Kde On The Pandora

[dflemstr]

I read an interesting article the other day: Link
Read the "KDE and Plasma on ARM" part and related links.

I previously thought that porting KDE to the Pandora, something I considered doing myself, would be a difficult task and that the result would be horribly slow and buggy, but it now turns out that KDE and Plasma not only already use completely OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible technologies with small footprints, they are also working on an official port, with a streamlined UI (even more so than the current Plasma interface!). This will bring us the whole Plasma platform, all of the integrated KDE applications for communications, multimedia, work and gaming, and the KDE system infrastructure that not only is unique on the desktop, but now on handhelds too.

Who else is excited about KDE technology optimized for ARM on the Pandora? Do you think the Pandora is(n't) suitable for KDE or vice versa? Opinions!


PS. I know the KDE ARM adaption has been mentioned before, but it's not been official until now.

 

[mindlord]

I'll take it... probably... depends... uhm... sure why the hell not.

Honestly, I'd like to see it on the Pandora. If the footprint is small enough it would make a fine replacement for e17.

 

[Poem58]

I read an interesting article the other day: Link
Read the "KDE and Plasma on ARM" part and related links.

I previously thought that porting KDE to the Pandora, something I considered doing myself, would be a difficult task and that the result would be horribly slow and buggy, but it now turns out that KDE and Plasma not only already use completely OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible technologies with small footprints, they are also working on an official port, with a streamlined UI (even more so than the current Plasma interface!). This will bring us the whole Plasma platform, all of the integrated KDE applications for communications, multimedia, work and gaming, and the KDE system infrastructure that not only is unique on the desktop, but now on handhelds too.

Who else is excited about KDE technology optimized for ARM on the Pandora? Do you think the Pandora is(n't) suitable for KDE or vice versa? Opinions!


PS. I know the KDE ARM adaption has been mentioned before, but it's not been official until now.

For someone who is NOT versed in Linux and it's options, what does KDE bring that should excite me? As opposed to say whatever Matchbox or e17 (the two things mentioned for Pandora) are supposed to be. I was looking at the KDE website, but without a general knowledge of what they are talking about, it kind of leaves me wondering what exactly this news brings. Sorry, but in my life, I have only been exposed to the good old embedded MS Extended Basic, Apple II and early Mac, and later Windows based PC's. I have run Knoppix a couple of times, but never enough to really gain any knowledge about what makes Linux or it's appended features so special yet. (My foray into the Pandora is partly to get this experience as I cannot devote my only working laptop to Linux usage and the Live Cd I used cannot seem to find my wireless networking so any info you can toss me will help)

If it allows something substantially different then I will be excited I'm sure. Not that I can be much more excited then to get my Panda in my hands anyway!
Thanks.

Edit: I see more info on the KDE site so I guess I should amend my question to "What does this change specifically on the Pandora for us Linux noobs versus what is currently proposed?"

 

[mindlord]

watch the videos on this page

If you're at all familiar with a compositing desktop, like compiz-fusion under Gnome, KDE 4.2 will bring a similar experience to the Pandora thanks to it's embracing OpenGL ES 2. I for one, after watching the above videos would love to see this in action on a Pandora. Especially if the memory requirements are acceptable. The FAQ says P-II 266 and 64MB of RAM, but I don't think that's going to give us the eye-candy, and a fair sight more ram usage than e17.

 

[dflemstr]

For someone who is NOT versed in Linux and it's options, what does KDE bring that should excite me?

Some people love KDE, some don't. I'll quickly cover the (to me) important stuff.

tl;dr: http://kde.org/whatiskde/
and to get an idea of what's been happening lately:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQHG_30PeX4
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=EC4CDF563BEBE1EC

To name a few of its features:

• KDE is generally more integrated than other program solutions on Linux. Programs just work well together.
  For example, you can tag photos in a folder with Dolphin, have the Nepomuk engine index these files automatically so that you can search for them quickly, integrate them with the Gwenview viewer so that you get slideshows based on a specific tag, make a Plasmoid of that slideshow so that it shows up as a widget on your desktop, etc. This may not sound very special to you, but there are actually very few Linux systems out there that provide something like the KDE system.
• KDE just contains higher-quailty software that feels well-built. For example, look at this screenshot of how detailed a basic file preview is:
  
  You get very detailed information about a file, and everythign you would want to do with it is just a click away. This is how the KDE experience is, generally.
  The platform has features that you *need* and not just whatever the author happened to want to add to the program when he/she wrote it, or whatever a corporation felt like adding. The community decides what's to be included and what's not to be.
• KDE has a program for everything you could need, and those programs work together in symbiosis. A 3D star constellation viewer, a fractal generator, one of the best e-mail programs available (IMHO), a complete office suite, an IM and chat application (Kopete), one of the best Linux media players out there (Amarok), etc, are included in the distribution. There's almost nothing that's really missing from the KDE distribution.
• KDE lets you customize your desktop endlessly. That might be what it's best known for: you can change everything in a settings dialog if you want to (but you don't have to of course)

EDIT:

Edit: I see more info on the KDE site so I guess I should amend my question to "What does this change specifically on the Pandora for us Linux noobs versus what is currently proposed?"

