Submitted by “Recently at a Linux show, John Littler saw a preview of a new version of KDE running on a KDE developer’s laptop. The interface looked cleaner than before, and apparently there was a whole raft of new stuff under the hood. John recently interviewed KDE developer Aaron J. Seigo about the forthcoming KDE 4 (due in the fall) and also a little about the recent controversy surrounding the porting of KDE to operating systems other than Linux.”
Previewing KDE 4
79 Comments
2006-01-15 3:02 am
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John Blink
I love reading about the KDE technology. I for some reason am one of those people who likes the GUI, but seem to lean more to GNOME.
I for one hope all the new stuff looks really good, because I want to use KDE.
I am confused 
Opensource = a wealth of tech at your fingertips.
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2006-01-15 9:27 pm
The ability to run KDE natively on other platforms is considered controversial? I know there are people who don’t think it’s a good idea, and some of them are pretty zealous about it, but is it really… a controversy?
Don’t know if controversial is the best word, but it’s defiantly what you usually refer to as a double edged sword. Having the applications available on platforms like Mac and Windows may help getting more manpower to development and increase userbase. But it also diminish the best way to get people switch platforms, which is having the best applications.
As an example take a web designer who realizes the best and most important tool available for making his day to day work is Quanta. Today he will probably switch to a *nix platform and most likely use other parts of KDE too, increasing the userbase for several applications in the process. While a native port to Mac or Win will only give a increase in Quanta’s userbase, and no further effect other parts of the desktop or underlying OS.
I see no reason why this is at all important with open source software. The whole point of it is to benefit the community; so what if not very many people use it? It’s not as if you’re losing money or anything. When an open source project tries to get more people to use it outside of the normal improve-the-software strategy, it sounds like it’s just forcing it on them instead of letting them choose.
That aside, you also have to think of the cost of porting it over. How much manpower would be redirected from other important things, like improving and debugging the apps? Not everything is about zealotry, you know.
Edited 2006-01-14 19:00
Closed source software use ads, marketing to get users, why open source software shouldn’t do the same?
After all users will only use a software if they know about it..
Depending of the software, there can be added benefits such as increased number of users of free standard, which helps also original users: imagine if a significant percentage of users used ogg or the open standard document, etc..
As an example take a web designer who realizes the best and most important tool available for making his day to day work is Quanta. Today he will probably switch to a *nix platform and most likely use other parts of KDE too, increasing the userbase for several applications in the process.
A more likely scenario is this:
1)Webdeveloper: Can I install Quanta and Linux?
2)IT Manager: Sure, as long as you can make it can run the MS-Outlook calendar and our in house developed VB application for travel expences, and that active directory can be used to manage your workstation.
3) Webdeveloper: I’m not sure, perhaps crossover office
could help.
4)IT manager calculates the cost of crossover office, a two day course in Linux, and a days work to set it all up. As he is not that confident in his Linux abilities he throws in one day of lost productivity due to some idiotic errer he may make. Then he compares that to the cost of Dreamweaver.
5)Our web developer is now running Dreamweaver. Not only that, he relizes that it is much better than Quanta and decides to make a pirate copy so that he can run it at home as well. This of course means that he throws out Linux at home, to the immence joy of his children that now can play all the games their friends talk about at school.
All in all, the killer application switch theory doesn’t work well in larger organizations. I suppose that it could work for home users. The problem is that home users seldom have development budgets to improve the applications they are using.
If Quanta had been available as a native windows app, our web developers request of using it would have had a much better chance of getting granted, and the cost of Dreamweaver could have been spent on improving Quanta.
The more free applicatins that gets available on windows the less chance that they will be locked in by some closed file format and the threshold for switching to a free OS will be lowered. In the end, if all your applications are free, why shouldn’t your OS be free as well?
2)IT Manager: Sure, as long as you can make it can run the MS-Outlook calendar and our in house developed VB application for travel expences, and that active directory can be used to manage your workstation.
