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KDE Software GUI Linux

KDE's future: Plasma & SimpleKDE 351

Posted by Hemos from the the-evolving-world dept.
A reader writes: "KDE continues to grow. Early screenshots, mockups, and developer blogs show that the new Plasma Project (KDE 4.x branch) will bring innovative approaches to desktop computing. On the other hand, the very first screenshots of SimpleKDE, an unofficial fork of KDE, were meant to be a response to those who criticise KDE as being overbloated."
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KDE's future: Plasma & SimpleKDE More

KDE's future: Plasma & SimpleKDE

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  • Server go boom? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JPamplin ( 804322 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:57AM (#13092642) Homepage
    Mirror for SimpleKDE, anyone?

  • "overbloated"? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:58AM (#13092647)
    As opposed to underbloated?

  • Mirrors (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:59AM (#13092660)

    Plasma screenshots [mirrordot.org], mockups [mirrordot.org], developer blogs [mirrordot.org] and Plasma Project homepage [mirrordot.org].

    SimpleKDE screenshots [mirrordot.org] and homepage [mirrordot.org].

    All links courtesy Mirrordot.org [mirrordot.org].

    • Re:Mirrors (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mornelithe ( 83633 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:10AM (#13092731)
      If those are the appropriate links, then the things listed as "plasma screenshots" are actually mockups.

      As far as I know (and I've been following this pretty closely), there is no plasma yet. It's still separated superkaramba, kicker and kdesktop, which they are now porting to Qt 4, and will later combine and alter into what will be plasma. Thus, there are no screenshots, as they're not far enough along yet.

      There's lots of interesting mockups at kde-artists.org, though.
      • I can't wait for Plasma, simply because Kicker is way past its use by date. Kicker is in my opinion one of the apps in KDE most in need of improvement. Also an integration of superkaramba and kdesktop will be fantastic.

    • well done (Score:4, Interesting)

      by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:17AM (#13092771)
      for what its worth, this is about the 3rd time I've seen plasma.bddf.ca (not made into a link for obvious reasons) linked from the slashdot site and each time it went down immediately.

      If I were them, I'd do a bugzilla and block all links from here.. meanwhile perhaps the editors/submitters should note that bddf.ca simply cannot cope with it and there's no point linking directly.
  • I thought it's only members of the fairer sex that get bloated. How exactly does a system get bloat?

    • Re:bloat for KDE too? (Score:4, Informative)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:03AM (#13092692)
      Many people think "hey, wouldn't [Feature] be nice to have?" and implement it. As more and more features get implemented, some of them constantly eating performance, the ressource usage of the system increases. At some point you need a freaking 3GHz GPU just to run a text editor. That's what they call bloat, inappropriately high ressource usage.

      • Re:bloat for KDE too? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
        Actually most feature bloat should show up as an increase in memory requirements and not CPU.
        One of the "problems" with KDE and Gnome is that they are too configurable. They could be much smaller and lighter if they had less options. I am afraid it is a case of you can not have your cake and eat it too.
        • For the moment, at least for me (AMD 2800, 512Mb RAM) Gnome is fine (no idea about KDE,) and I value the configurability of it. Certainly, there are some things that could do with cutting down, and sure there are always config files, but it's always nice to have a soft, cushiony GUI config app if you only need to do something quick.
          • I am running Gome and KDE on a 600 mhz P3 and they are both ok. I think KDE is a little faster. Yes I do have faster machines but I like to use this box as my test box. Helps me fight bloat in my own code.

      • Re:bloat for KDE too? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by l3v1 ( 787564 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @09:31AM (#13093343)
        As more and more features get implemented, some of them constantly eating performance, the ressource usage of the system increases.

        That's all stupid, just like the "arguments" saying the problem with kde is its high configurability. I only speak for myself here, but I have to tell you my current kde 3.3.2 desktop with superkaramba is the best desktop [in functionality, usability, speed and niceness] I've had for years, both on highly customized windows versions and on earlier kde/gnome/xfce/e versions. Since I know kde fairly well, it took me about 10-15 minutes to configure all the available options from looks to behavior, from menu items to mime associations, to suit my needs. And no, the availability of the many customizable options doesn't make it more resource hungry, bad configuration does.

