Recently I have installed Kubuntu 9.10 on my school computer, just to see how it would work under the stress of all the school work I do. I must say – it’s excelling at the job.

A while back I gave KDE 4 a pretty rough review, slamming it on it’s look, its function, and stability. So far, I have to say that I was wrong. It looks absolutely fantastic, the applications are working well, and I have only experienced a few crashes.

One thing that has surprised me the most is Konqueror. I have long said that Konqueror was a better file browser than web browser, but it appears that quite a lot of work has gone into the program as of late. When I first started the program, I received a message informing me that it would like to install all sorts of libraries to make web browsing better. Thinking I would be installing Firefox after using Konqueror for a few minutes, I installed all the libraries just to give Konqueror a chance. Konqueror has been running great with no problems with the majority of web sites and with flash integration. Also, when logging in it asks if I would like to save the password in a bar at the top of the window, much like Firefox. It is shaping up to be quite the web browser. I have been using it as default for a few days now.

I think I am falling in love with the KDE desktop again simply because it is the power-user’s desktop. There are so many controls and things to configure that I am sure many KDE 4 desktops do not look anything alike. The stability has improved greatly and so has the software. I would encourage anyone who is a KDE 4 skeptic to give it a shot; it may just change your perspective, just like it did mine. Good work KDE team, keep it up!

Mandriva 2010 (codename Adelie) was launched and I decided to try it out. Mandriva is one of older Linux distro that is still active.

I decided to choose the KDE version as it is the default one for Mandriva. Hence I downloaded the Mandriva CD Image and boot it up in the Virtual Box.

The initial boot up menu were precise and clear and just asked some basic questions.

Mandriva took quite a bit of time to load up ( about 2 minutes). I had allocated about 500 MB RAM to the guest OS in Virtual Box but still 2 minutes is on slower side when compared to other distros.

Mandriva has a cool feature which I saw for the first time and which makes it a good Guest OS. Mandriva supports the Mouse Integration feature in Virtual Box.Because of the Mouse Integration(MI) the mouse pointer is not captured by the Guest OS but instead the pointer seamlessly moves between Guest and Host OS. ( hence no need to click right ctrl key every now and then).

Mandriva boots into a polished desktop interface with a nice looking theme.

Mandriva uses Dolphin file manager which has got a simplistic and clean interface.

The configuration center is also another positive thing of Mandriva. It is uncluttered and looks professional.

Mandriva control center has always been its positive point and Mandriva 2010 is no exception. Control center offers an integrated suite for software, network and hardware settings just like in windows. The layout of the control center is pretty cool with large icons and organized format.

On the installed application side Mandriva contains all the basic applications like Firefox, Amarok audio player,Dragon video player ,open office suite and other basic tools.

Mandriva only cons is that it lacks a bit in responsiveness on virtual box. Though other reviews says that installed version runs pretty smooth.

Otherwise, it is an excellent version from Mandriva and a good choose for home users.

Aquí les traigo un pequeño tip para que integren mejor el borde de ventana de KWin con el navegador web Chromium

Para esto necesitaremos tener instalado y estar usando el decorador de ventanas Nitrogen.

Después hay que ir a las preferencias de la apariencia de las ventanas y en las opciones de Nitrogen, en la pestaña Window-Specific, damos clic al botón [Añadir] y dejamos los valores tal cual se ven en la captura.

Una vez dejadas las opciones tal cual, pulsamos el botón [Aceptar] y después en [Aplicar].

Por último vamos a la opción Colores en las preferencias de aspecto y dentro de sus opciones seleccionamos la pestaña Colores (xD). Navegamos hasta abajo de la lista y cambiamos el color a las siguientes cosas por los mencionados a continuación:

• Barra de título activa: #4D97EC
• Barra de títulos inactiva: #98C5F4

Ahora abrimos Chromium y, si no está marcada la opción Use System Title Bar and Borders, la marcamos pulsando clic derecho en el borde de la ventana del navegador y seleccionándola. Con esto ya los colores del borde de la ventana se verán al igual que los de Chromium.

Chromium + KWin en KDE 4.

Espero que les sirva el tip

Вышло новое обновление KDE 4 под номером 4.3.3. В этом релизе было исправлено мало ошибок, также появилось несколько нововведений, среди них :
* Поддержка Python 3 в библиотеке PyKDE4
* улучшение поисковых возможностей Dolphin.
KDE 4.4 выйдет 9 февраля.

The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7

Dólar fechando o dia em R$ 1,699 (quase 1,70) e recebo esta maravilhosa notícia via e-mail pela Linux Magazine me contando que um “geek”, muito geek mesmo,utilizando de uma outra ferramenta desenvolvida por outro geek, mais geek ainda(!), chegou nesta incrível marca!!! xD

Como pode ser visto no blog do geek (Cornelius Schumacher), ele utilizou a ferramenta SLOCCount de David A. Wheeler para chegar nos números por ele apresentado. O resultado, é que o desenvolvimento destas 4,2 milhões de linhas de puro código fonte aberto, segundo as estatísticas, é estimado em US$ 175.364.716.

Que bom que C. Schumacher  resolveu compartilhar conosco estes dados!