That stuff needs replaced with something far cheaper. Many organisations, certainly after the latest round of upgrades and this Open Enterprise Licensing Microsoft want you to use, are doing just that.
It’s not going to happen with one person requesting it.
IT manager calculates the cost of crossover office, a two day course in Linux, and a days work to set it all up. As he is not that confident in his Linux abilities he throws in one day of lost productivity due to some idiotic errer he may make. Then he compares that to the cost of Dreamweaver.
If this guy is going to be running Quanta what does he want Crossover Office for? And what is it with stupid organisations that believe they need a course in everything?! Maybe he should look at his job title more often.
The more free applicatins that gets available on windows the less chance that they will be locked in by some closed file format and the threshold for switching to a free OS will be lowered. In the end, if all your applications are free, why shouldn’t your OS be free as well?
Porting free applications to Windows is just not a long-term viable option.
I welcome being able to run KDE on other platforms. KSokoban and KAtomic absolutley positively rule! And if I remember right the kubuntu live cd has some apps you can run in Windows so maybe the porting has already started?
The ability of KDE 4 being ported to MAC OSX and Windows is good, I don’t use neither of them and don’t even plan to use Windows, NEVER, period. But for the people that uses it they will benefit from having k3b and some Kprograms that will make them to not have to pirate the software they need to use since k3b is a very well counterpart to Nero and is free, so this will bring more opportunities to Windows users to use Open Source software. And later on if they feel the need to, even change operating system to Linux or *BSD, since they will be more comfortable with the software. I personally use Free BSD and KDE 3.5.
The ability of KDE 4 being ported to MAC OSX and Windows is good, I don’t use neither of them and don’t even plan to use Windows, NEVER, period. But for the people that uses it they will benefit from having k3b and some Kprograms that will make them to not have to pirate the software they need to use since k3b is a very well counterpart to Nero and is free, so this will bring more opportunities to Windows users to use Open Source software.
First of all, let me say that not ALL Windows users pirate. Everything on my machine is paid for, including Nero. Now, as for running KDE on Windows …
Personally, if I were that hard up to run KDE, I’d probably be running Linux. That being said, if I can run the DE as an Explorer replacement, that might be worth a go, assuming all of my Windows apps would integrate with it like they do Explroer (sans IE). But if I have to run it on top of the default Windows shell, nah .. forget it.
However, if I could run the apps outside of KDE, that might be cool. I am definitely interested in k3b. Although I already own Nero and wouldn’t switch unless k3b was better (and I could find a replacement app for Nero Recode as well), I know several people who could benefit from it. I already have Directory Opus, so I don’t need Konquerer. And I don’t know about the rest of the apps. Maybe the IM program is better than Trillian, who knows.
But if these program did work (and worked well) under Windows, as far as I’m concerned, that’d be one less reason to switch to Linux. Some people in this thread have voiced conerns about this too. But didn’t I just see here a few days ago and article explaining that the point to Linux is not to be a Windows replacement? Well, it isn’t for all people .. at least not yet. But if you’re interested in getting more people to use open source software, the more programs you can port to Windows, the better. I already use Firefox and Thunderbird, and I’m always looking for new tools. If you think Windows is immoral and nothing open source should run on it, then so be it. That just means I’ll probably never use it
I don’t view software licenses as a political or religious issue, so I think I am a bit more unbiased about the OS I use than the ‘open source or die!’ crowd.
“But if I have to run it on top of the default Windows shell, nah .. forget it. ”
There shouldn’t be any reason why you couldn’t run it as the shell. You can run _any_ app as the shell.
Check out ShellOnV2 for making shell switching really esay (with some added bonuses built-in, too). I don’t believe it has been updated in a number of years, probably because it works, and there aren’t any more useful features worth adding to it. You can find it here: http://wwww.shellfront.org/utils/
I am not in the Open Source or Die crowd.
