On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 02:20:00PM -0400, Larry Stotler wrote:

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 1:49 PM, jdd <jdd@dodin.org> wrote:

...

I just notice that there will be nomore kde3 for the upcomming openSUSE 11.2. I don't want to grin. Not necessary. I just wanted to ask here what do you have in kde3.5 and don't find in kde4 and you would like to have. Not to say you will have it but to give info to devs... I stopped using kde4 on 11.1 for problems in the config panel and lack of understanding of the new windows layout. I expect this to be solved before next release; what do you think? be constructive :-)

As someone who had supported SuSE since 1999, I'm very disappointed with the current 11.1, and still use 11.0 on most of my stuff while I

Why? Ciao, Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Lew Wolfgang escribió:

I can't speak for Larry, but I can relate my experiences on several systems with Nvidia graphics

What has Nvidia problems to do with SUSE ? -- "If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed" -George Carlin (1937-2008) Cristian Rodríguez R. Software Developer Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

Lew Wolfgang escribió:

Nvidia is not the end, it's the means. The end is having a reliable SuSE desktop.

If you have problems with NVIDIA propietary drivers, please complain to NVIDIA, we cannot fix them, Im sorry. -- "If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed" -George Carlin (1937-2008) Cristian Rodríguez R. Software Developer Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

Lew Wolfgang wrote:

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

...

Lew Wolfgang escribió:

...

Nvidia is not the end, it's the means. The end is having a reliable SuSE desktop. If you have problems with NVIDIA propietary drivers, please complain to NVIDIA, we cannot fix them, Im sorry.

Hi Christian,

Please understand, I'm not picking on SuSE here. I'm not giving up, but just waiting for 11.2.

But look at it from my perspective: 11.0 works, 11.1 doesn't. I don't care if it's Novell or Nvidia: it doesn't work. So I'm going to take the path of least resistance and retreat to what's working. This will also giv KDE 4 some time to mature.

I'm not convinced that all of your problems are nVidia, as there are the same problems I see with different make video chipsets, thus not all is well with "X"....GL screen savers come to mind. Fred -- The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Clayton wrote:

...

...

...

...

Nvidia is not the end, it's the means. The end is having a reliable SuSE desktop. If you have problems with NVIDIA propietary drivers, please complain to NVIDIA, we cannot fix them, Im sorry. Hi Christian,

Please understand, I'm not picking on SuSE here. I'm not giving up, but just waiting for 11.2.

But look at it from my perspective: 11.0 works, 11.1 doesn't. I don't care if it's Novell or Nvidia: it doesn't work. So I'm going to take the path of least resistance and retreat to what's working. This will also giv KDE 4 some time to mature. I'm not convinced that all of your problems are nVidia, as there are the same problems I see with different make video chipsets, thus not all is well with "X"....GL screen savers come to mind.

I found that when I bumped my nVidia binary drivers up to 180.x things improved in a BIG way with KDE4.. that and making sure I was using 4.2.2. (latest as of this email). GL screen savers are fine... full screen, not stuck up in the top left corner.... KDE desktop performance is fine... ie, I don't notice any slowdowns or performance issues at all anymore.

I pull my nVivia drivers from here: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122606 and am currently using 180.44. I don't know what's available in the openSUSE repos, but if you have a nVidia card, and you're not on at least 180, you will have major issues with KDE4.

I don't know either.....this box is Intel video, so will have to check very late tonight. Thanks, Fred -- Gun-toting Americans are clearly more self-sufficient than the sissy Europeans. This is great news for everyone except Barney Frank, who's always secretly wondered what it would be like to be taken by a Somali pirate. --Ann Coulter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Marcus Meissner wrote:

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 02:20:00PM -0400, Larry Stotler wrote:

...

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 1:49 PM, jdd <jdd@dodin.org> wrote:

...

I just notice that there will be nomore kde3 for the upcomming openSUSE 11.2. I don't want to grin. Not necessary. I just wanted to ask here what do you have in kde3.5 and don't find in kde4 and you would like to have. Not to say you will have it but to give info to devs... I stopped using kde4 on 11.1 for problems in the config panel and lack of understanding of the new windows layout. I expect this to be solved before next release; what do you think? be constructive :-) As someone who had supported SuSE since 1999, I'm very disappointed with the current 11.1, and still use 11.0 on most of my stuff while I

Why?

Ciao, Marcus

Umm.., for starters I can't load it on my laptop without the fglrx driver causing either a reboot or hardlock.. but that's just a minor one.. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 13 April 2009 01:23:03 pm JW wrote:

Ditto - I spent some time on the opensuse wiki and the KDE pages looking for info about moving PIM data from KDE3 to KDE4 - nada.

We are looking to improve that, but those that write something that other can use are so seldom to find. I opened group of articles KDE Configuration and the only contributor is me. So, until that improves, you can't expect to find much. Any volunteers? PS. Q: Am I puzzled with ability of people to spend hours here writing tens of hours worth of text, and, at the same time, when they find solution to some problem, they don't want to document it on the wiki. A: Yes. If you, or anyone else stumble upon a solution, feel free to point out article that contain solution in post to this list. I'll pick it up, or hopefully, find few of more that think the same way, and document it on the wiki. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 04/16/2009 08:50 PM, Will Stephenson wrote:

I'm working on extending kde4-migrate so it automatically pulls all the PIM data to KDE 4 for 11.2.

As a long time SuSE/openSUSE user, starting with kde 1, I just want to let you know I really appreciate all your efforts over all these years. I am currently running kde 4.2.2, and have been only running it for most of this year. I find it not only usable, but in some ways better. There are still some apps that are lacking the functionality of 3.5, but overall I think you and the other KDE developers with openSUSE have done a great job. Thanks for all your and the team's efforts. I am just wanting to increase the signal ratio. ;-) -- Joe Morris Registered Linux user 231871 running openSUSE 11.1 x86_64 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 3:42 PM, Rajko M. <rmatov101@charter.net> wrote:

Problem is that majority of supporters do a lot to help those with KDE4, and spread a message about OBS.

But then you have those that feel the need to constantly bash people who have found issues with it. When it's pointed out that those with accessibility issues can't use it, there are no solutions forthcoming.

Well majority, seems to stick with forums, Usenet, IRC even Facebook/Myspace/YouTube openSUSE communities seems to be comparable or bigger then ML. What I do read here, on couple of KDE ML, in forums.opensuse.org, around the web (google opensuse) is not near as tragic as you see. Users en mass go for extra repos, in any distro, that provide 4.2.2.

Perhaps not, but for those who are new to Linux or openSUSE, they may not have the familiarity or even know where to get help. I've read several posts on the web about how someone new to openSUSE couldn't figure out how to make things work and gave up. Hack, my first Linux install was RedHat 5.0. I didn't do much with it. It was finding a copy of SuSE 5.3 at my local bookstore and installing it that I found out whAt linux could do. Not having a high speed connection made trying to installl other stuff almost impossible for me, but the distro itself and what it provided were rock solid.

I gave you in another post link to small periferal feature that makes desktop look really cool, with neon glove below windows instead of dark shade. Is desktop slower, no. I have forgotten to upload settings that make old PCI nvidia FX5200 run with desktop effects as fast as without, but I'll do it right now.

Thanx, but none of that means anything to me. I'm on my Thinkpad A22p with an ATI Mobility M3(basically a Rage128). KDE4 was almost unusably slow on this machine, where KDE3 is very fast. I even had issues on my Celeron DualCore with an nVidia 6200 in terms of speed. I repeatedly asked that KPersonalizer be ported to KDE4 for those of us who could care less about eyecandy. I turn off all of that stuff. I probably shouldn't have even posted. My feelings on the current state of openSUSE have been well known. I do appreciate all the support and help I got from Olaf and the rest of the devs that I have worked with since 2005 when 10.0 was in beta. I just don't think that the direction openSUSE is taking is the one I want. I want a lean fast system, and I can't get that anymore. I had 11.0 on my Powerbook Wallstreet with a G3/266. It wasn't really usable with a desktop. I installed SuSE 7.3 which was provided to me by a list mate and it was incredible. I'd love to see that kind of performance with some newer programs like Firefox v3. But, I've been told that's not realistic. Oh well. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

<shortening the last reply considerably, but adding a lot of my own replies> Richard wrote:

On Sun April 12 2009 2:20:00 pm Larry Stotler wrote:

...

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 1:49 PM, jdd <jdd@dodin.org> wrote:

<snip>

...

Unfortunately, this has been tried before, and the KDE3 users were basically harrassed and ignored and told to just suck it up and deal with a basically broken KDE4 because it is the wave of the future(which is basically what M$ is doing with Vista). I had previously exposed many fallacies with KDE4 in regards to faster and leaner, but was ignored, or told to waste money on nerwer hardware.

That is their favorite tactic, not addressing the underlying issues.

I run Linux because (unlike Brand X) it doesn't emphasize glitz over functionality. I don't object to eye-candy provided it is optional, and doesn't impose performance or maintenance penalties. But when it does, I don't mind not having something zooty to show to the uninitiated...I just want a strong, fast, stable platform. And I did briefly try to engage one of the lead KDE4 designers about the need to get the basics working, as well as to make a "classic" mode in KDE4 to ease the transition. Even M$ gets that one. Instead I was told that KDE4 was introducing a radical new paradigm that was of such great value that it needed the new desktop stuff ASAP, and then the apps could be ported over to the new platform. And that keeping KDE3 functionality was a technical drain on their resources, unless they retrofitted it once they got all the new goodies working. (Really, how many users care *what* icon set or theme they are using, once they find one that isn't visually obnoxious?) Obviously, they must think that they are going to conquer the world with KDE4 -- that it is Linux' new "killer app". I began with KDE because I basically was in agreement with what Linus Torvalds said a few years back, that Gnome tended to dumb things down, thereby limiting Linux' utility. After my sad attempts at co-existing with KDE4 (both stable and factory, to try to fix the stable version), and after probing the mind-set of the developers, I ran across another comment of Linus', that he just wants a desktop that allows him to easily do whatever he wants to do, and doesn't get in the way. And for him right now (recently) it was Gnome. (Sorry, haven't the time to dig up the details, but it wasn't an April Fool's or Onion type page, it was one of the standard sources for info on Linux -- just can't remember which one. I read a lot online.) While Gnome has become less "dumbed down", I'm sure he must have more reason than that to switch back to Gnome. I work in a predominantly SLES shop, and am encouraged to run either SLED or openSUSE on my personal work machine. I chose openSUSE to be on the front edge of where SLES/SLED are going. I originally went with o/S 10.3 about a year ago, running KDE3.5. I skipped over o/S 11.0 and went to 11.1, initially trying KDE4. When I investigated and found out what the repair/enhancement strategy was -- this new paradigm MUST be running first AND users MUST learn to use this powerful new paradigm for their own good -- I attempted to switch back to KDE3.5. All I ended up with was a hodge-podge. Finally, out of frustration, I switched to Gnome (no, not because Linus did -- I found out about his switch while setting up Gnome), and it has been much more useful. And I haven't once woke up thinking "I could have been a part of a new desktop paradigm, but I have chosen to hang back and avoid change. Woe is me!" Others in my group have not simply defected from KDE4.5 after upgrading; instead they elected to go for simplicity of administration -- so they defected to Ubuntu. If I thought 3.5 would be available for as long as I wasn't satisfied with the state of 4.x, I would wait for KDE 4 to get to its "promised land", then switch. But this thread shows the futility of that. I thought KDE3.5 was better than Gnome, by a small amount, and that Gnome was much better than KDE4 (from a user perspective). If I believe the KDE design team leads, KDE4 is the greatest, because its fundamentals are more sound, and that when it is finished, it will blow both Gnome and KDE3 away. But I must live in today... What the KDE developers fail to realize is that not all of us who use Linux, KDE, or whatever, have time to become lab rats for the developers over an extended period of time. Even if I buy their argument that I must be willing to test the new KDE in order for it to improve, I still reject their assertion that I must choose to do so on their timetable, regardless of whether or not it interferes with my job or my other Linux interests. And Linux is all about choice, so why would I choose the pain, unless I were a true believer in the vision. But any vision that doesn't provide a decent migration path, or a comprehensible list of benefits, isn't a vision I am likely to buy into. And no, working Plasmoids just don't rock my world. And I wholeheartedly agree with David Rankin's post earlier, basically describing the fallacy and danger of "letting the tail wag the dog". If the KDE developers don't want to take a year to get apps working, then go back to building the desktop to conquer the world, as someone else suggested, then why not at least stop new work on the eye-candy, and devote more effort into responding to the needs of the KDE community, in both versions for now. And no, Mr. Asiago of the KDE team, although I had been a member of the KDE community, I do not need a new desktop paradigm, may not even need one, and I do not feel that, as a Linux or openSUSE community member, I am obligated to work to advance your vision of KDE, regardless of how right that might be someday. Especially since most of the benefits you enumerate have to do with issues that are at best of marginal interest to us as users. Had I sensed that KDE leadership was going to zealously allow KDE3.5 to be fully available to all KDE users for as long as it took for them to be comfortable with KDE4, I might have muddled through. But instead, I was told that KDE4 is so different that unless users are forced to try and learn the new paradigm, they might never cross over to the KDE4 promised land, so they felt that they had to guide users into KDE4. And elsewhere they suggest that Factory versions will provide fixes faster. But in a production shop, I elect to only run Factory fixes when and if I have a specific problem that I need to resolve -- not to enable me to learn a new paradigm while it is being debugged, or as part of my standard update strategy. I suggested supporting both in parallel -- sorry, the infrastructure is different, and we don't want to take time away from making the apps work in v4. But we are hampered in doing that as well, they claim, because they need to finish evolving their new paradigm in order to have a stable base in which to get apps working again. I have added this post because I feel it adds another user perspective, one not fully spelled out elsewhere -- the need of users who work professionally with SLE[SD] to be able to run an openSUSE release that does not interfere with their work, and that does not require extensive use of Factory builds to try to overcome what could have been, and should have been, pre-release testing in many cases. In the end, I feel sorry for just about everything about KDE -- because it *was* the best interface (except for a couple of features in OS/2), and because it could have evolved (albeit more slowly) into something above and beyond that, introducing a new visual and working paradigm -- but instead, KDE4 languishes in the end-user community because it is being force-fed, and because KDE3.5 has now become something that has to be "reverse-engineered" into new releases of openSUSE, if indeed even that can even be done effectively. I personally will not return to KDE, based on my experiences thus far, until such time as I see that they have (re-)built a satisfied user base with a version they intend to continue to fully support. And I will remain with it only if the new paradigm doesn't continue to get in my way after I have learned the basics, and only if there is sufficient perceived benefit to make it worth investing the time. Had they (the KDE team) taken a less aggressive and imperative approach to the introduction of KDE4 (and especially its claimed radically different new desktop paradigm, plus a reduced set of functionality in areas other than the desktop itself) -- had they made the transition more gradual, voluntary, and on the users' timetables for change -- I would probably gladly have worked through bug issues with the transition AND made a sincere effort to comprehend the new paradigm as well. But instead, I find myself in total agreement with much of what has been said here by other frustrated users. I have added this "rant" in part because it is the best forum for being heard about my experiences, and also because I am a member of what Novell should consider an important sub-community of the openSUSE community -- those who use it as a way to be at the leading edge of SUSE because they actively support Novell's commercial efforts on a daily basis as part of their work, but who don't work for Novell. For me, and for most of those I know in a similar situation, we cannot invest a lot of time in trying to help stabilize what is unstable, unless it is a part of our assigned work duties. And we cannot routinely run the Factory versions of things, as we need to be able to depend on our machines working today at least as well as they did yesterday. After investigation, "no KDE4" became an easy choice. And after trying to roll back, and then finding out that I was going to be caught on a weird backwards-compatibility bleeding edge, trying to run KDE3.5 out of Factory repositories, etc., I felt like I had no choice but to jettison it. Gnome just happened to be the least painful transition -- although if there had been no Gnome, I would have gone to xfce or something like it. It was not a pro-Gnome decision. And it was not based on an initial dislike of KDE. The KDE crew can go paradigming to their heart's content. But they definitely risk facing a reduced user base, at best only temporarily. And their "brave new world" may very well fail to attract users and/or recapture those who have defected, either because others don't like the new paradigm even after they learn it, or because a large group of users develop a backlash against being forced to upgrade. After all, isn't that one of the biggest complaints of users in M$-land, that they are forced to upgrade when they don't want to? Everywhere else in my experience, Linux distros have tended to allow the older version to co-exist with the new, until there has been enough time for not only the early-adopters, but those who want to see acceptance before jumping onboard, to move to the new on their own pace. KDE is breaking this model, and since it is the desktop of choice for SuSE Linux, from a new user perspective, it looks like Novell and SuSE are breaking this "no forced upgrade" implicit promise to the user community. (Other than reasonable and gradual new versions that do not force a major shift until stable new functionality has been introduced, of course.) Ubuntu would be easier for me to install and operate, but openSUSE represents a better overall experience, because of the community and the add-ons available, as well as because of its relationship to my work. But this only works for me because Ubuntu could only make it so much easier, as long as openSUSE didn't become too much of a hassle. But the KDE thing has the potential to turn the openSUSE overall experience into more of a hassle, from a lot of perspectives. And if KDE3 is gone from 11.2, and someone tries out 11.2 with KDE4 for the first time, then tries Ubuntu, the gap will be much wider. Even those who are technically proficient enough to handle it will be much more inclined to defect, if the experience begins to go downhill. (Had I not been working in a SUSE shop, I might very well have just started with a new distro, likely Ubuntu, instead of trying to retrofit Gnome to my 11.1 upgrade.) If it were up to me, and I speak only for myself, in spite of the work that I do, -- if it were up to me, I would bring out 11.2 with KDE3.5 as the default, require KDE group to provide a clean and tested upgrade path to KDE4, plus an easy path to roll-back to 3.5 (or Gnome) if not satisfied. Or even provide Gnome, plus both KDE's, and do as some other distros do -- "The choice of a window manager is too personal for us to make a recommendation", followed by several choices and a way to find out about other choices. And if the KDE team can't make the transition in both directions painless for 11.2, then put 4.X in as an option, not the default. Unfortunately, switching "on the fly" in SUSE Linux is not anywhere near being a "box check" or even zypper change to go cleanly between KDE3 and KDE4, much less between other desktops as well. If the KDE team ever gets to where it can win the support of the user community for the version it elects to support, I will consider changing on the next OS upgrade. But if it is the default choice, simply for historical reasons, that will only make me more suspicious of the choice, given the history...and I suspect I will not be alone.

