On Wednesday 03 May 2006 08:29 pm, Mark H. Harris wrote:
On Wednesday 03 May 2006 21:43, kai wrote:
I can very easily see the tide slowly turning from one of emphatic support of KDE to that of simple maintenance.
I am amazed at some of the comments on this thread. Ok, basics... Linux is not Winblows... the desktop is *not* tied to the OS in Linux... the desktop is *not* tied to the distribution in Linux...
No, Linux - or more specifically SUSE - is very much not Windows. SUSE is being used by people like me as a productivity tool to get our jobs done and for some recreation. I won't even go into the reasons *nix is superior to Wintendo in all respects save a few UI issues. As you mention - and I believe is mentioned elsewhere in this thread - the desktop is not tied to the OS. There are those who want to use the CLI only - especially if they're running servers. There are those who want a lightweight desktop like XFCE or Blackbox and just run a few apps on top. Then there are those like me who expect a full-fledged desktop environment. In fact, it is this environment, KDE, which let me upgrade from Windows XP. I don't expect this to be Windows, rather an upgrade. As I say in my tagline, "genuine Windows replacement part." In other words, I use *nix instead of Windows and expect it to do what is needed.
Suse doesn't support the KDE desktop, the KDE community supports the KDE desktop...
I don't know if it is still true, but this post explains that - at least in '04 - Novell did financially support KDE. http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/1531.html I know they've canned some developers and a few have gone on their way willingly, but I don't have any recent information of support or the lack thereof.
If Suse ever ships without KDE (and it won't anytime soon) I will add the KDE desktop myself. Suse (Novel) is an elegant packaged distribution. If it ever stops being an elegant packaged distribution (Do I hear Oracle/Ellis coming?) then someone else will come along and represent the linux OS community with a new elegant packaged distribution.
Yes, I agree, which is what I hope to avoid. In trying several distributions, I fell SuSE/SUSE is the best of the bunch for a general desktop user like me. It has excellent hardware support and fantastic desktop integration in KDE. I'd rather not have to switch to another distribution. In fact, I switched FROM Mandrake to SuSE precicely because of their tight integration and support.
In the mean time, any packaged distribution is like Legos... infinitely configurable... you don't like it---then change it. It isn't complete---then add to it. I have used Gnome & KDE for several years... I prefer KDE, but I like being able to switch between them... and sometimes I even use twm (tiny window manager) with no desktop at all!
Yes, well that may work for the average hobbyist. I've built plenty of systems and have no interest anymore in going around creating one from scratch. I'll be happy to support others in trying to tweak an existing system and will do my best to configure mine for what I want. However, for the most part, I want it to simply "work" for me so I can get stuff done. I certainly don't ever want to build my own desktop. I haven't even tried to recompile my kernel.
Use TCL/TK for the gui, Use C for the guts, use Java for nothing.
/me raises eyebrow - something wrong with Java? Please tell us more. I've programmed in Java, Visual Basic, Cobol, Pascal, C++, C#, and a bit of assembler. So far, I've found Java to be a tight and comfortable programming language. Like any language it has its annoyances. It does a fine job, however, of allowing me to program. My only Okay, enough ranting by me today. I enjoy the discussion, and I hope something good comes out of this. Now back to important tasks like Wesnoth. -- kai - www.perfectreign.com linux - genuine windows replacement part