Does KDE want to murder Konqueror? - Page 2


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Thread: Does KDE want to murder Konqueror?

  1. #16
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    after giving dolphin a closer look, I've actually found out that it does have the split pane & network folder capabilities that I like in konqueror...Goes to support my theory that they're more trying to differentiate web browser from file browser...In the end I see it as a win-win. Win for the devs because the code base for either one will be less bloated, and the feature set more defined... I will say I think dolphin takes up too much screen estate, with that right pane of its.
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  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    after giving dolphin a closer look, I've actually found out that it does have the split pane & network folder capabilities that I like in konqueror...Goes to support my theory that they're more trying to differentiate web browser from file browser...In the end I see it as a win-win. Win for the devs because the code base for either one will be less bloated, and the feature set more defined... I will say I think dolphin takes up too much screen estate, with that right pane of its.
    Yeah, but that's not what they're telling us, is it? If KDE were just to announce: **** you, everybody! Konqueror is no longer a file manager!, this discussion would not be necessary. Instead, they appear to be engaged in some sort of ham-handed covert campaign to undercut Konqueror from the shadows. Now, I want to be clear about something. I'm not actually saying that this is what's happening, though I'm not saying that it isn't. All I'm saying is that's what it looks like.

    I agree with you about the real estate. It annoys me that the filter bar is located at the bottom, and I don't like the terminal panel. Simply opening konsole seems a lot easier to manage, speaking of the unix philosophy of doing one thing and it doing well. (You know, I'm not really sure that's supposed to apply to desktop applications, but maybe I don't get it. I thought it was about making cli applications that could be used to create scripts. People love to seek universal significance for things, but very few desktop applications only do one thing.)

    I don't see it as a win-win. Maybe from the point of of view of the computer, but I'm guessing that the human beings involved are going to be at loggerheads for a long time to come. KDE has now publically stated that they don't want to phase out Konqueror as a file manager. They pretty much had to do this in order to introduce Dolphin as the default file manager without raising a huge ruckus, but it's going to work against them if they actually intend to phase out Konqueror as a file-manager. They're going to look like liars, because (if they intend to phase out Konqueror as a file manager, but say they don't) they are liars.

    I really am taken aback a little bit at the Orwellian doublethink of the KDE4's PR campaign. "Don't Look Back" and "Be Free" are two very contradictory messages.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    .In the end I see it as a win-win. Win for the devs because the code base for either one will be less bloated, and the feature set more defined... I will say I think dolphin takes up too much screen estate, with that right pane of its.
    It looks like you only listed one "win". Who else wins?
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 09-23-2008 at 12:06 PM.

  3. #18
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    The end user also wins, because there's less of a code base for the devs to have to sift through should/when a bug arises. Also, we (will, eventually, hopefully) benefit from having a more robust file manager, and web browser. Personally, one of my big quams with konqueror is that it was doing the two roles.

    I personally don't care where the filter bar is, and I haven't had the need to try out its built in shell, I usually have 2-3 terminals open at any given moment that I use.

    Here's where I remind you that as far as kde4 is concerned, they did have to rewrite every user interface from scratch to take advantage of qt4, and you really should give them until 4.3 to really determine how things are going to pan out.
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  4. #19
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    You know, I think everything would have gone a lot better for all concerned if KDE had taken it from the other side. Until recently, when KDE started pushing Konqueror as a web browser, every KDE-based live CD used firefox/iceweasel as the default web browser. To me, this says that people weren't using firefox as a web browser. I certainly wasn't, and I still don't. It's fast, but it's not easy to get plug-ins. I submit to you that if KDE had introduced a web browser called Dolphin, and announced that Konqueror was going to be all file-management, this would have gone a whole lot better.
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 09-23-2008 at 02:19 PM.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by blackbelt_jones
    You know, I think everything would have gone a lot better if all concerned if KDE had taken it from the other side. Until recently, when KDE started pushing Konqueror as a web browser, every KDE-based live CD used firefox/iceweasel as the default web browser. To me, this says that people weren't using firefox as a web browser. I certainly wasn't, and I still don't. It's fast, but it's not easy to get plug-ins. I submit to you that if KDE had introduced a web browser called Dolphin, and announced that Konqueror was going to be all file-management, it would have gone a whole lot better.
    I can't disagree with you there, IMHO it's alot easier to adapt to a new web browser than it is to adapt to a new filemanager
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  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    The end user also wins, because there's less of a code base for the devs to have to sift through should/when a bug arises. Also, we (will, eventually, hopefully) benefit from having a more robust file manager, and web browser. Personally, one of my big quams with konqueror is that it was doing the two roles.
    .
    YEAH BUT