...

... SuSE's quality has dropped with the empasis on glitz, so I've basically moved on to testing out other Distros. I will be installing PCLinuxOS 2009 which is KDE3 based this week since I now have a lot of time because I was laid off.

Sorry the previous administration and govermental mismanagemt at all levels has invaded your life. ... however, don't run from openSuSE, it is still worth saving, instead, change the audience you write to be more effective. What you say is basically right, the audience is wrong. Management needs to be 'educated' about how their profits can and will suffer if they continue to make poor decisions at the highest levels.

Nice sentiment, but even though "management" may need to be educated, I have enough other "problems of the world" to deal with. For me, I won't abandon openSUSE yet, but I clearly have abandoned KDE (as opposed to not trying or not initially liking it). And I have done so because of the management of the KDE team. And I have corresponded directly with them, shortly after my first 4.1 experiences, before arriving at this conclusion. And I tried adding repositories on their recommendation, tried to understand what could possibly be so great that I would endure a year or more of reduced functionality to obtain it, etc... I only abandoned it after trying to do "the right things" about getting the KDE team to see how this looked from the users' end, and was told that it was for the users' good, but that they wouldn't be smart enough to migrate to what was better for them, so they had to given only the "better" choice in order to get them to understand how great their lives will be under the new paradigm. I made a lot of the same points as in this thread with the team lead about how this implicitly assumes that the users are either too dumb to switch to another alternative, or are contradictorily, smart enough and altruistic enough to put up with the pain. Sorry, I don't want to wander in the desert, even if it isn't for forty years...

...

KDE4 wasn't ready for prime time, and the major and vocal supporters are the ones who are keeping their system fully updated with the build service. They have forgotten that the majority of users don't use these mailing lists and don't keep their systems up to date with the current KDE4.2.x versions, but that these same users have to deal with only whatever updates that are released for them via the update service.

And for many, it still isn't ready and at the moment, a developer group has defacto control of an entire distribution by the way they are doing 'business'. Novell needs to regain control.

And if they do, I may return to a stable and useful version of KDE. But if they do not, some will defect SUSE, others like myself (and Linus) will remain with our distros but abandon KDE.

...

As someone who had supported SuSE since 1999, I'm very disappointed with the current 11.1, and still use 11.0 on most of my stuff while I

That is a valid reason to not upgrade, but for those that MUST upgrade to address some of the very issues you mentioned previously but will lose the current, functional version of their desktop environment. KDE3 is an essential part of the functionality of openSuSE for many reasons and whether or not you find KDE4 an acceptable replacement, the fact remains that for some, they are being forced to live with existing bugs in KDE or other packages in the openSuSE distro, OR to give up their current environment in order to address other issues such as drivers, kernel, etc. which are fixed in later distro releases.

It is simply pre-mature to elimiate a functional option in deference to something that is not yet ready for prime time for many people.

I agree that KDE (3) is a significant part of the SUSE experience, but if the developers cannot find a way to continue to maintain 3 while building 4, then perhaps either a fork would be in order (a new "old paradigm" team, with the current team free to innovate), or the KDE team needs to reevaluate its priorities from the community perspective, as opposed to their perspective of the user community. (However, since the current team feels that their paradigm is so radically different that it must be pushed out to the users to get them to use it, I doubt that this will happen.)

...

... Maybe in a couple of releases I will see what I have come to expect from SuSE, but I don't see it now, and the lack of support for current versions(isn't 10.3 still supported as well?) and the push to only include the next big thing is counter to what I had come to expect. SuSE always pushed boundaries, but it also made sure stuff was stable. The 10.1 fiasco with the broken package system that was shoved in during the 3rd Beta and then a release with a broken package system was bad enough. 11.1's broken KDE3 install IF you change ANYTHING is as bad if not worse.

I don't fault KDE devs for wanting to develop a replacement for KDE3, but I do fault openSuSE management for their head-long rush to the same cliff the rest of the lemmings are jumping off of.

Yes, openSUSE management and Novell management should continue to push for the new. But not at the expense of utility and functionality for the end user. Another example of the "make them take it and they will be better off" mentality, is Novell's (and Miguel de Ycaza's) desire to see the MONO project succeed, and somewhere along the line, the decision is made to make MONO-based Beagle the default search engine, and to have it on by default, even though it can be a negative on a small system, especially if the user doesn't need it. Instead of this approach, perhaps both the openSUSE community and Novell need to consider letting these "leading edge" projects exist, but not as defaults, and provide painless transition between using them and disabling them.

...

The Freedom we have with Linux and FOSS is what allows us to use a specific version, but it also allows us to move on when what we want/need is no longer the same as where the current version is going.

As the motto says: Have a lot of fun!

... Remembering that openSuSE is a development tool for their SLE* product line, and bugs and bad decisions made there will increase their costs in the end product that they sell because it will require more time and money to fix the bugs that openSuSE 'WONTFIX' and will cost money by having to provide support to their paying customers fixing bugs that could/should have been fixed. SLE* lags openSuSE by one or several openSuSE releases, which if those base distros contain 'WONTFIX' bugs will remain to cost them in debugging and support issues later.

As I said before, the tail (KDE design team) is wagging the dog (Novell, openSUSE community, and prospective new users). But if the tail turns out to be a problem on a dog breed, the tail is cropped off. You may not like that idea in the dog world, but it is a good paradigm for what will happen to this particular "dog wagger". Let us hope that the tail doesn't cause the breed of dog to fall out of favor in this case. Experienced users can make the split, even if it isn't the official position. But new users are more likely just to end up with a different "dog". Sorry for the length of this, but I know that if I left out a lot of this, the next replies would be: Did you try to communicate with the KDE team? Isn't this just one example, and isn't it just a matter of a bit of schedule slippage that will be long forgotten in a year? At least they are doing something, why do you think it could be done better? Etc. etc., etc.... So I have tried to address all these points, because I have first hand knowledge that it is more than a schedule slippage, it is an attempt to forcefully wean users off of 3.5, with a misplaced confidence that they will all end up happy on v4. "I have seen the future, and I think I'll draw another hand..." For me, that hand is a workable Gnome, since 4 is not a great KDE now, and 3 is being made more and more inaccessible as time goes by. I agree that KDE 3.5 definitely enhanced the Suse experience, but Brett Favre was a great quarterback in American football, but at the present time, and in his current condition, he might make a good coach, but I doubt anyone would willingly choose him as a starting QB based on his current ability. For some, he might also be rejected because of his recent past. And KDE looks to me to be a lot like Brett Favre's career...once the greatest, still better than many, etc., but not the one you'd choose today, because he may be smarter today, but he is not a better starting QB today. And that is about where the KDE team is at: they may have a smarter vision of the future, but they are not able to execute it in a way that won't cost them a lot of their backing. And even then, there is no guarantee that they will be able to deliver, or that whatever they deliver will look as great to the rest of the world as it does to them. I did not write this to try to start a bonfire, but rather because I want to see a better solution to the desktop issue in SUSE. And KDE, unfortunately, stands out in Linux-land as the single thing that most resembles the unpleasantries I, and others, have had to put up with in M$-land. Not because of how it used to work, but because of how it is today, and because I am asked to buy into, and even support, a better future taken on faith. And because I am told that I (as a Linux user) owe it to that project to help it become even greater...sorry, Linux may be a movement, but only for as long as it continues to be a more useful tool. There are a lot of things that might make the world a better place that I do not participate in, because I find that I have something else more important to me, to become involved in. And I am first unconvinced that KDE 4 represents a better paradigm, and secondly I am unconvinced that v.3 could not be supported while v.4 is being developed. (No, it isn't developed yet, it is a prototype.) Yes, it would take longer that way, but you may not have much of an active KDE community left, if they spend enough time in the status quo. Indeed, unless the KDE team has a very large community of users who buy into their vision and needs, keeping v.3 alive may be the only way for them to prevent a mass defection from KDE. And I'm not seeing or hearing that most of us are sold on KDE4, even as it will be, much less as it is. So does anyone want to make any bets about where KDE will be in two years? Very sad...but the world moves on, sometimes to the beat of a visionary different drummer, but more often, to the same or similar daily beats, while the visionary takes to their soapbox to castigate the world for failing to adopt their better way. Tell us again, please, Mr. Asiago and the KDE team, why anyone who is not a "true believer" would put up with this. Alas, many of us will not, and if we are proven wrong, all we will miss is a couple of years of painful debugging of a project that is not ours. (Oh, yeah, that and you will look down on us for not helping to develop your vision for the next couple of years...guess I'll have to live with that.) Consider this my eulogy for the KDE that could have been, but will not be -- a KDE that leads us gently into a better world, with minor discomforts perhaps, but without the radical, leave it all behind you and join us building Utopia, mentality. Still, I missed what KDE looked like it was, and was going to be, a while back. But then again, perhaps it is a victim of too much binding to the OS, instead of being a pluggable layer on top of it. But regardless, it has long since stopped "being fun". -- Dan Goodman Senior Systems Administrator <openSUSE 11.1 w/Gnome on a Lenovo T61> (Still trying to get all the vestiges of KDE out of my way.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

jdd wrote:

Dan Goodman a écrit :

...

I run Linux because (unlike Brand X) it doesn't emphasize glitz over functionality.

it doesn't need so long text to say that, and Kde is not Linux.

