KDE3 series revamp (trinity) as seen on Porteus live for 13.x series
 

It's not enough they endured all the weather and age, our trusty old boxes can't get their peace lately:
The desktop environments get ever more bloated
What are our alternatives:

the ever starving fluxbox/blackbox,windowmaker environments
the ever growing/bloating KDE4/Gnome2/XFCE4
the abandoned KDE3 series that got just about right, and where taken away from us?

It's open source. No one took it away from you.

Well, yes and no...

True enough it is open source and we can continue to use it indefinitely, and install to new systems when we are able to do so.

On the other hand, we cannot install the latest release of our favorite distro and happily get the next release of KDE3 - we now get something different. That is important, and it is something we had some "right" to expect.

I was a KDE3 user and promoter, and I had invested quite a bit of __real__ time, effort and resources in learning how to better use, distrubute, configure and interact with it message-wise, with the expectation of having a "future" in which that investment would grow and bear fruit.

That hopeful future was indeed taken from us... no one or few of us has any real hope of continuing along that expected development path, and even a whole new group of qualified developers could not hope to rebuild the knowledge base and momentum of the original developers and continue with KDE3, for example.

Yea, it was taken... but we can move on, and I have. But we should also learn, and remember, and I do. This is not another KDE3/4 rant, just a point of remembering...

I don't think you have the right to decide how others spend their time on free, open source development. The KDE devs decided to take the project in a new direction. If anyone strongly objected they could have forked the project (which was done in the form of Trinity, but it has very little real support). This is free software -- as in liberty, yes, but also as in beer -- and therefore there are no guarantees for long-term support unless explicitly stated (and even then those can go into default). I liked KDE3 and disliked KDE4 enough to switch away from KDE entirely, so this was a move that directly affected me -- but although I understand the frustration of the situation, I fundamentally disagree with the sentiments in your post. KDE3 was obsoleted some time ago...everyone should have had ample time to find a new favourite DE/WM if they wanted. If the demand for KDE3 was still so high, you would have more than 2 people on Slackware's official forums trying to compile/package Trinity for the platform. But as far as I know, there are only two, and with limited time, so Trinity has not become a practical choice on Slackware 13.37.

It's easy to complain.

You can install Trinity by yourself. If you can't get around, there is a small tutorial here:
http://humanreadable.nfshost.com/sdeg/kde_35x.htm

It seems he also offers build scripts for 13.1. Might work just fine on 13.37.

P.S. Nisam probao, ali ako hoćeš da pokušamo da izvrdamo nešto skokni na slackware-srbija.org da to zajedničkim snagama pokušamo. Što se tiče upstream Slacka, ne nadaj se mnogo da će Trinity imati neku veću podršku. ;)

I really don't see the point of your post. If you don't like KDE 4, that's fine. Go and make suggestions to the KDE developers or file bug reports, or just chose another desktop. If you are attached to KDE3, then use Trinity or use an older (supported) version of Slackware which still uses the version you like.

This site is for questions not polemics.

Although you did not specifically say what post you were refferring to, from the context I assume it is my own. Correct me if I am wrong.

Well, as I said in my post, I have moved on to another DE, happily rediscovering Fluxbox. In fact, I consider this to be a very positive outcome of the disruption of my own sphere caused by KDE4 - it forced me to consider other options which in retrospect I consider to be better overall!

So, like I said, I have moved on...

But I take a slight offense at this statement, if indeed directed at myself.

Polemic? There was nothing aggressive or contentious in my post, either intended or unintended, as far as I can see.

The OP offered a premise, his assessment of the current state of Linux DEs, and asked, "What are the alternatives?".

You responded not with an answer, but with your own brief refutation of his premise (a polemic as it were), "No one took it away from you."

Then I attempted to explain from my own first-person experience perspective that indeed, something tangible had been "taken" from us. I did so without invective or accusation - just a statement of fact as applied to myself and apparently others. Please read it again, it stands on its own.

The intended spirit, as stated was that we should learn from our experience and mistakes. For myself, it had been a mistake to become so heavily invested in KDE3, because when it was "taken" from my tool bag (there is that word again) I was left with many loose ends and somewhat of an unexpected crisis on several fronts. I learned from that - my post above, as I said in the post itself, was simply a point to remember that experience and recall the lessons learned from it.

No polemic intended, and after a careful critical re-reading, I do not feel any softening "Sorry if I offended..." apology is needed.

And to answer the OPs question more directly, I think Fluxbox is a surprisingly excellent alternative! It may look starved, but it is a lean, mean machine interface!

@bosth:
the point is about the alternatives

@astrogeek
I stand close to Your opinion,
but:
will it always happen?
Are we condemned to either shy away from an appealing GUI knowing it will eventually go over-engineered?
Is there a constructive thing we could learn of this?

Could there be a "golden" sort of KDE3 release we could "slackbuild" indefinite into new Slackwares?

There is a point to that:
While around 3.5.10 the KDE/Konqueror reached a point of performance/appeal ratio that matched many people's needs.
And since humans didn't receive any significant H/W upgrades since Noah (5k5 yrs) I can't see this will be any time soon obsolete?

Personally, KDE4 looks really appealing, but the "computing" cost of that is simply not worth it yet IMHO.

@bobzilla
Citamlo se tamo po zaljucku ;)
(read You there later)

Best regards,
Styevan C.

@SCerovec: u vezi Slackware Srbije bili smo u transferu na novi domen, sad bi trebalo da radi registracija (eng: I shared some info on Serbian Slackware community. Hope you don't mind.). :)

For some reason no link seems to work for me?
I can't get the trinity package, as there isn't any?
Then, again, I can't get the sources either, except git/svn and need 4GB of them and a "howto", no slackbuild?
:-)
I can't provide time for this ATM? :(
Anyone out there to host the 3.5.13 sources anywhere?

regards

The servers are down. :(

http://trinity-announce.pearsoncomputing.net/?0::16

This is no shock, but a pitty IMHO?
-anyone able to help?

Not a shock. These things happen and are not the end of the world. :) New servers and mirrors are expected to be online in a week or two.

With respect to helping with the servers and mirrors, Timothy Pearson (project lead) is handling that. With respect to other aspects of the project, like all free/libre software projects, there are many ways to help. Join the discussion lists, tweak code, test packages, provide constructive feedback, etc. Visit the web site (http://trinity.pearsoncomputing.net/) and wiki (http://trinity.pearsoncomputing.net/wiki) to get started. :)

Via Trinity Announce mailing list.

Kind thanks Woodman :)!

And I was just about to, the other day, when I "oops", stumbled over this :(.
I'm afraid I won't have the time again when it gets finally resolved?
Not bragging, just am sorry about.

Anyone PM me once they are up and online?

Best regards,
Stevan C.