    Konqueror is still doing the two roles, and now they've publically comitted themselves to Konqueror doing two roles. It doesn't sound to me like a less complex situation, and it probably doesn't mean less code.


    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    I personally don't care where the filter bar is, and I haven't had the need to try out its built in shell, I usually have 2-3 terminals open at any given moment that I use.
    Well, I mention the location of the filter bar in Dolphin because of your real estate issues. In Konqueror, the filterbar is in the upper right hand corner, right next to the location bar. This usually means I only need to have a small part of the screen exposed to work with the filter bar. With Dolphin's filter bar at the bottom of the screen, I need to have the whole thing.

    This is kind of a sidebar, but you do understand how important accessing the terminal from the file manager is to non-programmer end-user types like me, and especially to beginners, right? The last person I introduced to the F4 key in Konqueror said it was "a godsend", and I agreed. These days, I can see the map of the filesystem a lot more clearly in my head, but cd-ing, from ~ to /etc/apt/, for example, used to seem incredibly unnatural and strained, and I still like to use bookmarks or my fluxbox menu to go straight to a directory, in Konqueror, and open konsole to that directory.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    Here's where I remind you that as far as kde4 is concerned, they did have to rewrite every user interface from scratch to take advantage of qt4, and you really should give them until 4.3 to really determine how things are going to pan out.
    It never hurts to be reminded of that. KDE has continued to support and maintain KDE3, and that's really what counts here. The time to talk about forking KDE is when they stop doing that. In the meantime, there's this weird pull toward KDE4. Lately I've encountered people who say they prefer KDE3 to KDE4, but they're using KDE4! I think that this is because the online KDE community is centered on the developers, and the developers are just doing what comes naturally. Without a user-oriented KDE3 community, using KDE3 makes you feel like a kid in a gas station restroom, fearful that your parents will drive off without you.

    If only someone would start a group for KDE3 users, like on facebook or something.
    http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php...id=28353308082
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 09-23-2008 at 02:18 PM.

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    I can't disagree with you there, IMHO it's alot easier to adapt to a new web browser than it is to adapt to a new filemanager
    Yeah, especially because I don't think Konqueror was ever very popular as a web browser. So now, every live CD and default KDE installation has Konqueror as the web browser. No Firefox. That's TWO things we're supposed to adapt to, although it's only a real problem for most people in the case of the live CD.

    Even now, when I try to imagine what it would be like to discover a new web browser named "Dolphin" in KDE, I imagine myself being kind of excited. And I remember how my heart sank when I first discovered Dolphin the file manager.
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 09-23-2008 at 02:28 PM.

  8. #23
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    Konqueror is still doing the two roles, and now they've publically comitted themselves to Konqueror doing two roles. It doesn't sound to me like a less complex situation, and it probably doesn't mean less code.
    This is something I personally disagree with, I think that they should remove the filemanager functionality from it, especially if they're forcing dolphin as the main filemanager...Having two will just get in eachothers way.

    There're alot of things I like about kde4, I'd probably be using it if it weren't so sluggish on my machine...Hopefully in the beginning of october I'll be able to put this machine back upto 1gb ram (It had 1gb, but a stick died, and having recently moved from MA->CA, I haven't had the funds to replace it)...Then ofcourse, I have my whole belief that a desktop environment shouldn't be taking up quite that much of my ram. (For the record, I don't need suggestions to try out xfce/fluxbox/<your favorite wm here>...I'm using flux )

    as for forking kde...That's not something that anyone will want to do aside from an absolute last resort...Chances are by the time they stop maintaining it most of the issues will have been worked out. The reason why they're not developing it anymore is, by my guess, there's nothing left for them to develop on it. They finished their job, and probably maxed out the functionality they could add with qt3
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  9. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    This is something I personally disagree with, I think that they should remove the filemanager functionality from it, especially if they're forcing dolphin as the main filemanager...Having two will just get in eachothers way.
    It's hard for me to agree, because I am devoted to Konqueror. It's hard for me to disagree, because file management in Konqueror has become a joke.
    As a filemanager Konqueror 4 appears to be crippleware.