While I was admittedly long, I hope people read something more than just that out of what I wrote. And to me as a user, it is either Linux with KDE or Linux with Gnome or Linux with something else...in a complete desktop environment. Otherwise in this corporate world, I would use Linux only for admin work, and would have to use another OS for desktop type work.

try puppylinux, for example, and with openSUSE Gnome or Xfce are good

OK, so maybe it was buried, but did you read my comment that I am going with openSUSE in part because of its relationship to the Novell SLE* boxes I work with? But yes, I am open to other alternatives besides SUSE Linux, but once I make that break, at least at work, it becomes a negative both for me and, to a smaller extent, the SUSE user community.

and yes, in opensource world, devs do what they want... like it or leave it

Yes, but also in the opensource world, users are free to express what they like and don't like about tools they have been asked to choose over other tools with similar functionality and/or to complain about the evolution of a tool and discuss why they are changing their tool, and what for. And my central point is that by the heavy-handed way that KDE4 is being rushed onto the scene, and KDE3 being removed from the scene to facilitate that, users are quite likely to leave it (KDE4) if they no longer love it. That, and when that occurs, and it is tightly associated with the distro, it not only creates problems for the tool, but for the users of that distro as well. And if they start to leave en masse, not just KDE4, but the openSUSE distro while they are changing, then the effect of the tool and its coupling with the distro become an issue for the distro users as well as for the tool users. I don't want to leave openSUSE, and I don't want to have to start tweaking it to get it to work the way it used to just because someone wants to hasten the migration off the old version in order to try to gain a better level of use of the new version. That is KDE developer's prerogative to do what they want, but if they no longer meet the need of their users, then not only will their project suffer, but their users, and the users of any tightly coupled tool or distro, will also suffer. And it is from that perspective that I object to the path that KDE has chosen, given its impact on areas outside of KDE that were associated with it under an implicit understanding that even though new things might appear, there would be at least fully functional equivalents of the functionality that was in the old version. As far as I am concerned, the KDE Team has not met this implicit agreement, and they are free to break it if they want. And I am free to point out that as a user I am disappointed at that decision, regardless of the lofty aims they are seeking. -- Dan

jdd

-- Dan Goodman 4287 Route 130 South Senior Systems Administrator Edgewater Park Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse New Jersey 08010 Tel: 609-387-7800 x72357 USA Fax: 609-239-8268 Int. Fax: x73420 BB: 609-649-0323 BB PIN#: 31960DF5 Dan.Goodman@Coat.Com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

jdd wrote:

Dan Goodman a écrit :

...

...

try puppylinux, for example, and with openSUSE Gnome or Xfce are good

OK, so maybe it was buried, but did you read my comment that I am going with openSUSE in part because of its relationship to the Novell SLE* boxes I work with?

did you notice in the example I give, there is openSUSE Gnome? that is mostly SLE, no?

so no, Kde is not mandatory (even if I like and use mostly kde 3.5)

But it is the "preferred" and recommended interface of openSuSE, is it not?

and if we want something done, it's better to be constructive (and short)

As in, if I observe a lot of things I think are wrong, I shouldn't list them, because it won't change anything, and anyway it will be too long. Sorry, but if I just write the first part of a point, someone will come back and say, as I have seen elsewhere, and with others debating KDE, "Oh, that is not really what you think it is" or "Well, you aren't contributing to this project, so don't even post." So I would prefer to take down all the arguments I have seen, that I consider spurious, at one time, if possible. And those who agree with me or think that I have something to say will read what I have written, or at least skim for the parts that they are interested in, and the rest won't read it. Just like most of us are tired of reading that we are either destructive, misinformed, too stupid to know its the addons, that we should have seen the results of the initial focus group (where can I see that), etc...

I notices there is a PIM problem. hope somebody noted.

If you call "I can't get from here to there even when it's done" a problem, yes I have noted that, too. The ones who have a PIM problem that is going to be fixed are the lucky ones, even if a bug hasn't been opened yet. -- Dan Goodman Senior Systems Administrator -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

<replies embedded> Carlos E. R. wrote:

On Tuesday, 2009-04-14 at 18:36 -0400, Dan Goodman wrote:

...

...

so no, Kde is not mandatory (even if I like and use mostly kde 3.5)

But it is the "preferred" and recommended interface of openSuSE, is it not?

No, it is not. There is no recommended desktop. Having one would offend the rest of the people using another one.

Thank you for the correction. I was working from memory and also work on a lot of similar, but not identical systems, and I "remembered" it as being recommended when I did my upgrade to 11.1. Perhaps I am confusing it with Novell SLE* products?

...

...

and if we want something done, it's better to be constructive (and short)

As in, if I observe a lot of things I think are wrong, I shouldn't list them, because it won't change anything, and anyway it will be too long.

...

Sorry, but if I just write the first part of a point, someone will come back and say, as I have seen elsewhere, and with others debating KDE, "Oh, that is not really what you think it is" or "Well, you aren't contributing to this project, so don't even post."

...

So I would prefer to take down all the arguments I have seen, that I consider spurious, at one time, if possible.

If your mail is too long, we'll simply skip it entirely or partially. No time to read it all, sorry.

If I feel that I have something to say that cannot be fully covered in a short post, I will continue to write what I want to say, provided I believe that someone might want to read it on this list. (I don't have time to read all of the posts due to their sheer number, but it would be futile for me to try to get people to only post about things I think are relevant, too.) Now, if someone gets up a nearly unanimous petition to get me to stop filling up the forum's bandwidth, filesystem, etc/ then I will reconsider. But there are only two reasons I can see to object to a long post (anyone's). The first is that it consumes excessive resources or that a specific user doesn't have time to read it. If it is the latter, then the mere existence of a long post does you no harm, unless there are lots and lots of them frequently. And I had forgotten that some of the readers of this list might be under the thumb of a local PT&T, and have to still pay to d/l this forum. Is that in fact true, though? Or, although I can scarcely imagine it, do people read this forum on their cellphone? Nevertheless, now that I have stated my position on the only really big issue I have with openSuSE, I will not (I hope) have as much to write about, and you will see me less often, and/or with less detail I want to cover.

30 KB!

I work in an almost entirely SLE* shop, except for some end-user desktops and a few rogue apps, but our mail system is M$ Exchange. Was that my actual character count, or the total size when packaged by Exchange. I guess-timated a couple of my long ones as being five to ten paper pages, at rough 1K words per page, so I guess it might have been the character count. However, when I do feel that there is something I want to say a lot about, and there may be some who express an interest in reading it, I will try to be a good neighbor, and will try to put "[long]" in the subject line (a la some old Usenet group customs), so you don't have to d/l it first, only to find out that it exceeds your reading quota regardless of its content. And I will try to get in the habit of getting my char count before and after I write, and try to set a reasonable cutoff for the long tag. Don't see that immediately as an option in Thunderbird, but it must be in there. BTW, you didn't mean to imply that you read all posts if they aren't long, did you? Wish I could, but I tend to graze for what I am interested in at the time, and have to let the rest go by, no matter how good it might be. -- Dan Goodman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

I fully agree with the position taken below. I have abandoned MS about 9 years ago and started using Linux and am using OpenSuse (or Suse) since version 8.2 to my satisfaction. I used Gnome, KDE and XFCE. During my test in a virtual machine of 11.1 I tried KDE4 and found it not enough intuitive, none-functional and not stable. KDE members who talk about "for the user own good" are ignoring and to some degree disrespecting the real end-user. I found that on 11.1 I should stick with 3.5 and XFCE on a very old machine. Noway I am going to use KDE4 for now. Like other users, I don't want fancy graphics flashing across my screen or other gimmicks which have no real use. Yes, KDE3.5 should evolve into something new. But I do not accept a shock therapy which after wards even prove to be no-functional and/or unstable. If 11.2 has no KDE3 interface, I switch probably to Gnome for my basic needs. However, if I am using tools and applications right now who depend on KDE libraries, I might consider another distribution. Guess what: once I settled for a distribution, I will be hard pressed to switch back to Novell again. Frans. On Mon, 2009-04-13 at 12:53 -0400, Dan Goodman wrote:

<shortening the last reply considerably, but adding a lot of my own replies>

Richard wrote:

...

On Sun April 12 2009 2:20:00 pm Larry Stotler wrote:

...

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 1:49 PM, jdd <jdd@dodin.org> wrote:

...

<snip>

...

Unfortunately, this has been tried before, and the KDE3 users were basically harrassed and ignored and told to just suck it up and deal with a basically broken KDE4 because it is the wave of the future(which is basically what M$ is doing with Vista). I had previously exposed many fallacies with KDE4 in regards to faster and leaner, but was ignored, or told to waste money on nerwer hardware.

That is their favorite tactic, not addressing the underlying issues.

I run Linux because (unlike Brand X) it doesn't emphasize glitz over functionality. I don't object to eye-candy provided it is optional, and doesn't impose performance or maintenance penalties. But when it does, I don't mind not having something zooty to show to the uninitiated...I just want a strong, fast, stable platform.

And I did briefly try to engage one of the lead KDE4 designers about the need to get the basics working, as well as to make a "classic" mode in KDE4 to ease the transition. Even M$ gets that one.

Instead I was told that KDE4 was introducing a radical new paradigm that was of such great value that it needed the new desktop stuff ASAP, and then the apps could be ported over to the new platform. And that keeping KDE3 functionality was a technical drain on their resources, unless they retrofitted it once they got all the new goodies working. (Really, how many users care *what* icon set or theme they are using, once they find one that isn't visually obnoxious?)

Obviously, they must think that they are going to conquer the world with KDE4 -- that it is Linux' new "killer app".

I began with KDE because I basically was in agreement with what Linus Torvalds said a few years back, that Gnome tended to dumb things down, thereby limiting Linux' utility.

After my sad attempts at co-existing with KDE4 (both stable and factory, to try to fix the stable version), and after probing the mind-set of the developers, I ran across another comment of Linus', that he just wants a desktop that allows him to easily do whatever he wants to do, and doesn't get in the way. And for him right now (recently) it was Gnome. (Sorry, haven't the time to dig up the details, but it wasn't an April Fool's or Onion type page, it was one of the standard sources for info on Linux -- just can't remember which one. I read a lot online.)

While Gnome has become less "dumbed down", I'm sure he must have more reason than that to switch back to Gnome.

I work in a predominantly SLES shop, and am encouraged to run either SLED or openSUSE on my personal work machine. I chose openSUSE to be on the front edge of where SLES/SLED are going.

I originally went with o/S 10.3 about a year ago, running KDE3.5. I skipped over o/S 11.0 and went to 11.1, initially trying KDE4. When I investigated and found out what the repair/enhancement strategy was -- this new paradigm MUST be running first AND users MUST learn to use this powerful new paradigm for their own good -- I attempted to switch back to KDE3.5. All I ended up with was a hodge-podge.

Finally, out of frustration, I switched to Gnome (no, not because Linus did -- I found out about his switch while setting up Gnome), and it has been much more useful. And I haven't once woke up thinking "I could have been a part of a new desktop paradigm, but I have chosen to hang back and avoid change. Woe is me!"

Others in my group have not simply defected from KDE4.5 after upgrading; instead they elected to go for simplicity of administration -- so they defected to Ubuntu.

If I thought 3.5 would be available for as long as I wasn't satisfied with the state of 4.x, I would wait for KDE 4 to get to its "promised land", then switch. But this thread shows the futility of that.

I thought KDE3.5 was better than Gnome, by a small amount, and that Gnome was much better than KDE4 (from a user perspective). If I believe the KDE design team leads, KDE4 is the greatest, because its fundamentals are more sound, and that when it is finished, it will blow both Gnome and KDE3 away. But I must live in today...

What the KDE developers fail to realize is that not all of us who use Linux, KDE, or whatever, have time to become lab rats for the developers over an extended period of time.

Even if I buy their argument that I must be willing to test the new KDE in order for it to improve, I still reject their assertion that I must choose to do so on their timetable, regardless of whether or not it interferes with my job or my other Linux interests. And Linux is all about choice, so why would I choose the pain, unless I were a true believer in the vision. But any vision that doesn't provide a decent migration path, or a comprehensible list of benefits, isn't a vision I am likely to buy into. And no, working Plasmoids just don't rock my world.

And I wholeheartedly agree with David Rankin's post earlier, basically describing the fallacy and danger of "letting the tail wag the dog".

If the KDE developers don't want to take a year to get apps working, then go back to building the desktop to conquer the world, as someone else suggested, then why not at least stop new work on the eye-candy, and devote more effort into responding to the needs of the KDE community, in both versions for now.

And no, Mr. Asiago of the KDE team, although I had been a member of the KDE community, I do not need a new desktop paradigm, may not even need one, and I do not feel that, as a Linux or openSUSE community member, I am obligated to work to advance your vision of KDE, regardless of how right that might be someday. Especially since most of the benefits you enumerate have to do with issues that are at best of marginal interest to us as users.

Had I sensed that KDE leadership was going to zealously allow KDE3.5 to be fully available to all KDE users for as long as it took for them to be comfortable with KDE4, I might have muddled through. But instead, I was told that KDE4 is so different that unless users are forced to try and learn the new paradigm, they might never cross over to the KDE4 promised land, so they felt that they had to guide users into KDE4.

And elsewhere they suggest that Factory versions will provide fixes faster. But in a production shop, I elect to only run Factory fixes when and if I have a specific problem that I need to resolve -- not to enable me to learn a new paradigm while it is being debugged, or as part of my standard update strategy.

I suggested supporting both in parallel -- sorry, the infrastructure is different, and we don't want to take time away from making the apps work in v4. But we are hampered in doing that as well, they claim, because they need to finish evolving their new paradigm in order to have a stable base in which to get apps working again.

I have added this post because I feel it adds another user perspective, one not fully spelled out elsewhere -- the need of users who work professionally with SLE[SD] to be able to run an openSUSE release that does not interfere with their work, and that does not require extensive use of Factory builds to try to overcome what could have been, and should have been, pre-release testing in many cases.