Vejam neste link, um gráfico com as contagens de cada módulo do KDE, totalizando a esta incrível marca.

C. Schumacher, ainda nos diz, que isto é interessante mas não muito significativo, ao ponto de termos uma ideia sobre o que está acontecendo no KDE, e nos faz lembrar, que os bons programadores (voluntários), reduzem o tamanho do código liberado.  E ainda, afirma que estes 4,2 milhões de linhas de código, são apenas uma parte de todo o código escrito do KDE. Existem milhares de aplicações que não entram na distribuição padrão do KDE (…) Seria interessante se fazer as estatísticas completas, mas isso é um tanto quanto difícil. Como se tornar dono de todo o código fonte existente do KDE?

Para quem tem interesse na ferrameta SLOCCount, seja feliz… Quem sabe, você também não descobre o quanto suas contribuições valem para todos nós. =)

Duzentos e noventa e sete milhões de dólares…. agora fiquei curioso para saber o quanto é o custo de desenvolvimento do Kernel Linux segundo o SLOCCount. Se orgulhem Linuxers!

Fontes:

http://www.linuxmagazine.com.br/noticia/kde_vale_us_175_milhoes

http://blog.cornelius-schumacher.de/2009/10/4273291-lines-of-code.html

Hola gente, nos toca hablar un poco sobre los nuevos entornos de escritorio de Unix/GNU/Linux, hace tiempo que se venia venir un nuevo proyecto de ambos entornos, por parte de gnome anuncia “GNOME 3“, que estara disponible para su instalacion en Ubuntu 10.4, esto vendra siendo una evolucion importante gracias a su nuevo Interface “Gnome-Shell”

A primera vista no se ven muchas diferencias con el actual gnome, pero esto ira cambiando poco a poco ya que falta algo de tiempo para que este terminado en su totalidad.

Click para agrandar la imagen.

y por contraparte viene KDE 4 (4.3.2) en la cual los desarrolladores dieron anuncio sobre la disponibilidad de la nueva version, esta version no ofrece novedades, ya que centraron todo en el desarrolo para estabilizar el escritorios, arreglando fallos, agregando parches y corrigiendo temas que hacian que KDE fuera algo inestable.

A few days ago I wrote an article titled “How Important is KDE 4?”  This article picked up a lot of attention, including and off-site rebuttal.  I am no stranger to criticism.  I have written on this blog for almost three years now (including the time before my switch to WP from blogger) and through these years I have learned that if you cannot take the heat from the radicals of the community you will never survive.  It would be impossible for me to be objective if I do not develop a strong opinion.  I have critiqued projects and ideologies before, and every time I have been attacked on all sides, although typically I find myself on the side of the majority. But not always….

I am subject to being hilariously wrong.  I have made the wrong analysis, predictions, and observations about Linux many times before.  My arguments are also not perfect.  Many people have different opinions, but I will tell you that the person I respect the most is the one who can disagree respectively.  In my article, I was rather harsh to the KDE project.  I drew such a hard line because I care, and I want the project to do well.  It would be ludicrous for me to wish a part of the Linux community to fail.  What good would that do?  Instead, I want the KDE project to make things work right.  My observations are from the reports I have heard first-hand from average users who have tried KDE 4.

Nonetheless, I could have been more clear on several points in my argument.  I edited one part (in italics, starting with “Edit”) surrounding the issue of KDE’s development slowing down.  When I said this, I should have said “KDE’s release schedule is slowing down.”  That would have been more clear and not such a sticking point for the observant commenters.  Also, I could have been more clear on the applications and usage of KDE.  The problem with opinion, especially around Linux and open source, is that there are really no hard numbers we can use to look at in order to develop a definite position.  My opinions are from what I have observed in my work as a Linux advocate.  I get to communicate with real and potential users, and from that gather quite a bit of information surrounding what people want.

I have had a fair deal of trouble with KDE 4, especially with brand new users.  Many are amazed, including myself, of all that it can do.  I wish that it could do all as promised without something going wrong.  I imagine that in time, KDE 4 will stabilize.  The only question in my mind is whether or not it will be too complicated for new users.

I don’t like to take the position that KDE deserves more criticism than the GNOME project just because at the moment KDE is a bit harder to pass on to new users.  KDE has always been for power users, which is one of the reasons I used KDE 3 almost exclusively for most of 2007 and 2008.  GNOME 3 will be arriving in another six to seven months, and with it will come major changes that could either be good or bad, and I will be sure to review the situation then as well.

I also want to mention that I expect criticism and welcome it, as long as it is decent and respectful of all involved.  If it is indecent and does not contribute to the conversation, I will moderate it.  Like I mentioned earlier, I respect those who can disagree respectfully.  KDE 4.4 will be released in February, and I will be sure to review it then.  Who knows, maybe it will be stable after the KDE project has been working on it for seven months.  Since I have a life to live, I am done discussing my previous article.  I have decided to leave comments open if people want to blow off some steam.  I wish the KDE project the best of luck, and I thank everyone for the lively discussion!

