en.credativ blog: Category KDE

Desktops and their performance

2010-03-12T10:00:16Z

Phoronix has used its Test Suite to compare the memory and power consumption of different desktop environments. However, the results should be handled with care.

The "Power & Memory Usage" test was done to evaluate whether XFCE and LXDE consume less power and memory compared with their "big" siblings KDE and Gnome. The tests were done on a stock Ubuntu installation. At first glance the results suggest that KDE consumes much more power than the others. However, these results are misleading.

For a start, measuring memory consumption is all but an easy task and requires a lot of thought. The problem is that many applications share a certain amount of memory and this is especially true for KDE. Very few programs out there can handle this shared memory properly while still showing the memory consumption of a process. "Top" and "free" are worthless in this regard; if you need to use any tool, take "exmap"! A more detailed analysis of this problem was done here.

Yet even if the memory consumption could be measured perfectly, there is still the matter of what this memory is being used for. Gnome and KDE do need quite a chunk of memory right at the start, but that is mainly due to the larger libraries, which offer a number of functions for other programs as well. It is for this reason that the memory measurement done with a set of programs shows different results, indicating that a Desktop with larger libraries has a much slower growing fingerprint for each additional application compared to a Desktop with smaller libraries.

However, even after taking this point into account, you might still ask, "what do you get?" KDE and Gnome usually offer a file indexer and tagger by default - whether these are running or sleeping can massively influence the measurements in tests such as these. Also, both desktops come with some heavy 3D effects. If you turn these off by default the memory footprint and the power consumption is of course much lower.

A comparison between a full featured desktop vs a Desktop with much less functionality is brainless - you could also add a turned off machine to the test and declare it the winner because it has the smallest memory footprint and power consumption!

To clarify: in general the Phoronix Test Suite can be used to evaluate certain data or at least trends in certain data - but data acquisition requires fixed surrounding conditions as well as a detailed discussion of the compared objects and their features, not to mention a detailed (read: scientific) analysis of the results. Throwing numbers around is not enough - if you are going to do so, you should at least include accurate details!

The Power and Memory Usage test is lacking in all these factors, so it is unfortunately worthless. :/

[Tip] Modifying favorites in rekonq

2010-03-01T17:08:10Z

Currently I am testing the browser rekonq, a WebKit based KDE browser which is handled as the next KDE default browser by some. If that might happen or not is a question best left to the future, but the browser itself has some nice features in the current version 0.4 beta: kwallet integration, addblock, plugin support, etc.

However, with the current git checkout the favorites management is not working properly: on about:favorites you can easily delete the favorites, but you cannot add new ones or manage them at all. But there is still the config file $HOME/.kde/share/config/rekonqrc, all you have to do is to change the entries below "NewTabPage": a comma separated list shows first the URLs and then the comments for the URLs, and is failry simple to edit:

[NewTabPage]
previewNames=http://www.heise.de,http://www.spiegel.de,http://www.tagesschau.de,,,,,
previewUrls=heise.de,spiegel.de,tagesschau.de,,,,,

This is one of the things that rekonq still has some problems with, and it shows that rekonq is still in heavy development. But it is already promising and I do wonder whether it might be a real alternative to other browsers for KDE users.

Mobile Linux merged: Moblin + Maemo = MeeGo

2010-02-17T13:42:36Z

A couple of hours ago Nokia and Intel announced that they plan to merge their mobile Linux platforms to create a common base: MeeGo.

Giants Intel and Nokia have had their own Linux platforms for some time; Nokia was developing Maemo while Intel pushed Moblin forward. These two were battling in an already highly competitive market together with Android and LiMo - not to mention the proprietary solutions.Now Intel and Nokia have announced the merge of their two platforms into a new, combined platform: MeeGo.

"Moblin and maemo are merging! We are taking the best pieces from these two open source projects and are creating the MeeGo software platform."