        At some point you need a freaking 3GHz GPU just to run a text editor.

        Also, highly and badly stupid. [And I'm not surpised you get a 5 Informative for that, either.] One just needs to know the neighborhood before moving in. I could in this moment show you quite normal [i.e. fast enough, no unnecessary wait] launch times for kate, kwrite, kedit, kword and even oo.org writer.

        • I could in this moment show you quite normal [i.e. fast enough, no unnecessary wait] launch times for kate, kwrite, kedit,
          ...and to add to this point, these are no mere "text editors", either.

    • Re:bloat for KDE too? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Mornelithe ( 83633 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:23AM (#13092800)
      "Bloated" is geek slang for "does useful things."
      • Ha - well said! :) As the saying goes, "One man's 'bloat' is another man's 'essential feature'". As long as it is well-programmed and optimised, I always welcome this kind of bloat with open arms.

      • Re:bloat for KDE too? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @01:21PM (#13096028)

        "Bloated" is geek slang for "does useful things."

        No. "Bloated" is geek slang for spreadsheet programs whos programmers decide to add a flight simulator game as a secret feature because it doesn't increase program size or resource usage much, relatively speaking.

        "Bloated" also refers to programs which grew by constantly adding new features to sell each new version, with very little concern about how those features affected the whole. As a result, a bloated programs interface has 100+ buttons, menus need their own management system, and actually using the program is nightmarish since you always have to wonder if one of the 1000+ automatic features will suddenly decide to reformat the document, save it and delete every previous version, destroying all your hard work in its zeal to be helpfull.

        "Bloated" also means delivering help texts in the word balloons of an animated paperclip (and providing a programming API for making additional helpfull characters). It means having a spellcheck running in the background constantly, giving the program a vaguely heavy and unresponsive feel. It means setting parts of the program to be loaded during operating system boot, since starting the program would otherwise take too long. And it means integrating a Web Browser with both kernel and shell just because you can. And supporting automatically executing scripts embedding in text documents.

        In short, "bloat" in programs is similar to clogged arteries in human beings.

        • Re:bloat for KDE too? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:15PM (#13099019)
          "No. "Bloated" is geek slang for spreadsheet programs whos programmers decide to add a flight simulator game as a secret feature because it doesn't increase program size or resource usage much, relatively speaking."

          Office 2000 SP1 removed the flight simulator from Excel. It is not present in Excel XP or Excel 2003.

          "Bloated" also means delivering help texts in the word balloons of an animated paperclip (and providing a programming API for making additional helpfull characters)."

          Agreed. Office assistant sucks. You don't have to install it, though. Microsoft Agent has essentially been dead for years.

          "It means having a spellcheck running in the background constantly, giving the program a vaguely heavy and unresponsive feel."

          That's the stupidest comment I've ever heard about Word. Wavy-underline-spell-check is one of the most useful features to *ever* be added to Word. I don't know what you're talking about with "unresponsiveness", but Word 2003 uses about 14MB on my system and uses less than 5% of the CPU while I type.

          "It means setting parts of the program to be loaded during operating system boot, since starting the program would otherwise take too long."

          Not true since Word XP.

          "And it means integrating a Web Browser with both kernel and shell just because you can."

          Trident ("Internet Explorer") has not, is not, and - to the best of my knowledge - will never be a part of the Windows kernel. It is a series of libraries (mshtml.dll, showdocvw.dll, and some others) - not unlike Gecko ("Mozilla"), KHTML ("Konqueror") or WebCore ("Safari").

          "And supporting automatically executing scripts embedding in text documents"

          Word documents are not text documents, first of all. And, second of all, macros have not executed by default since Word 2000, and in Word 2003, you have to go through a multi-step process to even see the dialog that lets you execute them. Macro viruses are essentially dead.
    • You need to use a Spyuretic once a month to remove the spyware bloat.

