KDE2 is News (and Other Quickies)

In KDE2 related news, ZDNet have reviewed KDE2 and love it. Very much. LinuxToday.com.au like it too, as seen in this article titled after a well-known Australian TV advert. LWN have provided coverage on the KDE2 release here. Trolltech congratulate KDE on the new release here. SuSE Linux have announced their KDE2 update. Speaking of updates, new KDE2 packages for Tru64 with fixes by Tom Leitner can be found here.

In the food-for-thought dept, Kevin Reichard submitted this KOffice article by dep, and this article on Enlightenment, which supports both KDE and GNOME, while providing a fascinating desktop experience.

And, finally, in Qt-related news, a new beta of Opera for Linux is available. Even more exciting, Trolltech have made the announcement that Qt/Embedded will be available under the GPL. Read the official announcement and an interesting interview by All Linux Devices here. Watch this space closely for more coverage on this important new development and its potential impact on KDE.

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Comments

by Torben Skolde (not verified)

Please, continue the attack.

Send out e-mails, pdf-files, written letters, etc to all IT (Information Technology) related magazines, AND major international magazines.

Linux together with KDE2 deserves ALL the backup it can get.

Money? I hope there is some funding for postal charges, somewhere...

Please, do not lose momentuum!

by No-one (not verified)

It was interesting to read the criticisms of KOffice. I have noticed similar problems with other KDE apps.

I've not reported them, the reason being that KDE's bug system sucks so bad. If KDE used Bugzilla these things would get reported.

by Lenny (not verified)

If KDE used Bugzilla these things would get reported.

And everything would be fine within a jiffy...

http://bugs.kde.org/frontend/index.php

is IMHO a LOT easier to use than bugzilla. I once tried to search the bugs in mozialla, and believe me, I failed. Check http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/query.cgi if you don't believe me how horrible it is.

by Anon (not verified)

Oh nonsense. KDE's bug tracking system is simple enough to describe on a single page. Bugzilla is an ugly monster, and even uglier to set up (believe me, I've tried).

Really, I've had no difficulty submitting bugs and even getting great feedback from the KDE developers.

by Paul Leopardi (not verified)

I wonder what KD/Embedded will look like? Will it run on the IBM watch or just the Compaq iPAQ ?

by Lenny (not verified)

If somebody writes a framebuffer-driver, there will be Qt/Embedded.

by Michael Hall (not verified)

I suppose you meant "KDE/Embedded." There already is a Qt/Embedded, which is what the story on AllLinuxDevices was about.

As for KDE/Embedded... it's already happening to the extent it makes any sense: developers are porting some KDE apps over to the platforms supporting Qt/Embedded, such as the iPAQ and Cassiopeia. The thing to keep in mind is that porting the entire environment over is pointless for a PIM. You just want consistency of interface.

by Kyle Haight (not verified)

There might be a point in porting the whole of KDE over to Qt/Embedded, since that would allow users to run KDE without also having to run X. Granted, such users wouldn't be able to run legacy X apps, but then again who would want to?

My understanding is that Qt/Embedded supports some features (such as anti-aliased fonts) that would be nice to have and aren't supported by X, so I can see some reasons for going down this path. Of course, it really depends on how much work it would be; if it's a lot then it probably wouldn't be worthwhile.

by Michael Hall (not verified)

"My understanding is that Qt/Embedded supports some features (such as anti-aliased fonts) that would be nice to have and aren't supported by X, so I can see some reasons for going down this path."

That's a good point. My comment was mainly aimed at the notion of porting the entire environment and its related baggage over to handheld platforms.

by David Simon (not verified)

I would love to see a KDE CEish thing for the iPaq. Also, I can see most of KDE being usefull on a handheld (I would just love to be able to do some DTP in KWord from a handheld), and I drool at the thought of SpaceDuel and KPat available to them me 24/7 (Eat this Zap!2000 [The game, not the cleaing solution] :-) ). Of course, korganizer, kmail, and a lot of konqueror would be usefull as well, also perhaps kmidi (detached from arts) to play midi files for music, which are convient because of their small size.

Finally, although XF86 has internal fonts, couldn't a text message widget be reimplemented using QT, supporting it's own font system, and bypass XF altogether? XF also has a couple of advantages, namely it's great networking abilities, and 3d acceleration.

by Bernd (not verified)

I think a KPE (K Pocket Environment) would be nice. I think a lot of code from KDE can be used, but some programes must be rewritten for a PocketPC (e.g. an other desktop and panel which take account of the smaller display).

by David Simon (not verified)

Not only could you run KPE on a PocketPC, but also perhaps on the Palm port of Linux. It would require a whole load of RAM, possibly would only run on a Palm Vx or the like, but it would work. The big reason I like Palms better then PocketPCs is simply that the batteries last way, way longer. This may change, however, with the popularity of NiMH rechargables.

by Otter (not verified)

..Enlightenment, which supports both KDE and GNOME.

Has anyone had decent results using a different window manager with KDE 2? I've had ugliness with WindowMaker, severe ugliness with Enlightenment (E also uses a fake root window which causes major conflict with kdesktop) and nothing really usable with icewm.

Any good experiences to report?

by Gunter Ohrner (not verified)

I'm using kdesktop, the GNOME panel and E 0.16.5 and everything works fine...

Greetinx,

Gunter Ohrner

by blue penguin (not verified)

Anyone know where I can find RPM's of the latest qt that KDE2 requires? I found RPM's for a lot of the other KDE stuff on kde.org, but no RPM for qt. I'm running Redhat 7, incidentally.

rpmfind.net

by Paul Leopardi (not verified)

For a slightly more elaborate answer, see my posting Be careful: KDE 2.0 answers about RPMs and libs depend on distribution on the kde-user archive.