    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    There're alot of things I like about kde4, I'd probably be using it if it weren't so sluggish on my machine...Hopefully in the beginning of october I'll be able to put this machine back upto 1gb ram (It had 1gb, but a stick died, and having recently moved from MA->CA, I haven't had the funds to replace it)...Then ofcourse, I have my whole belief that a desktop environment shouldn't be taking up quite that much of my ram. (For the record, I don't need suggestions to try out xfce/fluxbox/<your favorite wm here>...I'm using flux )
    Most of my interest in this comes from my love of running Konqueror3 on fluxbox. Nothing else comes close to adding the full functionality of a DE to a mere WM.

    I would gladly use KDE4 from time to time as an occasional media desktop. While listening to an audio book, or having KTTSD read out loud from a PDF about Ubuntu, it would be great to have all those widgets up there monitoring the weather and keeping track of my twitter blog. What prevents me from doing that is the convoluted dialogue window for setting up keyboard shortcuts. Either it's broken, or I don't understand it, or both.



    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    as for forking kde...That's not something that anyone will want to do aside from an absolute last resort...Chances are by the time they stop maintaining it most of the issues will have been worked out. The reason why they're not developing it anymore is, by my guess, there's nothing left for them to develop on it.
    There's one good reason to fork KDE3, and that's so that KDE3 will be able to run next to KDE4 without any confusion. I'm not a developer, but intuitively, it seems to me to be a simple manner of renaming everything. Now is not the time for that , because there's so much bad blood. "Fork " has become shorthand for "KDE4 can go to hell."

    I've come around to the understanding that KDE has done very little wrong, and what they've done wrong is hard to avoid when Software developers attempt to handle public relations. When Development on KDE3 reached a certain point, a bold departure is exactly what was called for. KDE3 is being maintained, will be maintained for years... and it turns out this was always the plan. They didn't really talk about that very much, because they're developers, and development is what gets developers excited.

    We don't owe the devs immunity from all complaints and criticism, but we owe them a lot. Future generations may look back at the free software developers of today with the same gratitude that scholars look back at those monks who copied manuscripts every day for years and years. These guys (some are women) are heroes.

  10. #25
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    The thing about forking kde is that its an absolutely GIGANTIC code base, I highly doubt simply renaming the binaries will be sufficient Chances are it'd be easier to add desired functionality to the applications you want in kde4...Which is also why I'm alerting you to give them time, there's a good chance that the developers want to add much of it, but they have priorities...Maybe with mark shuttleworth throwing his money towards it, there's a better chance of it getting added.
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  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darkbolt
    The thing about forking kde is that its an absolutely GIGANTIC code base, I highly doubt simply renaming the binaries will be sufficient Chances are it'd be easier to add desired functionality to the applications you want in kde4...Which is also why I'm alerting you to give them time, there's a good chance that the developers want to add much of it, but they have priorities...Maybe with mark shuttleworth throwing his money towards it, there's a better chance of it getting added.
    Well, speaking for myself, I had a psychotic episode earlier, but now I've been doing some research, and I don't see any need to think about it until support is withdrawn for KDE3. That official word is that'll be years, or as long as people keep using it. If people want to keep using KDE3, the way to accompliish this is to keep using KDE3... problem solved. The only thing to do now is to establish a KDE3 community.

    I'm thinking that there are probably less radical ways than a fork to ensure that 3 and 4 play well together. What's your opinion on that?

