Are the buttons used / usable for anything? i.e., are they latched?

uncle in munchen when im not in a hurry

Thanks. I'm not sure I "get" the Plasma Active UI, but it's nice to see progress on this.

Me neither. But to be fair, AFAIK it started out as a general UI for larger screens and not with cellphones and small tablets specifically in mind.

I thought CentOS was pretty much RHEL

The opposite seems to be true. According to the project's homepage, "Plasma Active is intended for all types of tablets, smartphones and touch computing devices". Without knowing the exact history myself, I'd understand from this that the main focus for this type of UI is tablets.

The way it works (see also this video) may be unusual at first glance, but I guess it makes some sense for a mobile device. - "Activities" correspond to situations and/or topics that you use the tablet in/for. You switch between activities with the wheel-like thing on the right, and each activity has its own desktop.

So I'd personally probably set up a "Couch Surfing" activity which I'd use 80% of the time. It'd include bookmarks of my favorite websites on the desktop, probably shortcuts to mail, instant messaging and a notes application... DLNA or something, if available, to connect to my TV.

A second activity would be "On The Train", where I'd have less internet bookmarks (probably only those that work reasonably well with the slow and unreliable Wifi I have on the train). Id have folders with music and videos, though, and maybe a PDF of alternative connections, just in case everything goes wrong and I'll have to make decisions offline.

A third activity might be an application I'm currently writing. It'll be full of documentation, various versions of the project and the usual boring stuff you need to get it running.

What seems to be a nice idea in the Plasma Active UI, too, is its recommendation system (panel you draw in from the left). They claim that the system learns things from my usage patterns and will recommend things like "you want to call Michael now" - because I usually call him between 11 and 12 when I'm at the office and I am at the office right now and the time's right. No idea how smart this will really be, but it sounds nice.

Knowing these things and watching the videos made it clear for me how the UI works and what the ideas behind it are. It's certainly more complex than usual touch UIs, which will almost certainly prevent it from becoming too popular in a market that is dominated by users who struggle to master their iPads. But for those who prefer power over simplicity, it'll be just fine.

Anybody have any news/progress about ARM-openSUSE ?!?!?

It is RPM+KDE...basically twin of MeeGo, siblin to Maemo, cousin to WebOS, distant relative to Android and in-laws to QNX.

C'mon benny you know we prefer technical accuracy to rhetoric and marketing speak here. From wikipedia:

"Its technology is a fundamental rewrite of several desktop interaction technologies included in previous KDE desktop environments for Unix-like systems, focusing on eye candy and special graphical effects. It most notably replaces the previous KDesktop shell, Kicker taskbar and SuperKaramba widget engine used in the K Desktop Environment 3 series with a unified workspace for KDE SC 4."

... which you read as "it started it started out as a general UI for larger screens"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1RhTntuCiQ