But Open Source has saved me. I personally was pirating stuff several years ago. I changed my life (Dedicated myself to Christ) and destroyed all my pirated software.
I still needed to work with office programs, listen to my music (much smaller but legal now), edit photo’s and such.
I did not have the money for this but found Linux.
I realize not all Windows users Pirate, but honestly, I have not met any that did not. By that I mean the biggest excuse I hear all the time is “Oh, a friend let me use his/her copy”… That is pirating. And the excuse why they did not own their own copy was it cost too much.
I am responding because I found your reply intresting, you seem open-minded and I just wanted to put in my 2 cents.
Porting KDE is not a bad thing at all.
Open Source means you can use it or not, the decision is yours, not someone elses, and every one can have access weather $$ is an issue or not.
I personall build 1 or 2 systems a month for friends or family and most of them are Linux now.
As a matter of my experience, Linux is easier to set up and maintain for people. The only ones I have to help out are the XP users. Sorry I went off topic, but the point is the $$ I save people with Linux can be passed on with Open Source software like KDE.
it is a choice which is better than no choice.
So I am in the crowd to make Open Source for as many OSes as possible.
Little do you know, your “free software” was created by atheists, communists, and enemies of America.
That said, maybe I’ll be able to use a decent editor in Windows for change (re: Kate)
Edited 2006-01-15 04:32
can we get this ultra-right wing racist retard banned please ?
Racist? Can someone purchase a dictionary, for this obviously confused individual? There was nothing racist in my post.
It seems you associate the right and god fearing Americans with racism, perhaps it is you that should be banned?
Don’t spazz, because you failed to get the sarcasm by JMcCarthy
(I’m not even an American)
Edited 2006-01-15 09:52
I assume that your bad joke aimed Joseph McCarthy.
Not funny.
These kind of jokes (?) has no business here.
Try Slashdot instead.
Gilboa
yes, I did not indeed see it as sarcasm.
if you would have it like, <sarcasm>, the way everyone else does it, then we would have spotted it.
as it is, emotions cannot be picked up by text alone, thats the reason for smileys etc.
BTW, saying “enemies of america” is indeed a form of racism, it is also called xenophobia
I honestly dont think that “Atheist” is a bad word. Perhaps “enimies of <insert any country here>” are bad but communism isn’t nececerrily bad either. You should open your mind and have a think about what it means to be an atheist or communist (by their pure definitions, thats right, go look in a dictionary!).
Having said that, I’m sure that some of the free software is written by Christian Americans (which is obviously what you are).
Very offtopic, I know….oh yeah, I cant wait for KDE4, it may make me switch from gnome
“I honestly dont think that “Atheist” is a bad word. Perhaps “enimies of <insert any country here>” are bad but communism isn’t nececerrily bad either. You should open your mind and have a think about what it means to be an atheist or communist (by their pure definitions, thats right, go look in a dictionary!). ”
Actually, you should open your mind and think of what it means to label free software developers as atheists, communists and enemies of America all in one sentence.
Context is everything, and you’re trying to ignore it.
This is when I wish I could post anonymously 😉
I’ll confess I used to pirate software too, I needed it to get things like homework done but I couldn’t afford it, my parents wouldn’t help me get it, and I was too young to get a job that actually payed more than a few bucks a day. When I first tried using Linux I slowly started switching over from Windows and eventually I used open source alternatives over pirated software.
Now I can get a job, in fact I had one and got some cool stuff, but I still use Linux. I don’t use it because I can get it at no cost any more, I use it because the nature of the licenses under which the software is distributed gives me a freedom I have and don’t want to give up. There’s a level of trust I have for OSS software which I don’t have in the slightest for any software that has restrictions on the user.
I am not in the Open Source or Die crowd.
But Open Source has saved me. I personally was pirating stuff several years ago. I changed my life (Dedicated myself to Christ) and destroyed all my pirated software.