In the end, I feel sorry for just about everything about KDE -- because it *was* the best interface (except for a couple of features in OS/2), and because it could have evolved (albeit more slowly) into something above and beyond that, introducing a new visual and working paradigm -- but instead, KDE4 languishes in the end-user community because it is being force-fed, and because KDE3.5 has now become something that has to be "reverse-engineered" into new releases of openSUSE, if indeed even that can even be done effectively.

I personally will not return to KDE, based on my experiences thus far, until such time as I see that they have (re-)built a satisfied user base with a version they intend to continue to fully support. And I will remain with it only if the new paradigm doesn't continue to get in my way after I have learned the basics, and only if there is sufficient perceived benefit to make it worth investing the time.

Had they (the KDE team) taken a less aggressive and imperative approach to the introduction of KDE4 (and especially its claimed radically different new desktop paradigm, plus a reduced set of functionality in areas other than the desktop itself) -- had they made the transition more gradual, voluntary, and on the users' timetables for change -- I would probably gladly have worked through bug issues with the transition AND made a sincere effort to comprehend the new paradigm as well.

But instead, I find myself in total agreement with much of what has been said here by other frustrated users.

I have added this "rant" in part because it is the best forum for being heard about my experiences, and also because I am a member of what Novell should consider an important sub-community of the openSUSE community -- those who use it as a way to be at the leading edge of SUSE because they actively support Novell's commercial efforts on a daily basis as part of their work, but who don't work for Novell.

For me, and for most of those I know in a similar situation, we cannot invest a lot of time in trying to help stabilize what is unstable, unless it is a part of our assigned work duties. And we cannot routinely run the Factory versions of things, as we need to be able to depend on our machines working today at least as well as they did yesterday.

After investigation, "no KDE4" became an easy choice. And after trying to roll back, and then finding out that I was going to be caught on a weird backwards-compatibility bleeding edge, trying to run KDE3.5 out of Factory repositories, etc., I felt like I had no choice but to jettison it.

Gnome just happened to be the least painful transition -- although if there had been no Gnome, I would have gone to xfce or something like it. It was not a pro-Gnome decision. And it was not based on an initial dislike of KDE.

The KDE crew can go paradigming to their heart's content. But they definitely risk facing a reduced user base, at best only temporarily. And their "brave new world" may very well fail to attract users and/or recapture those who have defected, either because others don't like the new paradigm even after they learn it, or because a large group of users develop a backlash against being forced to upgrade.

After all, isn't that one of the biggest complaints of users in M$-land, that they are forced to upgrade when they don't want to? Everywhere else in my experience, Linux distros have tended to allow the older version to co-exist with the new, until there has been enough time for not only the early-adopters, but those who want to see acceptance before jumping onboard, to move to the new on their own pace.

KDE is breaking this model, and since it is the desktop of choice for SuSE Linux, from a new user perspective, it looks like Novell and SuSE are breaking this "no forced upgrade" implicit promise to the user community. (Other than reasonable and gradual new versions that do not force a major shift until stable new functionality has been introduced, of course.)

Ubuntu would be easier for me to install and operate, but openSUSE represents a better overall experience, because of the community and the add-ons available, as well as because of its relationship to my work.

But this only works for me because Ubuntu could only make it so much easier, as long as openSUSE didn't become too much of a hassle.

But the KDE thing has the potential to turn the openSUSE overall experience into more of a hassle, from a lot of perspectives. And if KDE3 is gone from 11.2, and someone tries out 11.2 with KDE4 for the first time, then tries Ubuntu, the gap will be much wider.

Even those who are technically proficient enough to handle it will be much more inclined to defect, if the experience begins to go downhill. (Had I not been working in a SUSE shop, I might very well have just started with a new distro, likely Ubuntu, instead of trying to retrofit Gnome to my 11.1 upgrade.)

If it were up to me, and I speak only for myself, in spite of the work that I do, -- if it were up to me, I would bring out 11.2 with KDE3.5 as the default, require KDE group to provide a clean and tested upgrade path to KDE4, plus an easy path to roll-back to 3.5 (or Gnome) if not satisfied. Or even provide Gnome, plus both KDE's, and do as some other distros do -- "The choice of a window manager is too personal for us to make a recommendation", followed by several choices and a way to find out about other choices. And if the KDE team can't make the transition in both directions painless for 11.2, then put 4.X in as an option, not the default.

Unfortunately, switching "on the fly" in SUSE Linux is not anywhere near being a "box check" or even zypper change to go cleanly between KDE3 and KDE4, much less between other desktops as well.

If the KDE team ever gets to where it can win the support of the user community for the version it elects to support, I will consider changing on the next OS upgrade. But if it is the default choice, simply for historical reasons, that will only make me more suspicious of the choice, given the history...and I suspect I will not be alone.

...

...

... SuSE's quality has dropped with the empasis on glitz, so I've basically moved on to testing out other Distros. I will be installing PCLinuxOS 2009 which is KDE3 based this week since I now have a lot of time because I was laid off.

Sorry the previous administration and govermental mismanagemt at all levels has invaded your life. ... however, don't run from openSuSE, it is still worth saving, instead, change the audience you write to be more effective. What you say is basically right, the audience is wrong. Management needs to be 'educated' about how their profits can and will suffer if they continue to make poor decisions at the highest levels.

Nice sentiment, but even though "management" may need to be educated, I have enough other "problems of the world" to deal with. For me, I won't abandon openSUSE yet, but I clearly have abandoned KDE (as opposed to not trying or not initially liking it). And I have done so because of the management of the KDE team. And I have corresponded directly with them, shortly after my first 4.1 experiences, before arriving at this conclusion.

And I tried adding repositories on their recommendation, tried to understand what could possibly be so great that I would endure a year or more of reduced functionality to obtain it, etc...

I only abandoned it after trying to do "the right things" about getting the KDE team to see how this looked from the users' end, and was told that it was for the users' good, but that they wouldn't be smart enough to migrate to what was better for them, so they had to given only the "better" choice in order to get them to understand how great their lives will be under the new paradigm.

I made a lot of the same points as in this thread with the team lead about how this implicitly assumes that the users are either too dumb to switch to another alternative, or are contradictorily, smart enough and altruistic enough to put up with the pain. Sorry, I don't want to wander in the desert, even if it isn't for forty years...

...

...

KDE4 wasn't ready for prime time, and the major and vocal supporters are the ones who are keeping their system fully updated with the build service. They have forgotten that the majority of users don't use these mailing lists and don't keep their systems up to date with the current KDE4.2.x versions, but that these same users have to deal with only whatever updates that are released for them via the update service.

And for many, it still isn't ready and at the moment, a developer group has defacto control of an entire distribution by the way they are doing 'business'. Novell needs to regain control.

And if they do, I may return to a stable and useful version of KDE. But if they do not, some will defect SUSE, others like myself (and Linus) will remain with our distros but abandon KDE.

...

...

As someone who had supported SuSE since 1999, I'm very disappointed with the current 11.1, and still use 11.0 on most of my stuff while I

That is a valid reason to not upgrade, but for those that MUST upgrade to address some of the very issues you mentioned previously but will lose the current, functional version of their desktop environment. KDE3 is an essential part of the functionality of openSuSE for many reasons and whether or not you find KDE4 an acceptable replacement, the fact remains that for some, they are being forced to live with existing bugs in KDE or other packages in the openSuSE distro, OR to give up their current environment in order to address other issues such as drivers, kernel, etc. which are fixed in later distro releases.

It is simply pre-mature to elimiate a functional option in deference to something that is not yet ready for prime time for many people.

I agree that KDE (3) is a significant part of the SUSE experience, but if the developers cannot find a way to continue to maintain 3 while building 4, then perhaps either a fork would be in order (a new "old paradigm" team, with the current team free to innovate), or the KDE team needs to reevaluate its priorities from the community perspective, as opposed to their perspective of the user community. (However, since the current team feels that their paradigm is so radically different that it must be pushed out to the users to get them to use it, I doubt that this will happen.)

...

...

... Maybe in a couple of releases I will see what I have come to expect from SuSE, but I don't see it now, and the lack of support for current versions(isn't 10.3 still supported as well?) and the push to only include the next big thing is counter to what I had come to expect. SuSE always pushed boundaries, but it also made sure stuff was stable. The 10.1 fiasco with the broken package system that was shoved in during the 3rd Beta and then a release with a broken package system was bad enough. 11.1's broken KDE3 install IF you change ANYTHING is as bad if not worse.

I don't fault KDE devs for wanting to develop a replacement for KDE3, but I do fault openSuSE management for their head-long rush to the same cliff the rest of the lemmings are jumping off of.

Yes, openSUSE management and Novell management should continue to push for the new. But not at the expense of utility and functionality for the end user.

Another example of the "make them take it and they will be better off" mentality, is Novell's (and Miguel de Ycaza's) desire to see the MONO project succeed, and somewhere along the line, the decision is made to make MONO-based Beagle the default search engine, and to have it on by default, even though it can be a negative on a small system, especially if the user doesn't need it.

Instead of this approach, perhaps both the openSUSE community and Novell need to consider letting these "leading edge" projects exist, but not as defaults, and provide painless transition between using them and disabling them.

...

...

The Freedom we have with Linux and FOSS is what allows us to use a specific version, but it also allows us to move on when what we want/need is no longer the same as where the current version is going.

As the motto says: Have a lot of fun!

... Remembering that openSuSE is a development tool for their SLE* product line, and bugs and bad decisions made there will increase their costs in the end product that they sell because it will require more time and money to fix the bugs that openSuSE 'WONTFIX' and will cost money by having to provide support to their paying customers fixing bugs that could/should have been fixed. SLE* lags openSuSE by one or several openSuSE releases, which if those base distros contain 'WONTFIX' bugs will remain to cost them in debugging and support issues later.

As I said before, the tail (KDE design team) is wagging the dog (Novell, openSUSE community, and prospective new users). But if the tail turns out to be a problem on a dog breed, the tail is cropped off.

You may not like that idea in the dog world, but it is a good paradigm for what will happen to this particular "dog wagger". Let us hope that the tail doesn't cause the breed of dog to fall out of favor in this case.

Experienced users can make the split, even if it isn't the official position. But new users are more likely just to end up with a different "dog".

Sorry for the length of this, but I know that if I left out a lot of this, the next replies would be: Did you try to communicate with the KDE team? Isn't this just one example, and isn't it just a matter of a bit of schedule slippage that will be long forgotten in a year? At least they are doing something, why do you think it could be done better? Etc. etc., etc....

So I have tried to address all these points, because I have first hand knowledge that it is more than a schedule slippage, it is an attempt to forcefully wean users off of 3.5, with a misplaced confidence that they will all end up happy on v4.

"I have seen the future, and I think I'll draw another hand..."

For me, that hand is a workable Gnome, since 4 is not a great KDE now, and 3 is being made more and more inaccessible as time goes by. I agree that KDE 3.5 definitely enhanced the Suse experience, but Brett Favre was a great quarterback in American football, but at the present time, and in his current condition, he might make a good coach, but I doubt anyone would willingly choose him as a starting QB based on his current ability. For some, he might also be rejected because of his recent past. And KDE looks to me to be a lot like Brett Favre's career...once the greatest, still better than many, etc., but not the one you'd choose today, because he may be smarter today, but he is not a better starting QB today.

And that is about where the KDE team is at: they may have a smarter vision of the future, but they are not able to execute it in a way that won't cost them a lot of their backing. And even then, there is no guarantee that they will be able to deliver, or that whatever they deliver will look as great to the rest of the world as it does to them.

I did not write this to try to start a bonfire, but rather because I want to see a better solution to the desktop issue in SUSE.

And KDE, unfortunately, stands out in Linux-land as the single thing that most resembles the unpleasantries I, and others, have had to put up with in M$-land. Not because of how it used to work, but because of how it is today, and because I am asked to buy into, and even support, a better future taken on faith.

And because I am told that I (as a Linux user) owe it to that project to help it become even greater...sorry, Linux may be a movement, but only for as long as it continues to be a more useful tool.

There are a lot of things that might make the world a better place that I do not participate in, because I find that I have something else more important to me, to become involved in. And I am first unconvinced that KDE 4 represents a better paradigm, and secondly I am unconvinced that v.3 could not be supported while v.4 is being developed. (No, it isn't developed yet, it is a prototype.) Yes, it would take longer that way, but you may not have much of an active KDE community left, if they spend enough time in the status quo.

Indeed, unless the KDE team has a very large community of users who buy into their vision and needs, keeping v.3 alive may be the only way for them to prevent a mass defection from KDE. And I'm not seeing or hearing that most of us are sold on KDE4, even as it will be, much less as it is.

So does anyone want to make any bets about where KDE will be in two years?

Very sad...but the world moves on, sometimes to the beat of a visionary different drummer, but more often, to the same or similar daily beats, while the visionary takes to their soapbox to castigate the world for failing to adopt their better way.

Tell us again, please, Mr. Asiago and the KDE team, why anyone who is not a "true believer" would put up with this. Alas, many of us will not, and if we are proven wrong, all we will miss is a couple of years of painful debugging of a project that is not ours. (Oh, yeah, that and you will look down on us for not helping to develop your vision for the next couple of years...guess I'll have to live with that.)

Consider this my eulogy for the KDE that could have been, but will not be -- a KDE that leads us gently into a better world, with minor discomforts perhaps, but without the radical, leave it all behind you and join us building Utopia, mentality.

Still, I missed what KDE looked like it was, and was going to be, a while back. But then again, perhaps it is a victim of too much binding to the OS, instead of being a pluggable layer on top of it. But regardless, it has long since stopped "being fun".

-- Dan Goodman Senior Systems Administrator

<openSUSE 11.1 w/Gnome on a Lenovo T61>

(Still trying to get all the vestiges of KDE out of my way.)

