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.
KDE ripoff? (Score:1, Interesting)
Someone has already tagged Razor-Qt as 'a KDE ripoff.'
And KDE is just a Windows ripoff. So really, Razor-Qt is just another Windows look-alike. That was actually one of the things I liked about KDE, the interface was so familiar to what I already knew, it made transitioning easier.
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.
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:Hoping for a new generation of Desktop Envirome (Score:3, Interesting)
P.S. I confess that I even *like* the graphic appearance of Windows 95, but I guess that's just me getting old.
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.
Re:KDE ripoff? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 was in when you closed it, all open docs and apps are reopened. You can, of course, change this to mimic Windows.
What's so simple about the double click? Those of you in their twenties don't remember learning how, so it just seems natural to you, but it isn't. Back in the nineties when PCs first got Windows, the double click was the hardest part of teaching someone how to use a computer, and it's completely unnecessary. Your mouse has two buttons. KDE needs no double click. Of course, you can make this like Windows, too.
What's simple about Windows Registry? IMO they should have simply kept .ini files.
Windows is NOT simpler than KDE, and it is NOT more "user friendly." KDE is more than user friendly, it's user obedient. It does things the way you want it to, Windows insists on you doing it the Windows way.
Re:It looks awesome. (Score:1, Interesting)
Hell I'd argue that's why Linux is stuck dead last and going nowhere, its because there is ZERO competition!
It is nice when you quote yourself talking bullshit.
Clearly you have not heard about Linux.... Not the Linux 0.02 but Linux 2.6.x series...?
What is Linux marketshare on:
A) Supercomputers?
B) Smartphones?
C) Internet / Intranet servers?
D) Embedded systems (ADSL/Cable modems, DVB devices etc)
60%
90%
50%
80%
Can you connect those correctly?
As you only draw a marketshare on desktops.... you failt to see that Microsoft got that monopoly and has abused its dominant market position only because they are competing. There have not been alternatives (standards, teamwork, greater good) and not until now when EU and US DOJ has slapped more requirements and demands to give alternatives a change.
And check out the W3C... what Mozilla and Google has got done by following standards and working together to bring different alternativies. Opera in other hand has staid down because they want to compete. Microsoft has being competing and loosing badly, not long time ago when Microsoft was trying to force own technologies.
What happened to web when Adobe got monopoly for interactive web designing because it won competition with Adobe Flash? Everyone suffered. But now everything is going better when people are working together to push standards and especially developing HTML5.
Thanks to Apple, Google and Mozilla about that.
All great things has come from alternativies, not from competition.
All suffering and bad things comes from competition, not from alternativies.
Why did PC come success and not any other personal computer? As PC were not first personal computer, it was just IBM's first personal computer and they made open standards, open architecture.... They licensed it to every other personal computer manufacturer and software manufacturer to make a PC-compatible pheriaphels and software. They made standards and ideas that PC and PC-compatible personal computers would work together well.
Then Microsoft captured markets, thanks to Compaq who reverse engineered the PC BIOS because competition and IBM mind not to share and develop BIOS together as team. After that Microsoft got all, monopolizied market, abused their dominant market position and everyone suffered. Until now when again teamwork from Open Source side has pushed everything in better direction.
If there would be only competition, you would be using that Windows 3.33 with DOS 10.5 and setting IRQ's manually to get those DOS games working.
Haven't you seen what as well competition has done to software and computer hardware? A Apple LISA is faster to boot and start applications and even print than todays 6 core, 8GB RAM computer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLwntYxW4rU [youtube.com]
If at those times companies and people would have worked together, searching and developing new techonlogies and together making standards and choosing best available option, we would have gained much better software optimization to that and even todays hardware than we have now (today we have bloated software).
Teamwork is not competition
Standards are not competition
Development and research is not competition
You always need to work together to get better results, by competition only one wins and it usually is bad one and everyone suffers from wasted time and resources:
Were it about beta vs VHS, HD DVD vs Blu-ray or anything else. Competition is bad for humans change to actually develop better technologies and avoid short and long term problems at once by working together. But some people really love competition becuse they want to stay on top or have at least change to be top dog and ripping all from people lower them. So it is better to defend competition beucase otherwise they will loose the change to abuse their possible position and gain lots because it.