I actually couldn't find Red Hat 7 RPMs for QT 2.2.1, so I listed an RPM for RawHide 1.0.

by Blue Penguin (not verified)

So basically what this means is, that at this time, I cannot install KDE 2 Final using RPMs on RedHat 7? I have to compile it myself?

by Birger (not verified)

What is the smallest PC you can run KDE2 on and still get a reasonable perfomance? Will a Pentium 100Mhz w 32MB of RAM do the trick?

by Marco Krohn (not verified)

This certainly depends on your definition of reasonable performance and what you want to do with your system.

Nevertheless P100 and 32 MB RAM is probably too slow for the average user. I have 128 MB and a P200 and it is ok. I guess 64 MB and a P133 is the absolute minimum but I never tried that configuration...

ciao, Marco

by Marco Krohn (not verified)

This certainly depends on your definition of reasonable performance and what you want to do with your system.

Nevertheless P100 and 32 MB RAM is probably too slow for the average user. I have 128 MB and a P200 and it is ok. I guess 64 MB and a P133 is the absolute minimum but I never tried that configuration...

ciao, Marco

by Birger (not verified)

I got a 500Mhz 128MB PC, so KDE2 doesn't seem slow in any way, but according to 'top' it does take up a lot of memory, almost all I can throw at it.

I remember once using win 3.11 on a P133 with 24Mb. That was fast, really fast, but not very usefull. Word 2 would start in ½ second. It was really cool though so I wonder if I'll ever get that experience again.

Perhaps if one shaved all unnecessary daemons and stuff of the system and ported everything to fbcon? Of course, by the time you're finished, everyone will have 1Gz pc's w 256Mb probably.

by cdo (not verified)

"What is the smallest PC you can run KDE2 on and still get a reasonable perfomance? Will a Pentium 100Mhz w 32MB of RAM do the trick?"

Definatelly not. I have a Pentium 120Mhz and 32MB RAM at home. even KDE 1 isn't really useable on that machine. At Work I have a AMD K6/3 with 450Mhz and 386MB Ram. This machine rocks with KDE 2.

by mike (not verified)

KDE1 IS isable with p120/32meg or ram!!! you would benefit from 48 meg or ram!

KDE2 is UNUSABLE with p2-450 it is a slow bullucks!!!

by Andy (not verified)

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http://www.sd-omega.com

Mac mini or PC mini ? CAR PC ??? The smallest pc in the world!!!

Full function Pentium 4 system
800Mhz FSB

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Fully functional P4/Celeron Prescott up to 3.0Ghz w/1M L2 Cache
Intel 865GV / ICH 5, supporting 800MHz FSB
Fully support Intel Hyper Threading Technology
On-board 10/100 LAN, USB 2, 1394(Optional).
Ultra low noise and low power consumption
Support standard 3.5" hard disk
5.8"(W) x 10"(D) x 2.75"(H) (14.8 x 25.4 x 7 cm)
Applications

Home Entertainment Center
Gateway, Router, Transportable PC
Personal Desktop, Office System
Industrial, Control, Data Collection, Data Center
Application Server, File Server, Game Server, ...etc.
Detail Specifications

Processor
Intel P4/Celeron Northwood 2.0Ghz ~ 3.20Ghz (512KB L2 Cache)
Intel P4/Celeron Prescott up to 3.0Ghz (1M L2 Cache)
Support Hyper Threading Technology
VRM 10.0 standard
Memory
Support Dual-Channel DDR 400/333/266 DIMM
Maximum 2 GB, with 512Mb technology
Core Logic
Intel 865GV / ICH 5(North / South)
FSB support up to 800Mhz
Video
Intel Extreme Graphics 2
Support up to 64MB DVMT video memory
Audio
Software AC '97 Audio CODEC
LAN
Built-in high speed Ethernet 100/10Mbps LAN controller
FireWire (Optional)
Built-in OHCI 1394a 1.1 compliance
Support up to 400Mb transfer rate
USB 2.0
Integrated 4 independent OHCI controller supporting USB 1.1 ports
Integrated 1 EHCI controller supporting USB 2.0 ports
Dynamic connection support to USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 devices
IDE
Dual Independent ATA-100/66/33 support
Support up to 4 IDE devices on dual channel
Hardware Monitor
System, processor temperature, voltage and fan speed monitor
Auto Thermal FAN speed control
Power Management
ACPI 1.0b compliance and OS direct power management
Wake-on event: RTC/USB Keyboard/Modem/LAN/Keyboard/Mouse
Switch and Jumpers
Front Panel:
1 x IEEE 1394 Firewire port
1 x USB 2.0 / 1.1 Port
1 x MIC Port
1 x Ear Phone output Jack
Power-on button
Reset button
Power-on and HDD LED
Back Panel:
1 x RS232 COM port
1 x parallel printer port
1 x RJ45 10/100Mb Fast Ethernet
1 x Line-Out output Jack
2 x USB 2.0 / 1.1 Ports
1 x 15 pin VGA
1 x 19v DC Power Jack input
Dimension & Weight
14.8 x 25.4 x 7 cm
2.5KG (fully equipped)
AC/DC Adaptor
Input 100~240V AC Universal
Output 19V DC out
Storage Devices
Support all Standard Slim CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-RW Combo
Support all 3.5" standard IDE hard drive, ATA-100/66/33

More details from the manufacturer's website: http://www.sd-omega.com

by bad (not verified)

I spent 3 hours trying to download from that slow damn sourceforge site.

PLEASE, PLEASE list mirrors.