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon April 13 2009 2:06:43 pm ne... wrote:

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 17:53, Dan Goodman <Dan.Goodman@coat.com> wrote: [SNIP]

...

And no, Mr. Asiago of the KDE team, although I had been a member of the His name is Aaron Seigo (aseigo). Just thought I'd help you out there.

ne... A happy user of oS11 with KDE 4.2.2 and who does not update from OBS.

I, for one, am *very* happy that you are happy with and use KDE 4.2.2 sucessfully. I, however am not and resent it being forced on me. I resent the mentality that KDE devs can force me to forego updating my current DISTRO without losing the functionalities of the software I want to use including my choice of 3.5.x version of KDE. I will continue to evaluate 4.x+, but I resent being told that I *have* to use it or lose what I already have and sucessfully use and like and especially resent that programs/packages that use 3.5.x often are incompatible with 4.x and may not be upgradeable because *their* devs don't have the time to make the radical changes required by KDE 4.x. They might have 'day jobs' too. I resent being unable to upgrade from 11.0 or 11.1 to 11.2+ which fixes bugs in the earlier kernels, drivers, utilities, etc. because if I do, I lose too much else. I shouldn't have to switch my desktop to Gnome or other DE to be able to use my current choice of DE. -- Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 13 April 2009, ne... wrote:

The oS devs have made their position clear, And that is exactly the problem they have been wearing blinkers and now they are being closed off even more

Pete . -- Opensuse 10.3 x86_64 (Linux is like a wigwam no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon April 13 2009 3:48:47 pm ne... wrote: [...]

First, the KDE devs are making changes to the OBS that modify earlier versions of KDE with KDE4 code.

Second, There is no one responsible for fixing changes made by 'virtaully anybody' that break existing code/libraries/packages.

Third, many, even most of the users are not programmers and lack essential troubleshooting skills and

Fourth, even for the Cummunity members that are or can program, virtually only the Devs have any real understanding of the code in the OBS that will be 'maintained' by Community and because of poor or no documentation in the code or elsewhere, User patches submitted to the OBS run the real risk of inducing subtle logic errors that often have far-reaching side effects.

Lastly, no one really expects the Devs to 'maintain' KDE3.x, just to quit destoying it for those that need or want it, warts and all. Seems like since you have a very idea of what is going on, you are a

...

If by KDE dev you mean the oS devs working on KDE, then your choice is to help maintain KDE3 in OBS. The oS devs have made their choice, at least the option still remains for you to get KDE3.

If the OBS copy of 3.5.x were left untainted by the development of v4.x, that might be somewhat viable, but what is in the OBS as 3.5 is 'tainted' with replacement code that has been modified for 4.x compatibility at the expense of compatibility with 3.x except in name only in some cases.   OBS is NOT a viable solution at this time. So is it not possible to set up a near area in OBS and use the

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 01:41, Richard <ricreig@gmail.com> wrote: prime candidate for taking over as #1 maintainer. [...] pristine source from kde.org and add patches as you see fit? I am not well versed in how OBS works, so someone will have to tell me. [...]

...

Then you are going to have to step up and start compiling stuff yourself. Instead of being reactive, you are going to have to be proactive.

I do, often, but not everyone has that ability and don't have the skills to be 'proactive' as you suggest.   They just need 'leave well enough alone' mentalities to prevail somewhat better.    No one is asking the Devs to stop developing, just not to do it at the expense of those that don't want to play that game. Well, it you take over the maintainance of it, you'll be able to rip out their changes and tell the to back off.

[...]

...

Since KDE3 will be in OBS for oS11.2 if the community that needs it steps up, you should be able to do a base install and add KDE later on. That is one choice you have. If the community does not step up to maintain KDE3, you can always download the tarbols and then compile and install them.

As already indicated, the last 'untainted' version of KDE3.5.x is no longer in the OBS with key features/utilities like Konqueror for instance, having been replaced by the KDE4.x replacement of the same name.   There is nothing wrong with PORTING KDE4.x code to be compatible with 3.x, just keep it separate in case the Port is undesireable for some. Seems what I stated above might be a solution to this tainting.

...

<peptalk> Those wanting KDE3 for oS11.2 and newer may not like the choices they are being given. However, the way things stand, it looks you are going to have to take a proactive stance, step up and help maintain KDE3 in OBS if you want to have it. The oS devs have made their position clear, now it is up to the community to do something positive for themselves. </peptalk> You have restated the problem very well.    It is only the solution is not good because it is already comprimised and lacks adequate responsibility and quality control  considerations.

However, we are not far apart in our understanding of the problem. I sincerely hope that a solution can be reached that will satisfy all parties concerned.

ne... -- Registered Linux User # 125653 (http://counter.li.org) Now accepting personal mail for GMail invites. Charles de Gaulle - "The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/charles_de_gaulle.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 12 April 2009 20:20:00 Larry Stotler wrote:

On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 1:49 PM, jdd <jdd@dodin.org> wrote:

...

I just notice that there will be nomore kde3 for the upcomming openSUSE 11.2. I don't want to grin. Not necessary. I just wanted to ask here what do you have in kde3.5 and don't find in kde4 and you would like to have. Not to say you will have it but to give info to devs... I stopped using kde4 on 11.1 for problems in the config panel and lack of understanding of the new windows layout. I expect this to be solved before next release; what do you think? be constructive :-)

Unfortunately, this has been tried before, and the KDE3 users were basically harrassed and ignored and told to just suck it up and deal

Not at all. It's just that the KDE3 users refused to answer simple questions like "what is it that you use in kde3 that isn't there in kde4". They insisted on giving non-answers like "everything", or "the devels should know already". There have been lots of clear bug reports about specific pieces of missing functionality in kde4, and lots of it has been fixed already, and a lot of it is being worked on (e.g. separate wallpapers for different virtual desktops). The KDE3 users who are calm and reasonable, and provide real answers aren't ignored. Only the ones who fling insults and scream names and generally behave like five year olds. The rest get their bugs fixed (though it may take some time, in some cases) About maintaining KDE3 for the future, note that it has been dropped upstream. kde.org is not maintaining kde3 anymore. That means that a distribution shipping kde3 will have to take on all maintenance work alone, and kde3 is just too big for any one distribution to do that. All current distributions[1] have dropped kde3 now, for precisely this reason. It's just not reasonable to invest huge amounts of resources in maintaining a massive code base that no one else is working on. Both here and at kde.org, users have been offered the chance to maintain kde3. At kde.org, people have been offered svn access to the kde3 tree, and here there is the OBS where people can maintain it. If there really is this massive interest in it, there should be some takers. So far I'm not aware of any. Anders [1] Except, apparently, PCLinuxOS. It will be very interesting to see how they manage the work load, with security patches and other bug fixes, without an upstream to help them -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 14 April 2009 00:25:27 Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

In <200904140017.11309.ajohansson@suse.de>, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

All current distributions[1] have dropped kde3 now, for precisely this reason.

Debian will provide security and RC-level bug fixes for KDE 3.5.9/3.5.10 that was shipped with Lenny (on the 14th of February this year) until (at least) Squeeze is released.

I was not aware of that. I have no idea what "RC-level" means, but again, it will be very interesting to see how they cope. Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2009/04/14 00:45 (GMT+0200) Anders Johansson composed:

On Monday 13 April 2009 17:25:27 -0500 Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

...

Debian will provide security and RC-level bug fixes for KDE 3.5.9/3.5.10 that was shipped with Lenny (on the 14th of February this year) until (at least) Squeeze is released.

Which is 16+ months away.

I was not aware of that.

It's in the release notes: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-whats-new.en.htm...

I have no idea what "RC-level" means, but again, it

I'm no builder nor programmer, but I have to think it means any pre-release (at RC level, as opposed to beta level) version of software included in the release will eventually be upgraded to the release version without needing to upgrade to a subsequent Debian Stable release.

will be very interesting to see how they cope.

I suspect it will not be a problem to maintain something as mature as KDE3.5.10. Maybe they'll create a fork, maybe called "KDE for people who need to get work done instead of pretending they're using Vista". As for me I'll manage to continue with 11.0 in order to avoid KDE4 on systems used for ordinary productive activities at least until 11.0 goes out of support. The time I'll need to learn the radically different way of working that is KDE4 will necessarily be subtracted from the time that would have been available to contribute to Factory development. -- "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2009/04/14 00:17 (GMT+0200) Anders Johansson composed:

Not at all. It's just that the KDE3 users refused to answer simple questions like "what is it that you use in kde3 that isn't there in kde4". They insisted on giving non-answers like "everything", or "the devels should know already".

Maybe that's because they found the time required to do that unacceptable. Maybe they were/are people who need to get work done instead of working around useless fluff trying to figure out how to do things they didn't even have to think about doing for many years, or ever. I still don't understand a thing about plasmoid or cashew, like why they exist, what if anything they replace, or what they have to do with getting work easily done in KDE3 done in KDE4. -- "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 14 April 2009 04:20:41 Larry Stotler wrote:

Oh, so I'm a 5 year old now?

I wasn't referring to you

I ask for KPersonalizer to be ported so I don't have turn waste hours trying to figure out how to turn off that glitz and I'm ignored.

You weren't ignored, it's a valid request. There just has to be developers available for it. In 4.3.x there will be a new "welcome"-application, but I'm not 100% sure what will be in it

I ask that we be able to remove unneeded crap like avahi and pulseaudio and I'm looked at like I'm crazy.

Not at all. pulseaudio is easy to remove, "zypper rm pulseaudio". So is avahi, "zypper rm avahi". I don't see any huge dependency issues

Why do we need all this crap as dependencies? What's so much better than alsa and is pulseaudio a stable replacement for alsa?

Well, no, pulseaudio is on top of alsa. I think it's supposed to be a replacement for all the various sound servers, mostly gnome's esd, but I'm not sure. I don't think it works very well either. It would be an advantage in general if the various desktops used the same sound system though. Raw alsa doesn't do sound multiplexing on hardware that doesn't natively support it, so it's not an option for most. But I agree that pulseaudio needs more work

And why do I NEED a search tool? What's that new thing that's integrated into KDE4 - neopunk or something. Last time I checked, I removed all that garabage. Now I HAVE to have it?

Of course not. KDE System Settings->advanced->Desktop Search. Not a must have at all.

Why don't you tell me what is in KDE4 that I NEED to have? Show me one feature that makes it compelling for ME to use it. Show me how it's rock solid and stable and doesn't need a new video card. Tell me I don't have to constantly update it to make it usable. Don't include any glitz - that's not something I care about. The ball's in your court now. Tell ME how much I NEED KDE4. I'm willing to listen.

Honestly, it doesn't sound to me like you need any kind of KDE. You seem more a windowmaker, or afterstep guy. New video card? Of course not. All graphical effects are off by default unless you have a graphics card that is known to work with the effects (new-ish nvidia or ati with a proper driver). The basic desktop you can run with any non-neolithic graphics card. KDE4 has an improved infrastructure, which makes it easier for developers to develop new things. KDE3 was in a technological cul-de-sac, just look at the problems they had getting kicker and kdesktop to play nice with each other. Pre-kde4.2 I can agree that end users had a hard time, but now I don't see what the issue is Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:51:29 Larry Stotler wrote:

[...] The issue is that I would need to use the build service to get 4.2.x, but I've recently seen that we are being told that the build service isn't supported, so if something breaks, I'm SOL. But, you're telling me that the current 4.2.x is fixed, so I guess I need the build service to get that. So, is the build service considered part of the system or not? [...]

Can we please get one thing straight? You *don't* need to use the build service to get KDE 4.2.2 on 11.0, 11.1 or even 10.3. If you enable the correct repositories in Yast and you can install it from there (and I suspect have many fewer problems with packaging, updates etc). I've been using KDE 4 since 4.0.4 (OK, call me an early adopter; it wasn't really useful until 4.1.3) and 4.2.2 is stable, usable and does everything that *I* used to do with KDE 3.5 (which I actually don't miss at all now), and that includes running Quanta (the KDE 3.5.9 version - I never upgraded to 3.5.10). BTW I use ftp for uploading, not fish (ftp is required by the web hosting service). For info, I currently get my KDE 4.2.2. from KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop (http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Desktop/openSU...) and I've not had a problem with it since upgrading from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2. I also have KDE4-ExtraApps-Factory enabled (http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Extra- Apps/openSUSE_11.0). My machine is not particularly high-spec either (by current standards): Athlon XP 2600 (1.8GHz real speed), 1GB RAM, NVidia GeForce FX5500 running 173.14.12 drivers, ASUS NForce2 motherboard running 11.0. I also run it on 2 laptops - 1 is a Celeron M 1.3GHz with 1.2GB RAM and Intel 855 on-board graphics (still running 10.3), the other a Core-2 Duo 2.4GHz with 2GB Ram and Intel 945 on-board graphics (also running 11.0) - it flies on that one :-). Regards, Rodney. -- =================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au ===================================================

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2009-04-15 at 10:52 +0930, Rodney Baker wrote:

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:51:29 Larry Stotler wrote:

...

[...] The issue is that I would need to use the build service to get 4.2.x, but I've recently seen that we are being told that the build service isn't supported, so if something breaks, I'm SOL. But, you're telling me that the current 4.2.x is fixed, so I guess I need the build service to get that. So, is the build service considered part of the system or not? [...]

Can we please get one thing straight? You *don't* need to use the build service to get KDE 4.2.2 on 11.0, 11.1 or even 10.3.

If you enable the correct repositories in Yast and you can install it from there (and I suspect have many fewer problems with packaging, updates etc).

All those repos are part of the OBS. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAknlzGIACgkQtTMYHG2NR9V3oACeOe7fJ943BmOvtQhsbXC8S4HM MzUAnAs18I+6+kQvUjTOM72P/IjS0Bay =TJu1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 15 April 2009 14:10:56 Carlos E. R. wrote:

You can remove pulseaudio, except one small library, but avahi can not be removed, a lot is linked to it. It can be dissabled, though.