I’ve followed and written about the development of the KDE 4.0 project on the old version of this blog. Until now however, I’ve never addressed the criticism that some sections of the Linux community have heaped on it. So I’ll just start with this post in the blogosphere that caught my eye.

I wonder if KDE 4 has hurt the KDE project?

No, as has been said by others countless of times before, it hasn’t. It’s as they say – no pain, no gain. If you want your project to become a long-term success you have to take risks, and the KDE development team should be lauded even now for their early release of KDE 4.0 with a warning that it was meant for experimental and development purposes to provide a platform for developing Qt4 applications and take the KDE project in a new direction. GNOME clearly aren’t in the spotlight yet, because they’re not rewriting the desktop from the ground up (or atleast judging by the GNOME 3.0 shell reviews I’ve read, they aren’t). Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here.

Just by taking a look at a list of distributions out there, the major distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian all use GNOME as their desktop environment of choice, and there are not really any major distributions with commercial backing that use KDE as their primary desktop.

openSUSE is a major distribution with commercial backing from Novell that uses KDE as their primary desktop environment. The same can be said about Mandriva. Slackware is the Godfather of Linux distributions and while they aren’t commercially backed, they use KDE by default.

The major problems with KDE 4 in its current state is its patchy development, performance, and reliabilty — something corporations do not want attached to their software.

The state of KDE development is far from what’s been mentioned here. You have monthly releases which cater to patches to the desktop. The same frequency isn’t sported by GNOME. Indirectly if you consider security, KDE is reacting faster than GNOME, but that again is subject to what vulnerabilities if any, have been found. KDE suffered with the early poor performance on NVIDIA systems, but if you look back at it now, NVIDIA responded reasonably quick to the pressure from the community considering this is a new, heavily experimental open source project we were dealing with at the time.

KDE’s development seems to be all over the place, without much order or quality controls. It is claimed as a work-in-progress. I know from experience people want software that is complete, something that is stable enough for them to rely on for their work.

Again, this work-in-progress statement is a bit overused. I thought even with the openSUSE 11 KDE 4 release, KDE 4.0.2 was reasonably stable if not perfectly usable. In fact, it was so minimal you could compare it to GNOME if you wanted. But we’re down to KDE 4.3 right now with 4.4 coming in February, 2010. Slackware considered 4.2.4 to be stable and useable enough so you can imagine how rock solid their next release could be. I’d go as far as saying KDE 4 will be as rock solid as 3.5 by then.

I believe that KDE 4 development has come too slow, and for an impation community that expects development to move at a pace that can compete with proprietary competitors with similar or better quality, KDE 4 is really not up to quota.

Isn’t this what the Linux community was crying for? “Slow down, KDE we can’t keep up with your use of ARGB and your rapidly evolving system tray?” GNOME in my opinion, does a good job of releasing few features now and then through their development cycle and I believe that suits them considering how mature the GNOME 2.x series is now. But we’re talking about KDE 4 here and at it’s point three release (KDE 4.3) more than a year on, we have an amazing development team thats created a desktop for the future that is likely at some point soon to put Free Software more prominently on the map.

KDE’s patchy development leads to little oversight on how the many features and eye-candy effect performance.

Turn the desktop effects off if eye-candy is not your thing. If you use Compiz Fusion or actually like desktop effects then you should be admiring KDE’s efforts to incorporate these features natively, which GNOME simply integrates into its environment. The jury is still out on GNOME 3.0 and its direction on this.

Many people, including many who commented on the original post, have complained that the desktop environment seems too slow, and forces them to buy new hardware. Of course, this does not go over well with a community known for using old, outdated hardware to run their Linux systems.

Honestly, I’ve seen this kind of comment on how KDE 4 is slow on hardware right now rubbished off on the Ubuntu forums so often, its not funny.  If you think questions that require reading the wiki or something are annoying to them, you can add this hardware criticism to their list of statements that are annoying. If you honestly think its slow for some reason, get another distro, go lightweight and get over yourself.

Of course, this does not go over well with a community known for using old, outdated hardware to run their Linux systems.

Just as an addon, if you manage your installation well then like me, you can run KDE 4 even on 256MB RAM. It’s not that hard if you choose your distribution’s packages wisely.

Connected to the patchy development and random inclusion of new features has led to the mass number of bugs hindering the software from reaching its full potential as a desktop contender.

Why not contribute to some of the KDE bug days instead of whining like an old granny? Random inclusion of new features? If you’re referring to something like the next-generation of Semantics in Nepomuk, improved multimedia integration through Phonon and a new way of looking at the desktop through Plasma as randomly included features, then you’re saying the KDE 4 developers are retards. Take a second to look at the number of bugs that were fixed for the KDE 4.3 release alone. I’ve seen charts on Planet KDE by developers now and then showing how the number of contributors and bug-fixers is only going up these days. KDE 4 has brought new life to the project and nothing else.

People care about the work they do on their computers, and having that at risk is certainly not in the interest of both companies or mainstream users. Perhaps this is the reason that KDE 4 has failed to make an impact on the major distributions and unseat the much-criticized GNOME desktop environment from being the most popular desktop?

