The Warden

Following in the footsteps of the GNOME Gnome team, KDE now just stands for KDE. Not the original Kool Desktop Environment. Not even the K Desktop Environment. Just KDE.

I’m not quite sure about renaming the core product, however (and as it turns out, neither is Thom or the Dot community). The desktop environment itself will be renamed “KDE Software Compilation”. It’s only a little wordy. Good luck catching on with that one.

Repositioning the KDE Brand

Gnome 3.0 will be a disaster with Shell. KDE 4 caused many disgruntled users (including me, formerly a die-hard KDE fanboy) to switch to Gnome. People don’t like “different”.

I think Byfield is sort of wrong. I seriously doubt that the Shell was hard to install on purpose. But I do agree that, intentionally or not, it will end up with less users testing, which means an even bigger problem than KDE 4.

At the end of the day, most users (even techies like me) don’t want fancy interfaces. Compiz works because it adds both usability and features that don’t get in the way of normal, everyday work. It blends into your daily routine. Gnome Shell will change everything. Change isn’t always a good thing.

Gnome 3.0 Stealth Preview: Will Anyone Notice?

Apparently, the extension (enabled by default) automatically opens all new tabs to the Ubuntu Start Page. Worse, all searches using the Google search bar in the top right redirect to an Ubuntu custom search engine, which (to the ire of the forum) includes ads at the top.

Pretty pathetic at a first glance, though I think I’ll wait to pass judgment until after Canonical gets back.

Edit: Bug report is up.

New Firefox Add-on – Ubuntu Forums (via)

They really pulled out the stops . FCM ftw.

Full Circle Magazine | Issue 24.

The Compiz project is really fragmented right now. They need to get it back together, or they’ll have another Beryl problem.

[Phoronix] Compiz Fusion To Be Dropped, Other Changes Planned.

Wow, coming from Shuttleworth, that’s a lot.

Ubuntu’s Shuttleworth praises Windows 7, welcomes fight (via)

Doesn’t mean much in the software world (probably before beginning of ‘10), but there’s hope!

Chrome gets Mac deadline, extensions foundation (via)

Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeoncomeon PLEASE be true.

Even though I’m kinda addicted to Call of Duty right now.

And even though I’d probably be playing in Windows anyway because of Xfire.

[Phoronix] America’s Army 3.0 “May Return” To Linux.

I just ordered my first computer yesterday: 4GB RAM, a 250 GB SATA 3gb/s hard drive, a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor, a Nvidia 9800 graphics card, and a comfortable 20″ monitor. But while these were all expensive (especially the video card), none of them compared to one item on the list: Windows. That’s the hope that Linux companies must look forward to.

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Interesting, but now we have the problem of too much disk use. All sorts of different versions of libraries will be installed.

Nix fixes dependency hell on all Linux distributions (via)