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LXQt 0.11 Released

lxqt.org

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Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#71

Post by digi_owl »

anothermouse wrote: post #60
scrollaway wrote: post #2

So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general. Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt. I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clus…

I've been watching this happen like a scheduled car crash for years. Every 2 years, another open source project succumbs to the problem. As far as I can tell, when software is open source, the barrier to people contributing is lower. And that leads to a sort of brownian jitter in the system. Once great systems, (kde in general and amarok in particular) suffer from contributions of new features, which add features but…

Yeah, for all the derision Microsoft gets for their buggy code we can still use a Win32 binary from the 3.1 days today.

You have some of the same policy at the kernel level with torvalds "we do not break userspace" policy. But the higher layers are just too damn happy with breaking themselves for it to have any meaning.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#72

Post by digi_owl »

crazyloglad wrote: post #25
scrollaway wrote: post #2

So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general. Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt. I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clus…

Guessing wildly: 1. The linux desktop has been reworked so hard and so many times to try and attract and accomodate those good ol' "my mom uses linux!" as a means of obtaining critical mass for the other things (drivers, well-polished software, ...). The few that this model attract are equally fine with their smartphone and a laptop built around a browser. 2. From (1), it is not even an attractive target for dev- wor…

Nokia actually tried using "desktop" Linux on the mobile (Maemo), but i fear the result was that they set of a CADT that has lead us to Wayland and all that churn.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#73

Post by digi_owl »

lj3 wrote: post #11
scrollaway wrote: post #2

So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general. Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt. I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clus…

Desktop Linux has bigger issues than UI toolkits. That's probably one of the reasons why you're having difficulty getting developers interested. I, personally, wouldn't contribute any time to a UI toolkit or desktop environment until some of the more egregious problems facing the linux desktop get resolved, if they ever can be. There's an ugly catch-22 that's been playing itself out in the linux ecosystem for a while…

In large part because WinTel has driven the consumer computing margins so low, that OEMs have to rely on bundling to actually make a profit.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#74

Post by macco »

scrollaway wrote: post #2

So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general. Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt. I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clus…

Your so right. The fragmentation of the Linux desktop is the reason I think Linux will never play a bige role on the desktop.

The people in the Linux ecosystem fighting more against each other than against Windows - a common enemy (sorry for war rhetoric).

Linux is the ecosystem with the least resources, but with the most competition inside the ecosystem. You have more than 10 different desktop managers, two competing display servers, hundreds of distributions and whatnot. A lot of people will say, competition is healthy for the Linux ecosystem, but I personally would disagree. I think most forks are a waste of energy - yes, I am looking at you Canonical.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#75

Post by lsh »

aq3cn wrote: post #65

Since when I have switched to i3 window manger, I am totally enjoying it. It's minimal, fast, keyboard centric and perfect for computer with small screen size. https://i3wm.org/

If we're shouting out to our favourite window managers, then a long, long time ago I switched to ion3 and then for a long long time it was left unmaintained until Notion (not-ion) came along:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion3

http://notion.sourceforge.net/

My sincere thanks to all authors and maintainers of ion3 and Notion. I've used your work for at least a decade, probably longer.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#76

Post by asoltesz »

sho_hn wrote: post #62
scrollaway wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, please don't take this the wrong way because, even if I personally don't like the direction KDE has taken, I have a lot of respect for the project... But you're really talking about KDE here. Not linux. You have the context of a KDE developer. You're basically saying "The KDE project is doing great!", but that doesn't invalidate anything I said in my comment. I've been dealing with the evangelism portion a to…

> Take for example hi-dpi and touch screen support; we're only now starting to get somewhere with both of those, and those don't even qualify as "newer tech". Hi-dpi is something we were pretty much done with one-two years ago (modulo per-screen dpi, which we need Wayland for). > Tell me, who's working on making GNOME/KDE apps look good on KDE/GNOME? Well, we've developed GTK+ versions of both of our last default loo…

A agree with your metrics and your conclusions as well.

The Linux desktop is now in a much better overall shape than it has ever been.

The desktops themselves have reached a fairly polished state. Much less annoyance than before (like multi-monitor settings and other basic stuff). I use Cinnamon on my Mint laptop and KDE Plasma on my Neon dev workstation and both are fairly polished and stable.

OSS applications like Kdenlive are also getting polished and adding more professional features. I also use a macOS laptop and I actually think that it is now as easy/quick to edit videos with Kdenlive on my Linux machines than with iMovie on the mac.

KDEConnect is another great example, it is just brilliant.

LibreOffice is also progressing rapidly with other productivity tools.

Using both macOS and Linux desktops for java/web development, I actually think that Linux is better, faster and more stable in most respect. E.g.: Finder is a joke, it is even worse than Explorer, none of them come close to proper Linux file managers like Krusader, Dolphin or Caja.