Well, for starters, KDE is much more mature, stable and well-designed (IMO) than an e17-based solution.
You will also have the advantage that you get access to some features that might be more important to you, features you wouldn't have had access to before, like a decent (again, IMO) e-mail client, a widget system that is practical and not just to show off your system, an interface that is more touch-screen friendly, and a LOT of other applications that you wouldn't have had access to otherwise.

My computer tells me that there are about 644 applications and packages currently available for the KDE platform. Some might not be of much use to you, but at least you get the option of installing them in an integrated environment.

 

[WizardStan]

Edit: I see more info on the KDE site so I guess I should amend my question to "What does this change specifically on the Pandora for us Linux noobs versus what is currently proposed?"

Realistically? Nothing. It's just a different interface. Some people like blue cars, some people like red. Some like loud cars, others like quiet. Upgrade to leather upholstery, or save the money and stick with the basic. I think that's basically as far as I can take the analogy.
It might have a lot of extra flash, but it does the same job as every other desktop manager. People want to use what they're familiar with, and if KDE is what they're used to, they'll probably appreciate it here.

 

[dflemstr]

It might have a lot of extra flash, but it does the same job as every other desktop manager.

*waiting for the "omgz will we have flash support if we use kde wowzors" responses*

But on a more serious note, yes, this is essentially true, except that KDE not only is a desktop environment, but also a shell for a huge amount of other related applications, that integrate well with KDE, but don't integrate that well with other desktop environments. See my previous response for details.

 

[atomicthumbs]

I haven't tried KDE 4 since 4.0. I hope it's improved since then.

 

[dflemstr]

I haven't tried KDE 4 since 4.0. I hope it's improved since then.

Nope, absolutely nothing has happened in KDE since 4.0. The 200 developers working on it have actually just been playing Monopoly for the last 1 and ½ years because they had nothing else to do. In fact, people got so bored of the new KDE 4 features that they because of that remade KDE to look & work exactly like KDE 2 did, and reintroduced some of the bugs that existed back then just to annoy users.

Also, the KDE Brainstorm page is completely useless and is actually just a cover-up for a Monopoly high scores list hosted on the same site. The forum activity statistics are also fake, since the posts posted on their forums actually are being written by long-haired monkeys with 56kbit/s modem connections and digital typewriters.

The following sites are also fake, and do actually just contain Vista articles where the word Vista has been replaced by KDE:
http://news.kde.org/
http://planetkde.org/
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/
http://dot.kde.org/
http://websvn.kde.org/

 

[lulzfish]

I think in KDE 4.3 they've changed the default coloring from dark blue to light blue to match Windows 7?
And they might have removed the feature where everyfuckingthing crashes for no reason at all.

Or maybe that was a Qt 4.5 "feature", since it also causes my top-secret unreleased Qt project to randomly crash.

 

[Nation.A.List]

I haven't tried KDE 4 since 4.0. I hope it's improved since then.

Nope, absolutely nothing has happened in KDE since 4.0. The 200 developers working on it have actually just been playing Monopoly for the last 1 and ½ years because they had nothing else to do. In fact, people got so bored of the new KDE 4 features that they because of that remade KDE to look & work exactly like KDE 2 did, and reintroduced some of the bugs that existed back then just to annoy users.

Also, the KDE Brainstorm page is completely useless and is actually just a cover-up for a Monopoly high scores list hosted on the same site. The forum activity statistics are also fake, since the posts posted on their forums actually are being written by long-haired monkeys with 56kbit/s modem connections and digital typewriters.

The following sites are also fake, and do actually just contain Vista articles where the word Vista has been replaced by KDE:
http://news.kde.org/
http://planetkde.org/
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/
http://dot.kde.org/
http://websvn.kde.org/

That's a yes then?

 

[God Ginrai]

That's a yes then?

Maybe!

-God Ginrai

 

[kloplop321]

I love KDE, I use it at home, but I just don't like the idea of it on a portable device, mainly because it is a bit.. large..

 

[levi]

Over the time I've used x-windows, I've used twm (cos my su had installed it), and I've used Gnome (cos it came with my OS distro), but in practice my use is always the same - start an xterm and run things from the shell in there.

