nor do I like the way Gnome is going. I'm trying to get used to the Enlightenment desktop. Maybe I need to look at this Qt desktop. Wonder how hard it is to install and configure? Well . . . I'll know in a few days, I guess. I can't resists a challenge like that for long!
Re:Good or Bad thing? (Score:5, Informative)
Well first of all this isn't Qt, it's a system built using Qt like KDE. Secondly, I don't know when Qt was ever just a GUI toolkit. It's trying to be a full on standard library - not like stdlib, but like Java, C# etc. covering GUI, file systems, networking, databases, multimedia, threads, collection classes and so on - basically you're supposed to be able to write fully functional applications without ever using anything but Qt classes.
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Actually I am even able to do this without Qt classes. ;-)
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QT was in the mid 1990s being seriously proposed as the default widget set for Linux. Something like what Cocoa is for OSX or .NET for Windows. Yes, the idea was QT OS. LAMP would be the standard for 3 tier architecture and QT for 1 and 2 tier.
Then people went ballistic because of the QPL, Gnome started moving into that role with User Linux and Progeny. And today KDE is just a desktop environment but Linux GUI was a Suse, Turbo Linux, Caldera, Connectiva project at first with QT in a very prominent rol
Re:Good or Bad thing? (Score:5, Informative)
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I noticed applications built using QT cannot be automated fairly easily by users with tools like autoit... and that sucks. Or perhaps I'm mistaken what computers are for. I thought they were to automate difficult things into easier to use and re-use interfaces.
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Re:Good or Bad thing? (Score:5, Informative)
Qt is a full application portability toolkit, not just a collection of widgets. It's Neuron Data's Open Interface concept reworked as open source and delivered on steroids. Not a new concept, but a very powerful one, and not to be confused with a basic widget library like Motif of GTK+ that only deal with widgets and have no concern for portability at their heart.
A completely different animal, despite it's lineage.
As to people claiming this new GUI is a KDE rip-off: KDE is a collection of applications and a desktop/window manager based on Qt. KDE is not the underlying Qt technology on which it's built, but an application of that technology.
Qt predates KDE by many years, and was originally delivered by Trolltech as a hybrid GPL/commercially licensed product before eventually being bought out by Nokia and released as fully LGPL open source when they opted to abandon the tiny revenue stream of Qt/Windows users who were paying for licenses in favour of wider adoption of the toolkit.
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Qt predates KDE...
Does Qt have any relation to Quartz? Its the Q... and the t... makes me think maybe there was a story to be told there.
Re:Good or Bad thing? (Score:5, Funny)
Qt predates KDE...
Does Qt have any relation to Quartz? Its the Q... and the t... makes me think maybe there was a story to be told there.
Does Google not exist on your planet?
Re:Good or Bad thing? (Score:4, Funny)
Qt predates KDE...
Does Qt have any relation to Quartz? Its the Q... and the t... makes me think maybe there was a story to be told there.
Does Google not exist on your planet?
I am not inclined to entertain your ontological interrogative.
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Small nitpick. QT developed a GPL license because of KDE and the controversy. When KDE started it was QT-non commercial and then the QPL license.
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Qt predates KDE by many years, and was originally delivered by Trolltech as a hybrid GPL/commercially licensed product before eventually being bought out by Nokia and released as fully LGPL open source when they opted to abandon the tiny revenue stream of Qt/Windows users who were paying for licenses in favour of wider adoption of the toolkit.
The dual license cash flow wasn't that tiny, when Nokia bought Qt in 2008 it was employing 250 people and AFAIK that was their only product. They even said it themselves on the developer FAQ [nokia.com]:
As of Qt version 4.5, we license Qt under the LGPL version 2.1. Why? We have always chosen licenses that best support our goals. Following the Nokia acquisition, our goals have changed from being focused on revenue generation to supporting Nokias overall software strategy through the vision of Qt Everywhere.
As I understand it they wanted to put Qt on phones and make money on cuts from app sales, just like iPhone and Android. With that plan dead and buried, nobody has yet managed to give a sensible answer as to what Nokia hope to make money on using Qt. You get a lot of hand waving and buzzwords but no traceable cash flow
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While I agree with your sentiment, hiring human factors engineers, in my experience, only leads to more-yet-friendlier Windows-like environments. I was in a grad program, and all it did was reinforce best-practices for desktop-metaphor based operating systems. Disappointing indeed.