In an economical sense, this is quite a sensible step. Intel and Nokia are two players who can defend themselves against even the likes of Google, Apple or Microsoft. However, in such a hard-fought market they do need partners or a new strategy at least, since both have so far failed to launch a solution with a larger market reach than their competitors. (There are few devices available with Maemo or Moblin.) They have the added advantage that both platforms were technically similar, so the merge enables them to save resources. But the question remains as to whether Intel and Nokia will come into competition with each other on the device market, as MeeGo will be run on a variety of devices, from mobile phones to TVs.

From a technical perspective, it is interesting to see that MeeGo will use Qt as the main graphics library. This framework, currently owned by Nokia, is used to program GUIs; among others, it forms the base for KDE. credativ employees often work with Qt and, being familiar with the advantages of the framework also offer Qt-support to customers. With Qt, MeeGo is based upon a well-proven and modern, graphical framework. Besides, it has been rumoured that MeeGo will be based upon RPM. There are references to "kickstart" files in the developer section, which suggest MeeGo will be close to distributions such as Fedora, OpenSuse or RHEL.

Besides the technical and economic perspective, the community question is significant for any new platform. While it is said that LiMu leaves the community out in total, and Android is criticised for not merging their Kernel patches upstream, in contrast, it is planned that MeeGo will be developed under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation, which is well known to the Community and also employs some outstanding developers.

Time will tell if MeeGo will stand its ground - as yet, there are no devices available and the competition is strong... but it will definitely be interesting to watch!

Skolelinux 5.0 released

2010-02-15T14:05:01Z

The Skolelinux team has released version 5.0 of its popular school server, which is now based on Debian Lenny.

The distribution Skolelinux, also known as Debian-Edu, is a Debian version adapted for running school networks with Linux. It enables even non-geek users to quickly set up a central school server with a terminal server, thin clients, workstations and laptops as desktop computers.

With the release of version 5.0, Skolelinux was lifted to the current Debian software base. Besides providing enhanced hardware support, it now updates the software to recent versions, making the new release more appealing to pupils and schools. Some other technical highlights of this version include:

GNOME is now supported alongside KDE;

The pupils' destkop has been enhanced with links to school software like GCompris, Kalzium, KGeography, KMplot, KStars, Stopmotion and the OpenOffice Suite;

Improved LTSP server configuration:
- Besides the traditional thin clients, diskless workstations are now supported out of the box; manual tweaking is no longer necessary;
- The new PXE start menu allows diskless workstations to boot via network or via local media;
- Software running locally on diskless workstations comes straight from the server, where it can be more easily maintained.

Improved documentation, now translated into German, Italian and Norwegian;

Improved and simplified user- and machine-administration tool LWAT (LDAP Web-based Administration Tool);

Improved browser support with free software products like Gnash, Java and other plugins;

Improved monitoring, now reporting on the status of all machines which are automatically connected to the network;

Improved audio and multimedia experience in PulseAudio, next to Alsa and OSS.

Philipp Hübner, voluntary worker of the Skolelinux project and employee here at credativ underlines the modern approach of the new version:

"Skolelinux made a huge leap forward with the new release: the seamless, out of the box integration of the Diskless Workstation makes Skolelinux perfect for the challenges of today, as it evolves to keep up with the constantly growing performance of computers. This way, the performance of modern workstations is perfectly combined with the low maintainance work of thin clients."

Skolelinux is now used by milions of pupils across various countries, including Spain, Norway and Germany. In 2009, credativ Germany supervised the successful completion of a Skolelinux evaluation project, a solution which is increasingly adopted in schools today. As a certified support partner, credativ is able to offer professional support services in the education sector.We congratulate Skolelinux for this release: well done, we wish you all the best for the future!

KDE 4.4 released

2010-02-12T14:25:29Z

This week the KDE project released version 4.4 of its software compilation. Besides new scientific programs, this version focuses on stability and enhancements of the current programs and functions.

The KDE project released version 4.4 of its "KDE Software Compilation" (KDE SC) package. The new version is especially striking for its attention to detail in the user experience:

An overview of all new features can be found in the Feature Guide, which has more images and videos. Here are some of the most significant enhancements:

Substantial improvements of the semantic search system Nepomuk: the new default storage backend is a lot faster than the old one.

Plasma has advanced: Widgets can now be shared with other users over the network and the management and handling of external storage devices has been reworked.

