KDE4 design decisions

There's been some discussions recently about KDE4, especially about Plasma. This post by Liquidat explains some of the design decisions made with KDE4. It's a good read if you are interested in KDE4 and it should clear up some of the misunderstandings.

Google's Android mobile platform

It looks like Google has done a very smart move. Though, at lwn.net there is a discussion about the reasons for Google's move. It will certainly be interesting to see how this evolves and how many mobile phones we'll see that uses it. I've looked forward to OpenMoko, but I must say I worry a bit about the future of OpenMoko and Trolltechs Qtopia too. I wouldn't be surprised if the community and eco-system around Android soon becomes many times bigger than OpenMoko and Qtopia together.

3 Linux/Ubuntu reviews/blog posts

1. The first little review of the new Dell offering can be found here. It sounds like a neat system.

2. A person evaluates 60 days with Ubuntu. Overall he likes it and he will continue to use Ubuntu. Of course, there are things he don't like (nothing is perfect) and there are things he don't seem to understand:

Who cares if this driver is free or not?

I care and so should he because overall he will no doubt have a more stable system and experience less problems with free drivers. For further information about this, see this article, this article or this article.

3. Mark Pilgrim, a well known developer switched to Ubuntu from Mac a year ago and in this post he evaluates that last year with Linux. He hasn't regretted switching and specifically he talks quite a bit about the hassle of keeping your system updated with security fixes and such. Windows Update is fine, but what about all your applications? Of course, this is an area where Ubuntu and other Linux distros really shines. Keeping a Linux system updated is very easy.

Update on the linux kernel monkey log Update on the free Linux driver development offer

A FAQ have been posted about this great offer and it looks like the offer has been heard:

Q: Are companies actually taking you up on this offer?
A: Yes, the initial response to this was amazing, a measurable number of new Linux drivers will be created thanks to this program.

That is just great! I hope it will be a big succes!

The Road to KDE 4

Troy Unrau has been writing a great series of articles about the next major release of the open source desktop, KDE. The series is called "The Road to KDE" and the latest one is Phonon Makes Multimedia Easier. Phonon should make multimedia work better and more reliable.

Here is a listing of the previous articles (first one at the bottom) which I highly recommend:

Kalzium and KmPlot
Job Progress Reimagined
Full Mac OS X Support
New KOffice Technologies
SVG Rendering in Applications