If you go back some time in the list, there was a thread about the system being almost "destroyed" by attempting to remove those. Even yast went away, because of deps.

All the same, I did not send my previous email without testing what I said. Believe me, in 11.1 I was able to remove avahi with absolutely no other dependencies removed (other than nss-mdns, as I mentioned in the other email) Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Am Mittwoch, 15. April 2009 schrieb Anders Johansson:

[...] All the same, I did not send my previous email without testing what I said. Believe me, in 11.1 I was able to remove avahi with absolutely no other dependencies removed (other than nss-mdns, as I mentioned in the other email)

Same here: I have no problem removing avahi from a 11.1, except having to remove nss-mdns, too. Gruß Jan -- It's fascinating how memory diffuses fact. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2009-04-15 at 09:16 -0500, Rajko M. wrote:

Just to confirm.

# zypper rm avahi Loading repository data... Reading installed packages... Resolving package dependencies...

The following packages are going to be REMOVED: avahi nss-mdns

After the operation, 498.0 K will be freed. Continue? [YES/no]:n

Carlos?

Not in 11.0. See (excerted, long output): nimrodel:~ # zypper --verbose rm --dry-run avahi Verbosity: 1 Non-option program arguments: 'avahi' ... Reading installed packages... Force resolution: Yes Resolving dependencies... Force resolution: Yes Resolving dependencies... The following packages are going to be upgraded: tellico-lang-1.9_SVN20090219-3.2.i586 (Buildservice KDE:Backports, openSUSE Build Service) tellico-1.9_SVN20090219-3.2.i586 (Buildservice KDE:Backports, openSUSE Build Service) liferea-1.4.18-0.pm.1.i586 (packman, packman.links2linux.de) The following package is going to be downgraded: xine-lib-1.1.12-8.2.i586 (openSUSE-11.0-Updates, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) The following NEW package is going to be installed: gimpshop-2.2.11-0.pm.2.i586 (packman, packman.links2linux.de) The following packages are going to be REMOVED: zapping-0.10cvs4-1.i686 (@System) vmx-manager-0.2.8-166.1.noarch (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) vino-2.22.1-22.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) uim-1.2.1-218.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ufraw-gimp-0.13-45.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) totem-plugin-2.22.0-41.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) totem-pl-parser-2.22.2-20.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) totem-2.22.0-41.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) tomboy-0.10.2-6.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) thinkeramik-3.2.1-251.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) xfce4-panel-plugin-xfapplet-0.1.0-10.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) xchat-gnome-0.16-138.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) yelp-2.22.1-25.2.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) yauap-0.2.3-2.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE Build Service) planner-lang-0.14.2-141.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) planner-0.14.2-141.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) pidgin-2.4.1-28.4.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) yast2-control-center-gnome-2.13.3-11.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... libgnome-desktop-2-2-2.22.1-26.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... libgda-3_0-postgres-3.1.2-42.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... susedoc-4.2_20070830-10.1.noarch (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) stardict-2.4.8-35.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) sound-juicer-lang-2.22.0-42.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... seamonkey-spellchecker-1.1.14-0.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) seamonkey-mail-1.1.14-0.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... rekall-xbase-2.4.6-107.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE Build Service) rekall-postgresql-2.4.6-107.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE Build Service) ... libavahi-ui0-0.6.22-68.2.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... kover-2.9.6-218.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... koffice-wordprocessing-1.6.3-215.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE Build Service) ... kitchensync-3.5.9-53.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) kipi-plugins-0.1.5-67.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE Build Service) kio_sysinfo-11.0-117.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany ... kdepim3-3.5.9-53.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... kdemultimedia3-sound-3.5.9-43.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... kdebase3-session-3.5.9-65.2.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... kdbus-0.8.6_SVN_20070413-60.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... gnome-terminal-2.22.1-22.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) ... OpenOffice_org-2.4.1.6-1.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE Build Service) NetworkManager-kde-0.7r826733-7.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE Build Service) MozillaThunderbird-2.0.0.19-0.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) MozillaSunbird-0.8-21.1.i586 (@System, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) The following package is going to change architecture: xine-lib-1.1.12-8.2.i586 (openSUSE-11.0-Updates, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) The following packages are going to change vendor: xine-lib-1.1.12-8.2.i586 (openSUSE-11.0-Updates, SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany) liferea-1.4.18-0.pm.1.i586 (packman, packman.links2linux.de) Overall download size: 14.0 M. After the operation, 2.0 G will be freed. Continue? [Y/n/p/?]: That would be a completely hosed system, as you can see. If I didn't thought of adding a "--dry-run", my system would haven been destroyed by now. Now, even in 11.1, the results are not nice: NOT_nimrodel:~ # zypper --verbose rm --dry-run avahi Verbosity: 1 Non-option program arguments: 'avahi' Initializing Target ... Resolving package dependencies... Force resolution: Yes The following packages are going to be REMOVED: avahi-0.6.23-9.1.i586 (@System, openSUSE) banshee-1-1.4.1-2.14.i586 (@System, openSUSE) banshee-1-backend-engine-gstreamer-1.4.1-2.14.i586 (@System, openSUSE) banshee-1-backend-platform-gnome-1.4.1-2.14.i586 (@System, openSUSE) banshee-1-backend-platform-unix-1.4.1-2.14.i586 (@System, openSUSE) banshee-1-extensions-default-1.4.1-2.14.i586 (@System, openSUSE) mono-zeroconf-0.8.0-1.29.noarch (@System, openSUSE) mono-zeroconf-provider-avahi-0.8.0-1.29.noarch (@System, openSUSE) nss-mdns-0.10-39.6.i586 (@System, openSUSE) After the operation, 5.6 M will be freed. Continue? [YES/no]: no NOT_nimrodel:~ # banshee would be removed. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAknl9W8ACgkQtTMYHG2NR9WRuwCbBd70VyoWzPwq06Ux7QxCxUqW oDsAniwJ/espG/GjhP6IZzKYsCMJL7Ff =rNzD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 12:34 PM, Jan Ritzerfeld

You can't eat your cake and have it too! Banshee (or one of its extensions) obviously makes use of zeroconf (the daap plugin: iTunes sharing) and you want to remove its provider: avahi

In my case, I don't use Banshee nor do I use iTunes. However, since I also don't use 11.0, I'm stuck with avahi. Further, I have found that iTunes in Windows works just fine without the Bonjour service. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Anders Johansson <ajohansson@suse.de> wrote:

Sure, multicast dns - or zeroconf in general - isn't something that makes things work. It's something that makes things work without configuration. The whole idea of zeroconf is that "normal people" can just plug in their machines, and have more or less everything work, including networking, automatic discovery of file shares etc.

Laudable goal.

For example, if I block or disable avahi, my PS3 system doesn't find my file share where I store movies for it

However, you should be able to find it manually, correct? I don't have a PS3, so I don't know how they work.

But I agree that even banshee/mono shouldn't have a hard dependency on it

So how does things like that happen, and what can be done to fix it? Maybe we should have a wiki for unneccessary dependencies. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2009-04-15 at 20:27 +0200, Anders Johansson wrote:

Sure, multicast dns - or zeroconf in general - isn't something that makes things work. It's something that makes things work without configuration. The whole idea of zeroconf is that "normal people" can just plug in their machines, and have more or less everything work, including networking, automatic discovery of file shares etc.

Exactly. But I don't think I need that.

For example, if I block or disable avahi, my PS3 system doesn't find my file share where I store movies for it

Ah! Well, at least I know something that uses that service :-)

But I agree that even banshee/mono shouldn't have a hard dependency on it

Well, things are better in 11.1 than in 11.0 in that respect. Someone writes a bugzilla on banshee/mono for this? I shouldn't do it, I don't use 11.1, except for testing. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAknmZ8gACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UDmQCdFGxM9YaaSN8WcztpvJt8GUYF FDYAn2qKwghoZv5pxQIm8QWYwKIdW0VP =ea2u -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 4:54 PM, Dan Goodman <Dan.Goodman@coat.com> wrote:

Perhaps not, but Linux and openSUSE are not supposed to be just for the technically proficient. I think they need to be in a modern Linux distro, its just that they have to be pretty bug free (only narrow HW issues, etc.) to be ready for prime time.

They shouldn't be "Forced" on us tho. That's the problem. While I find network manger useful on my laptop because it's wireless and I need to connect to different networks, I remember using KInternet without many issues. However, for my desktop which is wired, Networkmanager is a pain and was quickly removed. We're not asking that stuff like this be left out. We are asking for the ability to remove it if we don't find it useful. I've seen a text install try to install X for no reason under 11.0. I had to taboo the whole X pattern to fix that problem. The problem is way too many unneccessary dependencies. All we are asking is for a choice. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 17 April 2009 04:48:10 pm Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

In <49E8EC7F.1060104@coat.com>, Dan Goodman wrote:

...

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

But I don't think I need that....

Perhaps not, but Linux and openSUSE are not supposed to be just for the technically proficient.

I think they need to be in a modern Linux distro, its just that they have to be pretty bug free (only narrow HW issues, etc.) to be ready for prime time.

I think that, for users that don't want them they should also be removable without breaking software that doesn't strictly require it. Because of that, an RPM dependency is not appropriate. A less strict relationship like APT's "Recommends" or "Suggests" is more appropriate.

The latest RPM has both of that. It will be needed some time to go trough packages and switch them to use new options. The best way, as usually is, to the report problems, so that the most annoying stuff is solved immediately. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 8:30 AM, Anders Johansson <ajohansson@suse.de> wrote:

All the same, I did not send my previous email without testing what I said. Believe me, in 11.1 I was able to remove avahi with absolutely no other dependencies removed (other than nss-mdns, as I mentioned in the other email)

Amazing how my original reply that showed what would happen in 11.0 never got a response. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Anders Johansson <ajohansson@suse.de> wrote:

It did. You even quoted it above. There was a complaint about illogical dependencies on avahi, and it was fixed in 11.1

Must have missed that. Since 11.1 is not an option for me, I guess I'm stuck with it. Honestly Anders, I've compained about stupid dependencies in SuSE for as long as I can remember. My question is who decides the dependencies? You guys who create the packages for the distro, or the author of the program?

Surely you don't expect a complete remastering of 11.0

Nothing but bug fixes. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2009-04-15 at 15:06 -0400, Larry Stotler wrote:

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Anders Johansson <ajohansson@suse.de> wrote:

...

It did. You even quoted it above. There was a complaint about illogical dependencies on avahi, and it was fixed in 11.1

Must have missed that. Since 11.1 is not an option for me, I guess I'm stuck with it. Honestly Anders, I've compained about stupid dependencies in SuSE for as long as I can remember. My question is who decides the dependencies? You guys who create the packages for the distro, or the author of the program?

...

Surely you don't expect a complete remastering of 11.0

Nothing but bug fixes.

This change is complex and big, for a small benefit, it is not worth the risk and hassle. Something else would break, so better leave it (for 11.0). - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAknmaZYACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XH8ACfdJ0idJOH20F6uhZwCzdOEtlo bAAAn0jCJVYOonX6LUg0D1xiO5BKg7JK =s5HH -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John E. Perry pecked at the keyboard and wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On Wednesday, 2009-04-15 at 15:06 -0400, Larry Stotler wrote:

...

...

It did. You even quoted it above. There was a complaint about illogical dependencies on avahi, and it was fixed in 11.1 Must have missed that. Since 11.1 is not an option for me, I guess I'm stuck with it. Honestly Anders, I've compained about stupid dependencies in SuSE for as long as I can remember. My question is who decides the dependencies? You guys who create the packages for

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Anders Johansson <ajohansson@suse.de> wrote: the distro, or the author of the program?

...

Surely you don't expect a complete remastering of 11.0 Nothing but bug fixes. This change is complex and big, for a small benefit, it is not worth the risk and hassle. Something else would break, so better leave it (for 11.0).

Larry, I don't remember whether you were around for the discussion last year concerning "stupid" dependencies, so I'll repeat my argument here, for your and others' benefit.

Not being a linux programmer (but having written hundreds of other programs of several kinds), I can't speak for them; however:

It's standard practice when developing a large program to use resources from other programs and their dedicated libraries. Two good reasons for this are that it reduces (often tremendously) the labor involved in writing a large program, and that it makes development (often much) less risky.

So avahi has a library that contains several functions that would help me make my own program easier and better. I'm going to use it. That means that avahi is now a dependency of my program. Avahi (I don't know what avahi is, really, and for this argument, I don't care) is a large program with a single large binary library that I can't easily get into, even if I wanted to.

So (for example) the 20K of code that I wrote, with the 100K of avahi code I linked to, just became a 4M program, much of the code likely unused. But I feel it's worth it. I might never have finished it if I'd had to do all that stuff myself. Now I have the benefit of a successfully running program without too much work, and you have the benefit of a solid program you can use for your purposes much sooner than you would have otherwise (if ever). And it's much more robust because I used proven techniques and code from avahi.

The one flaw to this approach is when the programmer links into a library that is thought to be stable but is buggy. Then people are forced to install the buggy software which causes problems. There are good programmers that know the difference and poor/lazy programmers that don't care. -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Roger Oberholtzer <roger@opq.se> wrote:

On Thu, 2009-04-16 at 08:22 -0400, Ken Schneider - openSUSE wrote:

...

The one flaw to this approach is when the programmer links into a library that is thought to be stable but is buggy. Then people are forced to install the buggy software which causes problems.

There are good programmers that know the difference and poor/lazy programmers that don't care.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a programmer, what control could I possibly have on which version of a library is installed at runtime on some other system? Not all libraries identify their version to the app, so I could not refuse to run if the point release does not match some magic list of good ones. At best, the version of the library is controlled by the name of the .so file. The program linker (not the code programmer - maybe the configure/Makefile author) controls that. But that still requires this magic list of good versions that can be consulted.

Or are you meaning something else?

