F3036 – OPEN SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEM

TOPIC 3 – LINUX DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT

History of KDE (K Desktop Environment)

 1996 - KDE was founded by Matthias Ettrich

 At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the Unix desktop.
 Among his qualms was that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike.
 He proposed the formation of not only a set of applications, but rather a desktop
environment, in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently.
 He also wanted to make this desktop easy to use; one of his complaints with desktop
applications of the time was that his girlfriend could not use them.
 available for Unix systems.
 It was supposed to be an intuitively easy-to-use desktop computer environment.
 The K was originally suggested to stand for "Kool", but it was quickly decided that the K
should stand for nothing in particular
 KDE is a free software project based around its flagship product, a desktop environment
mainly for Unix-like systems.
 The goal of the project is to provide basic desktop functions and applications for daily
needs as well as tools and documentation for developers to write stand-alone applications
for the system.
 In this regard, the KDE project serves as an umbrella project for many standalone
applications and smaller projects that are based on KDE technology such as KOffice,
KDevelop, Amarok, K3b .

History of GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment)

 The name “GNOME” was proposed as an acronym of GNU Network Object Model
Environment by Elliot Lee, one of the authors of ORBit and the Object Activation Framework.
 It refers to GNOME’s original intention of creating a distributed object framework.
 As such, some members of the project advocate dropping the acronym and re-naming
"GNOME" to "Gnome“.
 GNOME is a desktop environment—a GUI which runs on top of a computer OS - composed
entirely of free and open source software.
 It is an international project that includes:
o creating software development frameworks
o selecting application software for the desktop
o working on the programs which manage application launching, file handling, and
window and task management.
 GNOME is part of the GNU Project and can be used with various Unix-like OS, most notably
those built on top of the Linux kernel

GNOME Project Aims:

 Freedom—to create a desktop environment that will always have the source code available
for re-use under a free software license.
 Accessibility—ensuring the desktop can be used by anyone
 Internationalization and localization—making the desktop available in many languages. At
the moment GNOME is being translated to 166 languages.
 Developer-friendliness—ensuring it is easy-to-write software that integrates smoothly with
the desktop, and allow developers a free choice of programming language.

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 Organization—a regular release cycle and a disciplined community structure.

 Support—ensuring backing from other institutions beyond the GNOME community.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KDE AND GNOME

KDE Desktop Environment GNOME

by default favors blue and
black, has one toolbar at the
bottom of the screen, and has
one main menu
there is a KMenu through which
you access all programs
also defaults to a single-click
instead of double-click for
opening files
Default look by default favors brown and
orange, has 2 toolbars (one at
the top, one at the bottom),
and splits its menu into three
submenus—Applications,
Places, and System
Menu Navigation you have separate buttons for
applications, for folder
navigation, and for system
preferences
Renaming files also focuses on the main file
name, but it does so inline and
not with a pop-up window.

has a System Settings central
location for configuring system
preferences. This can be
accessed through the KMenu.
you have to click Apply or Save
to get the changes to stick
System Preferences by default, you access each
preference one at a time by
going to System > Preferences >
and then selecting the item you
want
Changes changes usually take effect as
you are choosing the new
option.

click on the KMenu and select
Leave and then the next option
Exiting exit option recently moved
from being in the System menu
to being its own applet. You
click it and the options come
down

Office Applications

 KOffice
o free and open-source office suite.
 OpenOffice.org
o an open-source software project upon which Sun's StarOffice is based. Its
components include Writer, Impress, Math, Draw, Calc, and Base.
 OpenOffice.org Novell Edition
o features the Office Open XML translator add-on. Based upon OpenOffice.org.
 Go-oo
o OpenOffice.org variant with a number of enhancements similar to the Novell Edition
but freely available. It has better support for Office Open XML (MS Office 2007) file
formats than the official OpenOffice.org

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Internet Applications

 Firefox
o Firefox browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to our online life.
o With the latest version, powerful new features are added
 SeaMonkey
o SeaMonkey® is an all-in-one Internet application suite, containing a web browser, a
mail and newsgroups client, an HTML editor, web development tools, and an IRC
chat client in a single software package.

Email Applications

 EVOLUTION
o This wonderful email client, calendar and groupware application not only looks like
Outlook, it also matches Microsoft's email program in features and functionality.
 MOZILLA THUNDERBIRD
o is a fully featured, secure and very functional email client and RSS feed reader.
o It lets you handle mail efficiently and with style, and Mozilla Thunderbird filters away
junk mail too.
 KMail
o Integrated with the nice KDE desktop
o KMail is powerful, but easy to learn use, especially if your're coming from Windows.
 Balsa
o Balsa is part of the Gnome desktop environment (which is just as nice as KDE), but it
does not yet equal KMail in advanced features.
 SYLPHEED
o Sylpheed is a friendly email client with a particularly easy to use interface.
o There are a few things that Sylpheed does better than Balsa, and a few more where
Balsa has an advantage.
 ALPINE
o Alpine is powerful console email program that makes you use email productively
with automation

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