Polls are an oft-requested feature of the dot. KDE.com has risen to the challenge with its latest user poll: "What Should Be the Highest Priority of KDE Developers Leading Up to KDE 2.2?". I just installed Linux Mandrake 7.2 (until my SuSE package arrives), and after upgrading to KDE 2.1.1, I feel that a KDE port of the configuration utilities could bring a huge amount of polish to this distribution. A KDE interface to Linuxconf might be a good start. Others would however prefer a KDE installer, and some simply think that KDE should be faster and/or less of a memory hog. Here's your chance to cast a vote and voice an opinion.
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I definately would go for a linuxconf KDE frontend, simply because linuxconf already has a huge amount of modules.
Really to bad I do not have internet access at home (nor will I have in the near future). Also, I have a diskless HPUX terminal at work, so bringing stuff from home is also a problem. Are there other ways to help ?
That would be nice for those using linuxconf, but many don't. For example most Debian, Slackware and FreeBSD users.
--
Casper Gielen
Exactly. Nonetheless, this would be a valuable add-on for users who *do* use it. It just should not be in the main release, but in a seperate module (perhaps a distribution subdir of kdelinux).
Please, not linuxconf, the most worsly designed most irritating, buggy, horrible program ever designed. We should make a KDE specific platform generic configuration app of our own.
And not me. No. I will not do this :)
i would like a xml-based centralized config-file with extensions for user specific data like screen-resolution and such. this one would be much like a combination of suse-style rc.config and the windows registry (yeah i know, but not everything ms produces.. or buys ;) is bad).
a config deamon can watch changes in this file and execute distribution specific plugins, that do the actual systemconfig, if needed. to avoid speed problems, it would be possible to syncronize the config file with a serialized binary representation like a dom tree for example.
this aproach has some advantages:
1. it will still be possible to edit configuration by hand as long as one edit the xml.
2. technology for merging different config-files (like system overriding user-values) is present (xslt)
3. syntax and to some extend semantic checking can be parametrisized (dtd, schema)
4. frontends to edit the configuration would be very simple to write (load dom-tree, edit data, save dom-tree)
5. differences between the distributions (e.g. sysconf-dir) will be hidden
unfortunatly there a disadvantages as well
1. redundant data holding (sysconf - xmlconf)
2. concurrent configuration access (linuxconf - xmlconf)
3. recreation of the wheel ;)
4. distribution-developer support needed (for the plugins)
i would like to see a tool/system like this, but i know that the arguments against this proposition are strong. i would like to see what standpoint other kde-users or developers have...
About 1 1/2 years ago, I started on a configuration project that used xml to describe configurators that could then be code-genenerated. It used a 2 level scheme
1) describes the data and allowed for flat files, cli, internal calls. Also describes the valid values (RE based). This would generate a structure that could be used elsewhere.
2) describes the gui layout. This basically maps the componenets to the structures above. Also, would use structures from other sections. Such as, httpd.conf or hylafax.conf was using the Passwd class vector for validation.
Unfortunatly, I ran out of time and need to change this to 3-tier set-up.
I realize that this may not be the most efficient approach in terms of code, but this yields a consistent look and feel across all configurations. Also, as the project revs, it makes it easy to move to the next rev. Also, there may be different approachs to underlying apporach. Finally, I was hoping to generate both KDE and Gnome. One archetecture makes it easy and desirable to everyone, including weekend warriors and vendors
I completely agree with you
i've been in a love-affaire with linux for about 5 years now, but since a year or two i mainly code java and xml server stuff with jboss, tomcat, cocoon, etc.. i never have that much fun to code with OO programming, design pattern, xml stuff, well you know, "modern" stuff and it made me realize how many obsolete unix stuff should disapear..
it's not really kde related (i use gnome too) but what i would like to happen is:
get rid of the /etc mess..
have a central registry (probably based on xml, it's not because MS registry sucks that the idea is wrong)
a better security mechanism based on acl
a easy way to give privilege to a user.. we should not have to log root to install software, etc.. ok sudo does it but it should be "easy"..
Most config Apps/Tools should be based on a MVC approach, an xml model for config, a controller (the actual apps) and a simple protocol to talk to frontends (console, qt, gtk, web, whatever!)
i've just read an article on Jxta and it's really interestings, it's like a unix shell but it's commands output XML (and you can pipe them, etc..)
etc.. etc..
but the biggest problem i see is to get everyone agree on a way to do it! and there's always those elitists guy that wish that unix remain cryptic (like i read too often on slashdot) and that is the biggest obstacle to make a step forward and give linux and free software to the masses..
wishful thinking...
i know, MacOS X does a lot of this, but it is closed source, expensive, and not enough "tweakable" and configurable (which is the main feature that made me switch to linux from OS/2)..
eric
>not linuxconf, the most worsly designed most irritating, buggy, horrible program ever designed<
Right. Please, forget linuxconf. It has never been useful here. Too buggy. Never sure that it will save changes you apply in it. Design? Grrrr... I have a good memory but never figured out where is what in linuxconf. Irritating? Oh, yes, never sure that it will accept keyboard inputs. Njaard is right. Kill linuxconf.
