Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
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Comments?
Seems promising...
Seems promising...
SuSE 8.0
- Thread starter Prof.Wizard
- Start date
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
It's hard to think anything about it when we have no clue what's new it's gonna offer. A link to the press release is always appreciated when a product announcement is posted on the forum.
I'm not as eager to see SuSe 8.0 in particular as I am to try KDE 3.0 that'll come at the same time.
I'm not as eager to see SuSe 8.0 in particular as I am to try KDE 3.0 that'll come at the same time.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,460
You're right. I'm sorry. I usually provide links but I was so tired yesterday...CougTek said:
KDE 3.0 is very promising indeed. Let's hope they do some real good work with KOffice cause that's the most interesting part IMO...
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
KDE is the very worst thing about Linux.
Huh?
Yup. KDE is the best of the Linux GUIs, or at least the best one that I have seen, and it just can't cut it. Give Linux a decent desktop and it will rule the world very, very soon. Saddle it with second-rate refugees from the world of DR GEM and the Atari ST like KDE, and Microsoft will go on dominating everything forever. KDE is almost as good as Windows 3.1 was. That was 1992. This is not 1992.
The Linux desktop is improving at about three years worth of development per year right now. That means that, with luck, we can expect KDE 3.0 will come close to Windows 95 functionality. That, for me, would be near enough. But unless the 'nix community gets serious about look and feel, Linux will never break out of its current techno-geek niche.
Hope so.
Huh?
Yup. KDE is the best of the Linux GUIs, or at least the best one that I have seen, and it just can't cut it. Give Linux a decent desktop and it will rule the world very, very soon. Saddle it with second-rate refugees from the world of DR GEM and the Atari ST like KDE, and Microsoft will go on dominating everything forever. KDE is almost as good as Windows 3.1 was. That was 1992. This is not 1992.
The Linux desktop is improving at about three years worth of development per year right now. That means that, with luck, we can expect KDE 3.0 will come close to Windows 95 functionality. That, for me, would be near enough. But unless the 'nix community gets serious about look and feel, Linux will never break out of its current techno-geek niche.
Hope so.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I disagree with your evaluation, Tannin.
KDE is pretty good, actually. It has problems but dismissing it as something that is equivalent to Windows 3.1 is entirely incorrect.
You have to understand that there has never been any uniformity to *nix desktops, only in the "Presentation Layer" commonality of using X. Several companies built their own widgets, and at various times there have been attempts to make more standard desktops - CDE (common to HP, IBM and Sun, at least, but it wasn't free, so never dripped down to free 'nixes, and I don't think SGI ever adopted it) is the best example, but none have gotten very far.
Now, in the world there are really only four big Unix vendors left. Sun, which has dropped CDE in favor of the slightly less-sophisticated GNOME desktop for its Solaris OS. HP, which is transitioning from PA-Risc/HPUX to IA64/Linux, SGI - going Linux, and IBM, whose Linux initiatives stretch across all the platforms it makes... and Linux is fast becoming a replacement, or at the very least a baseline for their Unix systems.
KDE (and, for that matter GNOME) may not be as clean as CDE, but they both far outstrip mwm, OpenWin, NeWS - all the other contenders for a standard UNIX (tm) desktop. The level of sophistication is higher than you think, too. Probably between Windows 95 and Windows 98 - not forgetting that Microsoft would undoubtedly sue the pants off anyone trying to borrow too much from their GUIs, that's not a bad deal at all. Both are also a lot more user configurable than any other GUI I've ever seen.
I know. Fonts are a main issue. The thing is, real UNIX boxes all use some licensed system or another (eg Solaris uses display postscript)... so the free Unix systems have had a real challenge in that direction. No one developed a free font system; all the font technologies as well as the fonts themselves, were licensed and unavailable for redistribution (this was also a major factor in keeping free 'nix GUIs primative. The best graphics libraries couldn't be afforded). Ouch. I don't know how truetype was finally brought in, but I imagine the ubiquity of Windows machines helped in that regard. Now, the problem is the there is a great deal of legacy material out there that does not support truetype, which I believe is the font-related problem that you experienced. This will change. Things have gotten progressively better with every passing release of a major 'nix, and they will continue to get better.