Sure they care. But that didn’t stop openSUSE, commercially backed and community driven from releasing KDE 4.0.2 in the openSUSE 11 release with KDE 3 as the alternative, now did it? Patches and bugfixes were released and the only thing keeping it from being a long-term option was the lack of features. But backports were made to fix bugs, so it didn’t end up being messy before 11.1. When Debian comes out with their release of KDE 4 through Debian Squeeze a good while from now, I’d like to see you talk about KDE in the same way then.

From my observations of the software, the number of features and eye-candy is truly amazing. However, I find that in many cases that some of the features do not contribute to the usefulness of the software and are poorly implemented.

I’m not going to question what GNOME does or what they plan to do. That would just be plain fanboyism. So I’ll remind you of Nepomuk, Phonon and Plasma to name just a few of the pillars of KDE 4.  Some of the features don’t contribute to the usefulness of the software? KDE has always been highly integrated with its applications with Qt being the common link. The same can be said about KDE 4 as it matures. With every release of Qt 4.x we’re seeing enhancements being added to improve the KDE 4 experience, be it performance, bling or features. Why, with Qt 4.6 we’re going to get a glimpse of Kinetic and I’m sure KDE and Qt applications will take advantage of the potential of Kinetic in animation, soon enough.

The overall look of the system is nowhere as clean as it was in the earlier versions, and instead today it is a translucent mess. Also, much of the artwork is starting to take the look of KDE 3, a bit “cartooney,” with exceptionally large icons and images that look as if they were placed together in a matter of a few minutes, without much concern for whether or not the system would look better as a whole — that may be harsh, but I see the seeds of what could become a giant mess for the KDE project.

Wow, you must really hate KDE.  I wonder how much time you spend on GNOME-Look trying to get rid of the defaults. Exceptionally large icons? Have you ever heard of SVG being employed so extensively in a desktop environment? It’s what lets you make your icons and widgets however big you want, so really, stop crying. And please do think twice, when you call the wallpapers “cartooney”. I mean if you don’t like a couple of pretty flowers or some nice landscapes, it doesn’t mean they’re “cartooney”.  Nuno and the Oxygen team have done a fine job making KDE look fantastic and they deserve better than that.

Just by taking a look at the major KDE applications such as Konqueror, KMail, and KOffice, they are in not as mature as their mainstream counterparts, or for that matter the other competitors in the Linux arena.

I’m only going to agree with you on KOffice here. Building an office suite from scratch is as hard as building a desktop environment from scratch, and add to the fact you’re naturally going to have less personnel behind it. But Konqueror and KMail are very much part of the mainstream of KDE development and most of the bug fixes in the monthly point releases end up fixing bugs in KHTML rendering and KMail crashes. So they get a lot of attention and are far from ignored.

GNOME Office is not even close in comparison to OpenOffice or IBM’s Lotus Symphony, and the Epiphany web browser is not complete enough to compete with Firefox.

I don’t want to resort to bashing GNOME. But sounds like you’re just going against your own cause.

Surely distributions could work on implementing better software into their version of KDE 4. Applications seem to be a sticking point, and the fact that many major applications are rarely written specifically for the KDE desktop is not a good sign for the acceptance of the system by developers — a potential problem for them in the future.

Pardus is a fine example against this point. Take a look at how they’ve developed their own installer, own package management interface, own control panel and more tools of their own, all in Qt4 to complement their distribution. In my opinion, as KDE 4 matures further, they only stand to gain popularity.

So, how important is KDE 4? To the KDE project, it is absolutely crucial.

It is important, yes. But I don’t think there’s any cause for worry if you look at KDE’s work with the right mindset. Remember, Vista was criticized heavily and now with Windows 7 on the horizon, things seem rosy (or so people think) with Microsoft’s operating systems again. Naturally, the future of any project and the direction it takes is vital for a team of developers, no matter how big they may be.

I hate to say it, but it looks as if KDE 4 has become KDE’s “Vista.” The KDE reputation has been tainted with a divided community, mediocre products, and a seeming lack of solid direction.

You’ve just contradicted yourself, you know? Vista no matter, what people think of it, is the product of a commercial giant like Microsoft and obviously required a lot of manpower and investment to make it what it is. The fact that you compare KDE to Vista in that sense, is itself a compliment to KDE, considering the lack of such commercial backing and the considerably smaller size of the development crew behind it. I’ve already covered why clearly KDE 4 isn’t a mediocre product before and so to the fact that it clearly doesn’t lack solid direction.

I can only hope KDE becomes stable at some point in the near future, perhaps by choosing to make their “4.5″ release their stable release fit for refinement and development, much like with KDE 3.5. Perhaps creating that stable environment for people to improve upon could lead to the creation of a new, thriving community, one just as influential as the one when KDE 3.5 was around. Otherwise, they may lose the market they have fought so hard to gain.

KDE 4 hardly has anything left to prove, and you only have to be a part of the current KDE community to know that there is only a small section of users, who depending on the lifecycle of the distribution they use, are waiting a little longer with KDE 3.5 before plunging into the now mainstream KDE 4. They’re just playing it safe, which is fine if it suits them.

I must conclude by emphasizing that I have no disrespect intended to the author of that blog post, I just feel that some of the criticism KDE has received is unwarranted and out of line.