>not linuxconf, the most worsly designed most irritating, buggy, horrible program ever designed<
Right. Please, forget linuxconf. It has never been useful here. Too buggy. Never sure that it will save changes you apply in it. Design? Grrrr... I have a good memory but never figured out where is what in linuxconf. Irritating? Oh, yes, never sure that it will accept keyboard inputs. Njaard is right. Kill linuxconf.
linuxconf is a Redhat-ism. Switch to SuSE; use YaST2. It's KDE/Qt based.
Linux config is not working any more in Redhat 7.1
Something that is out of the scope of KDE, actually.
I would love the ability to detach a running X session so someone else can log in, or to reattach it from a different computer. Kind of like the features in Windows XP, although actually the idea was inspired by the console utility screen. Of course, this is largely an X11 issue and not merely one of KDE, which does its best with reasonbly decent session management.
And of course I've got a few other small wishes such as good support for fixed positioned layers (with hidden and automatic overflow) in khtml.
Or a good panel based mp3/audio/cd player (kind of like xmms-kde does, only then native without requiring a xmms window to be open). I don't need a full interface for playing music, just a few controls, that's it.
I'm still improving my Qt/KDE coding skills, but who knows, I might implement wishes rather than talking about them sooner or later. :-)
I realize that Noatun still had a
bit of a long start up time, but its
systray element is pretty cool.
And if not Noatun, then why not
xmms-kde ?
Alex
To answer that question from my standpoint, yes noatun's systray element is great but I have had more problems with noatun than I care to mention. I am sure it will be a great MM app in time, but for now it is just not there and xmms definately is.
I do use xmms-kde and it is a wonderful applet that is very customizable, but I agree that it would be very nice to be able to completely dock xmms so that it is not sitting on a destop and I can just click on the dock icon and see it wherever and whenever I need it.
Just my $.02 worth.
To answer that question from my standpoint, yes noatun's systray element is great but I have had more problems with noatun than I care to mention. I am sure it will be a great MM app in time, but for now it is just not there and xmms definately is.
I do use xmms-kde and it is a wonderful applet that is very customizable, but I agree that it would be very nice to be able to completely dock xmms so that it is not sitting on a destop and I can just click on the dock icon and see it wherever and whenever I need it.
Just my $.02 worth.
To answer that question from my standpoint, yes noatun's systray element is great but I have had more problems with noatun than I care to mention. I am sure it will be a great MM app in time, but for now it is just not there and xmms definately is.
I do use xmms-kde and it is a wonderful applet that is very customizable, but I agree that it would be very nice to be able to completely dock xmms so that it is not sitting on a destop and I can just click on the dock icon and see it wherever and whenever I need it.
Just my $.02 worth.
Can't this already be done? I believe it is possible to run more than one X session on the same computer, and switch between them just like you can switch between X and virtual terminals. As long as you remember to lock your display for security, then I think you can go to a virtual terminal and let someone else log in and start X. I can't try it right nows, so I might be wrong (I'm running Windows because KPresenter doesn't have a PowerPoint export filter). Of course, what would be *really* nice is if the same instance of X would manage both displays so you don't waste memory - that might even be possible too!
For an audio player control, try the Keyz plugin for Noatun. It takes up a whole 0% of your screen space yet gives you total control over Noatun. Ctrl-Alt-right skips to the next song, Ctrl-Alt-Left skips back, no matter what application you happen to be in. There are other keys for other actions (seeking, volume control, show playlist, etc). And if you don't like the default keys, you can change them!
Yes, Keyz is nice, also nice is "Mediacontrol" in the kdenonbeta cvs module. It is a applet for the panel. Oh, and you'll be surprised how much faster noatun starts in KDE2.2 alpha1.
Yes it is possible, I did it.
You have to do a
startx -- :1.0
and it will start a second X server with display :1.0 (by default, the first has display :0.0).
But it is a waste of memory and CPU time and it take a long time to switch from a running X to another (I have an Athlon 600 with 192MB of memory).
Xnest and you get the other display in a window in the same session
That is an interesting feature Xnest. I tried Xnest :1 which opens another X window. But when I try to run xterm -display :1 it reports the following error.
