From: aragorn@chatfactory.invalid   
      
   On Tuesday 03 November 2009 04:48 in alt.os.linux.gentoo, somebody   
   identifying as AZ Nomad wrote...   
      
   > Whose brilliant idea is it to mask kde3?   
      
   Thanks for the heads-up.  My missing hardware is being supplied today   
   and if all goes well, then I may (re)start on the Gentoo installation   
   today.   
      
   (Hmm...  Just got a call as I'm typing this: the hardware will be   
   supplied tomorrow due to time constraints today.)   
      
   > I've tried KDE4 at every minor release since 4.1 and it is still   
   > garbage.  Too many idiotic decisions have been made that reduce its   
   > useablity to nil and in my opinion it is simply not ready. Some of the   
   > nastier aspects I discovered in less than 8 hours of use:   
   >   
   > [...]   
   > No desktop.  Insanity!  Everything is shoved inside a window.  I can   
   > drag icons outside the window, but they remain in the window and   
   > there's no obvious way to get rid of the window.  Reminds me of   
   > windows 3.1, or perhaps a very old version of CDE.   
      
   This is something that I've read about in another group.  It's still   
   possible to have icons on the desktop but the mechanism is different.   
   You have to add a plasma applet with "folder view" or something, which   
   will then have some sort of translucent appearance.  (Note: I hate the   
   word "folder", because people only started calling directories folders   
   because of MICROS~1.)   
      
   > [...]   
   > I guess I'll just unmask kde3.   
      
   That is also what I plan to do.   
      
   > Hopefully gentoo won't make too many other poor decisions regarding   
   > kde3 and make it unuseable.   
      
   That will of course remain to be seen... :-/   
      
   > Maybe it's tine to switch to gnome, [...   
      
   I'm not really a fan of Gnome.  I really do like KDE 3.5.10 though.   
      
   > ...] or to another distribution.   
      
   Sabayon is Gentoo-based, but I haven't really checked their package   
   list, so it's possible they supply KDE 4 as well, although I /believe/   
   that their default desktop environment is Gnome.   
      
   I myself have recently also been looking into NexentaOS, which is the   
   GNU userland with the OpenSolaris kernel and C library.  The package   
   management and set-up is based upon Ubuntu, but what I find interesting   
   about it are the Solaris Zones, ZFS, and the fact that it also supports   
   running in a Xen dom0/domU, but then again, they're all binary packages   
   and of course, then it won't be "Linux" anymore.   
      
   They use the GNU userland (minus glibc) but OpenSolaris is CDDL, not   
   GPL, and that sort of goes against my FOSS activism and my loyalty to   
   Linux, the kernel.  I will agree that RMS is sometimes a little too   
   pedantic about things, but he needs to be, because if he isn't, then   
   people will be walking all over the GPL - and some are trying to find   
   loopholes or perverting things anyway, which is why GPLv3 was drawn   
   up - and my ethical alignment with regard to Free & Open Source   
   Software leans over closest to the GPL(v3) and the Free Software   
   Foundation - more than, say, the BSD or MIT licenses - so it doesn't   
   feel "right" to suddenly exchange the trusted and powerful Linux kernel   
   for an open source project from a big corporate vendor.   
      
   And well, the fact that NexentaOS uses binary packages bugs me too.   
   That was the main reason why I had my mind set on Gentoo.  Now, I need   
   a system with "zones" (or "containers") anyway for one of my Xen domUs,   
   so perhaps I will install Nexenta in that domU but keep the rest   
   GNU/Linux.  I don't know yet.  I'll check out how well Gentoo handles   
   an OpenVZ setup first before I'll try Nexenta.   
      
   --   
   *Aragorn*   
   (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)