I ask this question because the most popular post on my blog, KDE 3 vs KDE 4:  It’s Finally Over, is still getting comments and a rather large amount of attention.  Comments are still being written well over a year later after the original post was published.

Just by looking at the KDE project, it appears as if development has slowed down (Edit: I am referring to the development of new features, and from the comments obviously I was not clear enough about this — things have slowed down, the 4.3 release was in August and the 4.4 release will not come until next February).  This certainly would not be a bad thing; the KDE project really needs to focus on stability and performance.  The question still lingers:  exactly how important is KDE 4?

If the post I wrote such a long time ago is any indication, KDE 4 is still a major issue.  It is a major issue that is also difficult to analyze, leaving as many questions as their are answers for which only time will tell.  Most of the comments I have received are not in favor of the new desktop environment, with many people still holding on to the tried and true KDE 3 desktop.  I wonder if KDE 4 has hurt the KDE project?  Just by taking a look at a list of distributions out there, the major distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian all use GNOME as their desktop environment of choice, and there are not really any major distributions with commercial backing that use KDE as their primary desktop.  In this area nothing has really changed, distributions still choose the desktop environment that fits their user base.

The major problems with KDE 4 in its current state is its patchy development, performance, and reliabilty — something corporations do not want attached to their software.  Sometimes I believe GNOME, in spite of its lack of controls for the people who want them and a lot of features, has a better development process.  A focus on making the software stable and conservatively thinking out how new features should be implemented seem to be an advantage for the GNOME project.  KDE’s development seems to be all over the place, without much order or quality controls.  It is claimed as a work-in-progress.  I know from experience people want software that is complete, something that is stable enough for them to rely on for their work.  This is not to suggest that KDE 4 is necessarily bad or that it will not be a great product someday, but that it is simply not ready for enterprise or average consumer use.  I believe that KDE 4 development has come too slow, and for an impation community that expects development to move at a pace that can compete with proprietary competitors with similar or better quality, KDE 4 is really not up to quota.

The issues the KDE project all appear to be interconnected in some way or another.  KDE’s patchy development leads to little oversight on how the many features and eye-candy effect performance.  Many people, including many who commented on the original post, have complained that the desktop environment seems too slow, and forces them to buy new hardware.  Of course, this does not go over well with a community known for using old, outdated hardware to run their Linux systems.

Reliability also seems to have been affected.  Just from my tests on my computer using KDE 4.3, I have found it to still be rather unstable.  Connected to the patchy development and random inclusion of new features has led to the mass number of bugs hindering the software from reaching its full potential as a desktop contender.  People care about the work they do on their computers, and having that at risk is certainly not in the interest of both companies or mainstream users.  Perhaps this is the reason that KDE 4 has failed to make an impact on the major distributions and unseat the much-criticized GNOME desktop environment from being the most popular desktop?

From my observations of the software, the number of features and eye-candy is truly amazing.  However, I find that in many cases that some of the features do not contribute to the usefulness of the software and are poorly implemented.  The overall look of the system is nowhere as clean as it was in the earlier versions, and instead today it is a translucent mess.  Also, much of the artwork is starting to take the look of KDE 3, a bit “cartooney,” with exceptionally large icons and images that look as if they were placed together in a matter of a few minutes, without much concern for whether or not the system would look better as a whole — that may be harsh, but I see the seeds of what could become a giant mess for the KDE project.  Professionalism is key in this era, and they must be able to deliver a clean, professional environment, not just for their sake but for the very reputation of the open source  movement as a whole.  Just by taking a look at the major KDE applications such as Konqueror, KMail, and KOffice, they are in not as mature as their mainstream counterparts, or for that matter the other competitors in the Linux arena.  Consider if the GNOME distributions went with all GNOME Project-built applications.  It would be disastrous for a distribution to make such a choice!  GNOME Office is not even close in comparison to OpenOffice or IBM’s Lotus Symphony, and the Epiphany web browser is not complete enough to compete with Firefox.  Surely distributions could work on implementing better software into their version of KDE 4.   Applications seem to be a sticking point, and the fact that many major applications are rarely written specifically for the KDE desktop is not a good sign for the acceptance of the system by developers — a potential problem for them in the future.

So, how important is KDE 4?  To the KDE project, it is absolutely crucial.  I hate to say it, but it looks as if KDE 4 has become KDE’s “Vista.”   The KDE reputation has been tainted with a divided community, mediocre products, and a seeming lack of solid direction.  I can only hope KDE becomes stable at some point in the near future, perhaps by choosing to make their “4.5″ release their stable release fit for refinement and development, much like with KDE 3.5.  Perhaps creating that stable environment for people to improve upon could lead to the creation of a new, thriving community, one just as influential as the one when KDE 3.5 was around.  Otherwise, they may lose the market they have fought so hard to gain.

Update:  Before commenting please read this updated article.

I’ve been watching TV a bit recently (It’s stage 3 of dealing with the trauma of not having homework anymore.) and I keep seeing this date pop up, with a little girl talking about “happy words.”  It seems Microsoft Windows 7 is coming out soon.  I’ve heard about it here and there, but it didn’t really register that the next version is coming in just under a month until I saw the commercials.

