In the face of all the "KDE is way better than Hildon!!!1" boosterism, I just want to be the devil's (or Nokia's) advocate say that I prefer the Hildon environment on the tablet's screen over KDE, and I'm not alone. I must also contend that even without KDE, the NIT is already a fully-capable computer. I don't think the desktop interface is particularly suited to a handheld touchscreen device.
But I completely understand why we need KDE for now. It is a stopgap, a workaround. Hildon's limitations frustrate me, too. There are a lot of Linux apps that we want NOW but aren't hildonized or easily shoehorned into the hildon framework. But I would rather we focus on getting stuff working in Hildon. I would love to see KDE applications hildonized, especially a wordprocessor. I would also like to see printing support added to Hildon.
I think I'm going to do the boot-from-mmc thing, too. I could use the 20% speedup. And yes, I'm sure that it is related to read/write speed of the internal flash vs. the speed of the external cards; they are much faster.
I have one question, though. Why KDE and not Gnome? The Hildon environment is Gnome-based, wouldn't a Gnome desktop have been a more compatible choice?
I have one question, though. Why KDE and not Gnome? The Hildon environment is Gnome-based, wouldn't a Gnome desktop have been a more compatible choice?
I've read that Gnome is difficult to set up to build from source. There is an XFCE project for Maemo though.
For me on my N810, the Hildon desktop would have to come an awful long way to meeting the needs that KDE fills.
1) Using the keyboard and hardware buttons, I can very easily assign keys or combinations of keys to do just about anything I want. I can launch apps, I can change volume/next & prev track for xmms, I can browse the web and check my email without having to touch my stylus or smudge my screen using my finger. These are just a few examples - there are many more if you consider that I can also do app specific key assignments. Unfortunately for N800 users this feature's real power requires a keyboard.
2)with KDE I can resize windows and move them around the screen such that I can see multiple windows at once.
3) I know that some have complained about Konqueror - but I love the fact that it's a web browser and file manager built into one. It also has tabbed browsing and can open pdf docs without needing to open another app.
4) KDE is fully customizable eg: layouts, colors, fonts etc... without me needing to be able to write code to do it. It's just there in the GUI. I can freely and easily decide what I want and where and what I want to call it and which icon to use.
I know that maemo is slowing but surely getting apps ported for PIMs and Wordprocessing but KDE does soooo much more. Maybe it's just because I've been using KDE exclusively for ~ 4 months now, but everytime I go into Maemo, It feels well... kinda clunky.
There's my $.02 worth - hope no one takes offense because none was intended.
Using the keyboard... without having to touch my stylus or smudge my screen using my finger... Unfortunately for N800 users this feature's real power requires a keyboard... with KDE I can resize windows and move them around the screen such that I can see multiple windows at once...
Yes, those are all nice things... for a desktop computer, which has a full keyboard, mouse, and one or more 17+" non-touch screen(s). I've got several of those, and I use all that stuff constantly on them.
The whole design aesthetic of the N8x0 is focussed on the touch screen. It is bizarre to say that you don't want to "smudge" your screen; that's the whole point of the tablet! The tiny, squishy keyboard on the N810 wasn't intended for "keyboard shortcuts" either. A windowing interface is great when you have lots of real-estate to spread the windows out on, but boy, it gets busy in a hurry on the tablet's screen.
I know that maemo is slowing but surely getting apps ported for PIMs and Wordprocessing but KDE does soooo much more. Maybe it's just because I've been using KDE exclusively for ~ 4 months now, but everytime I go into Maemo, It feels well... kinda clunky.
I agree with both statements.
1) KDE does have more apps ported for it right now, because "hildonizing" the apps is a real pain for developers. It's a completely different interface and it can take quite a bit of hacking to get a complex app (like a word processor) to "fit" the new "form factor". So KDE is a good stop-gap, a way to get the tough apps running with a simple re-compile. But, hopefully, they'll come over, slowly but surely, to the new interface.
2) Hildon is still a bit clunky and rough around the edges. Like the hardware it runs on, it is a new way of doing things, and it can take some time to get the wrinkles ironed out. But I think it is definitely the way of the future, it just has some growing pains to go through on its way.
There's my $.02 worth - hope no one takes offense because none was intended.
None taken, and I hope I'm not bugging you too much either. I'm just trying to explain my view that a desktop environment on a handheld touchscreen tablet is not necessarily the best option. Everything in its place!
I have one question, though. Why KDE and not Gnome? The Hildon environment is Gnome-based, wouldn't a Gnome desktop have been a more compatible choice?
1. Because Gnome sucks
2. Because it makes no difference at all what Hildon is done in, you would have to reimplement everything anyway.
3. Because, as was mentioned, gnome is really hard to package.
4. Because KDE includes just about every app you could ever want out of the box.
5. Because Gnome eats 128mb of ram for breakfast. This is probably the biggest one. Gnome will be really slow on the ITT.
my newbie 2 cents:
hildon sounds great in theory - but having nokia and their vision rammed down my throat is getting tiring. i know what they "want me to want" but that's not what i want
apple's greatest stroke of genius is designing an item based on consumer needs and ideas - that's why the iphone is selling like hotcakes - it does 10 things really well and can't do anything else.
if the NITs are supposed to be the opposite - flexible, able to handle any user need or direction, why isn't the environment setup to handle that?
there's a real lack of vision with the n8x0 series - is it finger tap based or stylus based?
seems to depend on the app released - since it's mostly community based, you're going to have a patchwork realisation of each app - so some like canola will really hit on the "tablet on-the-go" idea and be finger tap based, while others you couldn't ever solely use your finger.
as it stands, the n8x0 does a lot of things sort of well, and nothing really fantastically -
I'm going to try (again) to load kde onto my n800 this weekend and see if it will do a handful of things fantastically.
keep in mind that i truly believe the n8x0 series is phenomenal - the very fact that i "could" put kde on there is enough of a selling point for me.