  • Plasma (Score:3, Funny)

    by wot.narg ( 829093 ) <wot.narg@3.14gmail.com minus pi> on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:03AM (#13092687) Homepage
    Plasma is /really/ hot, and is the stuff that matters.

    The atoms of truth in it might be a bit messed up right now, but once the facts cool, it will be rock solid.

    When plasma comes out, if your not there, you might as well be a lame liquid.

  • Personal Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mfloy ( 899187 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:03AM (#13092690) Homepage
    The fact of the matter is that both of these cater to different users with different tastes, and it is better to have both developed than one version that tries to be everything to everyone.
    • One of the reasons I'm looking forward to Plasma is the same reason I like using 4CD/DVD install distros in general. I install just about everything to start, then I weed out what I don't want/need until I might have something that looks like a candied-out SimpleKDE with a few extra tools.
      • ooooh, I can't stand 4CD installs... It's far easier to install what you need to uninstall what you don't (for me) because of dependencies. Unless someone has a solution for what to do about the dependency problem - when you install something and need some library, how to know which libraries to get rid of later?
        • gentoo and portage.
          • Until such a time as I have the opportunity to try out gentoo (which, hopefully, I'll get around to) I'd prefer a debian-orientated solution :)
            • Have you tried Ubuntu? Going from Fedora with a 4CD install / 3GB disk used on the default install to Ubuntu with a 1CD install / 1.5GB disk used on the default install was very refreshing -- then I enabled the universe repositories and installed the few things that were missing. I don't even know what other crap Fedora was installing, but I sure aren't missing any of it.
    • The fact of the matter is that both of these cater to different users with different tastes, and it is better to have both developed than one version that tries to be everything to everyone.

      Unless of course neither version satisfies anyone.

  • Good God (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rinisari ( 521266 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:05AM (#13092699) Homepage Journal
    This story hadn't even been live for 5 minutes and we'd already brought down the majority of the sites in the story.

    Good job, people. We're getting good at this game.

    I was going to link to the story on Mirrordot, but it appears that even Mirrordot couldn't get 'em fast enough...

  • This could be important (Score:4, Insightful)

    by m0llusk ( 789903 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:06AM (#13092706) Journal
    One of the aspects of the Macintosh that keeps users coming back is the overal simplicity of it. The interface is mostly blank until users work with it and then it reflects them and their usage and their data. Having a minimalist yet fully functional mode could be important not only for appeal but sorting out the system as a whole.

    • Is this why olvwm is so successful?

      Actually I like olvwm a lot, and enlightenment.
      KDE is pretty, but I am unable to bear its slowness for long.

      Enlightenment is the king of all wms!
    • I think it would be interesting for the KDE devs to implement some kind of preset system for the level of user experience... if you're a 'NOVICE' user, it hides most of the toolbar buttons and simplifies the interface. But personally, I hate OS X and can't get any work done in it. I am a software developer, and so I maintain a very intimate relationship with the computer and lean a lot on all of the advanced features the modern GNU/Linux desktop offers me. Moving from Windows 2000 to Linux won me a 2x incr

  • So simple! (Score:5, Funny)

    by earthbound kid ( 859282 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:08AM (#13092719) Homepage
    I can vouch for the simplicity of the new KDE:

    All I see are a white page and my browser's loading animation!

  • Seems really cool... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pecisk ( 688001 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:10AM (#13092733)
    (Disclaimer: I'm GNOME fanboy)

    This is looks really cool and useful. Both ideas are very welcome. And for those who asks why Linux doesn't have one desktop - this is the reason - Innovation.
    • if i hadn't been posting like a fool to this story, i'd give some mod points to this. you are, IMHO, exactly right.

      innovation, spreading risk and allowing us to address a broader audience by appealing to a wider variety of personal tastes.

      vive la open source desktop!

  • usability question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:11AM (#13092734)
    Good stuff. Will this include the idea of Restricting mouse in popup menus [kde.org]?