That said, I do use some of the Gnome apps - like F-spot. But I could use them without Gnome itself if I wanted to. And I can't see myself wanting to run F-spot on the pandora, given it barely copes with the resolution of the screen on this netbook.

But it's cool that KDE is coming to ARM and Pandora. For one, it means more apps are coming, and it means there's more choice in UIs. Personally I think I'll be sticking for E17 when I'm not running a more dedicated launcher menu on my Pandora since it's lighter weight than the alternatives, but there's nothing to stop me running KDE apps on E17 as far as I know, if they prove to be worth having.

 

[AireTamStorm]

I haven't tried KDE 4 since 4.0. I hope it's improved since then.

KDE 4.0 was horrid and crash happy, 4.1 was crash happy, 4.2 was ugly and crash happy. 4.3, I use at work. I don't use 4.3 at home for one reason: I have four screens and they're not all on the same framebuffer (so plasma doesn't cover them). 4.4 will likely fix this, and from that point on its no looking back for me.

To call KDE leather interior is absurd. It isn't just about looks, KDE is an entire application framework. I think KDE4 coming to ARM is very exciting news. It means almost every KDE4 application will be heading our way. If they're using OpenGL ES like others in this thread suggest, we will be getting compositing on our handhelds as well as a powerful widget platform and one of the coolest multimedia frameworks out there.

KIO : We will be able to access NFS, Samba (Windows) and SFTP/FTP shares using Dolphin and Konqueror. Copy directly from FTP to a Windows share. How cool is that?
Plasma : Powerful widget and highly customizable desktop interface. Literally customize everything about your desktop, having full control over the behavior as well as the looks.
Solid : Zero configuration networked hardware management. This is as of yet immature, but there are very cool things that can come out of this.
Phonon : Universal KDE Multimedia framework. Also a little immature, but again, cool things on their way.

 

[Poem58]

Thanks for all the replies! So from what I gather, in linux, Matchbox, e17, KDE etc. are the user interfaces, KDE being more of a programmable interface?

Can you have more than one installed to test them out or do you have to have only one at a time?

Sounds like if it can be ported to Pandora it would be worth a look. That's actually what I'm looking forward to, trying as much stuff as I can. I will bow out now and read so you knowledgeable ones can debate the merits and faults of KDE.

Thanks again for the breakdown as it's so much easier to read all of your comments than a product page spewing out the reasons a piece of software is the most important code ever written, and why you need to have it more than oxygen.

 

[WizardStan]

Can you have more than one installed to test them out or do you have to have only one at a time?

YES! There was actually a recent video posted which showed a loader right as the Pandora booted up that let the user pick which manager to use (there were two, but there's no theoretical limit, I think)

 

[musicalwoods]

Dolphin and Okular are the greatest file manager and PDF apps I've encountered anywhere. Hurrah!

 

[Vorporeal]

Thanks for all the replies! So from what I gather, in linux, Matchbox, e17, KDE etc. are the user interfaces, KDE being more of a programmable interface?

Can you have more than one installed to test them out or do you have to have only one at a time?

Sounds like if it can be ported to Pandora it would be worth a look. That's actually what I'm looking forward to, trying as much stuff as I can. I will bow out now and read so you knowledgeable ones can debate the merits and faults of KDE.

Thanks again for the breakdown as it's so much easier to read all of your comments than a product page spewing out the reasons a piece of software is the most important code ever written, and why you need to have it more than oxygen.

Matchbox and Enlightenment are both WMs (Window Managers). Their purpose is to allow the user to create and manipulate windows over the desktop. They provide the window decorations, and deal with almost everything related to working with windows. KDE (K Desktop Environment), as its name suggests, is a desktop environment. A desktop manager is a collection of software designed and packaged to provide a "standard" desktop experience, and is designed to be a graphical way of controlling most of the features of the operating system. The window manager is separate from the desktop environment - the window manager for KDE is kwin. Gnome is another popular desktop environment, its window manager is Metacity. These are totally interchangeable - one could use Metacity on KDE and kwin on Gnome if they really wanted to. Compiz is a well-known alternative, compositing window manager (lots of flashy, hardware-accelerated effects). Read the Wikipedia articles on Window Managers and Desktop Environments if you want more info.

 

[dflemstr]

I have to admit it; the primary reason for me wanting KDE on the Pandora is because I'm already using it on my desktop, and the interconnectivity possibilities are endless.

For example, take the PlayWolf Plasmoid. With the new remote Plasmoids system in KDE 4.4, I will be able to control my media system from the Pandora as if it was a remote, and I only need WiFi for it to work. That's of course just a small example, but basically, with KDE, I can make the Pandora extremely powerful because it can use my other KDE desktop(s) to load off some work and interact with those desktops seamlessly.

Other reasons include what I've already said, basically: better software, higher-quality stuff, etc.