KDE Running on Mac OS X

GeoffP writes "AppleTalk Australia is running a story on running KDE on Mac OS X. For those that don't know, KDE is a graphical desktop environment used to access your computer's files. Finally, Mac users have a free (as in speech) approach to their filesystem."

Good article

A neat article.

However, I can't think really why you'd want to be running KDE on Mac OS X when you already have such a neat (IMHO) interface. I suppose it's good for a laugh, too.

Re:Good article

Well there are some aspects of KDE which are not possible under OSX without significant tweaks or non-free software. For example, the browser, Konqueror will go everywhere, even below the "unseen line" of OSX and yes, you can tweak finder to go there to but not without non-free software and even then, you'r stuck with finder's interface.

You can have a variety of io-slaves under KDE allowing great integration with a variety of network services, yes we can do alot of that with OSX but again, interface and third party add-ons... (webdav over ssl???)

Furthermore, KDE is a development environment in itself and many developers will be happy to see that they can work two in one!

I am impressed that it works, I have tried many times to get Fink and the gang working with Tiger and I have borked on each and every occasion. So reading the australian exploits with expectation!!

Re:Good article

... and yes, you can tweak finder to go there to but not without non-free software...

Hm. I'm missing the non-free software involved in typing "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE".

I am impressed that it works, I have tried many times to get Fink and the gang working with Tiger and I have borked on each and every occasion.

Really? I guess I don't know who all the gang are, but I've been using Fink and Tiger together since the day Tiger was released, without even actually needing to upgrade it.

Re:Good article

Oh I should also add to that You can also create sym-links from the terminal so you can access the folders .
for those who don't know how to do that :
in the terminal go to the folder you want to create the sym-link and type

ln -s /etc

for example

Or simply from any directory

ln -s /etc /*path*/

Re:Good article

Or there's the beautiful "open" command: open /etc/

("open" does whatever doubleclicking on its argument[s] would do. eg, if it's an application it launches it, if it's a document it launches the owning application and opens it, if it's a directory it opens it in a Finder window. It's one of the great examples of gui/cli synthesis that osx does uniquely well. Much like pbcopy/pbpaste: cli interfaces to the clipboard, something I wanted in linux for years.)

Re:Good article

I haven't bought the replacement iBook (yet?) mainly because now I can't live without KDE's network protocol integration (sftp , webdav, smb, ftp, ... everything is supported!). I can transparently access folders with the (file browser, editor, image viewer, etc. etc. ) in multiple servers, seamlessly. OS/X is seriously lacking in this area.

Yeah, it really sucks that OS X lets you transparently access folders over FTP with ls. It'd be much better if it did it with ioslaves, so only KDE applications could transparently access them.

(Yes, I know that ftpfs is read-only. Implementing it as an NFS server, so that the FTP back-end has no way of knowing when an application is finished writing to the file, makes it difficult to support read/write access. And, yes, I really have accessed an FTP server with ls, egrep, etc., and yes, it was convenient.)

And the same goes for WebDAV and SMB (although WebDAV uses a gateway VFS rather than using NFS, so it does know when a file is closed and can upload its contents if it was written to, and smbfs is implemented as a kernel-level VFS and supports reading and writing). Unfortunately, there's no sftpfs, but, if there were, that'd be a lot more UN*Xy than doing it with an ioslave.

BTW, your Linux box probably has an smbfs, too, so you can access SMB servers from the command line as well as from KDE apps. (Or does KDE do the right thing on systems with smbfs/cifsfs, and just mount the damn server and let the underlying UN*X do the work?) Somebody might have implemented ftpfs, etc. with userfs, so you might have them as well.

Better yet would be OS X itself natively supporting the most widely used network protocols. Tiger was a big dissapointment in this respect...

Which ones are missing? (Other than read/write FTP, and sftp, which are already known to be missing.)

Goody?

Honestly, this is just a silly post.

Does the poster even realize this is simply the X server with KDE running as a client app? its not like they've replaced the nice, flashy GUI with KDE. They've just compiled and run it! Look, I can run Ethereal on OS X. Look, I can run *name unix app* on OS X. Good grief.

Re:Goody?

Hey, many many years ago I've ran Quake on ancient IRIX workstations. Oh wait... it was over X with the actual binaries running on a Linux x86 box. Oh, and I'm running KDE on Windows right now (Cygwin X server, of course, on a machine at work)! Hey, come, lookie, KDE for Windows!

How exactly running an X program over X can be considered a port? It just works as it should, but there is nothing special to it.

