KDE on Windows?

I was browsing SourceForge today and stumbled across the KDE on Cygwin project. Apparently, they have ported Qt 2.3.0 for X11, Qt 1.45 and KDE 1.1.2 to use the CygWin tools and CygWin/XFree86, respectively ports of the popular GNU platform and XFree86 to Windows. Although this is a big step towards making KDE applications useable on Windows machines, it might be interesting to get rid of the X server requirements as Simon Haussman has done with Konqueror/Embedded. It seems to me that a free desktop infrastructure of KDE's caliber that runs on both Windows and UNIX, and perhaps even embedded devices runing Qt/Embedded, would increase the number and quality of KDE programs, and open the door to KDE for many more users. What do you think?

Comments

by Anonymous (not verified)

It's part of the KDE Cygwin kdebase package. And use the latest KDE 3.1.4 release, not such ancient one from 2001 to whose story you're replying to. :-)

by mtntoprebel (not verified)

the microslop world is based on greed and power, and the mergence of GNU over to that OS chops away at the financial power base that feeds the monster. Keep it up... the addition of each new program weakens the profit margin for MS!

by Abic Shadar (not verified)

We, need to break the standard idea, "that you have to be a nerd if you use linux" god i don't use linux out of nerdiness, I use it out of cheapness,, hmm that came out wrong, I like the interface of kde quite well and it was the first thing linux i tried, you can customize everything without dling all these fancy crap from several vendors that half the time screw up your computer... damn you alien ware, increase my boot time. Windows is unacomandating to anything, you ever try and copy paste a large amount of files, in windows if one fails, it cancels the rest no option to continue, at least in kde it asks you to retry or ignore and continue or abort, not just "Ah screw you but i don't want to. I'm windows. I'm too good to work" It plain sucks i only keep my windows around for games, and and damn you ATI, not support linux well. The general concensus about linux is either they too retarded and havn't heard of it, heard of it don't know what it is, know what it is havn't botherd, or they think its for nerds, mac and windows are the only two things that exsist and i don't like mac. Hell i like mac os i wish i could use it on my computer, but i'm too lazy to do it the hard way, maybe i should anyways, to me an os is worth paying for if it is good and works well, hmm windows doesn't and i would never / never have paid for a copy, I got them free on my computers, and another thing if windows wasn't the only thing stuck on any thing non mac out of the factory, maybe it wouldn't seem so bad, create a new company that sells pcs with a good linux on it, well i'm just ranting now, but SUCK IT MS.

by Harrison TS (not verified)

I think this is a great idea. It opens the door to KDE and GNU software for people who have used Windows all their life (which was me up until very recently). Also for me, I can now use the free KDE apps on my Windows machine. I hope they get the simple installer, though, because the long installation process is discouraging.

by treehel (not verified)

Yesterday i had an insight, that i can install KDE under windows and run both win32 and posix applications under one desktop. It would be an easy installation

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"Shell"="Explorer.exe"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"Shell"="cygwin.exe"

but, it would be a very-long optimisation. For WIndows and for Cyrillic)))

by Abic Shadar (not verified)

I personally agree, though at heart i like the world of free ware and share ware (for more then just bein chaeper) i've found several problems in coparate software not in others, and oddly enough the freeware seams to work better in most cases perhaps just luck there. But KDE for windows, if only you could get microsoft to endorse it as a standard, but you know MS, the most i can see it getting thought i hope i'm wrong is availiable, hard to find, and only those who habitually use linux will even seek it out, and thus no increase in apps for it. But to get kde working on unix and its children (including mac) and on windows, and some how make it a standard would excellent, though from a corprate stand point and competetion it would be impractical and less profitable for them to do. Becuase they thrive off of proprietary software, and i just now realized that the post i'm replying to is 5 years old, but I still don't see it happening thought i wish it would, cause kde is much better then the windows shell

by Frank Green (not verified)

I think this would be an excellent idea i go back and forth between windows and linux all of the time and i think kde is excellent and i would love to see it on windows it would beat looking at that dull start button and start bar all of the time