    • Re:usability question (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:35AM (#13092897)
      Oh boy, who comes up with that crap? Some people actually can handle a mouse and aim less erratic than a drunk spastic. NEVER ever move my mouse cursor unless I moved the mouse in the same direction. NEVER ever change my mouse speed and acceleration settings. I mean it. The instance you do any of that, your program parts with my system. Even if the program is the key to finding a cure for cancer, if it touches my mouse settings, it's history.

      Humans have a very intuitive grasp of motion. Don't mess it up by arbitrarily changing the action-reaction coupling. It's bad enough that people have to use mouse acceleration because they use mice with insufficient resolution.

  • KDE Servers (Score:5, Funny)

    by iphitus ( 897164 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:24AM (#13092801)
    Look like they're plasma right now.

  • What's the deal (Score:4, Funny)

    by zegebbers ( 751020 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:26AM (#13092816) Homepage
    with the monochrome kicker? There's a reason why I have cones in my eyes!
    • Ha, true.. ;-)
      But I'm actually a big fan of tasteful use of solid black & white shading. This is really pleasing to my eyes, almost enough to make me switch back from Gnome.. ;-)
      It's something about the simplicity... maybe this'll be available simply as an icon theme at some point. I'd love to use it in XFCE too.
    • I like it. Besides being very non-abrasive, it would make it very easy to use color as a visual cue. If the components are generally black and white, it really stands out when something red pops up [mirrordot.org].

  • What about Slicker? (Score:5, Informative)

    by AceJohnny ( 253840 ) <jlargentaye@gmai ... minus physicist> on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:46AM (#13092984) Journal
    Plasma somehow reminds me of Slicker [slicker.org]. It was a great idea for replacing Kicker, and IMHO was a nicely innovative one too. I mean, look at these [slicker.org] nice [slicker.org] mockups [slicker.org].

    Unfortunately, these are just mockups, and it seems the project has stalled for more than a year. Slicker could use a little attention, don't you think? So if you have some spare time and a love for moving the Linux desktop in cool directions, how about giving it a try? :)

    PS: I'm totally unrelated to the project, just disappointed that this cool idea is rusting

    • Re:What about Slicker? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TomorrowPlusX ( 571956 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @10:23AM (#13093950)
      Hey, you made my day. I am the father of Slicker -- it started as an attempt to write something for KDE along the lines of (classic) Mac OS's tabbed finder windows. See my posts in the Gentoo forum where I posted about its development: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-29746-highlig ht-.html [gentoo.org]

      So, basically what happened was simple. I really was only interested in using it as a way to access Konq, as panels which would slide out based on mouse-to-screen edge movements. I made it relatively plugin-extendable and people whipped up all sorts of nice extensions, like terminal access, K-Menu access, etc etc. People also wanted it to become a sourceforge project and more public, which I was fine with. So, I handed it off, and it promptly died since the people who took it on bickered day and night about website design and themability, and never bothered to write any code.

      I then moved on to OS X, where I continued the work that matters to me ( robotics & AI ).

      But anyway, it had potential!
      • That's a shame. I had forgotten about this project myself, but as I soon as I saw the shots it came back instantly. 'Oh, that cool project!, what happened?' It just looks advanced, it looks right, it looks like a truly forward thinking desktop interface. Maybe someone with the skills will get motivated to continue it.

  • KDE Fork ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BonoLeBonobo ( 798671 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:48AM (#13093003) Homepage
    Well, I think this KDE fork is going to die very quickly. Why have the developers of Simple KDE not contacted KDE developpers and have spoken with them of their usability and noob-ness concerns ? I think it's not a serious fork. To maintain such a large project, it needs a huge team (see the KDE one). Just imagine the translations, if the UI changes a bit, even with a good merging tool (svn for instance), it will be impossible for Simple KDE to follow. They should better have cooperated with KDE team which is very open ...
    • They're forking because they want something contrary to KDE principles, namely less choice. (Why they don't just join gnome I don't know, but presumably they have their reasons). I hope they will continue, limping along, so someone doesn't try and do the "simplification" thing to mainline KDE and end up with abominations like the gnome file dialog. More buttons is never a bad thing.
      • Seriously? Is there still a GNOME vs KDE flamewar? I thought that died back in 2001.

