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bmedina · Jan 28, 2003, 11:06 PM

After downloading an hour's worth of files, the install via fink failed since I don't have the Dec 2002 dev tools installed. While I'm waiting for that download, does anyone have any comments on the new release of KDE?

On a related note, how would I go about running KDE on its own. After logging in as >console, what do I need to do to get Apple's X11 up and running? How about when I want to log out?

clarkgoble · Jan 29, 2003, 01:31 PM

KDE doesn't play well with Apple's X11.app. It'll work, but it won't be very pleasant. (Sadly since I like KDE)

Gene Jockey · Jan 29, 2003, 04:54 PM

If you have the X11 installed from XFree86 via fink, log in as console, then just 'startx' and if you have kde set to start in your xinitrc, away you go. IIRC the latest XFree is accelerated when started in console mode. You wouldn't be able to use Apple's X11 app from the console, as the Quartz WindowServer is not running, and Apple's X11.app uses it to display the screen.

--Josh

diamondsw · Feb 7, 2003, 01:31 PM

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
KDE doesn't play well with Apple's X11.app. It'll work, but it won't be very pleasant. (Sadly since I like KDE)

I've heard lots of general rumbling that there are problems between X11.app and KDE - any details on what's wrong? I'd also like to install KDE again, but get the graphics acceleration of Apple's window manager.

clarkgoble · Feb 7, 2003, 02:09 PM

I don't know what is wrong, and admittedly I've not updated Fink for a few weeks. However the KDE applications I've run tend to be fairly unstable and crash frequently under X11.app. Why this is so, I can't say. The other problem is that unlike XDarwin, X11.app sets the top of the screen to be the literal top of the screen. This means that KDE menus and so forth are under the OSX menubar. Very, very annoying.

macmike42 · Feb 9, 2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
KDE doesn't play well with Apple's X11.app. It'll work, but it won't be very pleasant. (Sadly since I like KDE)

KDE plays fine with Apple's X11, as long as your display is set to millions of colors. The screen bounds problem is solved by using quartz-wm instead of kwm.

Apple's X11 only runs in rootless mode, so logging in with ">console" won't work at all with Apple's X11. If you want a reasonably fast X server that will run in rooted mode, you'll need to build the latest version of XFree86 from CVS. Not a very pleasant process, to say the least. If I were you, I'd wait until XFree86 4.3 comes out (any day now) and install it through Fink. Apparently it uses lots of Apple's code for XDarwin, so it will be faster in rootless mode, and has much better IOKit hardware acceleration support, so it will be faster in (rooted) console mode.

ttjervaag · Feb 10, 2003, 07:19 AM

KDE plays fine with Apple's X11, as long as your display is set to millions of colors. The screen bounds problem is solved by using quartz-wm instead of kwm.

Hi,

I have the same problem with KDE, that it extends beyond the menu bar (IE. the full screen). Can you explain more about what you mean by the above as a means to solve this?

Terje

macmike42 · Feb 10, 2003, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by ttjervaag:
Hi,

I have the same problem with KDE, that it extends beyond the menu bar (IE. the full screen). Can you explain more about what you mean by the above as a means to solve this?

Terje

Sure.

First, a brief summary: X11 doesn't display any decorations around windows by itself. Decorations (titlebars, borders, open/close/minimize widgets) are provided by a separate process called a window manager. KDE provides its own window manager called "kwm", which is almost always what you see when you see screenshots of KDE. Apple's X11 comes with a window manager called "quartz-wm" which looks exactly the same as OS X window decorations (for all intensive purposes, it is exactly the same).

Now, what you can do about it: There are several ways to start a window manager. If you have no configuration whatsoever, Apple's X11 will start quartz-wm and a single xterm, whereas XDarwin will start twm (a really simple window manager that comes with X), three xterms, and (I think) a clock. The way you configure X11/XDarwin is by placing a file called ".xinitrc" in your home directory. If KDE starts by default, you probably already have this file. Basically you want this file to contain one line if you uses Apple's X11, and that line is "exec quartz-wm". If you still want KDE to start up when you launch X11, the first line should be "quartz-wm" and the second line should be "exec startkde", since you want to have Apple's window manager running before KDE tries to start its own.

Note that the word "exec" may be optional with Apple's X11. The reason for it, in general, is that when XFree86 starts, it starts a shell to run the .xinitrc file, and once that shell exits, XFree86 also exits. The "exec" makes sure that the shell doesn't exit until whatever command was "exec"'d exits as well (ie you close your window manager or quit kde). With Apple's X11, this doesn't seem to be the behaviour, and the only way to quit X11 is from the application menu.

I hope that was clear enough without being to much information.

clarkgoble · 08:22 PM

With the old version of X11 it had the same problem regardless of which window manager you used. I also found that I had a lot of instabilities while using KDE applications, even from a different window manager.

With X11.b2 everything is different. KDE plays very nicely now and the position of windows in both Gnome and KDE is fixed so that they don't go under the OSX menu. I also notice that things seem even faster. About the only problem is that KDE windows aren't brought in front of OSX windows when you click on them. You have to click on the X11 application in the dock. Oddly this happens only with KDE applications. Gnome applications such as Gnumeric or other X11 apps don't have this. I'm still playing around with this problem just in case it is one of my settings.

This really does offer me the best of all possible worlds. Up to now I've had too much problems running KDE apps. Very nice job Apple.

BTW - if you use KDE I'd suggest downloading IceWM. It has a very, very nice Aqua theme. Move the resize/close buttons to the left of the window bar and you have windows that look identical to using Apple's quartz-wm.