So far I haven’t heard anything bad about the upcoming windows release, which is quite a contrast to the months leading up to Vista.  I looked around their website and there’s some interesting stuff, but nothing revolutionary.  Nothing important we haven’t got, or will have soon in a better form.  And it still has that nauseating default theme from Vista.

This makes the timing of the Kubuntu Karmic release very interesting.  It really seems like this should be the big faceoff.  A lot of good things are coming together for Karmic.  KDE 4.3 provides a smooth desktop experience with a lot of little annoyances fixed.  Finally most networks work (again) out of the box.  Legacy KDE3 things are finally gone from the CD.  It would be amazing if Kubuntu Karmic was the release you could pull out at the same time as the brand spanking new Windows 7 and blow away the competition.

And it’s close, but it’s not that release.  It’s just the first release where most of the KDE 4 desktop has come together, but there are still some issues to fix, polishing to do, and a couple core apps need to stabilize.  Another 6 months.  Concidentally, Lucid 10.04 is also the next LTS.  Perfect timing to really bring all the pieces together and make a polished release that will put the proprietary competition to shame.  I’m really looking forward to Lucid.  The drama would just be so much better if it was 9.10.

KNetworkManager es un gestor de redes integrado perfectamente a KDE 4 en el que se está trabajando y el cual será de mucha ayuda siendo bastante fácil de usar y administrar para conectarnos a alguna red cableada, inalámbrica, etc.

Si detestas el applet de NetworkManager de Gnome que viene instalado por defecto en Fedora éste puede ser un excelente sustituto.

A continuación explicaré las instrucciones de instalación para el que desee hacerlo.

Primero abrimos Konsole y agregamos el repositorio de KDE RedHat:

su -c "wget http://apt.kde-redhat.org/apt/kde-redhat/fedora/kde.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/kde.repo"

Después instalamos KNetworkManager activando momentáneamente el repositorio kde-testing:

su -c "yum --enablerepo=kde-testing install knetworkmanager"

La descarga e instalación de los paquetes comenzará. Esperar a que termine.

Instalando KNetworkManager.

Bien, ahora desinstalaremos el applet GTK de NetworkManager que viene instalado por defecto. Ésto porque al iniciar el sistema, el applet tomará el control y dejará a KNetworkManager en passive mode sin poder usarlo.

Lo desinstalamos con el siguiente comando:

su -c "yum -y remove NetworkManager-gnome"

Una vez que lo hayamos desinstalado reiniciamos nuestro sistema y ya podremos hacer uso de KNetworkManager .

KNetworkManager en KDE 4.3.

Ahora un plus más … Para darle un mejor look al icono de la bandeja del sistema instalaremos estos iconos creados por ademmer1977.

Para ello, primero los descargamos desde aquí.

Después abrimos Dolphin y navegamos hasta donde lo hayamos descargado, lo extraemos y entramos a la carpeta resultante.

Una vez estando ahí copiamos las carpetas 22×22 y 48×48 al directorio /usr/share/icons/oxygen/ para instalarlos. Para hacer ésto abrimos la terminal integrada de Dolphin; pulsamos la tecla [F4] y ejecutamos el siguiente comando:

su -c "cp -R * /usr/share/icons/oxygen/"

Nota. Lo anterior reemplazará los iconos instalados por el paquete knetworkmanager.

Por último borramos el caché de nuestra sesión para que apliquen correctamente los iconos:

su -c "rm -rf /usr/tmp/kdecache-$USER/"

Instalando los iconos...

Y listo. Ahora nos relogueamos y ya tendremos el icono cambiado

KNetworkManager - Icono cambiado.

- – -

Desinstalación.

Si por alguna razón no les gustara y quisieran desinstalarlo simplemente ejecuten el siguiente comando en una terminal:

su -c "yum -y remove knetworkmanager"

Y después reinstalen el applet de NetworkManager de Gnome:

su -c "yum -y install NetworkManager-gnome"

Reinicien y listo.

- – -

Bueno pues eso es todo. Espero que les guste y sirva KNetworkManager. Cualquier cosa coméntenla ^_^

Si no les bastaba con el fork Nitrogen del decorador de ventanas Oxygen, ahora ya tenemos otro pero ahora del estilo Qt titulado Nitrogen-style.

Los cambios de este estilo editado de Oxygen son únicamente la implementación de ligeras animaciones al pasar el cursor por encima de widgets/objetos como por ejemplo cajas de texto, barras de desplazamiento, deslizadores, barras de menú, etc.

Si desean probar este estilo, a continuación explico las instrucciones de instalación.

Primero instalamos ciertos paquetes necesarios para poder compilar el estilo. Lo hacemos abriendo una terminal y ejecutándo el siguiente comando:

su -c "yum install kdebase-workspace-devel gcc-c++"

Una vez instaladas podemos cerrar la terminal.

Ahora procedemos a descargar el código fuente del estilo Nitrogen desde aquí.

Una vez descargado abrimos el navegador de archivos Dolphin y nos dirigimos hasta donde hayamos descargado el fichero anterior.