        • It's not a flamewar, just a disagreement. The two projects have different directions, and people who prefer one or the other will generally support that one. It's all reasonably amicable, but at the same time there are deap-seated differences.
          • Except... gnome is still bloated. Obviously these guys like KDE, they just want a lite version. What good is gnome to them? I call troll.

    • Re:KDE Fork ... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 )
      It strikes me as similar to project GoneME [akcaagac.com] which was started with much sound and fury by people when GNOME 2.0 came out and started dropping features and moving options into GConf instead of extra tabs in preferences dialogs.

      It turned out that all the noise was really just a few very vocal people and some trolls, and thus GoneME turned out a few patches (reversing button order for instance) then promptly died. I think their last patch to "fix" all of GNOME came to a whopping 22k.

      I expect the same for thi

  • Innovative? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @08:57AM (#13093064) Journal
    Early screenshots, mockups, and developer blogs show that the new Plasma Project (KDE 4.x branch) will bring innovative approaches to desktop computing.

    I'm sorry. I saw nothing innovative. It doesn't mean KDE 4.x won't be innovative, it's just that none of the links hint at this. It was slashdotted, but all I saw mirrored was
    1. animation of a calender built into KDE
    2. Contacts grouped together with a pop-up (I assume it's a mouse-over effect) saying how many people I'm talking to and who the latest person was.
    3. Search bar built into the taskbar and results are shown in a pop-up.
    4. A dedicated button to profile information in the taskbar.
    5. A dedicated button to computer settings (including a shut-down option)
    6. Digital or analog clock option
    7. Taskbar can change colours
    8. Taskbar can show icon or icon and name of the file (along with pop-up summary cut off to avoid it being too large)
    9. A start button
    10. System alerts appearing above the taskbar
    11. Dedicated buttons in taskbar can be customised
    12. Dedicated weather button
    Grabbing existing programs and building them into a desktop is not innovative, so #1 isn't innovative (it allows pop-ups to be grouped or split, I assume so you can keep it on your screen. Useful? Yes. Innovative? No. It's just grabbing stickies (present in ICQ in 2000) and using them).

    #2 Microsoft already sort of does, and I have found it annoying, rather then useful. They've added a tiny bit more information (which can be indicated with flashing), but isn't innovative. Useful though? For some perhaps.

    A program does #3 for Google Desktop, so even if it is innovative, it wasn't KDE's innovation.

    Dedicated buttons are not innovative, and it's really just what Microsoft does with the icons displayed next clock in Windows. So #4, #5 and #11 aren't really innovative.

    #6, #7, #9 and #10 is already done either by KDE itself or Windows.

    I have no idea why weather buttons are so popular (I prefer the method of sticking my head out the window), but they are. I'd hardly call it innovative though.

    So perhaps the blog has this innovation talked about in the summary? Well, no. It mentions pulling a bunch of things (to be reworked I presume), the only thing it mentions on adding is:

    we'll have a new clock applet in plasma

    I hardly think that's innovative.

    With Windows barely changing since 1995, I was looking forward to finally seeing some innovation in desktop interfaces. Unfortunately this article on KDE and plasma didn't include anything that could be remotely called innovative.

    The only innovative thing I've heard about that comes to mind recently, is Apple's Spotlight and a filing system that uses labels rather then folders (is Apple going to be doing this? Or is Microsoft? Or is no-one and I'm only hoping someone eventually will?).

    I do hope KDE does bring innovation into the desk-top. I hope someone, ANYONE brings it. But I've yet to see any indication anyone will be anytime soon.

    • Re:Innovative? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) *
      I hardly think that's innovative.

      Ah, the indignation of the armchair Free Software Critic. Note how he comes to conclusions based on a cursory glance at a few mockups, and is able to sneer in plain text. Especially skilled is his repeated entreaty that someone, ANYONE, give him a Free desktop which meets his exacting (if completely unspecified) standards for usability, innovation, and excellence.

