some answers [LWN.net]

some answers

Posted Jun 24, 2007 19:41 UTC (Sun) by aseigo (guest, #18394)
In reply to: by mmarq
Parent article: KDE's Plasma is heating up (Linux.com)

> and to support karamba themes out there

karamba themes are substantially different than the plasmoid design. the
easiest way to support them was to use a libkaramba to provide a wrapper
for them. to provide legacy support and an upgrade path, that is what we
did. libkaramba will eventually go away once there are suitable
alternatives for the karamba themes people rely on.

> A) A Login/Desktop Manage

ossi and i were talking about exactly this yesterday

> B) Plasma(IS THE 'desktop environment)

the technical details make this not realistically achievable, though i
believe we can get very close to making plasma responsible for a -lot-
more than the desktop shell is right now and do so much better than the
random collection of apps / dialogs do right now... that is what we are
working towards.

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some answers

Posted Jun 27, 2007 16:32 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

""
> A) A Login/Desktop Manage

ossi and i were talking about exactly this yesterday

> B) Plasma(IS THE 'desktop environment)

the technical details make this not realistically achievable, though i
believe we can get very close to making plasma
""

well i can't tell really but it would be difficult as i can imagine... but is it not possible to have a terminal user interface (TUI) without relaying on anything X related ? ( http://mc.linuxinside.com/cgi-bin/dir.cgi )...

And if the 'TUI' were able to display unicode and relay on PDF rendering standards as in 'cairo' and 'apple aqua(dont use X)' ??

A) The Ideia is to have the Login/desktop Manager to be a GUI application based on a simple and as basic as possible engine for rendering, and be *INDEPENDENT* of 'desktop' or 'file management view' or 'windowing engine'.

b) If/When the Login/DM is a GUI capable app, independent, not including the main desktop metaphor and backgroung engines, then it cannot be or include THE DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT, though capable of GUI display.

c) Then anything else that is loaded after the Login/DM with a desktop capable GUI, must be the Desktop environment.

Its mostly a question of semantic, and the most important IMO.

d) Plasma not being completely independent of Xserver or Window Manager, *is not the most important if different X servers or window managers could be loaded*, requiring 'little' modification to the actual crop of Xservers and window managers to be Plasma compatibles.

e) Then Plasma would be the most important piece of a freedesktop Universal Desktop Metaphor.

It alters mostly, only the sequence order of actual things, where X server loads first because everything else depends on it, to Plasma loads in tandem, though it also depends on X, it is the most important piece because 'XFconf' is integrated in their configuration facilities... and there can be different X servers...

Then Plasma 'rules' because it is a most efficient and effective way to manage the desktop process(IMO), not because Plasma wants to be king by force.

Regards