Dean S. Messing <deanm <at> sharplabs.com> writes:
> How do I install the basic KDE packages for F7 that are minus all the
> stuff that Fedora does to make KDE look like Gnome? Have these been
> folded into the distribution?
Yes, the packages have been merged, and Than Ngo (the KDE maintainer at Red
Hat) and Rex Dieter (the kde-redhat project leader) are now working together on
the official KDE packages for Fedora 7 and newer.
As for "all the stuff that Fedora does to make KDE look like Gnome", you've
been related outdated and/or wrong information:
* The Red-Hat-specific code changes to make KDE work better with the rest of
the distribution are something long past (with one exception: KDM in Fedora 7
is patched to support ConsoleKit; but you wouldn't want a KDE without that
patch, it would mean hotplugging/inserting removable media would not be
detected by KDE with the version of HAL in Fedora 7). KDE is supporting things
like fontconfig out of the box now, so these are no longer Red-Hat-specific
(and haven't been for years). And the goal of these patches was never to make
KDE "look like GNOME", but to make it integrate properly into a modern
distribution. There may have been bugs in some of those patches, but this
doesn't mean Red Hat intentionally sabotaged KDE as has been frequently trolled
at the time, they were just that: bugs. But that's completely irrelevant these
days because these patches haven't been necessary nor included for years!
* The "making KDE look like GNOME" effect was actually implemented by the
infamous Bluecurve theme (and it could just as well be called "making GNOME
look like KDE", the idea behind Bluecurve was/is to provide a unified look for
all your applications so your desktop doesn't look like a chaotic patchwork).
But that's just a theme, getting rid of it was always just a matter of picking
a different theme in the KDE resp. GNOME control centers. You will be happy to
know, however, that Bluecurve is no longer the default in any shape or form,
KDE in Fedora 7 defaults to Plastik widgets and CrystalSVG icons, GNOME to
Clearlooks widgets and Mist icons. It is, however, still available for those
like me who actually like it! (Shameless plug: There's also a Qt 4 port I did:
Quarticurve, in the qt4-theme-quarticurve package.)
To sum up:
- the default KDE in Fedora 7 is comaintained by the kde-redhat founder,
- it brings you the best of both the official Fedora packages and the
kde-redhat ones, and
- it carries NO patches or default settings making it "look like GNOME" in any
shape or form.
Kevin Kofler