      Their existence in the geek ecosystem is a bit of a mystery, since for all their bluster, they generally con
      • Free software is supposed to be "Free as in speech". If people can't criticize without submitting uber-l33t code or registering for bugtrackers, how is that freedom of speech?

        Try thinking outside the box: a user has reviewed the developer-designed mockups, and rejected it. There's your bug report.

        Don't like criticism? Keep your code and your projects to yourself, and keep all of us in the unwashed masses out. Everyone will be happier that way.

      • Re:Innovative? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by zoomba ( 227393 ) <mfc131@TIGERgmail.com minus cat> on Monday July 18, 2005 @10:41AM (#13094164) Homepage
        Ah, the indignation of the Free Software Zealot. Note how he misses the entire point of the post and takes it as an opportunity to throw out the old tired line of "If you don't like it, code it yourself!"

        His points were very accurate. All of the features shown in the screenshot that was DESCRIBED IN THE ORIGINAL POSTING as "innovative" can be found in existing Operating Systems and desktop utilities. Innovative implies new and exciting. The features on display were not innovative.

        Your attitude here is exactly the reason many of us don't bother submitting suggestions or critiques anymore. I spent some time a while back going over the Gentoo install documentation, making notes where clarification could be used and how it could perhaps be structured in an easier-to-follow format. My suggestion/report was just discarded with "It works for us"

        Usability is the "un-fun" portion of building a desktop. It's just not cool to go through and code and edit to make it all flow together. It's fun to build the fancy widgets, or the pretty themes, or some system tool or whatever. That's the fun stuff. Going through the entire damn thing and editing it to make it mesh together is tedious and boring. Most people, when working on a project for free, are less inclined to do the boring stuff.

        Then there's the whole attitude that "Well, lets see YOU do it better!" which is just a load of crap. This is why Linux is lightyears away from being a user-oriented system. The average user would take one look at GNOME or KDE and go "Yuck!" And you can't really expect them to come in and code a new UI for you. And don't start with "Well, then maybe they're not smart enough to use it..." If you want Linux to succeed on the desktop in a meaningful way, you have to make the thing end-user-friendly.

        So get off your high horse and come taste a bit of reality. You know, that place the rest of us live. I know it may seem harsh and may conflict with your unrealistic expectations, but a brief stay might be good for you.
      • Oh, OK.

        It's on /. but shouldn't be criticized. It's free, so it's innovative. Poster doesn't do code so should shut up.

        Strange, someone who actually takes the time to look at the stuff the article hints at and calls innovative should in your opinion shut his trap or get involved.

        You know how to turn prospective users on, that's for sure...

    • Re:Innovative? (Score:2, Informative)

      by BonoLeBonobo ( 798671 )
      "The only innovative thing I've heard about that comes to mind recently, is Apple's Spotlight and a filing system that uses labels rather then folders (is Apple going to be doing this? Or is Microsoft? Or is no-one and I'm only hoping someone eventually will?). " You should search for tenor on google. Tenor is a search engine framework which should be included in KDE 4. It should be more powerfull than Spotlight
    • a filing system that uses labels rather then folders

      I've thought about set-based filesystems before. Rather than having directories, a file would belong to one or more sets, like for instance "System Files", "$USER's Files", "Mail Files", "2004 Vacation Pictures", "Porn", etc. In a multiuser system, all the users' mail spools would be located by looking in "Mail Files". An individual user's mail would be located in "$USER's Files"*"Mail Files". My porn would be in "root's Files"*"Porn", completely sep
      • Your ideas match pretty much what I have heard as the way to implement labels.

        We certainly don't want a different interface for opening hierarchial files and labelled files. Unfortunatly one fear of having Apple or Microsoft do this is that they won't get it and will put in a different interface, possibly botching it so bad that you cannot use a string to identify a file.

        The directory "/set1/set2/set3" would contain all the files that are in all three of those sets. If any of those files are also in anoth
    • you're right that nothing you listed is innovative. there will be lots of things that aren't innovative in plasma, such as how it will continue to use popup menus! *gasp* ;)

      i've commented elsewhere in this story about innovation in plasma. feel free to find it =)

      and really, please hold back on the analysis until we publish something. i'm happy that people are all excited and posting this to /. every couple of weeks, but you may notice that it isn't myself (i happen to be the project lead) or even other pl

    • I have no idea why weather buttons are so popular (I prefer the method of sticking my head out the window), but they are.

