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The consensus of this thread to date seems to be that if KDE does not get it's act together then Slackware can thrive without it. Pat Volkerding and Eric Hameleers have my endorsement to adopt the negotiating position that they have taken. KDE is nothing without the user base that is supplied by distributions. If KDE does not consider distribution maintainers then it will deservedly die.
I'm not sure if it's just me or not, but a desktop environment such as Slackware seems a bit contradictory. Not only do I find it incredibly huge and bloated, but there's really no incentive to use it over any other desktop environment, if any at all. K3b is normally the only real reason why I issue the startx command since Kate is available elsewhere, and sometimes just to yawn for seven seconds as I watch the window explosion desktop effect. In Fedora where I can pick between KDE or Gnome, going into KDE is always a complete accident.
I understand that Slackware dropped Gnome from it's distros quite some time ago, but it's hard to really grasp why KDE is still around. I probably could google for something resembling a reason why Gnome is gone but not KDE, though.
I'm not sure if it's just me or not, but a desktop environment such as Slackware seems a bit contradictory.
Slackware is not a DE, Slackware is a distribution.
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Not only do I find it incredibly huge and bloated, but there's really no incentive to use it over any other desktop environment, if any at all.
If you think that there is no reason for your to use it, then don't use it, simply as that. I have my reasons to prefer Slackware to the distributions I used before.
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K3b is normally the only real reason why I issue the startx command since Kate is available elsewhere, and sometimes just to yawn for seven seconds as I watch the window explosion desktop effect.
startx is the command to start the graphical environment, not KDE. How do you run kate without starting the GUI?
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In Fedora where I can pick between KDE or Gnome
In Slackware you can switch between KDE, XFCE, Fluxbox, Blackbox, Windowmaker, FVWM2 and TWM, and this are only the pre-installed ones. There is no force to use KDE.
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I understand that Slackware dropped Gnome from it's distros quite some time ago, but it's hard to really grasp why KDE is still around. I probably could google for something resembling a reason why Gnome is gone but not KDE, though.
Gnome was discarded for practical reasons, not political ones. Maybe you should have better used Google not only for this question.
Apparently the KDE developers are being calm, cooperative and constructive (even the ones who still don't quite get it), and that, IMO, is very impressive. The world has lots of bad-tempered projects, but KDE isn't one of them.
Rubbish. I have always held your Slackware tutorials and notes in high regard, but this is utter rubbish...Just because you have your own idea of what a desktop should be it doesn't mean we all subscribe to it.
Let me reword my statement. Xfce does not contain the same package equivalents as KDE. A fair comparison between the two would be Xfce and KDE Base. I agree Xfce provides the fundamentals of a desktop and did not imply or write otherwise. However, with a stock Slackware an Xfce end-user must fill the gap of equivalent packages.
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It's instructive that many of you crying out in defence of KDE have no qualms about belittling XFCE.
I never belittled Xfce in my post. I wrote to make Xfce as full as KDE that many packages would need to be added to fill the void.
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It's instructive that many of you crying out in defence of KDE have no qualms about belittling XFCE. As DragonWisard says, it's doubtful many of you KDE apologists would "rush to the defense of Fluxbox or XFCE if either of those were facing the chopping block."
I wrote that I still use KDE3. I was not defending KDE4. I offered my opinion that dropping KDE4 would affect all Slackware users to one degree or another. That would include me too. For example, if KDE4 were dropped would QT4 be dropped too? QT4 is required to build other packages such as VirtualBox. Would QT4 become part of the SlackBuilds.org repository or remain in Slackware?
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Please give up the insults. There are many Slackware users on this forum using XFCE as a perfectly functional and *complete* desktop. Don't try to strong-arm us into thinking otherwise.
I insulted nobody. I strong-armed nobody. I don't know how anybody can strong-arm anybody through a web forum.
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But The thread here is just for slackers to express their opinion, which might have little impact for the upstream or slack crew.
I agree. Any time there is a thread like this in this forum there are heated disagreements and discussions. That shows people care. To me that is a good sign. A common element why many participants in this forum use Slackware is the minimal design decisions made for the end-user, which allows each user to build his or her own system to taste. Thus, opinions about what is important are going to vary wildly. That does not mean anybody is right or wrong. This discussion thus far has shown that many people are not using KDE4 but for various reasons are uncomfortable with the idea of dropping KDE4. That in itself probably is helpful to Pat and the team.
Everything is subjective, but KDE 4 runs great on my Pentium III 1GHz laptop with half a gig of memory.
Naturally, I turn off all effects, but it runs very well even for some heavy duty applications like QGIS.