All in all, the Linux desktop space has seen great improvements and the hard work seems to be paying off now (see the latest upwards trend on Linux desktop market share)

Guys, keep up the good work on both KDE Plasma and LXQt!!! Your work is greatly appreciated by many-many of us, happy Linux users.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#77

Post by asoltesz »

scrollaway wrote: post #66
fredmorcos wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost nobody actually collaborates on anything. Everybody wants to do their own thing and it leads to developer fragmentation. Every project is undermanned. LXQt is especially undermanned right now. The Cinnamon guys, last I heard, want to switch to Qt but don't have the developers to do it and would end up being a LXQt clone. As an example, instead of starting another desktop project (lxde, razor-qt, lxqt), some…

So, you quite clearly know absolutely nothing about the situation LXQt was in, yet here you are telling me what I should have done? Like majewsky said, Qt was and still is so far ahead of GTK it's completely unreal. But you're also not factoring in the fact that LXDE already existed for 10 years, and we moved that off GTK. LXQt is a continuation of it all. I pushed really hard in favour of KDE frameworks. I specifica…

Collaboration like this is really great.

I hope the KDE guys never go bonkers like the Gnome/RedHat guys and keep up the nice modularity they have achieved by now so other DEs can reuse some of their functionality.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#78

Post by asoltesz »

Jean-Philipe wrote: post #40
scrollaway wrote: post #2

So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general. Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt. I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clus…

I agree - but on the other hand, I feel desktop is in a bad place in general. I'm a regular macOS user and I miss the Linux days, will probably install Linux on my Mac again. macOS incredibly glitchy and unstable (at least for me), and I'm not happy with the usability either. Windows doesn't look like a valid option at all to me. Had to use Windows 10 to fix some bugs the other day. No. So, while the Linux desktop is…

I have the same experience with macOS as you (Java/web developer here). I find it quite unintuitive and generally lacking in the usability department. E.g.: it is a joke that I cannot deactivate the global menu and I also cannot place the global menu on both of my monitors without making the monitors separate desktops. I find this "our way or the highway" mentality of Apple quite repelling.

Luckily, I can use Linux now at my workplace and that alone made me much happier. I have recently converted a colleague as well. Strangely, he prefers Gnome3 but yeah...whatever makes him happy.

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#79

Post by rasterman »

daurnimator wrote: post #9
scrollaway wrote: post #2

So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general. Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt. I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clus…

> Not to mention the sad state of UI toolkits right now. This isn't about GTK vs. Qt or anything... but you can't pick up your favourite language (Python, JS, whatever) and easily write cross-platform apps that work well on Linux. This frustrates me to no end. - Qt is almost impossible to fully bind. The vague hacks we had all got tossed out the windows with the move from Qt4 to Qt5. I've given up putting my own effo…

We may have come up with an alternative for bindings - at least for EFL, where we now generate the C API from an IDL that expresses classes, inheritance, events (signals/slots), etc. so our C API is pushed out by code gen tools and we just fill in the functions, and right now we support automatically generating C++, JS and LuaJIT bindings out of the box whenever you type "make" on the toolkit. We're going for "full bindings with zero maintenance overhead EXCEPT for fixing bugs in the generators or the initial work for adding a new language binding tool". At least the plan is to have language bindings "first class citizens" all coming out of core development (with yes, the core still in C - that's how we roll). Our cross-platform support hasn't been great and originally it was never intended/planned, but now we do port to Windows, Mac and Linux (X11 + Wayland), other Unixen... sure the ports need more work/maintenance and to be made easier and less prone to breaking, and we don't have iOS, android or Windows Phone ports (and no obscure OS's like Symbian, QNX etc.), so that's something to fix, but we're shifting design to push portability first and foremost and that allows for OS ports, so maybe this will pan out. There are Python bindings waiting int he wings that will come in once we're done with our interfaces work and the core OO layer is stable (not changing/breaking), so that language will get added. given the range of languages above and Python I think that means that adding more languages shouldn't be hard as most core concepts have been covered. Just FYI on "pick up favorite language and write cross-platform app".

Re: LXQt 0.11 Released

#80

Post by wott »

a3n wrote: post #7
scrollaway wrote: post #2

So while this is on HN, I wanted to talk a bit about LXQt and desktop OSes in general. Context: I'm one of the original leads on LXQt, and I initiated the merge of Razor-qt and LXDE-Qt into LXQt. I've been using LXQt as my main desktop for several years now. I've kept up with what other desktops have been doing. I've been especially impressed by the efforts of the GNOME team, and especially disappointed with the clus…

> Most people who care about their desktop have migrated or are migrating to OSX I'm not among the most people. I don't care about my desktop, and I've migrated away from all the focus on appearance to tiling window managers, currently awesome. I almost never see my desktop, I just want my windows. I'm not a "the mouse is evil, twm's are efficient," I just got fed up with all the focus on the desktop. I don't care, I…

My personal conclusion is always the same: I always come back to Windowmaker. Every single time I use another DE, no matter how shiny it is (and they are truly beautiful when you open them for the first time), I face half-baked applications, many bugs, and basically half of the stuff is fucked up with each update.

So I stick to Windowmaker. I don't even really use its DE part, I use it as a WM mostly. It gives me terminals and other windows, and that's all I need. I don't even tweak it as I use to do 15 (or perhaps a bit more) years ago. It's fine for me as it is.

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