Osugi Sakae

Oops

I just found this post in the drafts section and realized that even though I wrote it well over a year ago, I never posted it. Rather than leave it again, I am going to post it now and complete it with screenshots in the near future.

This post is a bit out of date because I am talking about MS WinXP and KDE 3.5.x even though MS Windows Vista has been out for a couple of years (and MS Windows 7 is currently RTM) and KDE is up to 4.3. However, I am still using KDE 3.5 and much of the MS Windows-using world decided to stay with MS WinXP, so this article is not as out of date as it may seem.

Also, I believe (but could be wrong, I admit) that the situation has not changed much with current MS Windows releases — they still don’t come with much useful software; the end user still has to purchase or otherwise acquire and install their day-to-day software on their own.

Further, most of the KDE software mentioned in this article is still in use in KDE 4.3, although possibly in slightly modified form.

More Observations on KDE & WinXP

This is the third in a series of articles chronicling my switch from KDE to WinXP at work. If you haven’t already, please read the first and second articles.

There was not a whole lot of good software included with WinXP. Almost none. There is no good text editor – just Wordpad and Notepad. No good image manipulation program. MS Paint is the graphics equivalent of Notepad. For someone used to Linux, such skimpy software offerings are strange. KDE comes with an impressive amount of software. MS WinXP doesn’t.

Software

Here is a partial list of the KDE software that I have installed. To keep it short, I have removed most of the operating system related software (login manager, printing software, run-as-different-user software, and the like):

Amarok

is not technically a default KDE application. It is however, the best music program for any desktop environment. Yes, I think it is even better than iTunes.

KAudioCreator

is a typical if overly complex ripping and encoding program. KDE’s Konqueror also lets you drag & drop the format of your choice from the CD, without the need for a stand alone program like KAudioCreator. This is very, very nice because it fits the drag & drop metaphor and doesn’t reqiure any knowledge other than the name (mp3, ogg, flac, etc.) of your preferred format. Still, if you need more power or don’t use Konqueror, KAudioCreator can probably do what you need.

KSnapshot

is KDE’s screenshot program. With a GUI and a menu entry, unlike the screenshot program in WinXP.

K3B

may well be the best CD burning program on any platform. In my limited experience, WinXP’s CD burning software is hard to understand and hard to use.

Klipper

is the clipboard tool. It remembers the last several things you copied or cut, so you can access them again later. I use this many times every day and hate that MS WinXP doesn’t have something similar.

KAlarm

is a nice program for sending yourself reminders. It will send an email or popup a reminder on the screen. KAlarm can also play a sound, to get your attention or wake you up. Very handy.

KWorldWatch

is a cool program for showing the time around the world. Very useful since I am in Japan and my family is in America.

Komposé

is KDE’s implementation of Apple’s Exposé. Cool eye candy and quite useful.

KOffice

is a full featured office suite that includes the usual programs: word processor, spreadsheet, drawing, database, etc.

Kate

is like UltraEdit for KDE. In other words, a great text editor. Wordpad and Notepad are not even in the same league.

Kile

is a powerful LaTeX development front-end.

KPDF

is a PDF viewer. It also allows Konqueror to embed PDF files. WinXP cannot do this (although it comes close when it embeds Adobe Reader in MSIE).

Kopete

is KDE’s instant messenger program. It supports many protocols and integrates well with KAddressbook and KMail. And if you don’t use it, you don’t have to hack the registry to prevent it loading up at start.

KAddressbook

is just what it sounds like, an addressbook. Integrates with KMail, Kopete, and probably several other programs.

KMail

is KDE’s email client.

KOrganizer

is KDE’s calendar program.

Kontact

is KDE’s PIM, bringing together KMail, KAddressbook, and KOrganizer into one meta-program.

Konqueror

is KDE’s file manager and web browser. It was covered in gory detail in my previous article.