Extrayendo el código fuente...

Lo extraemos pulsando clic derecho sobre él y seleccionando la opción “Extraer archivo comprimir aquí”. Se extraerá una carpeta llamada kde4-kstyle-nitrogen…, ingresamos a ella.

Ahora dentro de la carpeta donde se encuentra el código fuente presionamos la tecla [F4] para abrir la terminal integrada de Dolphin y ejecutamos el siguiente comando para preparar la compilación:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix` .

Preparando la compilación...

Si la salida no obtiene ningún error comenzamos a compilar el estilo ejecutando el siguiente comando:

make

Una vez que termine la compilación instalamos el estilo con:

su -c "make install"

¡Listo! Ahora solamente queda elegir Nitrogen como estilo en las preferencias del estilo de KDE.

Aplicando el estilo.

El estilo está en desarrollo constante así que estén alerta por próximas actualizaciones e instalarlas.

También, si usas Arch Linux o Gentoo puedes obtener un pkgbuild o un ebuild para la distro respectivamente además de más infromación acerca de Nitrogen, visita el siguiente enlace:

KDE-Look.org – Nitrogen-style.

Espero les guste. Un saludo a todos!

Uma pegadinha hightec

Essa brincadeira da equipe “ZDNet Austrália” foi bastante engraçada. Eles montaram um notebook com KDE 4, e sairam na rua coletando “feedback” do pessoal… A “pequena” diferença, é que eles avisaram o público que era um Windows 7 beta e não um KDE. Antes de continuar, vejamos alguns esclarecimentos, sobre os conceitos usados,  para aqueles que não conhecem o KDE, e sua relação com o Windows.

KDE:

Gerenciador de janelas feito para a plataforma Linux. Compete com Gnome, WindowMaker, OpenBox, ICEWM e outros ( todos open source ).

Para quem conhece apenas o Windows, talvez seja difícil entender o conceito de gerenciador de janela. Ai vai uma tentativa de explicar: imaginem que no windows fosse possivel trocar a barra de programas, o Internet Explorer e o Explorer, e colocar outros programas para substituí-los, sem deixar de ser “Windows” o sistema operacional. Seria algo assim.
KDE leva vantagem em cima de seus concorrentes porque vem  com um amplo pacote de aplicativos junto, sendo bem semelhante a um sistema operacional. Gnome é outro gerenciador muito bom, que também tem um pacote de aplicativos, mas que não estou afim de debater qual seria o melhor   A escolha de usar o KDE 4 ( versão mais recente ) na minha opinião se deve ao fato do KDE 4 possuir diversos recursos muito semelhantes ao do Windows Vista / Windows 7. Como aceleração de hardware para efeitos com janelas e outras coisas. Na verdade o KDE possui bem mais efeitos e recursos, e um alto poder de customização, download de temas, novos efeitos online, facil como trocar a “skin” do winamp.

Windows 7:

Novo sistema operacional da Microsoft. Foi usado na brincadeira apenas o nome dele, para fazer os usuários se sentirem a vontade com o notebook, sem parecer um monstro de sete cabeças ( idéia da brincadeira ).

A pegadinha:

Pessoal da ZDNet, montou um Linux com KDE 4 em um notebook. Com todos os recursos gráficos habilitados e aplicativos comuns existentes no Windows. Fizeram parecer que era um Windows 7 beta. Eles encontravam pessoas na rua, que se diziam “entendidas” de windows, e apresentavam a “suposta” nova versão do Windows ( o KDE ). As pessoas usaram o KDE e comentaram sobre a experiência. Pessoas falaram que o KDE é mais rápido, bonito, elegante e facil de usar ( essa me surpreendeu bastante ) .  Muito grande a frustração delas quando souberem que não é Windows, e que não precisa pagar para usar. Duvido que abandonem o Windows, mas foi uma brincadeira fantástica.

Vídeo no Youtube:

Pequena comparação de consumo:

Acho interessante falar sobre o consumo de RAM e CPU de ambos. Enquanto um Win Vista consome 1.5 Gb de Ram com os efeitos habilitados, o KDE4, com os efeitos habilitados, consome apenas 250 Mb e usa a metade de processamento do Vista. Sei que tem aqueles que estão pensando agora que o KDE deve ter então menos efeitos, ou que a qualidade seja pior. Mas não. Na verdade, como dito a cima, o KDE tem mais recursos e maior qualidade nos graficos que o Vista. Eu não cheguei a testar o Windows 7 para comparar, mas já ouvi dizer de um amigo que instalou, que o Win7, sem os recursos habilitados, consome no mínimo 1Gb de Ram ( o que é ótimo se comparado com o Vista ).