This is not news

This has been possible for a while now. It's quite easy to set up if you use Fink. You can even set it to use apple's own built-in X11 instead of installing XFree86.

http://fink.sourceforge.net/news/kde.php [sourceforge.net]

{app} Running on {platform}

{magazine} {country} is running a story on running {app} on {platform}. For those that don't know, {app} is a {category} used to {verb} your {noun}. Finally, {platform} users have a {adjective} approach to their {noun}.

That's totally awesome

BTW, in other news, you may want to check out this neat page [mysuperblog.com] (with pics!) where I describe how I retrofitted my Toyota Camry to be drawn by horses. The gas mileage I get now is astounding!

Exactly what was missing

AT LAST a userfriendly GUI on Apple plattforms.

Sorry, could not resist.

Talk about old news...

A native KDE port for OS X has existed since the end of 2003.... http://dot.kde.org/1073009304/ [kde.org]

Introducing our new format...

Slashdot: News for PHB and Marketing Drones.

Slashdot: Buzzwords arranged in an almost sensible order.

Slashdot: Computer News for People New to Computers

Free (as in speech) doesn't mean better...

Finally, Mac users have a free (as in speech) approach to their filesystem.

1. KDE has been running on OS X for many years now.
2. cp, ls, mv, etc are open source, and have been available on OS X since the beginning.
3. KDE is nice, but I didn't buy a Mac so I could run KDE, I bought it so I could run OS X.

Which isn't to say it's not good to be able to run KDE if you want, just that I've never heard someone lament, "oh, that only there were some form of free (as in speech) approach to the filesystem on my Mac".

Totally off-topic

But when you take a screenshot in OS X you don't have to select and drag a box around the window you want as this author has done.

Press Apple-Shift-4, which changes your cursor to a cross-hairs, this lets you drag a box on any part of the screen and the contents are dumped to the desktop as a screenshot.

But! then press spacebar and the cursor changes to an icon of a camera, now click on the window you want to take a screenshot of, and the screenshot will be of that window only, pixel-perfect to the border.

So it looks like this [pax-europa.com] and results in this. [pax-europa.com]

Amazing!

Now you have a possibility to change your already unified and quite well designed Mac user interface with KDE! Now you have the freedom to make a really bad choice!

Yuck

Yikes. That's really ugly.

Now, if someone can get Vista working on MacOS X.... (ducks and takes cover)

Lower Low Coming Soon...

Is this an all-time low for a slashdot article? I can't imagine how it can be beaten.

Simple, it'll be duped shortly.

Re:STUNNED!

I believe it was Feynmann who said

"That's not right. It's not even wrong"

Some statements are so bizarre that they defy comment.

Re:STUNNED!

It was Wolfgang Pauli: "This isn't right, this isn't even wrong."

Reference: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/wolfga ng_pauli.html [brainyquote.com]

Re:news ?

I guess I should write up my tutorial on how to run fluxbox on OS X, and my follow up, setting environment variables to allow Terminal.app to interact with the X server.

Do it. Don't put down documentation on any process that others might not have done - there are many MANY people who might not have the experience to come up with the solution on their own, but who may benefit from it.

The attitude that writing documentation on the simple stuff is pointless is the reason so many man pages, web pages, FAQs and howtos on open source software sucks dog nuts.

Not everyone is geek enough to know how to do some of the cool things - that knowledge comes about for those of us who are geeky enough to enjoy learning the ins and outs of everything for its own sake. Other people, the majority, need to see how something can work when set up well before they'll accept it.

Re:Erm... Why?

/puts on flame retardent suit

This just in! Mac OS X users can now poke themselves in the eye with a fork. When contacted for comment, the fork manufacturers said "We got no idea why anyone would want to poke themselves in the eye with a fork, but we're all for it! Anything that increases fork sales is a plus for us. Vive la Liberte!"

Re:Reasons for using KDE/Gnome on OS X w/Finder

Actually with Finder and the 'alt-tab' issue, this too drove me mad, until a kind soul told me about the Apple+` shortcut, that's the Apple key and the grave accent key (just below the ESC key on my PC keyboard and on the bottom left of my Mac keyboard). This switches between multiple windows of a single application and saved me much gnashing of teeth.

Re:Hasnt anyone tried out the latest Enlightenment

..how does enlightenment push an envelope? Simple. It puts some complex and attractive eye candy where, for all intents and purposes, it was never meant to be. That is to say, it pushes the limits for X11 and the unices. X11 was designed as an extremely lightweight graphical windowing system for terminals over a network, not for graphics intensive aqua-esque-sexiness. For unix users who have lived for years in minimal graphical environments, its a very new development. Apple struck a home run with Aqua using brand new innovations, yet Enlightenment accomplishments are on running on top of a 25 year old graphics subsystem. Interesting in context, dont you think?