December 29, 2009

Sometimes It Won't Work (III)

on kde and some other stuff

- kde respects bugs. bugs in kde3 have their equivalent in kde4. rule of thumb in developing kde is 'we do not fix bugs. ever.' the worst part is that important bugs in kde3 were not fixed in several years. it's been two years now and kde4 doesn't even provide the features kde3 did (oh yes, instead it is providing hundreds of new features, which all make it a very productive environment - especially if you know how to kill kdm every 2 hours)

- here's the routine when working in kde4:

1. type your username and password
2. change the last desktop environment from gnome to kde
3. now make your mouse search for that ENTER button which doesn't exist
4. take your right hand (if you're a right-handed person, otherwise take your left) off the mouse and press Enter
5. you are now logged in
6. open the web browser and navigate to a web page
7. (this happens only 50% of the time) open a terminal and kill your web browser
8. restart kdm (and goto 1)

- i wonder why didn't anybody bothered to make a 'satanic' edition of kubuntu? (yeah, i know, but don't smile, it's sad but true)
- for some strange reasons sound will cease to work at some point

- the killer app (that's amarok) is no longer - it is a fiasco, a shame, an app which opposes to any possible usability rules from every aspect, it is full of bugs, it is non-intuitive, it is stripped from every single useful feature, and it does this successfully for two years now

- (instead let's take a look at rhythmbox which, in order to play a song will require you to: 1. type alt+s; 2. type the name of some song; 3. wait for 5 seconds (for over 10,000 songs collections); 4. at this point the song is listed and (obviously) you'll want to play it, but surprise! enter does not work; 5. so move your dirty lil' fingers to the mouse and double-click the song; 6. What a funny experience! there is actually a song playing 7. but now you want to change the song, aye? 8. remember: press alt+s again, ctrl+a to delete the search filter; 9. now where is my song? 10. press ctrl+j and there you go!)

- the same thing in amarok: oh wait, you can't do it from the keyboard (now that's a standard application, and they had two years to do a simple search 'n play thing)

- kde4: we want equalizer! we want equalizer! kde4 is all about innovation, but they say that phonon (what's that?) doesn't support equalizer! oh crap... and i thought linux was ready for the desktop... ever since... 2002?

we are the creators of ubu-vista.com, ubu-vista.org, ubu-vista.net and maybe also ubu-vista.etcetera (just hit refresh on that domains until we register them)

we had the idea of bringing the ubu-vista operating system to you, and it features:
- full desktop environments like aero-gnome (parachuters included)
- several addictive games which don't crash (only 20 openend-bugs!)
- video editeur (to start it and see the crashing output in the console)
- audio editeur (it kind of works but... it crashes when it comes to proprietary formats and strangely it doesn't have support for Ogg Vorbis or flac)
- shell commander: that thing which can be replaced with synaptic if you know what you're doing
- the 'olive', 'goat's shit' and 'you can't stand me' themes (upcoming 'i shit my pants' on its way)

Each and every new release of firefox is faster, less memory-hungry and more powerful! (actually this is true and non-ironical, except for the faster and memory parts)

rules of thumb:
- do not use flash (unless you have a script to save session, kill fx and start a new session every... (well, this depends on the fx version, if you have the latest updated 2.x you'll have the chance to work for 3 hours uninterrupted, for the 3.5 i warmly recommend to just not use a web browser (i'm sure in 2010 we could use dillo, or, still better, lynx)))... was that 45 seconds?

back to the point:
- i like how kde 4 improved in the last two years, but for some strange reason those windows are always 200x200 pixels when a single widget inside them is bigger