Krusader

is a twin-panel file management tool with loads of features. I have recently discovered Directory Opus for Windows. Directory Opus is incredible; it has everything I want in a file manager and then some more things that I never even thought about. Of course it doesn’t run on Linux but I am not even tempted to try it because if you mixed Krusader and Konqueror, you would have Directory Opus. I personally am used to the KDE way of doing things so some of DOpus’s features feel wrong or mixed up to me. No doubt a veteran DOpus user would feel the same using Konqueror or Krusader. Either way, using DOpus on MS Windows or Krusader or Konqueror on Linux drives home how truly pathetic MS Windows Explorer is.

arK

is compression software similar to WinZip or 7-Zip. Unlike WinXP, KDE supports many compression types and not just the zip format.

KFileReplace

is awesome. It is pure and simple power: multi-line, multi-file search and replace. Stands-alone and also integrates into Konqueror. This is one serious piece of software. WinXP has nothing like this.

KRegexpeditor

is another awesome power user tool. It is a regular expression (regex) editor and with its helpful GUI, regex newbies can easily advance to "competent user" status. Not very intuitive, for me at least, but I just type in the regex by hand and let the program check it for me. Like KFileReplace, KRegexpeditor is a stand alone program that also integrates into other KDE programs when appropriate.

KRename

is another incredibly powerful tool that I miss terribly when using WinXP. KRename can rename in any number of ways. I use it to rename my digital photos from the default to the date and time the picture was taken. KRename does this by extracting that information from the picture file itself. Similarly, it can rename audio files from the tag information in each one. Of course, if you just want numbering (file-1.txt, file-2.txt, file-3.txt, etc.), KRename can do that to—and do it much more powerfully and flexibly than WinXP. In fact, WinXP’s wimpy multi-file rename is a bad joke compared to KRename.

Kompare

is a program to show you the differences between two text files.

Konsole

is KDE’s command line interface console program. WinXP has only "command prompt" but Linux has many console / terminal programs. None of them is as pathetic as "command prompt". Konsole is one of the best.

KWalletManager

is a great app for keeping track of passwords and other sensitive data. Better than just saving the login details in IE because kwallet lets you access all the data – and do backups – separately from the browser. Also, it isn’t limited to just the browser – any program that is aware of it can use it. So it can hold all your email, chat, and web login data as well as user-defined data. Securely and easily. Mac OSX has a wallet system as well. Why doesn’t WinXP?

KGPG

is a frontend to Gnu Privacy Guard. Useful for encrypting files and key management.

Quanta

is an awesome web development tool. Like KOffice and Amarok it is more of an add-on than a core KDE application.

The tools available for KDE are first rate and MS WinXP, out of the box, has nothing as good. Even when there is a similar programs available — like MS Internet Explorer and KDE’s Konqueror — they have very different capabilities and the differences are rarely in MS’s favor. Going from Konqueror to Explorer is a big step down. Same for going from Amarok to Windows Media Player or from Kate to WordPad.

How many of the programs mentioned above even have WinXP equivalents (for very liberal meanings of "equivalent")? Fewer than half. For me personally, WinXP’s lack of programs like Klipper, Kate, KFileReplace, KGPG, KRegexpeditor, KRename, KWalletManager, and Quanta is the showstopper. I do not want to use any desktop environment that does not have the functionality that these programs provide. My productivity is drastically reduced when using an environment that does not have the functionality these programs provide.

Conclusion

Many people will no doubt argue that many of the points raised in this article are moot because you can purchase a program for WinXP that does the same thing as the KDE app. That may be true in some cases — there are some excellent programs available from third parties for WinXP. Directory Opus and UltraEdit are two but those two alone will cost you another $130. Purchasing everything you need to make WinXP as functional as KDE is out of the box will get very expensive. Judging from my limited experience, the software bundled by the OEMs is often pretty bad, so you cannot count on Dell or whoever to fill all the gaps with software as good as what KDE comes with out of the box.

More importantly, in my mind, is that programs for things like an extended clipboard and a secure wallet are essential for a desktop environment. Thus, the environment should supply them, not a third party. In MS’s view, somehow a video player / CD ripper / on-line music store is essential to the operating system but a clipboard tool, a system-wide secure wallet, and a (decent) renaming tool are not necessary for the desktop environment?

Bluntly, MS Windows development is governed by business considerations. Fair enough, they are a business after all. But KDE development is aimed at creating a great desktop environment. That is why KDE is more pleasant to use and so much more powerful. There is no doubt in my mind which is better for me, my enjoyment, and my productivity.