A few weeks back, we talked about KDE and Gnome in daily life, and how they fared from the applications perspective, when you pit programs developed for one environment against those created for the other. We learned a valuable lesson that technology and practicality do not necessarily go hand in hand, nor that you can easily draw a clear line between the two. Finally, we discovered the joy of freedom, in that you can mix software, regardless of whichever desktop you choose, and get the best of all worlds. Now, the big question is, does the same set of conclusions… Continue Reading

This is not a competition. The thing is, you can install any which program on any which distribution, pretty much, regardless of what desktop environment you choose to choose. Instead, this is a friendly reality check for people who prefer this or that operating system. Let’s say you wish to use only the native applications developed for your particular flavor of the desktop. How would your productivity or efficiency or peace of mind change then? We will pit Gnome programs vs. KDE software, across a range of categories. No browsers this time, since we did them only a few weeks ago,… Continue Reading

Plasma is KDE’s and therefore Netrunner’s desktop and workspace. I’ve explained what Plasma is and how to change it to your liking in the past. Unlike its competition KDE puts the user in charge of his or her desktop, and in the mobile age of technology, KDE should get an easy and pleasant experience for touch-input devices as well mouse pointing devices, specially when Windows 8 is coming out, and many people migrating from a Windows 8 PC will now have this feature. This is where Homerun hits the scene, developed by Aurélien Gateau and Shaun Reich, whom contribute to Gwenview… Continue Reading

Playing music is easy, just choose a media player of some sort and fire up a few songs. With the right plugins or codecs installed, you will hear sound pouring from the speakers. Easy. However, finding the right software to suit your needs, taste and mood, and help you organize music – is not. Today, we have a little contest coming up, between Amarok, Clementine, and Tomahawk. Amarok As you probably know, Amarok is a popular music player for KDE desktops, perhaps the most popular. The list of capabilities is truly impressive. Amarok will run on Windows, if you are so… Continue Reading

Hullo, my first article here, and I’m blithely taking on Telepathy. Officially, Telepathy is a software framework which can be used to make software for interpersonal communications such as instant messaging, Voice over IP or videoconferencing. Telepathy enables the creation of communications applications using components via the D-Bus inter-process communication mechanism. Through this it aims to simplify development of communications applications and promote code reuse within the free software and open source communities by defining a logical boundary between the applications and underlying network protocols. But that’s geek lingo. For normal people, this is an instant messaging client with additional audio… Continue Reading

KDE has announced its newest Beta, and it’s asking people to be testers to clear out as many bugs as possible before the launch, they’re dividing their beta testers in two categories: Informal testers, which will use their systems normally, and Formal testers which will focus in particular parts and stressing out applications. End users should be pretty excited about this new release, according to the KDE developers itself the highlights of this release are: Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces — Qt Quick is continuing to make its way into the Plasma Workspaces; the Qt Quick Plasma Components, which were introduced… Continue Reading

KDE’s most powerful video editor just got upgraded. Kdenlive is a multitrack editor with a wide support of cameras and video codecs. New in this release is a rewritten effect stack, effects can now be adjusted on real time. One innovative feature is how it integrates with archive.org, Free Sound and Open Clip Art . By connecting to their database you can download different clips of audio and video all with open licences, meaning it’s absolutely legal to use them in your own personal productions. If you want to try it out, or upgrade your current installation, just add ppa:sunab/kdenlive-release to your repositories. Source:… Continue Reading

The first alpha of the upcoming 1.4 version of Muon has been released, in our series about package managers we presented in detail. The most prominent new feature is Muon Discover, this feature is being developed by Alex González under the sponsorship of Blue Systems: Kubuntu’s new sponsor and Netrunner’s too. Muon Discover aims to eventually replace the Muon Software Center, but not in this version. It offers a new way to install and find new software at the same time it offers a good user experience, full with animations, good looking transitions and screenshots, this is achieved thanks to… Continue Reading