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    This thread feels like a therapy session, and a very successful one! (Thank you, Dr. Darkbolt!) I still think that KDE3 ought to have a chance to survive, and KDE3 users need more community, but I have largely overcome my fear of KDE4. And I've been using Dolphin in my KDE4 install, (I got a dual boot of etch with KDE3.5.5 and Sid with KDE 4.1.1) and it's definitely a very nice file manager.

    KDE got most of it right, but I think it would have gone a lot better for them if they'd kept Konqueror as the file manager, which is how most people use it, and made Dolphin the web browser. I suspect that they didn't do it that way because Konqueror was originally a web browser, and maybe the architecture of the code suggested doing it this way. FIne, but considering the reaction of some seriously neurotic users out there (Do I mean me? Who wants to know?) next time it might be worth considering to look at what the users are doing, and make the code accomodate the users, and not the other way around.

    Or not. Free software gives the developers a lot more power in relation to users. In the commercial software world, the presumption is (or at least ought to be) that the customer is always right. In free software, the developers can tell the users to suck it up, and there may be times when this is actually good for the software, in the long run.

    One thing KDE needs to understand is that good public relations is what happens when you take responsibility. I may be immature and whiny, and I may have responded to the changes in Konqueror like a three year old who had his Teddy Bear taken away, but good public relations is what happens when you take responsibility for whiny douchebags like me getting the message. Let's face it, we are legion.

  13. #28
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    "There have been moments lately when I've thought that KDE might become the death of me!" Hey now that is not going to happen period a piece of software is just not that important. You and I will go through a period of adjustment then move along with the new. Technology is always moving along so we must move along with it or get off the train. If you want to slow down or go backwards switch to Vista.

    ed

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by enshum
    "There have been moments lately when I've thought that KDE might become the death of me!" Hey now that is not going to happen period a piece of software is just not that important. You and I will go through a period of adjustment then move along with the new. Technology is always moving along so we must move along with it or get off the train. If you want to slow down or go backwards switch to Vista.

    ed
    So it is the responsibility of the user to change to accomodate the technology? The servant has become the master? This is a big reason why I don't use Vista, which mandates massive upgrades in order to be effective.

    But I understand now that this isn't really what's happening. No one is being forced to adopt KDE4.

    I'm going to start another thread on this topic, because I've come around to completely different conclusion, and I want to make that clear. This means that the mods are probably going to lock down this thread, so let me be sum up on the big question that I opened with.

    1. If KDE intends for us not to be able to use Konqueror as a file manager, and they told us otherwise, that would be a serious breach of faith. However:

    2. That may not be what is actually happening. Dolphin is the default file manager, and if Konqueror has full function, Dolphin as default is cool as far as I'm concerned. I definitely prefer Konqueror, and, IMO, Konq4 is definitely broken, but since k4 has a perfectly good file manager in Dolphin, fixing file manager number 2 may not be a priority. After all, Konq3 fans have K3, and it was always in the plan that k3 would be around for some time to come.

    So we'll see. Stay tuned.
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 09-25-2008 at 03:59 PM.

  15. #30
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    2. " That may not be what is actually happening. Dolphin is the default file manager, and if Konqueror has full function, Dolphin as default is cool as far as I'm concerned. I definitely prefer Konqueror, and, IMO, Konq4 is definitely broken, but since k4 has a perfectly good file manager in Dolphin, fixing file manager number 2 may not be a priority. After all, Konq3 fans have K3, and it was always in the plan that k3 would be around for some time to come."
    In these few lines lays the answer for the user. It is quite obvious that between Kde 3.5 and 4.0 there is enough software available to meet the needs of just about any user and we have a clear choice to pick and choose what we want to use. Some will opt for the new KDE 4+ with konq and dolphin some will opt for 3.5 others will mix and match to suit there individual needs and another group will throw KDE out and opt for Gnome and there in lays the beauty of Linux were not stuck with anything. And if you have the ability and time you adopt Gentoo select a frame and wheels and start adding options er excuse me you start compiling options to suit your tastes. Now I also use Vista on another hard drive and this is my take on Vista. Vista home basic should be stocked on those software and games for $5.95 stands. Home premium should be were the 9.95 specials are displayed and Vista ultimate should be in the $19.95 are all the time low price bin.

    ed

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