Pretty sure the specifics of what libraries have to be available is definable in a spec file for rpm installs, and in a debian.rules file for debian based systems. Historically I don't think programmers have worked with those files and left it to the distro packagers to do it. With the Opensuse Build Service (OBS) it becomes much more feasible for a programmer to take responsibility / advantage of the capabilities of these packaging tools. FYI: The OBS also allows a distro packager to "patch" the default spec / rules I believe, so even if it is not perfect, having a base set of files can help the packagers by giving them something to work with. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Roger Oberholtzer <roger@opq.se> wrote:

On Thu, 2009-04-16 at 09:40 -0400, Greg Freemyer wrote:

...

Pretty sure the specifics of what libraries have to be available is definable in a spec file for rpm installs, and in a debian.rules file for debian based systems.

Historically I don't think programmers have worked with those files and left it to the distro packagers to do it.

With the Opensuse Build Service (OBS) it becomes much more feasible for a programmer to take responsibility / advantage of the capabilities of these packaging tools.

FYI: The OBS also allows a distro packager to "patch" the default spec / rules I believe, so even if it is not perfect, having a base set of files can help the packagers by giving them something to work with.

All these things are packaging issues, not programmer issues. A least I am defining the programmer as the guy who writes the code that will be compiled. Not the guy who makes the packaging. Of course, that is programming as well. But I think it is better to call them packagers, or package designers, or anything other than programmers simply because the word programmer has prior meaning.

Roger, out of curiosity, what do you call the person that writes the makefile? Typically it comes with the tarball so I would say the programmer is responsible for that. Anyway, I totally agree that packagers have traditionally been responsible for the spec and rules files. But I personally think part of the major benefit of the OBS is that it allows the programmer to influence the packaging of his software without having to have their own build farm on which to build the packages. And since the issue I thought was can a programmer control which libraries are used in conjunction with their software, I'm saying the packaging tools provide that capability and that the OBS makes it realistic for a programmer to expand their influence into the realm of packaging. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

peter nikolic wrote:

On Sunday 12 April 2009, jdd wrote:

...

I just notice that there will be nomore kde3 for the upcomming openSUSE 11.2.

I don't want to grin. Not necessary.

I just wanted to ask here what do you have in kde3.5 and don't find in kde4 and you would like to have. Not to say you will have it but to give info to devs...

I stopped using kde4 on 11.1 for problems in the config panel and lack of understanding of the new windows layout. I expect this to be solved before next release;

what do you think? be constructive :-)

jdd NB: I miss the kweather applet, but it don't work neither in kde 3.5 :-( -- http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.org http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-eic8MSSfM http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412160445

A Fully working Quanta for one not Quanta for KDE 3.5.x that is half dead because things are not there cus it needs KDE 3.5.x that is the one that directly affects me .

KDE3 should not be dropped until the KDE4 devs can show we are NOT sacrificing functionality. I can't wait for KDE4 to be finished, it should be great. But to consider KDE4 a replacement for KDE3 at present is intellectually dishonest. Quanta is Case-In-Point, a MAJOR app and arguably the best at what it does. I was using it not more than 30 seconds before checking email and finding this very depressing thread. You can't even upload the files you are working on to your server in the KDE4 version with fish. In KDE3 it is as simple as hitting F8. Presently, for quanta and for other major areas of functionality, KDE4 is a bust, it's not there yet, and there is NO way Novell, openSuSE, or God for that matter, can expect KDE4 to mature sufficiently between now and the 11.2 release to be a workable replacement. I just shake my head at the derisory decision making taking place and the newfound *urgent* need to dump kde3. We were initially told that KDE3 would be part of 11.2, now this? (Note the *loud absence* within Novell of anyone willing to take "credit" for making this important decision) I mean just keep telling people kde4 will be ready by 11.2 enough times, and you can calculate 90% or so will be stupid enough to believe it. How many time did it take hearing "Sadam has weapons of mass destruction, wmds, and we know where they are", before you bought in? Hopefully, Novell is privy to some hidden information (intelligence if you will) that guarantees the KDE4 glamor toy we now have will be ready by 11.2 -- I doubt it. This dice-roll decision making within Novell concerning functionality for what was once the hands down, most functional distribution with the greatest attention to detail... is disturbing to say the least -- or downright alarming to be honest and candid about it. The management question still lingers. Would novell ever put out a release of its openSuSE distribution that cannot do what its last prior release did with the addendum of "uhh, we know its broken and doesn't quite have the functionality the last version did, but we take such pride in saying we are the best, we just decided to release it anyway...without a working KDE3.5 this time..." ???WTF??? That is the type of corporate thinking and corporate decision making that brought us credit default swaps and we see how good that turned out. Hopefully 12.0 will be a solid release with a working version of Quanta in a mature KDE4. Sad, I used to alway look forward to the new capabilities in the upcoming release. Now, I get to look forward to loss of capabilities in the upcoming release?? My, "the times, they are a changing." (catchy phrase, probably make a good song) OK, now just chime in with how we are "just in the same type of transition we were in with the KDE2-KDE3 transition" and "not to worry", but please be kind enough to provide citation to the references you use to show that lack of comparative functionality was still being debated *three* releases down the KDE3 road. (still just shaking my head in utter disbelief, with a dry chuckle of solemnity...) Beware the ives of Mandrake... -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday April 13 2009, peter nikolic wrote:

...

Or in a southern drool (What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate) ...

The best malapropism in many months!

Pete.

RRS -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Am Montag, 13. April 2009 09:23:49 schrieb David C. Rankin:

I just shake my head at the derisory decision making taking place and the newfound *urgent* need to dump kde3. We were initially told that KDE3 would be part of 11.2, now this? (Note the *loud absence* within Novell of anyone willing to take "credit" for making this important decision)

When was "initially"? I only remember the 11.1 discussions and not an announcement that 11.2 would still ship KDE3. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Patrick Shanahan <paka@opensuse.org> wrote:

You are correct.  The original discussion caused KDE3 to *be* included in 11.1 as a *last* issue rather than 10.3 being the last issue.  ll.2 was scheduled to be all KDE4, and other window managers.

KDE3 is supposed to be available from the community repositories IF they can get people to maintain it for 11.2. The devs have made it clear that they are focusing their efforts on KDE4 for the next release so anyone wanting to continue with KDE3 probably will have to stay with 11.0 or 11.1. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

David C. Rankin wrote: [snip]

...

A Fully working Quanta for one not Quanta for KDE 3.5.x that is half dead because things are not there cus it needs KDE 3.5.x that is the one that directly affects me .

KDE3 should not be dropped until the KDE4 devs can show we are NOT sacrificing functionality. I can't wait for KDE4 to be finished, it should be great. But to consider KDE4 a replacement for KDE3 at present is intellectually dishonest.

Ouch! ;) This will set off some, but the truth IS the truth and you said it well!!

Quanta is Case-In-Point, a MAJOR app and arguably the best at what it does. I was using it not more than 30 seconds before checking email and finding this very depressing thread.

You can't even upload the files you are working on to your server in the KDE4 version with fish. In KDE3 it is as simple as hitting F8.

Correct! Quanta, for KDE4 is presently useless...period!

Presently, for quanta and for other major areas of functionality, KDE4 is a bust, it's not there yet, and there is NO way Novell, openSuSE, or God for that matter, can expect KDE4 to mature sufficiently between now and the 11.2 release to be a workable replacement.

For some, yes it will be, but those people have a very limited number of apps. that they use.

I just shake my head at the derisory decision making taking place and the newfound *urgent* need to dump kde3. We were initially told that KDE3 would be part of 11.2, now this? (Note the *loud absence* within Novell of anyone willing to take "credit" for making this important decision)

To be fair, I don't know of any other distro. that is going to include 3.5 in their future releases either. Apparently, they ALL are stuffed up with severe brain farts!

I mean just keep telling people kde4 will be ready by 11.2 enough times, and you can calculate 90% or so will be stupid enough to believe it. How many time did it take hearing "Sadam has weapons of mass destruction, wmds, and we know where they are", before you bought in?

Don't go there, David....they WERE found!

Hopefully, Novell is privy to some hidden information (intelligence if you will) that guarantees the KDE4 glamor toy we now have will be ready by 11.2 -- I doubt it. This dice-roll decision making within Novell concerning functionality for what was once the hands down, most functional distribution with the greatest attention to detail... is disturbing to say the least -- or downright alarming to be honest and candid about it.

There are many, including developers, AND some well-paid corp. trainers I personally know who have the same complaints. I'm tired of making excuses for Novell and openSUSE. It just doesn't wash any more. How long as 11.1 been out and "X" is still messed up, not allowing 3D screen savers to run properly with a number of ATI chipsets, about all nVidia chipsets, and all Intel chipsets as far as I know?! I'm assuming the fault is "X" because it affects so many video chipsets. It is possible that it's a KDE4 problem, in which case, it STILL needs to be fixed and should have been by now. This is just one of the "detail" things that irritates users big time.

The management question still lingers. Would novell ever put out a release of its openSuSE distribution that cannot do what its last prior release did with the addendum of "uhh, we know its broken and doesn't quite have the functionality the last version did, but we take such pride in saying we are the best, we just decided to release it anyway...without a working KDE3.5 this time..." ???WTF???

That is the type of corporate thinking and corporate decision making that brought us credit default swaps and we see how good that turned out.

True, but our economic woes really started in 1913, and admittedly, the fools in the Senate & House in 2006 by refusing to put financial institutions under proper regulation has done more damage in recent times that anything else! Thank you Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Biden, Obama and other hairbags.

Hopefully 12.0 will be a solid release with a working version of Quanta in a mature KDE4. Sad, I used to alway look forward to the new capabilities in the upcoming release. Now, I get to look forward to loss of capabilities in the upcoming release?? My, "the times, they are a changing." (catchy phrase, probably make a good song)

'Sad one at that. ;)

OK, now just chime in with how we are "just in the same type of transition we were in with the KDE2-KDE3 transition" and "not to worry", but please be kind enough to provide citation to the references you use to show that lack of comparative functionality was still being debated *three* releases down the KDE3 road.

(still just shaking my head in utter disbelief, with a dry chuckle of solemnity...) Beware the ives of Mandrake...

Yep. Fred -- Gun-toting Americans are clearly more self-sufficient than the sissy Europeans. This is great news for everyone except Barney Frank, who's always secretly wondered what it would be like to be taken by a Somali pirate. --Ann Coulter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 16 April 2009, Will Stephenson wrote:

Cheer up, " (and therefore Quanta) is still in Factory.

Therein lies the problem Quanta from "kdewebdev3" dont play nice on kde4.2.x it needs a whole rack of kde 3.5.x stuff which sort of absolutly and totally defeats the whole idea of KDE4.2.x does it not it is taking bfar too long to get apps ported accross to KDE 4.2.x there is too much way way way too much time being invested in EYE CANDY which may please the windBloWs brigade but most of us want the apps and to hell with the EYE CANDY till the APPS are good Pete -- Opensuse 10.3 x86_64 (Linux is like a wigwam no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 16 April 2009, Rajko M. wrote:

On Thursday 16 April 2009 09:45:10 am peter nikolic wrote:

...

On Thursday 16 April 2009, Will Stephenson wrote:

...

Cheer up, " (and therefore Quanta) is still in Factory.

Therein lies the problem Quanta from "kdewebdev3" dont play nice on kde4.2.x it needs a whole rack of kde 3.5.x stuff which sort of absolutly and totally defeats the whole idea of KDE4.2.x does it not it is taking bfar too long to get apps ported accross to KDE 4.2.x there is too much way way way too much time being invested in EYE CANDY which may please the windBloWs brigade but most of us want the apps and to hell with the EYE CANDY till the APPS are good

Pete,

you, and everyone else (including me), want smooth transition. What do you think how that is going to happen?

Wait until all applications are ported. That will happen when Mr. Godot comes.

Ranting against eye candy?

Please, read this: http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/KDE4 " Performance Issues KDE 4 is the first Free desktop environment to make use of advanced features such as compositing, alpha blending and scalable graphics at the core of the desktop, as opposed to only using a compositing window manager ..."

It is not eye candy, it is just the way to use computer efficiently, not as i386 and xyVGA graphic, with higher clock rate.

If you are about efficiency and better use of gear that you paid for then you will greet that, instead of repeating eye candy, eye candy until repeat key breaks.

You say that you need Quanta for web development. This days one can't go by without using eye candy of some sort, static, or dynamic, so why would web developer put endles rants against it? One should appreciate to have platform that can display his work without delays.

Let me know if I'm wrong?

-- Regards, Rajko

Hi . I am not ranting against Eye Candy but i am against too much time and effort being put inito it (which AFAIAK is too much right now) i would far rather see the APPS up to speed then fanny around with the window dressing after by all means . Dont get me wrong we all like things to look right /good /too our liking but if it looks good but dont work it aint worth "didley squat" to anyone but the flash boys look how good this looks like that stuff turfed out by the other bunch look ok but it is so full of BS it anit worth it . Pete . -- Opensuse 10.3 x86_64 (Linux is like a wigwam no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Rajko M. wrote:

... I don't think that people after so much involvement in technology think on the eye candies first.

