melkart wrote:

blackbelt_jones wrote:I only know of one distro that has truly stopped releasing KDE3, and that's Kubuntu, who will continue to support it in Hardy Heron for at least two years.

Support for Kubuntu 8.04 will end in October this year, as was already mentioned in this thread. Mandriva and Fedora already had their latest release without KDE3. OpenSuSE will have their next release without KDE3. About RHEL and Slackware I am not sure.

From the major Linux distributions, Debian is the only one I know, that will have another release coming with KDE3. And they will drop KDE3 for the release after lenny, too.

I had a discussion on the Vector Linux forum. Vector is an excellent little distro based on Slackware. These guys aren't much interested in KDE4. They're not up in arms about it, they just talk about it like it's something that's happening in someone else's world.

But I don't know if they will be able to maintain KDE3 on their own once Slackware drops it, even if they would like to.

Bottom line is, it'll work out. If something is important to you, it's probably important to other people, and that means it will be almost certainly be provided for, because that's the way it will will work.

I don't know. There is always a shortage of capable volunteers wanting to take care of things. This isn't the first time that a very popular piece of free software gets abandoned without an equal replacement being available. The XMMS media player is another example. XMMS was fast and lightweight, based around the file concept instead of managing a database with tags, and could play about every kind of file it was thrown at.

Now, just as with KDE3, there were lots of people around, who insulted or derided people for not wanting to let go of XMMS, claiming that the new/other media players were better and could do everything XMMS could do. They were just as wrong.

It seems to me that we have to get used to losing our favorite pieces of free software, not long after developers lost interest in them.

There's Audacious, which is pretty much XMMS.

Have you actually heard anything about Slackware planning on dropping KDE3? This is the distro that used the 2.4 kernel until about a year and a half ago, they're notoriusly conservative.

Aaron Seigo put it this way: "in free software use equals maintainance." He wrote a interesting article about this, i'll put a lik in as soon as I get the chance. No time for that now, or to even fix my typos.

changturkey wrote:There's Audacious, which is pretty much XMMS.

This is what I use now, because it comes closest to being a replacement for XMMS. But

• it can't play midi files
• it can't play my .wav-files correctly, only with hangs
• it contains some annoying bugs
• development stalled already

I am happy about Audacious, but it is not an equal replacement for XMMS.

blackbelt_jones wrote:Have you actually heard anything about Slackware planning on dropping KDE3? This is the distro that used the 2.4 kernel until about a year and a half ago, they're notoriusly conservative.

Aaron Seigo put it this way: "in free software use equals maintainance." He wrote a interesting article about this, i'll put a lik in as soon as I get the chance. No time for that now, or to even fix my typos.

I don't think that Slackware will go KDE 4 for some time to come. As you mentioned, they are *very* conservative, so KDE 3 will be on it for quite a while to come. Although they might provide KDE4 in the extra section, but I doubt it'll replace 3.5 in the near future and that alone is very commendable, as thats one of the very few distros not to jump the bandwaggon prematurely :thumbs_up:

I am happy about Audacious, but it is not an equal replacement for XMMS.

How about Qmmp:
This program is an audio-player, written with help of Qt library. The user interface is similar to winamp or xmms.

Main opportunities:

* winamp and xmms skins support
* plugins support
* MPEG1 layer 1/2/3 support
* Ogg Vorbis support
* native FLAC support
* Musepack support
* WavePack support
* ModPlug support
* WMA support
* PCM WAVE support
* AlSA sound output
* JACK sound output
* OSS sound output
* PulseAudio output
* Last.fm scrobbler
* D-Bus support
* Spectrum Analyzer
* sample rate conversion
* streaming support (MP3, Vorbis via IceCast/ShoutCast)

@SeaJay:

Thank you very much for pointing me to qmmp, it looks very interesting indeed, even though there is no mention of it being able to play midi files. Hopefully that will come with a future version. I can't try it out right now without major hassle, as it isn't available in Debian lenny.

KDE4 in -current /testing and other Slackware news
That's right -- KDE version 4.1 is now part of Slackware -current (in the /testing directory), so for everyone who can't wait to try it out, have a look at it! We're all (very happily) using it here now, and it has come a long way since the first 4.x release. Congratulations to the KDE team for the fine work (and many thanks to Robby Workman and Heinz Wiesinger for all the help with build scripts and testing for the initial Slackware packaging of KDE4). Have fun!

From the slackware site.

Pconfig wrote:

KDE4 in -current /testing and other Slackware news
That's right -- KDE version 4.1 is now part of Slackware -current (in the /testing directory), so for everyone who can't wait to try it out, have a look at it! We're all (very happily) using it here now, and it has come a long way since the first 4.x release. Congratulations to the KDE team for the fine work (and many thanks to Robby Workman and Heinz Wiesinger for all the help with build scripts and testing for the initial Slackware packaging of KDE4). Have fun!

From the slackware site.

I had seen that, but it really says nothing about future plans for the stable release.

When I said that this will all work out, I didn't necessarily mean that KDE3 is destined to stay around forever. There are lots of different ways this could work out. KDE4 may change in ways that are favorable to you. You may decide that you like KDE4 after all. That seems to be what's happening with me, but that doesn't mean it'll happen to you. There are lots of ways you could wind up very happy in the end.

My larger point is that the distros aren't killing KDE3 at this time. I only know about 2 that are dropping it among how many? 200? Some commercial distros are going to jump on the KDE4 because they think it's going to attract new users from the disaffected Microsoft camp, and I'm not about to say that it won't. But other distros have different agendas.

I'm using KDE4 all the time now: sometimes alone, and at other times I run the applications with fluxbox. KDE4 is getting better al the time, and I'm getting to understand it better. KDE4.2 is a lot more keyboard-friendly, and I really like that. For me, the conflict is over. I fought against KDE4 and lost-- and now, as punishment, I am being forced against my will to use the most brilliantly conceived, beautiful, and visionary desktop environment ever made. It's just not fair!

I don't believe there's really a knowable answer to whether or not KDE3 will live beyond the next couple of years. It will if it becomes necessary, and that's not really a decision or a judgement that any one person is going to make. It's going to be made collectively by millions, and for each of them, it's going to be a complex question, and the future development of KDE will no doubt influence the final answer. The team really seems to be working to accommodate the disaffected KDE3 fan. The upcoming release has options that are closer to the traditional desktop. I thought that I would never be able to accept KDE4, but now I feel that I have, whole-heartedly. I'm sure other diehards will change their minds, but that doesn't mean they all will. When people told me that I would come around, I thought it presumptuous and condescending of them, and the fact that I have since come around doesn't change that. Regardless, I do believe that, in the end, just about everybody with a modicum of ability to respond to reality. will find that, , one way or another, they will get what they need.