Used to, about 98% of the software on my machine was pirated. And it’s not easy to go legit either. But once a person decides to make integrity one of their highest values, it becomes hard to look in the mirror when you know you can’t justify it anymore with lame excuses. And just to clarify, I don’t have anything against anybody who converts to a particular religion and stops pirating as a result, but I made my decision in the absence of any religious influences
(The only reason I bring this up is to illustrate that just because you don’t subscribe to any particular religion doesn’t automatically mean that you lack charcter.)
Anyway, I had a choice at the time .. I could either pay for my software and go nearly $2,000 into debt, or switch to Linux. In the end, after trying out the best Linux had to offer at that time (about a year and a half ago), I chose the former. And I have not regretted that decision, at least in the standpoint that whenever an app I installed gets updated, I don’t have to waste my time sifting through the web or usenet looking for a crack anymore, or wonder if a cracked app I installed is going to implode on itself (which did happen occassionally) because of anti-cracking logic built into the app.
Edited 2006-01-15 04:28
Quote: “and wouldn’t switch unless k3b was better”
It is BETTER than Nero, by a long shot. Better UI, faster, more stable. It just works.
Dave
(yes, I have a copy of Nero for Linux and it’s shite)
I do believe he was talking about comparing K3b with Nero for Windows. Nero for Linux (while it does work) uses the interface for gnome toaster, which hasn’t been updated for a very long time. Nero for Linux uses the same API, which works wonderfully for burning tons of stuff, especially the nero native format (.nrg) Last time I used k3b, it didn’t support that.
Nero for Linux for me just works, I’ve had tons of problems getting K3b to work for me at times, but then I usually use a development release of Debian (or now Ubuntu).
Nero (windows) is a lot better and has more features than k3b by a long shot.
Leech
Correct. But not only Windows user will benefit from this. Linux and KDE will also be able to take advantage by porting KDE4 to Windows, because the migration barrier can be much lower by allow a sort of gradual switch. First just some desktop apps like amaroK, k3b, firefox and openoffice, later the entire DE and after that the new (Linux) kernel.
edit: And of course, the threading system has not been fixed yet…
Edited 2006-01-14 18:49
edit: And of course, the threading system has not been fixed yet
Allan committed a fix for osnews replies to khtml yesterday. So the problem should be gone with KDE 3.5.1.
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-commits&m=113714707827068&w=2
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=116790
Will the Windows version of KDE require CygWin to gain the Linux compatability to run all of those Linux apps?
Will the Windows version of KDE require CygWin to gain the Linux compatability to run all of those Linux apps?
No
Basically speaking on the topic of Plasma / integrated desktop + karamba + panel:
“…avoiding the overhead of multiple processes where just one will do quite fine.”
Does this mean that when the panel crashes, I’ll have to restart all my desktop widgets, too? Will they crash gracefully? Does this mean I shouldn’t put too much stock on the stability of widgets I might design to do important things?
Does this mean that when the panel crashes, I’ll have to restart all my desktop widgets, too?
No, they should be restarted as soon as panel restarts. They are one now. And since they are using external notification engine (lately a lot of KDE software is using D-BUS) that shouldn’t be a problem with reconnecting back just as it nothing happened.
Somehow I hoped they would post something more about KDE4, at least about what and how KDE4 is gonna be be cleaned (not just libraries, but actual desktop feel). Looking at some mockups I found it is taking a Gnome approach of simplicity. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised about droping aRts and news about GStreamer.
Maybe there is still hope about Gnome and KDE working together without constant battles. For now, running both just introduced pain, nothing more.
Now all they would need to implement is
1. common lower VFS level, where Gnome-VFS and DCOP would be just clients and nothing more, meaning drop both, make lower level (possible with FUSE) and then remake both to use common
2. common themeing engine or at least spec, aka. one theme to rule them all. Not just icons, widgets too
They did mention that your panel applets would be freed from the panel. That’s a big one for me at least. I hope it gives some of the same flexibility I see in e17…
> I must admit I was pleasantly surprised about droping aRts and news about GStreamer.