New programs: besides the blog application Blogilo, KDE SC 4.4 also comes with the scientific programs Cantor and Rocs.

The development platform for KDE Software now has the new authentication framework KAuth, which allows more specific and secure allocation of user rights.

Another new feature which I personally like, is basic support for automatic window sizing - almost basic tiling support. For example, whenever you drag a window to the left window, it is automatically resized to cover the left half of the screen. This is particularly useful when working with several windows at a time on a huge screen.

Compared with previous KDE versions, there are less new features in this release. The developers have really focused on fixing bugs and improving stability. This is one of the reasons why users who are still running KDE 3.x are advised to change over to KDE 4.x now; the distributions will ship KDE 4.4 soon anyway.

During the release of KDE SC 4.4, the main website of the KDE project was also re-designed. kde.org was completely reworked and now includes information from external sources as opendesktop.org. This means interested users have access to much better and more detailed information about the available software.Congrats on the new release from credativ!

Bringing Groupware to KDE - Akonadi resources for Open-Xchange and Groupdav

2010-01-19T12:39:47Z

Akonadi is the central point of accessing PIM data for all KDE applications. It abstracts all the different implementation details of various sources so that the mail program or calendar application does not need to know the details of how to access the sources itself. However, Akonadi does need these details, which is where its resources come into play.

Akonadi communicates with other e-mail or calendar sources via so called "resources". Currently there are resources for accessing locally stored information (mostly from older KDE installations) as well as to access IMAP folders and maildirs. But there is a huge gap when it comes to calendar data: many users store their calendars on groupware servers like Google Calendar, Apple's Calendar Server, Citadel, Open-XChange and so on; and while support wasn't perfect in KDE 3.x times, it was almost non-existent within Akonadi in KDE 4.x.

For that reason, we at credativ GmbH put two of our KDE developers to the task: Marco Nelles (mne) developed a plugin for the GroupDav protocol and Tobias König (tko) sat down to implement support for Open-XChange. In the near future, one or both plan to help with the development of a CalDav plugin, THE groupware interface for Google, Apple and the others.

Here are some Q&A regarding their work:

First things first, since we are an Open Source company: where is the code?

mne, tko: The code for both plugins can be found in the KDE svn in playground: the Open-Xchange plugin can be found in resources/openxchange, the GroupDAV plugin is called CAlgo and can be found in /pim/calgo.

What is the stage of the source? Alpha, Beta, RC?

tko: Brave people can already test the OX plugin, I would consider it as RC. Compared to its KDE 3.x equivalent it supports the same features plus some extras: display of more than one calendar or addressbook through one resource, support of contact lists and offline/caching support by Akonadi. I've developed against OX 6.14.0, but it should work well with all OX releases of the 6.x cycle.

mne: Well, the resource is in playground for a reason. It is somewhat between Alpha and Beta.

And how does the feature set compare to its KDE 3.x equivalent? Against which software was it tested?

mne: It should offer the same features as its KDE 3.x equivalent, although the KDE 3.x one was better tested. I've tested it against Citadel and eGroupWare.

You've said the plugins are still in playground - when will they be shipped with the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC?

tko: The development started too late for KDE SC 4.4, but it will definitely be shipped with KDE SC 4.5.

mne: Never. Most likely, it won't leave the playground. I will concentrate on the development of a CalDav resource which seems to be more popular and is more important. Also, there is a chance that the CalDav plugin might even handle the GroupDav part as well.

And why did you develop it as an Akonadi plugin?

tko: Akonadi is the PIM framework for KDE SC 4.5 and following. It offers fundamental advantages in comparison to the old KDE 3.x KResources, and since a number of credativ employees use KDE desktops, it was a natural step to provide Akonadi plugins to the most common groupware servers.

mne: You could also ask: why did I develop for KDE? :-) To be honest, Akonadi provides a great API to quickly develop efficient plugins to arbitrary PIM data soures. What's more, in an environment where PIM data are becoming more and more important, Akonadi is just the next logical step. For me personally it was also a great opportunity to get in touch with this new KDE technology.

Thanks for your time and of course for your code, guys!