I wouldn't expect a GUI for 'nix to ever be out-and-out better than the ones from Microsoft. I would expect that the GUIs for 'nix ultimately will be more than good enough, even for you.
KDE is pretty good, actually. It has problems but dismissing it as something that is equivalent to Windows 3.1 is entirely incorrect.
You have to understand that there has never been any uniformity to *nix desktops, only in the "Presentation Layer" commonality of using X. Several companies built their own widgets, and at various times there have been attempts to make more standard desktops - CDE (common to HP, IBM and Sun, at least, but it wasn't free, so never dripped down to free 'nixes, and I don't think SGI ever adopted it) is the best example, but none have gotten very far.
Now, in the world there are really only four big Unix vendors left. Sun, which has dropped CDE in favor of the slightly less-sophisticated GNOME desktop for its Solaris OS. HP, which is transitioning from PA-Risc/HPUX to IA64/Linux, SGI - going Linux, and IBM, whose Linux initiatives stretch across all the platforms it makes... and Linux is fast becoming a replacement, or at the very least a baseline for their Unix systems.
KDE (and, for that matter GNOME) may not be as clean as CDE, but they both far outstrip mwm, OpenWin, NeWS - all the other contenders for a standard UNIX (tm) desktop. The level of sophistication is higher than you think, too. Probably between Windows 95 and Windows 98 - not forgetting that Microsoft would undoubtedly sue the pants off anyone trying to borrow too much from their GUIs, that's not a bad deal at all. Both are also a lot more user configurable than any other GUI I've ever seen.
I know. Fonts are a main issue. The thing is, real UNIX boxes all use some licensed system or another (eg Solaris uses display postscript)... so the free Unix systems have had a real challenge in that direction. No one developed a free font system; all the font technologies as well as the fonts themselves, were licensed and unavailable for redistribution (this was also a major factor in keeping free 'nix GUIs primative. The best graphics libraries couldn't be afforded). Ouch. I don't know how truetype was finally brought in, but I imagine the ubiquity of Windows machines helped in that regard. Now, the problem is the there is a great deal of legacy material out there that does not support truetype, which I believe is the font-related problem that you experienced. This will change. Things have gotten progressively better with every passing release of a major 'nix, and they will continue to get better.
I wouldn't expect a GUI for 'nix to ever be out-and-out better than the ones from Microsoft. I would expect that the GUIs for 'nix ultimately will be more than good enough, even for you.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Excuses won't wash.
It was interesting to read your post about the state of the commercial Unix market, Mercutio (an area that you know vastly more about than I ever will), and about the reasons why KDE is so bad that it needs all those excuses. But the bottom line is that KDE is bad. It's better than any of the other 'nix GUIs I've tried out, but then, so was Windows 3.1. Not to mention the real GUIs.
I've used KDE. For as long as I could stand it. Comparing it to Windows 3.1 is not "incorrect", it is to be overly kind to KDE. Windows 3.0 would be a fairer comparison. KDE is more feature-rich than Windows 3.1, of course, but a bucket full of features is not a user interface, it's a kludge.
Compared to Windows 3.1, KDE looks clunky and acts clunky. Compared to Windows 95 or 98 it looks terrible. Compared to a real GUI like Presentation Manager, the Finder (or whatever the Mac desktop is called these days) or (if third-party reports are to be believed) BeOS, it ain't even in the ballpark. KDE just hasn't had enough thought go into it and it is very lacking in the depth and consistency of metaphor that makes the best GUIs such a joy to use.
You write: "KDE (and, for that matter GNOME) may not be as clean as CDE, but they both far outstrip mwm, OpenWin, NeWS - all the other contenders for a standard UNIX (tm) desktop."
Exactly: even the best of the Linux desktops is so bad it needs lots of excuses.