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Disappointing or not to your psyche, you might want to consider that perhaps there is a reason why human factors engineers find a lot to favor in the Windows environment (and I'm thinking of up through XP here; it has been a huge wreck in usability since then). It basically does not get better than IBM CUA, which was the real genius of the Windows 95 environment, and which was itself standing on giants in the form of Xerox PARC shoulders.
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Just as an addition to the above post, I stumbled upon this site the other day and was rather impressed by it - http://www.chiptune.com/ [chiptune.com]
It brought back a lot of memories of the Amiga and for those of you who have no idea what Workbench looked like, it's a quick way of playing around without having to install anything.
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I wouldn't call it pathetic and I never resort to using the term Windoze since I am over 12 but to me this does look a lot like Windows 98/2000. I would like to see some more challenging UIs.
You are correct in that keeping the familiar is the easiest way to create a usable UI. If the goal is a lighter faster UI then that is a good way to go. However we have more than a few light fast UIs including XFCE which is pretty good. I would also like to see some work in making trying something new.
What many people d
Re:Hoping for a new generation of Desktop Envirome (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets hope this is the start of a whole new set of Desktop Environments, and I don't mean the bloated, needlessly flashy, touchscreen optimised, BS that looks like children's toys.(Yes KDE, Unity, Gnome I'm looking at you.)
It is the bloat that turns lean window managers into actual desktop environment. Take LXDE, it is basically openbox with a few panels. By the time you add a printing subsystem, notification subsystem, and all the other things that truly make up a desktop environment, then it is no longer so lightweight. It is not the eye-candy that makes KDE and Gnome so heavy, it is all the other services provided in the background.
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P.S. I confess that I even *like* the graphic appearance of Windows 95, but I guess that's ju
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me too, that why i run IceWM with rox-filer drawing the desktop icons and wallpaper = basic and lightweight, but still quite usable
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amen to that. Perhaps it is the proliferation of programming styles that adds so much weight to a system like this, and if everything was coded in a single script language and a single compiled language the whole would be a lot lighter and faster.
That, and a good separation of concerns for all modules - the printing subsystem shouldn't even be loaded until you need to print something, which means the design needs to understand what you can send to the print subsystem without being built with it included (ie
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Why? You have virtual memory, why not load it, configure it and swap it out?
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I think you would be surprised how many features Windows 95 doesn't have that you take for granted. Go install a 95 and see what it doesn't do. OS features are like the frog cooking in the water, they get added gradually and ...
Re:Hoping for a new generation of Desktop Envirome (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a consequence, which cannot easily be avoided. The only thing I'd wish for is a better modularization. The current desktop environments are close to all or nothing. You can drop the one or other service, but the minimal set is still huge and in my view very intrusive.
Re: (Score:3)
Never used a distro with E17, have you? :) the Enlightenment libs are designed from the ground up to be modular, and to allow you to pick and choose which parts of the system you want loaded, but even with bling effects (compositor) enabled, and stuff like dancing penguins on your desktop, it can still fit in less than 128MB of RAM. It's light-weight and responsive without sacrificing the eye candy or functionality.
And thanks to the modularity, it can be shoehorned into very low RAM configurations: I have s
Re: (Score:2)
The reason is most distributions base themselves around a GUI and E17 is a window manager not a GUI. But...
http://bodhilinux.com/ [bodhilinux.com]
http://www.moonos.org/ [moonos.org] (DR17 version)
http://opengeu.intilinux.com/ [intilinux.com]
http://shr-project.org/trac [shr-project.org]
etc...
Re: (Score:2)
Just use one of the older ones. For example WindowMaker is still a delight after almost 20 years.
Re: (Score:2)
small popup dialog windows.
that's the reason.
arguably, they shouldn't be used. the "popup" that makes it impossible to interact with the main window should be within the main window anyways and preferably dim the main window too.
Re: (Score:2)
It would be *fucking awesome* if this outright supplanted G3 and Unity.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the advantage is that everything Qt-based will work without a single hitch.
If Qt got a decent enough port to mobile platforms, then porting basic applications would be a cinch.