tde-devels

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3804 discussions

Device Icon Bugs
by Darrell Anderson 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

Although I have been submitting many patches, I am but a C++ newbie. There are some bug reports I very much want fixed. Two of the reports likely all have the same cause and likely could be resolved with the same patch. The problem likely is TDE not initializing correctly. Another report is closely related to those three: 385 Unmounted removable device icons do not appear on the desktop (http://bugs.pearsoncomputing.net/show_bug.cgi?id=385) 372 Storage media applet doesn't show usb stick at kde startup (http://bugs.pearsoncomputing.net/show_bug.cgi?id=372) 392 Desktop Device Icon Placement (http://bugs.pearsoncomputing.net/show_bug.cgi?id=392) The first two are usability bugs. Users expect device icons on the desktop. Icons should appear when TDE is started and should not require a device change event to show other icons. The third bug does not cause any crashing, but the placement behavior is contrary to 3.5.10 and other desktop environments. The traditional placement of new icons is in the first vertical left-side column, below existing icons, and when no room exists there, to start in the second vertical column, top. As TDE is being marketed as a traditional desktop, we should embrace those expected behaviors. Ideally, there should be a KControl option that dictates whether placement hierarchy is vertical or horizontal, but the default should be vertical. A fourth bug that hampers usage: 692 Kate: focus is broken when using the --use parameter (http://bugs.pearsoncomputing.net/show_bug.cgi?id=692) I've looked at the code and patching these bugs is beyond my current skill set. :( Hopefully in a year I can say differently, but not today. I'd be grateful if some of you C++ experts would look at these bugs. I'm ready and willing to test patches. And I'll likely learn something too. :) Thanks! Darrell

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Cmake issues: Building kdebase with HAL support
by Darrell Anderson 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

Several bug reports focus on TDE not displaying device icons on the desktop or the standard popup dialog when a new device is detected. Refer to bug reports 372, 385, 634 for starters. These are serious usability bugs. Today I started investigating. I discovered that HAL support is not enabled in the default cmake options. I don't know why that is the default. I enabled HAL support with -DWITH-HAL=ON. The build failed for failing to find some header files. I submitted a small patch in bug report 755. I don't think my patch is the best approach. Instead I think the following environment variables need to be defined: $DBUS_TQT_LIBRARY_DIRS $HAL_INCLUDE_DIRS $HAL_LIBRARIES Although referenced, I don't think these variables are defined anywhere in the cmake files. How do I patch the cmake files to know those locations? I could hard-code those locations in my kdebase build script or build environment, but what is the proper approach? Darrell

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RSS Feeds
by Darrell Anderson 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

I just created bug report 750 (http://bugs.pearsoncomputing.net/post_bug.cgi): Akregator default feeds all point to KDE sites This is a somewhat serious public relations bug. Does the Trinity web site currently offer any kind of RSS feed? Even if the feeds are stale old news, anything would be better than the default feeds to all KDE sites. :) Darrell

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Unexpected kreadconfig/kwriteconfig messages
by Darrell Anderson 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

I have a testing account I use often. That account gets used in my real machines and virtual machines. For many years I have used a left-handed mouse (mouse buttons reversed). Because the virtual machine passes the mouse buttons transparently, I wrote a snippet for that user's .bashrc file to test the mouse button configuration and swap the mouse buttons in kcminputrc as necessary. That way I can use a left-handed mouse regardless of which environment the account gets used. To test my mouse buttons I run the following in that user's .bashrc: kreadconfig --file $PROFILE_HOME/share/config/kcminputrc --group Mouse --key MouseButtonMapping Simple enough. Today I booted my PII machine that has a partition for Trinity 3.5.13. I login from the command line, which means X is not yet running. When I logged in with that testing account I received the following message: NVIDIA OpenGL Driver requires CPUs with SSE to run. The current CPU does not support SSE. Superficially, I saw this message because originally I had cloned a testing partition from another hard drive and that partition had the proprietary Nvidia drivers installed. The PII machine does not support those drivers. Hence the messages. The real mystery is what is kreadconfig and kwriteconfig doing that indirectly causes those messages? I suspect a linking problem, which ldconfig resolved after I removed the Nvidia packages. Nonetheless, why are those two commands querying X libraries when X is not running? Is this a feature or a bug? :) Darrell

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Searching the SVN Repository
by Darrell Anderson 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

Is there a way to search the old SVN repository? http://websvn.kde.org/branches/trinity/3.5.13_frozen/ Darrell

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Enabling HAL support disables kdesu patch
by Darrell Anderson 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