Xlib: connection to ":1.0" refused by server
Xlib: Client is not authorized to connect to Server
Warning: This program is an suid-root program or is being run by the root user.
The full text of the error or warning message cannot be safely formatted
in this environment. You may get a more descriptive message by running the
program as a non-root user or by removing the suid bit on the executable.
xterm Xt error: Can't open display: %s
Any help would be appreciated
I had the same problem with Xnest but found the solution. You have to run Xnest with a command line flag (unfortuanely I don't remember it and am on holidays with only a Windoze PC so I can't check). Do a "man Xnest" and you should find a setting for allowing clients to connect to the server. Hope this helps. Quite a cool feature though Xnest....
That is an interesting feature Xnest. I tried Xnest :1 which opens another X window. But when I try to run xterm -display :1 it reports the following error.
Xlib: connection to ":1.0" refused by server
Xlib: Client is not authorized to connect to Server
Warning: This program is an suid-root program or is being run by the root user.
The full text of the error or warning message cannot be safely formatted
in this environment. You may get a more descriptive message by running the
program as a non-root user or by removing the suid bit on the executable.
xterm Xt error: Can't open display: %s
Any help would be appreciated
Try using the following shell script (or some version thereof) to start your
Xnest:
#!/bin/sh
MCOOKIE=$(mcookie)
xauth add $(hostname)/unix$1 . $MCOOKIE
xauth add localhost/unix$1 . $MCOOKIE
startx /usr/bin/startkde -- /usr/X11R6/bin/Xnest :3
xauth remove $(hostname)/unix$1 localhost/unix$1
exit 0
Xnest -ac :1
I'm on RH 8 and tried your script. The xauth stuff fails. However
the following will work and start Xnest:
start KDE in an Xnest window:
startx /usr/bin/startkde -- /usr/X11R6/bin/Xnest :2
start my default desktop (in my case, gnome) in Xnest:
startx -- Xnest :2
start twm for those really light X sessions:
startx /usr/X11R6/bin/twm -- Xnest :2
You can do this and more already with X/Linux (although I'm not quite sure what the XP feature actually looks like)
- To start up another X session, try
startx -- :1
You can either start this from outside X, or after doing su from within a current X session. You can toggle between them with, typically CTRL+ALT+F7, CTRL+ALT+F8. Of course you can also start more than one. caveat: If you are logging in as the same user then KDE might have some problems as sockets are just named for the user + host rather than user + Xserver - anyway, that's what it looks like too me, I might be wrong!
- You can "su" to another user and run individual applications with in the same X session - which is usually more useful.
- You can log in to a remote machine and, with appropriate setting of the DISPLAY environment variable or the "-display", together with use of "xhost" to grant permissions run graphical applications locally.
- You can use your local machine as a console for many remote servers by doing things like:
X :1 -query server1
X :2 -query server2>
and so on. This means that it is quite possible to have a graphical display on a remote headless server, which is very nice for administration if you are more comfortable with a "windows" type interface...
X has had this capability since the mid '80s - the rest of the world is only just starting to catch up!
> detach a running X session so someone else can log in, or to reattach it from a different computer
Search for "xmove", it's a X11 pseudo-server to support mobile X11 clients and works fine as long the screen resolutions & depths are the same.
One drawback: It's very old and not developed anymore.
You might also try VNC, the Virtual Network Computing server (http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/). Allows even to acces your machine from a Windows client ;P.
Definitely try VNC. Many labs use VNC in this fashion, and I believe the code is optimized for the special case of displaying a VNC session on the same machine. Your desktop can then keep its state and be accessed from anywhere.
It seems like you understood my desire for [de|re]attaching sessions and not just wanting to run multiple X servers.
Perhaps it's time to move Xmove capabilities into XFree86 again.. :-)
hasn't anyone heard of this??
Client and server for displaying X MacOS Windows and BeOS desktops to and from each other. The cool thing about using X this way is that it's stateless on the client. So the client machine can crash and you can login and find your apps just as they were. Plus you can share sessions, start multiple sessions etc. etc. Yet another idea that MS got from someone else (citrix - which basically was inspired by X). First MS said it was dumb, then they harassed and sued and finally bought the company, now they include the concept and their own implementation with their products heh heh
Anyway try VNC it's free and it's been around for a very long time.
Something like that ... xmove .. xnest .. distributed .. rdesktop . . . brb.
I completely agree with the original poster. I want XP-like session management (or actually, Terminal Server like).
Right now, I think I am *king* of Xvnc, Xinetd, Xdmcp, KDM, XNest *and* xmove
(oh and screen of course). But alas, for all the king's horses I don't seem to get both sides of the coin.