Regards,
Aww so true.... just as late as last year, I was running Slackware with KDE 3.5.10 and Arch Linux with kde 4.2.x on a 11 year old Pentium2 450mhz with 384mb ram Radeon 8500 64mb vid card... that old system was running kde 4.2 faster than it ran Windows XP, of course 3.5.10 was faster still.
I really liked Evolution in Gnome. Sometimes I miss it. I code for the Microchip PIC-microcontrollers sometimes, and would like to use PiKdev to do it. It requires Kate, which in turn is a part of KDE. But I am done with painting myself into corners using software that cannot be run regardless of the graphical management. I'll make do with coding in Emacs.
I refuse to have any bytes of KDE installed. So using k3b for burning isn't going to happen. Of course anything Gnome has already been decided for me. And I am not going to get it installed anyway.
I use Linux applications, not DE-apps. X-CD-Roast seems to be the only graphical CD burner that spans all DE's or WM's out there. A bit awkward, but it works. To me, the GUI is there to facilitate running programs. And it's a pity that programs are written to depend on certain DE's. It's as silly as Microchip developing the MPlab IDE tied to Internet Explorer ...
My opinion is to keep the OS agnostic to the apps. No need to remove KDE on my account. Just don't make me use it.
The only two applications I use from KDE are Kate and Okular. I stick to XFCE because the netbook handles it a better than KDE. I do enjoy how everything is tightly integrated with KDE but I am not a fan of how non-KDE look ugly compared to the rest of the system.
That being said, I think that Slackware needs either KDE or Gnome for the reasons stated in other posts (need for a "mainstream" DE). However, I won't be hurt if neither of them are present in future releases, and I'm sure the if KDE is dropped, an project equivalent to GSB will be started for KDE. GSB isn't hard to install, (from personal experience, and I'm by no means an expert), and I'm sure that that the KDE equivalent (KSB?) wouldn't be hard either.
I feel that the type of people that decide to use Slackware would either be turned off by the installation/initial setup procedure, or willing to take a little extra time to install their favourite DE.
Edit: Off-topic, but what is a good replacement for Okular? I can't stand xpdf.
There has not been any discussion about Alien Bob's KDE packages being discontinued.
Therefore, I predict that if KDE were to be removed from Slackware, then there would not be a KSB project. There would be no reason for one. Instead, everyone who wants to use KDE would just get their KDE packages from Alien Bob's homepage right after installing Slackware. Which is what a lot of KDE users are already doing anyway.
Even though I usually don't use KDE, I still prefer Qt/KDE apps and themes. Even with the gtk-qt engine, GTK+ still looks relatively ugly and many widgets behave differently.
The funny thing is that Qt can be made to look and even behave (!) almost exactly like GTK+ to the point that you might not even realize that it's not GTK+, but the reverse is not true. I guess that shows how much better it is.
There has not been any discussion about Alien Bob's KDE packages being discontinued.
Therefore, I predict that if KDE were to be removed from Slackware, then there would not be a KSB project. There would be no reason for one. Instead, everyone who wants to use KDE would just get their KDE packages from Alien Bob's homepage right after installing Slackware. Which is what a lot of KDE users are already doing anyway.
Yes, there has:
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Originally Posted by Alien Bob
Since I am only an enthousiast amateur who tries to improve Slackware in his own free time, there is a point where I no longer have time left for these lenghthy exercises. KDE is nice, but not nice enough that I would drop some of my other activities for it. There is the added suspicion that the bigger distros are trying to expand their foothold and dictate policies and future. Therefore, I am willing to consider alternative Desktop Environments like XFCE or LXDE for my personal use.
Edit: Off-topic, but what is a good replacement for Okular? I can't stand xpdf.
evince - get it from SlackBuilds.org. When it works, it's the best.
evince is a GTK package rather than full-on Gnome, but at the moment it is a perfect example of Gnome-world breakage caused by exactly the sort of fragmentation that KDE has recently fallen in love with. Many of the finest packagers in the Slackware community have had to work miracles to bring you SBo's evince for 13.37, but it's still slightly dodgy :-/
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Any time there is a thread like this in this forum there are heated disagreements and discussions. That shows people care. To me that is a good sign. A common element why many participants in this forum use Slackware is the minimal design decisions made for the end-user, which allows each user to build his or her own system to taste. Thus, opinions about what is important are going to vary wildly. That does not mean anybody is right or wrong. This discussion thus far has shown that many people are not using KDE4 but for various reasons are uncomfortable with the idea of dropping KDE4. That in itself probably is helpful to Pat and the team.