KDE 4 очень удобная среда, она у меня стоит на моем Debian Squeeze, но есть у нее один недостаток – она медленна. В этой статье будет говориться где найбыстрее работает KDE 4.
Проводился эксперимент с выключеными эффектами.
Fedora
Fedora – первый дистрибутив в котором появилась KDE 4. В ней и работает эта среда очень быстро, хотя потребления памяти немалы, как в Kubuntu.
OpenSUSE
OpenSUSE – второй дистрибутив где появился КДЕ четвертой версии, скорость работы на уровне Федора, а также потребление памяти.
Kubuntu
Чесно говоря скорость работы заметно медленне чем в предыдущих дистрибутивах, особенно тормозит если включить отображение файлов на рабочем столе.
Debian Lenny
Скорость работы о-о-о-чень медленная, даже с отключеными эффектами,лучше уже использовать ion.
Debian Squeeze
Скорость работы меня самого удивила и даже берет ОЗУ на 100 мб меньше. С запущенным Iceweasel – 170 мб , с LinuDC++ – 135.

The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7

O que se vê, é uma animação geral vindo da parte dos desenvolvedores do KDE responsáveis por está área do sistema; no qual, eles querem ver logo como as coisas funcionarão.

O “novo” Oxygen, possuirá várias novidades, entre elas um botão personalizável que poderá variar o tamanhos das janelas, configurações de sombras, e fornece um bom destaque na barra de título da janela ativa semelhantemente ao que o Ozone faria (…)

Vale mencionar que isto traz um aval oficial da maravilhosa equipe de desenvolvedores do Oxygen, e eles estão muito animado sobre os planos futuros e as novas funcionalidades que vão trazer para os usuários muito em breve a partir deste ponto.

Just a quick heads up to any KDE users. You may want to blacklist the Amarok 2.1.80 “upgrade” if you listen to Last.FM

Users who “upgrade” to this version will be locked out of Last.FM streams until they pay Last.FM for a “premium” account.

As near as I can tell, KDE wasn’t forced to do this, they must have went along willingly as the last version of Amarok continues to work just fine if you still have it installed, I’m typing this as I’m listening to a Last.FM stream on my laptop which didn’t get the “upgraded” package.

It’s sad that KDE is continuing to support a service which is now coated in server side paywalls and DRM. It would be nice if they could have just stuck to free software ideals and chose to remove the Last.FM plugin and salt the Earth of these parasites. Oh well.

I could have understood if Last.FM said “Third parties can keep using our service provided that they place the same ‘Buy this track’ link that our client has”. Near as I can figure, Last.FM’s only gripe was that they are losing those click pennies when you use other clients.

Heute wurde die Alpha Nummer 5 von Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” freigegeben. Neuerungen sind unter anderem:

• Kernel 2.6.31-rc8
• Gnome 2.27.91 oder KDE 4.3.1 (Gnome = Ubuntu, KDE = Kubuntu)
• Dateisystem Ext4
• Bootmanager Grub2
• Intel-Graphiktreiber: UXA-Architektur -> soll Performance-Probleme beheben
• neuer GDM (Anmeldemanager)
• Empathy ist Standard-Messenger (früher hatte Pidgin diese Aufgabe erledigt)

Die normale Alpha kann hier runtergeladen werden. Die endgültige Version wird voraussichtlich am 29.10.2009 erscheinen.

Die erste und einzige Alpha von Fedora 12, auch Constantine genannt, ist erschienen. Die Alpha bringt schon jetzt die für 10. November erwarteten Tools mit. Als Desktops sollen GNOME 2.28 oder KDE 4.3 dienen. Die mit KDE 4.2 veröffentliche Variante Fedora 11 bekommt aber ab heute KDE 4.3 serienmäßig als Update. Die Grub-Version des Betriebssystems bringt nun auch eine Untersctützung für Ext4 mit.

Olá, tirei screenshots destes 4 browsers, comparando o estilo visual e posição das ferramentas, alem também da página de cada um.
Opera 10 – More than Perfect

Google Chrome @ Linux – Just perfect

Mozilla Firefox – The Ultimate Children Web Browser

Konqueror 4.2.4 – A serious web browser

In der openSUSE-Version 11.2 wird KDE als voreingstellte GUI (Graphische Benutzeroberfläche) zum Einsatz kommen. Dies wurde vom openSUSE-Board entschieden.

Off and on with different distros I have noticed a strange behavior in Kmail and/or Firefox. Clicking on a link in a Kmail email will open Firefox (as it should), but with two identical tabs. That is, it opens the same page twice, simultaneously, in seperate tabs.

XiniX, over at the KDE Community forums, steered me toward the solution. In this file:

/home/username/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals

In the “General” subsection I changed

BrowserApplication[$e]=!firefox-3.5 %u

to

BrowserApplication[$e]=!firefox-3.5

and suddenly, no more double tabs!

XiniX… you da man! Thanks!

Hace ya un tiempo laaargo que hablé de la beta de kde 4.3. Hace también algo de tiempo (pero menos) es cuando sacaron la versión final: El 4 de Agosto, más o menos. Al parecer se retrasaron una semana para solucionar unos errores (Bugs), pero se consiguió este escritorio:

La versión es la 4.3.0 y tiene el nombre clave de “Caizen” (Zen significa “bueno” asi que podriamos entenderlo como un cambio a bueno, a mejor).  Tiene el tema Air. Viene dado de la mano con unas cuantas mejoras; entre ellas más mejoras visuales y más addons.

Visto en | Ubuntu life | Desde ubuntu para el mundo