Here's the chasm:
Using (x)inetd to ingeniously launch Xvnc with a KDM session (via KDM's xdmcp support!!!) I get the ability to VNC into my *nix box and create a new X session. However, since the Xvnc is spawned for an external connection
(1) subsequent connections spawn more X sessions (which is GREAT because it gives me LTSP/Citrix like functionality)'
(2) the Xvnc instance is killed when the connection is dropped
--- so what I'd like to have is the ability to 'disconnect' and 'reattach' (cf. screen or MSTS/Citrix etc).... Hmmm that's easy:
Using plain Xvnc to start an X instance. It will run indefinitely and I can transparently attach/detach (multiple) VNC viewers. Great, but how about have my cake and eat it too?
To date my hack to get the behaviour I want, comes down to this:
1. at boot I launch a headless X session (Xvnc on, say :73)
2. next I launch xmove to listen on :1 and use :73 as default server
I carry on as always
except that once I start a local X client that I suppose I might want to 'migrate' to a remote session at a later point, I make sure to launch it on DISPLAY=:1. This will make it governed by xmove. Then is and I have a view of
xmovectrl :1 -moveall :mycurrentdisplay
the process. Before I go, I need to 'background' the xmove-able clients
xmovectrl :1 -moveall :73
That will keep them running until I 'beam-them-up' (xmove) from another X session later - perhaps from a remote location.
Sound clumsy? It is very much. Still it is how I go about it sometimes because it is just what I insist on getting. Oh, and to make it a little more manageable, I sometimes throw in an extra Xnest/twm into the mix, just so I don't have to keep thinking about which clients are running under xmove (don't you just hate it when you find out that you ought to have started that lengthy compile job in a screen session LOL)
If anybody has a cleaner way to do this, please share your thoughts because, this is far from ideal, and I hate to say that a standard XP installation has smarter session management.... uhoh
Cheers. Thanks for hearing me out. I'm glad i'm not the only *ux user that is struggling to get X11 to behave like screen :D:D:D:D
Seth
Have you tried screen?
It is a very old terminal switching program that was used pre X11 and Windows.
It continues to live today. I find that a combination of screen and SSH works very well for maintaining windows to many machines.
Please, some more *nix-like behaviour.
This is not a troll, too ;) One thing that I've found really irritating is the seemingly pointless removal of some standard *nix-like behaviour. For instance, triple-clicking text.
In most *nix apps, triple-clicking on a line of text will select the entire line. Hold down on the third click, and you can select more text, on a line-by-line basis.
This behaviour has disappeared! Now, I would understand if, for instance, line-selection was a double-click. Then, people coming from other OSes might have difficulty. But they're not likely to go about triple-clicking things, are they? So why remove it?
I don't know. I find it irritating. There are other examples of this(like the rather limited selection of default keymap translations in Konsole[F1, CTRL+F1, and ALT+F1 all send the same control sequence), but I think this is more of an attitude than anything else.
Now, as far as a real implementation feature? :) More default "views" for Konqueror; I'd love a "helpbrowsing" view, for instance, so that I can view all help files launched by various apps with a similar layout.
Perhaps you guys could with with John Harper(author of Sawfish) a bit to make Sawfish <-> KDE2 interaction a bit better. There are still a number of bugs; and while I understand that KDE2 has Kwin, it's not as featureful as Sawfish, nor, in any sense of the word, as flexible.
Thank you very much for hearing by point of view, and for all the great work you guys have done already :)
>More default "views" for Konqueror; I'd love a "helpbrowsing" view, for instance, so that I can view all help files launched by various apps with a similar layout.
In CVS there is a seperate help-browsing application now. (well, it might be Konqueror morphed with config files, but it looks different at least!) I've always found it irritating that Konqueror looked exactly the same as a help-reader and a web browser - it was confusing. I am happy about this change.
I think this has a lot to do with the fact that (in my opinion) KDE tries to be user-friendly to the majority of people. I think that the majority of users right now are x-Windows9x users. So KDE tries to be as much like them as possible, and add some of its own unique features to the mix.
Well ... :) My entire point was that the triple-clicking thing was something that a "Windows9x" user would never know existed. So why remove it?
I'm not bothered so much by some other things; Alt+F4 to close a window, so on and so forth(as defaults), because that's what a Windows user would *expect*. Seeing a difference, it might confuse them.
However, what would they expect of triple-clicking? Nothing. They'd probably never do it. So why remove it?
Actually, most Windows users would expect triple click to select the current paragraph, which is not all that different. Since both types of selections have their utility depending on what types of files you primarily edit (for config files, line selection is usually better, for word processing documents, paragraph selection is more appropriate).