Well, that’s not exactly news. The search for a new default multimedia framework started maybe two years ago (or even more?). But dropping arts was not possible before KDE4 because KDE has committed itself to binary compatibility throughout the KDE3 cycle.
Here’s a summary of a meeting of KDE developers and developers of the different frameworks from 2004: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-multimedia&m=109443725713883&w=2
Linux apps, yes. KDE apps, no.
From the article, Plasma won’t be portable without X11. This means that the desktop won’t make it to non-X11 systems, which sounds to me like KDE apps will run under Windows and MacOS X, and KDE will fully run under any X server on Windows (+ Cygwin or a non-Cygwin-requiring X server), MacOS X (with X11 running, as things are today) and Linux / BSD / others that use X11 as the graphics system.
It looks like new KDE will be the best alternative for winVista users. More then alternative even. To have networking stuff inside your desktop it sounds good.
On the other hand, KDE will still be the heavy-end DE, so i’ll better stick with my FluxBox.
It is indeed a heavy DE, in terms of Linux. But from the latest Vista beta, it seems like KDE is right on par for the “next gen GUIs”. The Vista beta, with default services, boots up and runs at ~550mb. Makes even 320mb from KDE seem light.
KDE usually has an option to tune down the visal effects and hardware intensive tasks, or at least it did in KDE 2 and 3 as I recall. So it should be scalable further down from there I think, but don’t quote me on that.
Anyway I’m hoping to be able to run it on machines with 256 megs of ram, if it won’t I could always use a different DE on those resource constrained systems.
“KDE usually has an option to tune down the visal effects and hardware intensive tasks, or at least it did in KDE 2 and 3 as I recall. So it should be scalable further down from there I think, but don’t quote me on that. ”
Yeah! It still has it – it’s called kpersonalizer
Anybody? I can’t wait to see this
From the interview:
“JL: Any chance of a sneak screenshot?
AJS: Not at this point, sorry.”
To early for this…
Not really much to see, since most of the work done so far are the porting to Qt4 and refactoring of the core libraries. The visually exciting and screenshot friendly part of it will come after most of the infrastructure are in place:-)
That said you can do lots of cool stuff with the new Qt, like it’s native SVG support. So if you use your imagination, perhaps you can think of a way to use something like this in a usefull way for a desktop.
http://physos.net/zacks_videos/zacks_video_2.html
Maybe KDE4 will make me switch from Gnome 🙂
I was actually thinking exactly the same thought…
More proof Apple doesn’t give a crap about the open-source community. They’ve used open source software to rapidly boost their OSX to the forefront.
There’s no denying Apple is home to tons of talented developers, and i don’t mean to take anything away from them, but the way that Apple has used open source software with bare-minimum contributions back to the project (Webcore anyone?) is pretty disappointing.
But this new development proves that they never understood the philosophy behind the movement.
You expressed your opinion with valid points, not flaming, not offtopic and yet few people moderated you down?!?
Maybe because it was completely offtopic?
> You expressed your opinion […] not offtopic and yet few people moderated you down?!?
How is a rant against Apple(*) not offtopic in the comment section of an article about an interview with a KDE developer?
(*) IMHO an unsubstantiated one, but that’s not important now.
Um… maybe you meant this comment for the intel port of the darwin source code not being available article?
Sounds like KDE 4 is going to be quite an improvement. I can’t wait for it to be released this fall. I’m quite curious as to what Plasma is going to look like and how its going to function.
I really want to see the KDE apps on Windows, thats going to really be awesome.
JL: Any chance of a sneak screenshot?
AJS: Not at this point, sorry.
Bastards!
Edited 2006-01-14 22:22
“I really want to see the KDE apps on Windows, thats going to really be awesome.”
I’d like to see some, I just hope they don’t get too generous. KOffice, Kwrite, Konquer and KMail would be enough for me.
“JL: Any chance of a sneak screenshot?
AJS: Not at this point, sorry.