      The problem is you are sticking your head out the window. Therefore we can assume that you spend most of your day on the inside of that window. Weather is an interesting phenomena when you spend most of your day indoors (with central heat and AC). When you spend your day outside it is something you need to keep track of.

      Just because it is sunny now doesn't mean much if you need t

  • I can say with definity I don't like SimpleKDE (Score:3, Insightful)

    by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @09:25AM (#13093265)
    SimpleKDE seems like a good idea at first but they've gone too far. I'm looking at the screenshots and seeing them removing things like virtual desktops. I don't mind them reducing the amount of settings and configuration required for the newer computer users but these are some brilliant features that increase organisation and productivity here that they're removing.
  • ...this is the second time in two weeks I've seen the URL to the main page of the Plasma project listed. And both times, I get "server could not be found" messages. What's up with DNS?

  • That's unbelievable! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Piroca ( 900659 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @10:10AM (#13093759)


    Don't get me wrong, but we are in 2005 and the "Linux desktop" is still behind the 10-years-old Windows 95 desktop in terms of consistency and usability. The situation is really scary given that Windows 95 interface (as well as its 98, 2k and XP derivatives) is actually a piece of shit. But, at least, it didn't make basic mistakes:
    • Fonts are readable and well aligned inside widgets
    • Spacing was consistent between elements of the interface
    • Contrast between what the user has to recognize/interact and backgrounds/empty areas/decorations is quite high
    • Widgets, colors, fonts, decorations, etc. all look the "same", without major discrepancies in style or form
    KDE (and Gnome) make *all* the abovementioned mistakes, shamefully. It's amazing how these problems still persist and *none* seems to care about them, energy seems to be used in the creation of stupid themes and wallpapers as opposed to real, obvious issues (look at the fonts issue, for instance, if you don't use ttf fonts stolen from a windows install the desktops look really bad). I should stop my flamebait here, but it's obvious that Apple is going to put the last nail in the "Linux desktop" coffin, for good.

    • I'd dispute all those points for a recent GNOME version. Good fonts, good layout, some fabulous themes... sure we've got overall integration problems, stuff which isn't designed for GNOME really looks out of place, but some of your criticisms are unjustified for GNOME and for KDE as well.

      And if you've not looked at Apple lately... they seem to have thrown interface consistency out of the window, and are making increasingly bizarre decisions along UI lines.
    • Like the other responders, I would like to see screen shots showing exactly what you are talking about. Use the Vera fonts, which are included with Linux. If you have good examples, maybe it will get people to fix them.

      It's true there is a lot of "why don't you code it yourself" responses, when in reality it is extremely difficult to fix code you are unfamiliar with, even if you are a programming genius, while somebody working on the software already may be able to fix it in a minute.

      But conversely, doing
  • I switched over to Linux as a desktop about a year ago after learning 99% of my knowledge in Linux / Unix systems server wise through a shell prompt on Windows. What sucked is that when I installed Gentoo as my first distro, I was really fucking suprised that my P4 @ 2.6 GHZ and a gig of DDR400 was having problems running KDE as smoothly as I thought it would be considering everyone hyping KDE / Gnome desktops as ass raping the hell out of the windows desktop / GUI / shell. IMHO both desktops are bloated, a
    • There are a few major keys I've found to getting a nimble KDE desktop that should be posted in big letters, but often are not.

      First and foremost: prelinking. The way gcc3 compiles C++ source code greatly increases the load times of KDE. Gentoo's got good documentation here, though I think they should reference it more. "emerge prelink" and go for it. (PS - Ubuntu users, that goes for you too: "apt-get install prelink" and "man prelink" for you).

      Obviously, you want not only the best video, but sound
  • . . . were meant to be a response to those who criticise KDE as being overbloated.

    I think the word "overbloated" is bloated, by four letters.

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