KDE No Longer Competitive? Developer Calls It Quits

[del_diablo]

What happens if you have a PC with 4 soundcards like the other desktop I have here? The user has to be able to select the soundcard without problems, that's why pulseaudio came to the scene...

*sigh* What is alsamixer? And why can it select input and output devices for sounds? The reason we got pulse is because somebody wanted a more elaborated software mixer, where they theoretically could just have patched ALSA.
And it turns it didn't work, and they should have killed the project or gotten enough funding to actually make it work just after the first few failures(Ubuntu adopting it anybody?).
Just get yourself a teaspoon and some help.

[TobiSGD]

However the problem is the people (leaving Windows and) trying Linux expect a perfectly stable, fast and bug-free system, and Linux is not such a system.

You realize that there is more than one Linux distribution? You want a fast, stable and bug-free (besdies the fact that no software ever will be 100% bug-free) system? Then maybe don't go for Ubuntu, Arch or other distros with short release cycle or rolling release. Go for the distros that are actually made to be fast stable and bug-free, like Slackware, Debian or RHEL/CentOS/SL. I fix the computers for my rather computer illiterate friends and most of the times it are the Windows systems that are broken, not the Linux ones.

[rainbyte]

*sigh* What is alsamixer? And why can it select input and output devices for sounds? The reason we got pulse is because somebody wanted a more elaborated software mixer, where they theoretically could just have patched ALSA.
And it turns it didn't work, and they should have killed the project or gotten enough funding to actually make it work just after the first few failures(Ubuntu adopting it anybody?).
Just get yourself a teaspoon and some help.

Try to change the audio output on-the-fly while using the sound card... It isn't posible using alsa directly (alsamixer doesn't have that feature)...
You will have to modify asoundrc o use some wrapper... Also it will not work for all app's (seems like a hack)...

With pulseaudio you have that feature, and only doing two clicks, you can change the output on the fly, without stopping the music or a movie...
It can even coexist with jackd (I use it with my midi controller for low latency midi)...

Also with pulseaudio you can use other sound cards on your lan network transparently... Try to do that using alsa directly, at least you will need to touch config files by hand...
For us it's an usefull feature, because we have only one audio receiver (that it's better that the other little speakers) and it's not connected to the other PC's...

[ChrisXY]

I fix the computers for my rather computer illiterate friends and most of the times it are the Windows systems that are broken, not the Linux ones.

That's probably selection bias as the linux people often know a little bit more about how stuff works so they can fix more themeselves...

[RealNC]

That's probably selection bias as the linux people often know a little bit more about how stuff works so they can fix more themeselves...

Indeed. "Computer illiterate" implies a Windows user, not a Linux user.

[m_gol]

Indeed. "Computer illiterate" implies a Windows or OS X user, not a Linux user.

FTFY. (oh, this character limit...)

[m_gol]

I didn't say KDE was my project you fucking dumbass, I said that if people contributed to projects we would be much better off than those who don't contribute anything and just use what we create "see nvidia".

Also, I didn't said that KDE was my own project, that's ridiculous, I said that I'm a proud user for my own contributions, I have contributed to projects as well, fixed tons of bugs in many different open source software, and you are probably benefiting right now from my own contributions, so if you don't like what I say GTFO.

Do you have some personal problems or what? Go for a walk, take a deep breath and think twice next time before posting sth with such unacceptable language. I really hope you don't represent an average KDE contributor, it would be sad for this project.

[wizard69]

I dropped Linux as my desktop productivity environment back in 2008!

Best move I've every made was buying a MBP in 2008 and giving up on Linux as my desktop productivity space. Penz is apparently right and reflects my feelings I had back in 2008.

The only difference is I never got involved in the QT/KDE madness even when Linux was my desktop environment. Even in those earlier days it was obvious that QT/KDE was a mess, I'll conceived and not going anywhere. Four years later it looks like things haven't improved one bit for KDE.

Consider this; prior to going Mac as my primary desktop environment I spent years with the various Linux efforts and the various Windows managers often with my machine setup to allow logging into dramatically different Wimdow managers. KDE was always a whore as far as resources and usability goes grossly outclassed by other Windows managers and desktop environments when it came to reliability and ease of use. However none of them are worth a damn when it comes to getting work done in the way that Mac OS is. Even the Mac has buggy apps but at least Apple gets the core features to work right. Further the integration is there with iOS devices which is key to productivity today.

That being said Linux still has a place in my house. I just see it as a crime to try to sell it as a effective replacement for the likes of Mac OS.

[wizard69]

You do realize that Mac OS/X is UNIX underneath right?

FTFY. (oh, this character limit...)

That is real UNIX.

You might be shocked to find that many developer prefer OS/X even if they have to push their work to Linux servers. OS/X is by far one of the best platforms out there for developers, especially these days when it is a snap to have multiple VMs running to test your work.

It has actually gotten to the point that you see more computer literate people on Macs then you do Windows machines. While there certainly is a good number that don't look under the GUI that is by no means everybody.

[m_gol]

That is real UNIX.

You might be shocked to find that many developer prefer OS/X even if they have to push their work to Linux servers. OS/X is by far one of the best platforms out there for developers, especially these days when it is a snap to have multiple VMs running to test your work.

I am not shocked at all. I'm myself going to switch to OS X in a few months after using Ubuntu for 5 years as my main OS. I also know very well about the VM advantage being a web developer myself.

It has actually gotten to the point that you see more computer literate people on Macs then you do Windows machines. While there certainly is a good number that don't look under the GUI that is by no means everybody.

I haven't said anything about computer literate people, I only said if you see a newbie, they probably use Windows or OS X. Those two aren't mutually exclusive, you know. An implication goes to one direction only.

That being said Linux still has a place in my house. I just see it as a crime to try to sell it as a effective replacement for the likes of Mac OS.

You mean for the desktop? OS X is no match to Linux on the server side.