KDE4 User Review : better than expected !!!

Posted by Mathieu Jobin Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:31:41 GMT | 1 comment

I have been waiting for KDE4 for a while already.... And now it has gotten much closer to the goal and it's time for a real survival test...

Due to my old computer slightly lacking horsepower, I recently switched from Gentoo to Ubuntu. tried Gnome for a little while but wasn't for me, really. Then I installed kubuntu-desktop and followed the quick steps shown on kubuntu.org about KDE4 rc2. Really easy install...

From KDE 3.5.8 I could already see many applications in the menu which had got duplicate for their KDE4 counterpart letting me try them from within my desktop. but on the early morning of December 26th, without knowing if it would work at all, I decided to give the already installed KDE4 a try. Without expecting much it shine onto my screen promptly.

Fired up, I am looking at what is to become the next best and most popular desktop on the planet. Let see what Santa-san has in store... read on for more details ...

Read more...

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Trying out KDE4

Posted by Mathieu Jobin Sat, 17 Feb 2007 05:35:30 GMT | no comments

So I wanted to have a sneak preview at KDE4 and also have the development environment ready in case I find some time to fool around.

So I compiled KDE on my gentoo system. I simply followed the various instruction found on the developer website. I created a kdefour user. Installed cmake and Qt 4.2.2 normally using gentoo portage system. and from kdelibs into the user home directory.

that's what my .bash_profile looks like

kdefour@krypton ~/usr/build $ cat ~/.bash_profile
# /etc/skel/.bash_profile

# This file is sourced by bash for login shells.  The following line
# runs your .bashrc and is recommended by the bash info pages.
[[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && . ~/.bashrc
export YACC='byacc -d'
#export QTDIR=$HOME/usr/qt
export QTDIR=/usr
export KDEDIR=$HOME/usr/kde
export CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull
export PATH=$HOME/bin:$HOME/unsermake:$QTDIR/bin:$KDEDIR/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/lib:$KDEDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
function cmakekde { cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$KDEDIR \
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull $@ && make VERBOSE=1 && make install
}

kdefour@krypton ~/usr/build $

and I created myself a small rebuild script

kdefour@krypton ~/usr/build $ cat rebuild
#!/bin/sh

source ~/.bash_profile

modules="kdelibs kdepimlibs kdebase koffice kdegames"
modules="koffice kdeutils kdenetwork kdemultimedia kdepim"
build_dir="/home/kdefour/usr/build/"
src_dir="/home/kdefour/usr/src/"

for i in $modules
do
        echo $i
        #echo $build_dir$i
        #rm -fr $i
        mkdir -p $build_dir$i
        if [ -d $src_dir$i ]
        then
                (cd $src_dir$i; svn up)
        else
                svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/KDE/$i $src_dir$i
        fi
        cd $build_dir$i
        time cmakekde $src_dir$i
        if [ $? -ne 0 ]
        then
                cd -
                echo $?
                break
        fi
        cd -
done

kdefour@krypton ~/usr/build $

and here is a small screenshot for the curious

kde4 snapshot 1

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How to not being forced to XOrg 7.1 on Gentoo

Posted by Mathieu Jobin Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:28:42 GMT | no comments

If you are like me, you like system that works and you care much more about the latest version of KDE than the latest version of XOrg. especially when updating KDE is pain-less and bug-free while XOrg means talking with God, backup-ing your Mother and what not.

So I wanted to be able to run 

emerge -avUNt world

like everyone else, while staying on XOrg 6.9 Like you might know, the recent portage are not forcing us to do the update. you cannot run 'emerge world' without upgrading. and upgrading is far from being easy. While preventing portage from forcing is not as easy as it sound. It is not that hard. thanks to /etc/portage system.

here is how to do it.

  • first add the following lines in /etc/portage/package.mask

### I dont want to update X
>=x11-base/xorg-x11-7.0
>=app-doc/doxygen-1.4.5
>=media-gfx/imagemagick-6.2.5.6
>=x11-libs/qt-4.1.4-r1
>=media-gfx/graphviz-1.16-r2
>=app-office/openoffice-bin-2.0.3
>=media-libs/libsdl-1.2.8-r2
x11-libs/libXScrnSaver
### END
  • then add the following line in /etc/portage/package.unmask
<x11-base/xorg-x11-7.0

after that you might get 1 or 2 more problem. I remember I also had to modify an ebuild and remove a useless dependency on a package. if it does not work for you. please comment below. I'm gonna help you to go through it and I'll update this post for a more accurate information.

have a nice day.

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KDE has turned 10, lets celebrate

Posted by Mathieu Jobin Sat, 14 Oct 2006 05:25:00 GMT | no comments

KDE, the world famous open source desktop environment is now 10 years old. WOW.

Matthias Ettrich's 14th October 1996 announcement original post

It's the great moment for KDE right now, KDE 3.5.5 just got released. The most powerful and stable release ever. and KDE 4 is just around the corner. KDE4 Beta Packages already available for Mac OS X and for Linux

I think its a great time to watch screenshots and try it out (Kubuntu, Sabayon) and get involved

KDE Happy 10 years and we wish you another good 10 years.

omedeto & gambatte

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Do you HATE your programming language?

Posted by Mathieu Jobin Fri, 13 Oct 2006 02:22:00 GMT | no comments

As many of you already know, Google recently released their Code search. After reading about Code search ideas and found Expression of which programming language sucks more. For instance, Python sucks. (thx, paolo). I thought, actually its not about which language suck the most. but what language are the programmer the less Happy with. So I checked a few of them. I'm sure the huge number next to C is related to the fact tons of C code is open sourced and C is also the oldest. but there is a huge difference there.

But finding "qt sucks" in kdelibs source is a bit of a shame. at least for me who literaly love Qt and KDE. Qt (total 11), KDE (total 2)

I am a bit disapointed to find almost none MFC Sucks. It's probably just because there is not much open MFC code. Well, I hope so.

But what I found very interesting and why I am actually posting this. Is because ..... (roulement de tambour)..... No one, programming in Ruby thinks that ruby sucks. For few very simple and straight reasons.... ruby rocks, i love ruby and ruby is fantastic

so go ahead and learn Ruby

and don't forget that people DO love their job and more

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My new KDE desktop

Posted by Mathieu Jobin Thu, 04 May 2006 16:39:00 GMT | no comments

I changed my KDE desktop feels, I like it so much better :) And feel much more productive since then. it's been about a month now. and I totally love it.

I got rid of everything, make it simpler looking and giving me more screen space.

Read more...

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ALSA we love you

Posted by Mathieu Jobin Sat, 15 Apr 2006 06:59:00 GMT | no comments

Anyone had fun with ALSA before ? Some would say its much better than OSS and much more powerful. Some would simply say the it supports more cards (well of course, development on OSS is kinda stopped for a while already) anyway.

Who need this kinda of configuration ? why there is so many options to this config file ? its like your computer could really have 5 different sound card and reroute them in some weird way. well, buy a mixer. got true use for all the power ALSA offer ? please comment below.

I'm just to a point where, even though you are a geek programmer, if all you want to do is software or web development. You don't really want to understand the fully underlying sound system of your operating system to chat with your girlfriend. There is advantage Linux has I can't live without but there is huge whack of extra time that you have to spend in order to get things working. And some of you who does not have problem, well either you have not used it long enough or you are just as picky as I can be.

anyway, I did not want to troll about anything today. I'm just very tired of rebooting on windows when I have to do my phone calls. And the good news is: I found this little hack that I need to get both my soundcard device and my USB microphone as default device.

somekool@krypton ~ $ cat /etc/asound.conf
pcm.!default {
        type asym
        playback.pcm {
                type plug
                slave.pcm "hw:0,0"
        }
        capture.pcm {
                type plug
                slave.pcm "hw:1,0"
        }
}
somekool@krypton ~ $

that's it. so now I can just use arecord to record my voice without needing any options to specify the proper device.

somekool@krypton ~ $ arecord file.wav

well am I happy ? not really. skype needs OSS or OSS emulation to work. it does not use ALSA directly. but OSS is too old. and I can't really switch my system to it. so I'm not sure if I can get an OSS-emulated device for my USB microphone or If I really need to get arts to see my microphone. arts seems the easiest way to get everything working. but for some reason, it still does not see my microphone.

Hey you out there who knows all about it but are just a little to shy to help. show yourself off it will be highly appreciated.

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