Thoughtful response :) Thank you.
That raises a good point. Is this sort of thing configurable at source-level for KDE2? My guess would be yes; it'd make a lot of sense for word processing programs to select paragraphs as opposed to lines; and apps line konsole(and a host of others) to select by the line.
I'd still argue that line-by-line selection is "better," in terms of ease-of-use(as opposed to ease-of-learning), but I wouldn't do so to anyone but myself ;)
For most purposes, I think they'd be roughly equiv. Triple-clicking on a line in MS Windows selects all the text between two newlines (CRLF pairs in text files,
in IE HTML renderer, etc), with no regard to the physical soft-breaks of the lines. Of course, this wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in something like Konsole, where you may not always know where the logical lines start and end, and where the software wrapping occurred. The real difference is what happens when you start to move the mouse after triple clicking and holding down the last click. On windows, it selects the paragraph (or line depending on how the text is implemented), and then modifies the selection like a normal single click select (which is somewhat inconsistent with how Windows handles double-click selections that are being extended). To me, this is incorrect. It should let you select other paragraphs/lines afterwards (e.g. the selection mode should be on a line/paragraph basis, just as double clicking on something and then continuing the selection should select on a per-word basis).
In all honesty, I'm not completely familiar with how most X programs do it, since I don't think I've ever used that particular feature. However, the primary concern with ease-of-use shouldn't be how easily a Windows user will catch onto it, but rather how easily users in general will. Triple clicking to select is a pretty obscure feature, even in Windows. I don't see much danger of confusing users, only frustrating them a little the first time they realize it works a little differently.
Not to mention, triple-clicking is way too painful and likely to cause RSI faster!
I never said that they should remove it. I just think that making KDE very user-friendly to Win9x users was top priority. I think that they were simply got so caught up in making KDE mimic Windows that they failed to consider traditional Unix behaviors.
i GUARENTEE you kwin is as flexible as sawfish! KWin clients are written in c++.... and can do ANYTHING.
Jason
Yes indeed, I must agree.. I don't see how sawfish is such a big deal.. Can you give us some examples of userfull features sawfish has to offer and kwin is lacking?
Well, kwin is a lot less configurable. With sawfish (or windowmaker which I used for quite some time) it is possible to set a lot of attributes per window. For example, I can't tell kwin to pop up my licq windows on a specific place on the screen, without them being bound to the desktop where I selected 'store settings'. Another thing is that for as far as I know it is currently not possible to have a borderless window, at least, not one which can still be managed using alt-mousebuttons. There are actually quite some other issues that I find lacking in kwin. Now don't get me wrong, I think it is ok to have a easy-to-use-but-not-very-featureful windowmanager as a default for KDE. However, I _do_ think it would be nice if it were possible to use other windowmanagers. I tried using sawfish, but noticed that I just can't get things like the system tray working.
Well, I should probably look at the code to see why sawfish()<->KDE won't get along, but I think it is a bit out of my league.
Thanks,
Jelmer
Well, kwin is a lot less configurable. With sawfish (or windowmaker which I used for quite some time) it is possible to set a lot of attributes per window. For example, I can't tell kwin to pop up my licq windows on a specific place on the screen, without them being bound to the desktop where I selected 'store settings'. Another thing is that for as far as I know it is currently not possible to have a borderless window, at least, not one which can still be managed using alt-mousebuttons. There are actually quite some other issues that I find lacking in kwin. Now don't get me wrong, I think it is ok to have a easy-to-use-but-not-very-featureful windowmanager as a default for KDE. However, I _do_ think it would be nice if it were possible to use other windowmanagers. I tried using sawfish, but noticed that I just can't get things like the system tray working.
Well, I should probably look at the code to see why sawfish()<->KDE won't get along, but I think it is a bit out of my league.
Thanks,
Jelmer
Well ... ANYTHING is *incredibly* flexible if you want to go to the source. That wasn't my point, and you know it.
Sawfish has more user-visisble flexibility than KWin; it doesn't need a recompile if you want to modify some behaviour slightly :)
And for the other posts, those who asked "well, what can it do that KWin can't?", you should go try Sawfish(and its config utility) before you write any more in this thread. If you need to ask, you obviously havn't used it.
Hrmm
I have used Sawfish. It has lots of configurable options..
No part of KWin has to be REcompiled to completely modify its look and feel. kdebase/kwin/clients/* houses kwin clients, which control the win manager and if u add one u can use it right away.. very powerful, feel free to write one incorporating features u want, or modify the main kwin sources. I will soon..
Jason