There is no way that Microsoft can sue someone borrowing from their GUIs - the best of the Windows GUI implementations so far - Win95 pre-active desktop - only managed to be as good as it was because they stole an enormous amount from OS/2. Unfortunately, they also stole the horrible rancid blue default background color, but forgot to steal the consistency. If KDE were to steal just those parts that MS stole from IBM, it would improve considerably. And who can complain? IBM stole most of it from Apple anyway, just added right-click menus, thought through the object orientation, and made it incredibly customisable.
I would expect a GUI for 'nix to be out-and-out better than the ones from Microsoft. Better than Microsoft ain't hard. Better than OS/2 or BeOS, that's hard. But at the current rate of improvement, it's only five to ten years away. When it happens, I'll switch.
It was interesting to read your post about the state of the commercial Unix market, Mercutio (an area that you know vastly more about than I ever will), and about the reasons why KDE is so bad that it needs all those excuses. But the bottom line is that KDE is bad. It's better than any of the other 'nix GUIs I've tried out, but then, so was Windows 3.1. Not to mention the real GUIs.
I've used KDE. For as long as I could stand it. Comparing it to Windows 3.1 is not "incorrect", it is to be overly kind to KDE. Windows 3.0 would be a fairer comparison. KDE is more feature-rich than Windows 3.1, of course, but a bucket full of features is not a user interface, it's a kludge.
Compared to Windows 3.1, KDE looks clunky and acts clunky. Compared to Windows 95 or 98 it looks terrible. Compared to a real GUI like Presentation Manager, the Finder (or whatever the Mac desktop is called these days) or (if third-party reports are to be believed) BeOS, it ain't even in the ballpark. KDE just hasn't had enough thought go into it and it is very lacking in the depth and consistency of metaphor that makes the best GUIs such a joy to use.
You write: "KDE (and, for that matter GNOME) may not be as clean as CDE, but they both far outstrip mwm, OpenWin, NeWS - all the other contenders for a standard UNIX (tm) desktop."
Exactly: even the best of the Linux desktops is so bad it needs lots of excuses.
There is no way that Microsoft can sue someone borrowing from their GUIs - the best of the Windows GUI implementations so far - Win95 pre-active desktop - only managed to be as good as it was because they stole an enormous amount from OS/2. Unfortunately, they also stole the horrible rancid blue default background color, but forgot to steal the consistency. If KDE were to steal just those parts that MS stole from IBM, it would improve considerably. And who can complain? IBM stole most of it from Apple anyway, just added right-click menus, thought through the object orientation, and made it incredibly customisable.
I would expect a GUI for 'nix to be out-and-out better than the ones from Microsoft. Better than Microsoft ain't hard. Better than OS/2 or BeOS, that's hard. But at the current rate of improvement, it's only five to ten years away. When it happens, I'll switch.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
Having tried KDE and GNOME, BeOS had them both beat hands down. There is just no comparison.
Windows 3.1 was better than KDE.
The best 'desktop' that I've tried for Linux, was the new Redmond Linux.(Lycoris Linux) If Linux is to go mainstream, then this is the way to start.
Bozo
Windows 3.1 was better than KDE.
The best 'desktop' that I've tried for Linux, was the new Redmond Linux.(Lycoris Linux) If Linux is to go mainstream, then this is the way to start.
Bozo
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
[Windows 3.1 was better than KDE.]
I should have said Windows for Workgroups 3.1, as that is what I used.
Bozo
I should have said Windows for Workgroups 3.1, as that is what I used.
Bozo
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I haven't gotten to play with a commercial unix machine in probably three years, Tannin.
I'm not making excuses. Personally, I think KDE is pretty sharp and works just fine (good enough, so to speak), but I also know that Microsoft and Apple have had years and millions of dollars to refine a consistent interface while Unix vendors have had to spend their money on developing the new CPUs and underlying architecture that make their hardware largely untouchable. There is no TRADITION of UI development in the Unix software space. Ease of use? What's that? Only in the last couple years has there been any real movement in that area.