Bastards! “
What he said doesn’t necessarily mean that they are refusing to show people what it’ll look like, it may simply be that it’s not developed to the point where they want the public to see it. Would you want to see someone getting a face lift during the surgury, would they look good during recovery with all the swelling and excretions? They probably want to wait until it’s looking good enough for the public to look at and see what it’s really going to turn out like.
Maybe he just implented Klippy into KDE4
J/K
That said , I’m really looking forward to kde4 preview.
“Maybe he just implented Klippy into KDE4
“
Haha, I really hope that never happens, I don’t need cartoon characters telling me what I should do with my computer. One of the things I like about KDE is that there’s few to no speech bubble popup messages and the like.
If people wanted cartoon office supplies and animals telling them what to do then Microsoft BOB would have been a success 😉 .
Where are the screenshots? An interview is fine, but a picture is worth 1000 words.
Where are the screenshots? An interview is fine, but a picture is worth 1000 words.
Did you actually try READING the interview?
“JL: Any chance of a sneak screenshot?
AJS: Not at this point, sorry.”
Edited 2006-01-14 23:15
Well, K3b is a frontend for several apps like cdrecord, growisofs and dvdrtools so those need to be ported to Windows too to use K3b there. Or code something which would use Windows’ own things to burn the discs. So I don’t think K3b will be the one of the first KDE apps for Windows.
Native builds of cdrecord are available for mosot UNIX platforms, but yes Windows still uses Cygwin.
KDE won’t include networking stuff inside of it, but it’ll get nice and clean framework which with you can access stuff like network status and so on. So KDE could do as Windows’ does nowadays; telling you (and the apps) that the network cable is (un)plugged and so on. But it’ll be very interesting to see many possibilities this thing will offer.
For anyone interested, this is also the goal of NetworkManager, a Red Hat project that will also be default in the next SUSE releases.
At the moment it’s GNOME specific and I don’t think KDE bindings will ever exist, as it seems KDE will be adopting a different framework.
NetworkManager:
http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/
I don’t think KDE bindings will ever exist
Never, as in already included in SUSE Linux 10.1 Alpha 4 you mean?
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/1685
Glad to know someone started work on that. With the ‘Solid’ project announcement I got the impression KDE was going for something else.
Since NetworkManager is based on HAL and DBUS it’s a Linux only functionality, it does not have the portability KDE requires. Solid is KDEs answer to the problem of portability, giving KDE applications an uniform interface regardless of the underlying architecture. On Linux the safest bet is that network functionality will be handled the same way as NetworkManager, with HAL and DBUS. On BSD and AIX something different, but the applications will not notice as they interface with it through Solid.
Edited 2006-01-15 02:01
D-BUS is portable, an so is HAL.
Porting HAL is not as straightforward as other software because it deals with hardware abstraction. But Sun is working on a Solaris port, there are people working on a FreeBSD port, etc.
But getting back to GNU/Linux systems, is Solid just an API on top of HAL and Networkmanager?
D-BUS is portable, an so is HAL.
But it’s not ported to anything yet, and it will most likely not be ported to all patforms KDE runs. So KDE has to have another way of dealing with those, even if it only are temporary. Switching to the HAL/DBUS solution when or if they get ready on a platform would not pose a problem.
is Solid just an API on top of HAL and Networkmanager
Basically yes, but not limited to networks. It’s supposed to include all kinds of hardware the desktops need to interact with, like storage devices and whatnot. Making it easy for applications and the desktop to interact with the devices.
http://solid.kde.org/cms/1050
http://solid.kde.org
At the moment it’s GNOME specific and I don’t think KDE bindings will ever exist, as it seems KDE will be adopting a different framework.
Kevin Ottens, the main programmer of Solid, seems to be willing to use NetworkManager has one of Solid’s backends. Actually he even promotes working with them instead of creating a new library.
Source:
http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-hardware-devel/2006-January/00001…
NetworkManager: