It’s (not) Alright

Finally, after listening to all the babbling about kde mod on arch linux, the one that would have left the Donkey ( The legendary donkey in Shrek, played (given voice to) by Eddie Murphy )  feeling like a complete newbie, I decided to install KDE 4.1 on arch linux.

The first time I ever used linux was when I used the LIVE CD of knoppix. It was version 3.2 and I had liked KDE a lot at that time. I played with and used KDE for some time and then moved to Gnome. Then I liked the simplicity of Gnome and the fast execution speed. KDE 3.5 used to hog a lot on my system. I had almost stopped using it until I came across the KDE in openSUSE 10.3. I used that for a few months and then again backed off and used Gnome. It still ran very slow on my system. In openSUSE 11.0, I used KDE 4.0 and I liked it a lot. (Well, once the initial excitement wears off… it is YADE -> Yet Another Desktop Environment). It still was a lot buggy but surprisingly faster than KDE 3.5. I decided to use 4.x when it would become stable… And in the darkness of Gnome I waited (Am I reading too many fantasy stories these days?).  In the mean while, I moved to Arch linux for some time and heard about KDEmod. KDEmod is a modular and tweaked package set of the K Desktop Environment that has been optimized for Arch Linux. Being modular, it is very fast as compared to the normal version. I can feel the difference. Another reason might be that now I am using 4.1 which is supposed to be a lot stable than 4.0. Continue reading »

\\ tags: Arch, Gnome, GTK, KDE, KDEmod, Linux, openSUSE

As with the previous alpha releases with openSUSE 11, this beta release also packs a lot for the user. It packs KDE 4.0.3 it includes Gnome 2.22.1 (beta 1). YaST has been ported to Qt-4. Gnome comes with a LOT of new and exciting stuff. You can read more about gnome’s new beta in the release notes. The most interesting feature for mes seems to be the window compositing thing. I never could run Compiz on this machine

KDE 4 has been integrated with the release of openSUSE from now on. It also has a new package manager (this is what I am looking forward to…. even lovers of SUSE like me will agree that compared to portage or synaptic…. YaST sucks in package management).

The new package management solution, PackageKit, is another interesting feature: openSUSE 11.0 will have native PackageKit support (the backend is upstream) and it works really well. The yum backend has no good reputation. The ZYpp backend in 11.0 inherits all the unbeatable speed of ZYpp 4.x and it is robust at the same time. Continue reading »

\\ tags: Compiz, Gnome, KDE, Linux, News, openSUSE, YaST, YUM, Zypper

Well… now that I think of it…. I don’t think that ‘helluwa’ is a dictionary word. But that is not the point here… The point is that openSUSE 11 is looking better and better as days are going by and I am now really waiting very patiently for it to release. But it is getting moe and more difficult.

openSUSE 11.0 Installer Revamp

Jimmac re-adjusted the Qt stylesheets for the openSUSE 11.0 installer to produce an even more beautiful implementation. The ease by which the template can be changed fully demonstrates the flexibility of Qt stylesheets:

Note that the above is not a mock up, but the actual YCP template.

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GNOME Client for the openSUSE Build Service

Rodrigo began work on a GNOME client for the Build Service, giving you a graphical way to interact with the build service directly from your desktop! Continue reading »

\\ tags: Gnome, Linux, News, openSUSE, Software, Tools, YaST