What's happening now is actually very exciting - KDE and GNOME represent the first real attempts to develop a consistent interface, a consistent look and feel. The problem is, they are competing, and rather than choosing one and sticking to it, the big linux distros tend to implement both. The result is a mishmash. RedHat's default GNOME desktop includes both KDE and GNOME elements, two different graphical control panels for different elements and different programs. Not only that, a lot of graphical programs available for Linux don't use elements of either, but some other underlying standard. The closest a Windows user can come to this experience is finding a program that insists on using 16-bit elements while most everything else adheres to the Win95/98/2000 standard... except that, on *nix, there's about 10 different standards. IT'S NOT THE FAULT OF KDE. It's the programs that are being run inside KDE.
So that's the technical reality, and a bit of the history of unix graphical UI.
You think PM is good. Ew. No wonder.
I'm not making excuses. Personally, I think KDE is pretty sharp and works just fine (good enough, so to speak), but I also know that Microsoft and Apple have had years and millions of dollars to refine a consistent interface while Unix vendors have had to spend their money on developing the new CPUs and underlying architecture that make their hardware largely untouchable. There is no TRADITION of UI development in the Unix software space. Ease of use? What's that? Only in the last couple years has there been any real movement in that area.
What's happening now is actually very exciting - KDE and GNOME represent the first real attempts to develop a consistent interface, a consistent look and feel. The problem is, they are competing, and rather than choosing one and sticking to it, the big linux distros tend to implement both. The result is a mishmash. RedHat's default GNOME desktop includes both KDE and GNOME elements, two different graphical control panels for different elements and different programs. Not only that, a lot of graphical programs available for Linux don't use elements of either, but some other underlying standard. The closest a Windows user can come to this experience is finding a program that insists on using 16-bit elements while most everything else adheres to the Win95/98/2000 standard... except that, on *nix, there's about 10 different standards. IT'S NOT THE FAULT OF KDE. It's the programs that are being run inside KDE.
So that's the technical reality, and a bit of the history of unix graphical UI.
You think PM is good. Ew. No wonder.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
The default PM desktop is horrible. Worse than KDE. But you can do anything with it, and it is wonderfully consistent. Give me three minutes in fromt of your 1994-vintage OS/2 3.0 box, and I'll give you a better interface than any Windows version yet released. Warp 4.0 was better, and ECS raises the bar again.
But is there any particular reason why there needs to be just one Linux GUI?
But is there any particular reason why there needs to be just one Linux GUI?
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
I doubt I'll see anything close to BeOs in the rest of my life. Too fast to be true. Too fast for people with no clue. Just too bad its creators weren't as good at advertising their OS as they were to build it up.Tannin said:
Ah BeOS.....
I was pretty sad BeOS never went anywhere good. It ran really well on both of my machines when I took the time to play with it. Being dubbed as a media OS, it never really seemed to have the support for applications. I was able to play doom 2 on my BeOS setup, but given the game is so darn old, I really didn't care. It was neat that the game played, but that was it.
I realize beOS was to be a gaming platform, but rather a real workstation. I was even using my beOS box as a web server for some time at college. It was always fast...but i couldn't do much with it. :-?
I realize beOS was to be a gaming platform, but rather a real workstation. I was even using my beOS box as a web server for some time at college. It was always fast...but i couldn't do much with it. :-?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I suspect you and I have vastly different ideas about what a usable GUI is, Tannin.
Me? On Windows boxes I remove all the default icons from the desktop I possibly can (use an invisible icon for "my computer", and I keep one for control panel out, too), keep the taskbar pushed off the screen, and start most programs via batch commands at the command prompt I keep open most of the time. Of course, this undoubtedly makes my machines unusable for other people, but that doesn't bother me.
My Unix boxes run Windowmaker. Like the Windows machines, I can start all the programs I use from a prompt in an xterm, or through the menus available when I click my right mouse button. I *DO* have KDE configured for Amy, though.
IMHO, the best UI is the one that has as few elements on the screen as possible. Gotta say I resent the 24 pixels that damn start bar takes up.