Perhaps not, but I know enough really good developers who will start out to do something that was easy, but got caught up in the evolving nature of their vision, intricacies in the implementation details, etc., such that some project of theirs that they estimated to be simple, turned out to be a pit that took a while to dig out of, once entered. It is human nature, plus probability, that this will occur at times, regardless of the talent of the developer(s) involved. For example, Bill Joy once said that the only reason vi was so Spartan, was that he had a system crash just before the BSD release it was scheduled for, and lost the entire GUI front end code, with no time to recreate it before the release. And I have heard skeptics say that perhaps the GUI turned out to be more difficult than originally envisioned. Given that I believe it was also a project for academic credit, as the story goes, this might have been the first recorded instance of the "computer ate my homework" excuse. This tale is entirely apocryphal, told mostly to illustrate a point. But under the supposed circumstances, I wouldn't have blamed him if he were grateful that he didn't have to maintain a front end for vi in addition to the editor itself. And anyway, I still like vi (and its open source CLI extensions) just fine for almost all of my system editing tasks, anyway. The schedule changes and feature issues with KDE4 don't suggest technical incompetence, or a poor choice of initial features, but rather that someone found out that some "easy things" might not actually be as easy as they first appeared. If true for KDE4, now would be the time to re-group and let those comfortable with the status quo hang on to it for as long as it takes for them to become comfortable with the state of KDE4. Personally, I have rethought my view, and new plan to spend some time getting comfortable with KDE4 in the future. But it is not where I want to spend my time on the "bleeding edge" right now. I have currently switched to Gnome, only to boldly jump into Gnome 2.26 on 11.1. But now I think I might install a future version of openSUSE with KDE4, once it matures. I have tried switching or mixing KDE and Gnome within an OS release, but don't really want to do that again. But I am more likely to follow through if I can first install the future release with KDE3, then experiment with KDE4 after, until I am convinced that I want it for every day use. -- Dan Goodman -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 17 April 2009, Rajko M. wrote:

...

KDE 4 is the first Free desktop environment to make use of advanced features such as compositing, alpha blending and scalable graphics at the core of the desktop, as opposed to only using a compositing window manager ..."

It is not eye candy, it is just the way to use computer efficiently, not as i386 and xyVGA graphic, with higher clock rate.

Can you explain me why xyVGA graphic is less efficient than alpha blending and scalable graphics? For what use? I remember some years ago MS Office required a 3D graphic card to display the "paper clip" graphics that were the on-screen help... Was that "efficiency"? I've used KDE 4. Boxes and messages fade in and out (slowly), many things are somewhat "animated", alt-tab displays in 3D. OK. But where have I more efficiency than when my messages just pop in and out, or alt-tab displays a list of my windows? Scalable icons are nice, but as you can't put them on the desktop and I anyway would like the panel to be only smaller, what use? Yes, I can imagine cases where all this is usefull. It's not to me (or I have not yet undestood how) and I don't like it being forced on me. Thierry -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

In <9bb996600904171438i6459ddf9l66a6a8e66f9ba5ad@mail.gmail.com>, Larry Stotler wrote:

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Rajko M. <rmatov101@charter.net> wrote:

...

Ranting against eye candy? Please, read this: http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/KDE4 " Performance Issues KDE 4 is the first Free desktop environment to make use of advanced features such as compositing, alpha blending and scalable graphics at the core of the desktop, as opposed to only using a compositing window manager ..."

The compositing manager from my reading is openGL based. Since it's built in to KDE4, I can see why my systems were so sluggish since I have no interest in wasting money on a higher end card.

KDE 4 does not require compositing. If you turn it off, it still looks slicker than KDE 3, but it won't ask other systems to do things they are bad at.

...

It is not eye candy, it is just the way to use computer efficiently, not as i386 and xyVGA graphic, with higher clock rate.

Actually, it's like Vista's Aero manager, that basically requires a good 3d card to make the desktop work. That's why a lot of people turn off the "Aero Experience" so they can actually use their computer or they replace it with XP.

So, turn off KDE 4's desktop effects. They are not a requirement.

To use KDE4 effectively, I would be forced to upgrade my hardware, when it works just fine under KDE3.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the KDE devs are abandoning older hardware with their shiny new toy.

You are wrong. KDE 4 should preform *better* on old hardware if the eye candy is turned off and it should *still* look better than KDE 3. If that's not your experience, and you are willing to work with the developers, please join them on IRC. [Ideally, KDE 4 would be smart enough to choose the appropriate level of "eye candy" based on your hardware and then let you tweak it, but I don't think that's ready yet.] -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/

On 04/18/2009 06:26 AM, Larry Stotler wrote:

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. <bss@iguanasuicide.net> wrote:

...

KDE 4 does not require compositing. If you turn it off, it still looks slicker than KDE 3, but it won't ask other systems to do things they are bad at.

So how do you turn it off?

Configure Desktop, (Look and Feel) Desktop, first check box under Desktop Effects, General tab.

KDE4 has shown zero benefit over KDE3 so far. That may change, and hopefully will.

There is one big one- KDE4 is being actively developed. KDE3 is no longer. Even though the changes are seemingly more significant, this has been the main reason to change since KDE 1. Bugs will be fixed in KDE4, it has and is getting better all the time. -- Joe Morris Registered Linux user 231871 running openSUSE 11.1 x86_64 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:33 AM, Thierry de Coulon <tcoulon@decoulon.ch> wrote:

With the result that you have three options: 1) go with beta software, experience as it gets better (it will) and accept to work the way the devs want you to. 2) fight to continue using KDE 3 on distributions that mix the two and slowly see KDE 3 die away. 3) As you anyway will have to change the way you work, look at other possiblities As far as I am concerned, 1) is not satisfying, 2) is depressing

Even the look and feel of something as simple as the games was a letdown. 11.0 installed the KDE4 games as default, and the look and feel of them was far from an improvement over the KDE3 versions. That might be a nitpick, but when you get into the rest of the system, you find more and more things that are just way too different. And having to go through a but of steps to make it work is a hassle. I wouldn't have to have people tell me how to turn things off if the menus and settings were as intuitive as the KDE3 versions. Oh well. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 17 April 2009, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:

In <9bb996600904171438i6459ddf9l66a6a8e66f9ba5ad@mail.gmail.com>, Larry

Stotler wrote:

...

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Rajko M. <rmatov101@charter.net> wrote:

...

Ranting against eye candy? Please, read this: http://en.opensuse.org/KDE/KDE4 " Performance Issues KDE 4 is the first Free desktop environment to make use of advanced features such as compositing, alpha blending and scalable graphics at the core of the desktop, as opposed to only using a compositing window manager ..."

The compositing manager from my reading is openGL based. Since it's built in to KDE4, I can see why my systems were so sluggish since I have no interest in wasting money on a higher end card.

KDE 4 does not require compositing. If you turn it off, it still looks slicker than KDE 3, but it won't ask other systems to do things they are bad at.

...

...

It is not eye candy, it is just the way to use computer efficiently, not as i386 and xyVGA graphic, with higher clock rate.

Actually, it's like Vista's Aero manager, that basically requires a good 3d card to make the desktop work. That's why a lot of people turn off the "Aero Experience" so they can actually use their computer or they replace it with XP.

So, turn off KDE 4's desktop effects. They are not a requirement.

...

To use KDE4 effectively, I would be forced to upgrade my hardware, when it works just fine under KDE3.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the KDE devs are abandoning older hardware with their shiny new toy.

You are wrong. KDE 4 should preform *better* on old hardware if the eye candy is turned off and it should *still* look better than KDE 3. If that's not your experience, and you are willing to work with the developers, please join them on IRC.

[Ideally, KDE 4 would be smart enough to choose the appropriate level of "eye candy" based on your hardware and then let you tweak it, but I don't think that's ready yet.]

You know what this darn PRE ocupation with EYE Candy is becoming a joke lets get the APPS right FIRST then fanny around with eye candy for cryin out loud or have all the KDE dev suddenly become followers of the MS route eye candy rules OK Yaa! .. Pete . -- Opensuse 10.3 x86_64 (Linux is like a wigwam no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday 18 April 2009, Rodney Baker wrote:

On Sat, 18 Apr 2009 18:07:57 peter nikolic wrote:

...

[...]

You know what this darn PRE ocupation with EYE Candy is becoming a joke lets get the APPS right FIRST then fanny around with eye candy for cryin out loud or have all the KDE dev suddenly become followers of the MS route eye candy rules OK Yaa! ..

Pete .

2 things:

1. The application developers are not necessarily the same people as the desktop developers (although for some apps they are...)

2. You have to have the API's and other software frameworks in place and stable in order to build the apps. It is a bit like building an office block - you have to put up the framework before installing the wall panelling, windows etc. (no pun intended). The fact that the software interfaces and infrastructure facilitate "eye candy" is really just a side-effect of the chosen design and build tools.

Yes so you put your building up make it water tight THEN you fanny about inside with the fitting out the nice bits Pete . -- Opensuse 10.3 x86_64 (Linux is like a wigwam no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 12 April 2009 20:22:17 peter nikolic wrote:

A Fully working Quanta for one not Quanta for KDE 3.5.x that is half dead because things are not there cus it needs KDE 3.5.x that is the one that directly affects me .

Note that 11.2 will still contain the kde3 libraries, so you should still be able to run kde3 applications on it. It's just the desktop environment that's removed Looking at the mailing list for kdewebdev, it seems Quanta for KDE4 will take a long time to complete. They seem to be very low on developer manpower. Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Am Dienstag, 14. April 2009 05:37:04 schrieb Ken Schneider - openSUSE:

...

Looking at the mailing list for kdewebdev, it seems Quanta for KDE4 will take a long time to complete. They seem to be very low on developer manpower.

Anders

All the more reason to hold off dropping KDE3.x from 11.2

Or those that need it and appreciate the work those developers do start supporting them financially. If there are that many that really need it that badly and do not only want everything for free and as fast as possible then small donations will already result in a reasonable bounty. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Am Sonntag 12 April 2009 12:22:58 schrieb Dean Hilkewich: [...]

Amarok 2 is an absolute failure in plugins so far, last time I checked there wasn't even an eq.

AFAIK, phonon does not have an equaliser, thus Amarok does not have it either. -- Gruß Andreas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rajko M. wrote:

On Tuesday 14 April 2009 04:21:56 am G T Smith wrote:

...

I would suggest that those unhappy with KDE 4 take a look at some of the alternatives

That was one of questions that I can't find answer. If you are unhappy, there is quite a few desktops around.

Sorry, you lost me there...

I use ICEwm for old machine that can't handle KDE3 stripped down to bare minimum. It is lesser effort to learn how to customize it, then to write endless mails around asking someone to change KDE to fit very old hardware (1998).

...

(there seem to be quite a few).

Not that many in number of people, but for sure in number of posts, which combined with ureasonably high effort needed for that, compared to research of alternatives, wakes suspicion that there might be other problems they don't want to publish.

I think this is mainly because for most the Desktop==OS, and KDE is closer to the familiar world of Windows for many it has a standard. In my times working in a User Support the number of times the reply to what (Operating System) are you using and getting the answer Word was embarrassingly frequent. The truth is for most people the computer is a "black box" that should perform like any other electronics "black box" (i.e. the radio, CD player). When in fact it is not, and most attempts to make a general purpose computer act like a specialist electronics 'black box" have usually introduced functional complexities that make the device perform badly in both roles. Give this group the concept of choice of desktop and you can see the rising level of panic and confusion. At some point people will wake up to the fact that a standard CD player (Games Console, Video Player) is better at the job than a general purpose computer configured to perform the job for most people. Having a Home Computer is often equated with having e-Mail and the internet, many game consoles can deliver both in a "black box" a lot more cheaply than a Home PC. When people start adding this all up, the bottom will fall out of the Home PC market and in the current economic climate this kind of calculation is increasingly likely. A computer is good at processing digital information (visual, aural, mathematical, statistical) and producing reports, presentations, and documents. Most people do not need this functionality. It will always have a place in commerce, engineering and science which is a more critical area than multi-media presentation and flashy desktop for people at home. (Multi-media production is a different issue). This is where Linux can (and does) have an impact, most of such users have a better idea of what they want and Linux is a much more tailorable environment than Windows. I personally think targeting the home desktop is a mid to long term strategic error. Targeting Business and Professional usage is much more important. At the moment while adopting some innovative concepts KDE4 misses the issue that most System Admins rolling out large numbers of systems tend to prefer simple, well understood and fairly stable to complex, poorly understood and questionable stability. Gnome/GTK based desktops score well on this one (and I do not think is an accident that OpenOffice, Mozilla apps, the Sun and Eclipse SDKs are more GTK rather than QT based). For the Linux to grow on the Desktop corporates need to persuaded of the benefits (not Joe/Jill User on their home PC).

Having paying customers, where selling point was "it runs on older hardware" comes in mind. Now when KDE3 will be left in a dust, and some hardware upgrades are advisable, it will be problem to explain why.

- -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAknloq4ACgkQasN0sSnLmgLNvQCg7j76fVeGnzEUdfNBvgp9yifk uvoAmgJIeqe1pghkuY/qu5ma7qqKB5RB =5s20 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

The future of KDE vs. GNOME is probably on KDE side. In few months they will have nice maintenable desktop environment, while GNOME at that time will start thinking how to do what KDE did now.

They already have. If you poke around in various Gnome-centic info sources, you will find that they are discussing a very similar complete overhaul of Gnome. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Will, Since your online and a x/kde expert, can you tell if there is a way in KDM / kde 3.5 / kde 4.2.2 to force a re-detect of attached monitors and an associated reconfig of X. Currently I can only get it to happen on kde logout. Not horrible, but if for instance I boot my laptop to a login screen, then connect up a projector, it is not detected until I login / logout. After that I'm good but it is a little slow to have to do that. I'd like at least a way to do this from the kdm login screen. Thanks Greg On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Will Stephenson <wstephenson@suse.de> wrote:

On Wednesday 15 April 2009 21:36:57 Klistvud wrote:

...

Dne nedelja 12 april 2009 ob 19:49:51 je jdd napisal(a):

...

I just wanted to ask here what do you have in kde3.5 and don't find in kde4 and you would like to have. Not to say you will have it but to give info to devs...

Believe it or not - it's the individually configurable virtual desktops. To separate areas of work/leisure/communications/background tasks/etc I have no less than 8 virtual desktops on my KDE3.x system, each configured with different colors and wallpapers, so as to be distinguishable at a glance; they are also configured so as to be reachable via simple key combos. Once you have more than 10-15 applications open at once, alt-tabbing through them becomes progressively a no-no. Multiple desktops are the most productive solution I've found so far.

Fixed in KDE trunk - each desktop can have its own settings now, including wallpaper and applets.

Will

-- Greg Freemyer Head of EDD Tape Extraction and Processing team Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org