I rebuilt kdebase with HAL support and now I am again seeing device icons on the desktop. However, the patch I submitted that reenables the Keep password check box in the kdesu dialog box no longer works despite running that patch during the build. That is, the checkbox no longer appears. I don't see why enabling HAL would have such an effect. Any ideas? Darrell

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Trinity is now in Linux From Scratch
by Bruce Dubbs 21 Dec '11

21 Dec '11

At least the core packages. If you get a chance, take a look at http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/kde/kde.html Suggestions welcome. -- Bruce

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LXDE and Xfce: The other desktops
by Darrell Anderson 20 Dec '11

20 Dec '11

Over the past few months I have read several articles like this: http://www.h-online.com/open/features/LXDE-and-Xfce-the-other-desktops-1392… I'm not sure Xfce is a cholesterol free desktop or that LXDE is ready for prime time with non geek users. Yet I am sure that Trinity is receiving little comparative press coverage. I'm not calling for a marketing campaign, but I would like to request all team members focus on making R14 the best release yet. To me that means three goals: * Eliminating many, many paper cut bugs. * All packages build with minimal fuss. * Provide an improved web site. The paper cut project never got off the ground. Paper cut bugs discourage non geek users. They don't care or want to understand the nuances of programming or why something fails to function as intended. Paper cut bugs are a public relations nightmare. People vote with their feet. :( Struggling to build packages is a good way to ensure little exposure because the desktop then is not available to users. A significant portion of the discussion in this list is build issues. Simple things like autotools looking for Qt4 rather than Qt3 are frustrating to non geeks. Remember that until Trinity is provided as a regular prebuilt package option in most distros, end-users are left to build the packages on their own. That means the wiki needs attention too and should be revised for non geeks. We have been discussing web site changes and a possible RSS feed. Those plans likely will fall into place shortly. :) Despite what reviewers declare, I don't see Trinity "competing" with KDE4 --- or GNOME. I see the "competition" as Xfce and LXDE. I use the word "competition" in a friendly, comparative way. Long-term we should be asking ourselves questions such as whether there is anything those desktops do better than Trinity? Is there anything those desktops do that Trinity does not? Trinity does not have to be at the top of all comparison lists, but should look favorable all around. There is one thing those two desktop environments do better than Trinity: start and exit faster. I don't know whether that observation merits an enhancement request. While I agree too much discussion is wasted on the topics, I'd like to think both can be improved in Trinity. In the article I linked the writer mentions that "One developer in China has ported LXDE to a device with 128 RAM, 400 MHZ CPU." How does Trinity perform with such hardware? I have PI and PII machines sitting here with 256 MB of RAM. I have run 3.5.10 on those machines for several years and 3.5.10 is, well, sluggish. I suspect my problem is the video cards in my machines and I haven't fully tested yet. Yet I am guessing Trinity will fare only a tad better than 3.5.10. The author also quoted somebody as saying "if Windows 98 and XP work quite well on old machines, why does my Linux desktop need a 1.0 GHz CPU + 1GB RAM?" I agree. I think Trinity can be a significant player in keeping old hardware running. If LXDE is going to be touted as ideal for that kind of hardware, then is that a topic for discussion for Trinity too? One thing Trinity does well is conform to the traditional desktop model that most users are accustomed. That means users familiar with Windows. I never have had a problem with Linux desktops continuing that model and to me, the original 1969 desktop model derived in the PARC labs and copied by Microsoft and Apple developers still works wonderfully well today. Not to mention that Trinity is far more configurable than Xfce and LXDE. There are several distros focusing on being lightweight or fast. The simple message of that focus is many users do not like bloat but they also do not want to deal with the "crippled" world of window managers only. In the end, will distro maintainers offer Trinity as an option because Trinity satisfies such goals? If Trinity is easy to build, will Trinity be offered as an alternate desktop in major distros too? Opportunity is waiting. Let's strive to make R14 a desktop reviewers want to review and praise. :) Darrell

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Qt3 legal issues?
by L0ner sh4dou 19 Dec '11

19 Dec '11

Out of curiosity? Isn't Qt registered trademark of nokia? I found this on qt4/nokia page: "Nokia, Qt and their respective logos are trademarks of Nokia Corporation in Finland and/or other countries worldwide.".

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A Standalone Konqueror
by Calvin Morrison 19 Dec '11

19 Dec '11

Hello, I've seen many calls for a stand alone Konqueror. I have seen people who do not want to use KDE3 anymore, but desperately miss their beloved Konqueror asking for it. What do you all think about creating just a Konqueror tarball for the releases, and push it out to package maintainers? Frankly Konqueror is the best manager around, I think we might as well get people hooked on it :) Calvin Morrison

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