Doug, did you ever actually get to work on a BeBox? Those things were unbelievably machines sweet for the time.
Tony, I stopped using OS/2 probably right around the time you started. I never bought 3.0 when I found out it wasn't going to support both the CPUs in my "big" computer at that time.
The reason that "there can be only one" Linux GUI is consistency. Right now there's a billion and one different graphics libraries a developer can use to build his *nix app (see above). Everyone does their own thing, and then newbies come along and say "this sucks" 'cause applications don't even have a similar look and feel.
Not only that, but there are huge duplications in effort. Most coding is done for free, of course, but when half the people are working on a program with identical functionality that is designed to work best with GNOME and the other half are working on essentially the same program, but using qt/KDE, that division might not be the most productive thing in the world.
You aren't going to get "common look and feel" until either those GUI projects merge or some settlement is made between the two to standardize things - which I don't see happening.
Me? On Windows boxes I remove all the default icons from the desktop I possibly can (use an invisible icon for "my computer", and I keep one for control panel out, too), keep the taskbar pushed off the screen, and start most programs via batch commands at the command prompt I keep open most of the time. Of course, this undoubtedly makes my machines unusable for other people, but that doesn't bother me.
My Unix boxes run Windowmaker. Like the Windows machines, I can start all the programs I use from a prompt in an xterm, or through the menus available when I click my right mouse button. I *DO* have KDE configured for Amy, though.
IMHO, the best UI is the one that has as few elements on the screen as possible. Gotta say I resent the 24 pixels that damn start bar takes up.
Doug, did you ever actually get to work on a BeBox? Those things were unbelievably machines sweet for the time.
Tony, I stopped using OS/2 probably right around the time you started. I never bought 3.0 when I found out it wasn't going to support both the CPUs in my "big" computer at that time.
The reason that "there can be only one" Linux GUI is consistency. Right now there's a billion and one different graphics libraries a developer can use to build his *nix app (see above). Everyone does their own thing, and then newbies come along and say "this sucks" 'cause applications don't even have a similar look and feel.
Not only that, but there are huge duplications in effort. Most coding is done for free, of course, but when half the people are working on a program with identical functionality that is designed to work best with GNOME and the other half are working on essentially the same program, but using qt/KDE, that division might not be the most productive thing in the world.
You aren't going to get "common look and feel" until either those GUI projects merge or some settlement is made between the two to standardize things - which I don't see happening.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
I thought both Warp versions did support SMP. Must be misremembering. Not an important factor for me as I have never owned a dualie. We must have crossed over a little, Mercutio: I started with OS/2 2.1 when it first came out. That was in 386DX/40 days, I think. Never messed with 2.0 or earlier.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
I thought both Warp versions did support SMP. Must be misremembering. Not an important factor for me as I have never owned a dualie. We must have crossed over a little, Mercutio: I started with OS/2 2.1 when it first came out. That was in 386DX/40 days, I think. Never messed with 2.0 or earlier.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Hey! If I keep this up I can catch your post count, Mercutio!
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
We crossed over a little. I started working with OS/2 Lan Manager 1.2 and moved on to 2.0 and later 2.1. OS/2 3.0+ only supported SMP with Warp Connect Server, a product that was simply impossible to buy at a reasonable price (like NT server is now).
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
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- Messages
- 1,460
Mandrake 8.2 arrived...
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
THE PRESS RELEASE!!! INCLUDE THE PRESS RELEASE!!!!
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Mandrake 8.2 official announcement.
It will use the 2.4.18 kernel, XFree86 4.2, KDE 2.2.2 and Gnome 1.4.1. The ProSuite and PowerPack Edition will include StarOffice 6.0.
It will use the 2.4.18 kernel, XFree86 4.2, KDE 2.2.2 and Gnome 1.4.1. The ProSuite and PowerPack Edition will include StarOffice 6.0.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
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HAHAHAHAAHhahahahahaha... you didn't include it yourself at first...CougTek said:
:lol: