Part 1

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Part 2

Aurora (Part 2) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Part 3

Aurora (Part 3) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Part 4

Aurora (Part 4) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Get the VMWare Server and create a new VM with 512 MB of Ram and approx. 10 Gb of HDD space.

You also need to get the Ubuntu JeOS (JeOS = Just enough Operating System and was designed to build VM Ware appliances) image from:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/jeos/

Insert the iso Image into your fresh VM and go through the standard JeOS setup which is fairly simple.

After one reboot you should be able to login in and add the following line into “/etc/apt/sources.list”

• /deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/project-neon/ubuntu hardy main/

Now run

• apt-get update
• apt-get install kde-nightly autoconf automake binutils make cpp gcc linux-headers-$(uname -r) xorg xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse kdm-kde4 kde-nightly-kdegraphics kde-nightly-kdepimlibs kde-nightly-kdenetwork kde-nightly-kdemultimedia amarok-nightly

That’s all…. type “reboot” and wait for the login dialog…. Now you only have to choose neonkde as session and enter your username and password.

HF & GL

Ebbo

Most of those people do not understand the difference between Virtual Desktops and thos new Activities.

Virtual Desktops have been utilized for different activities over the years.

One Desktop with private stuff, one with Web, one with work…. a real static solution. The new Zooming User Interface is more dynamic.

The user will be able to create different activities. Each activity contains plasmoids, applications, dialogs, notifications,… You can have an activity for working and collaborating, one for your multimedia, ….

Think of … while you are working on your thesis, you want to listen to some cool Last FM songs. So you just take one step (zoom out once) and have a small plasmoid to control your media or you zoom into your multimedia activity and have a full blown media center.

Thar really sounds great… but stop… once the KDE community achieved this, they willl push the limits further…..

There will be another step to zoom out from your activities. There you will get informations from other pcs in your house, remote control other pcs, copy data between them or even work together with friends ofer the internet… who knows….

This is far away, but think of this:

You are sitting in front of your PC in your bureau, writing some mails. At a certain time, your desktop calendar pops up an tells you about a movie you wanted to watch. So you will have two choices:

* lift yourself up and move on to the living room

* zoom two steps out, look for plasmoids to remote control your multimedia center pc in the living room and start the digital video recorder or watch streamed live television right in your bureau until you have finished writing your mails.

There are so many use-cases I could think of, like: Controlling lights from your PC or plasma based mobile device via Zeroconf/ZWave/etc., share Media All over the place, collaborate with colleagues over the local net or internet…..

The concept of Zooming User Interfaces (ZUI) was developed by Jeff Raskin. Microsoft used the concept in its lab projects Seadragon , Photosynth and Surface.

Another prominent user of the concept is apples’ iphone, which makes extensiv use of the zooming user interface in its browser and photoviewer applications.

A real good piece of Software which shows what a ZUI means is the Java based ZoomDesktop project. Visist there project page and give it a try.

KDE4 looks pretty nice on the big screen.

Don’t think about the performance of all those animations, I was compiling a new version from SVN while taking the video.

So everything is up and running… now I will wait for some news about LinuxMCE & KDE.

Both communities talked about their relationship on LinuxTag again, but I haven’t heard when and where they try to collaborate.

I did recognize on or the other mistake in mail daily work, but I have never thought of this in detail.

It is getting clearer from day to day, that modern Systems really have to get Usability and Design Experts on board to be ready for the future.

I think the KDE crowds did an amazing job.

Their Oxygen theme has been accepted, not only be KDE enthusiasts, but also by Linux Geeks and “Normal  People”.

I have already found a project outside the KDE world, which adopted the style. It’s Tine20,which is a a AJAX based rework of the well known eGroupware System, which was built upon phpGroupware.

Just visit their website a take a look at the live demo.

Of course, it is a developer platform and has its rough edges, but it really is usable, the KDE folks really did a great job.

Oxygen looks awsome, Plasma is really smooth everything is satisfying me for now.

I think the KDE 4 Series will get so much attention in the next years, because now the base is reworked, which was a long walk for many people.
I really have to say thank you to them. I hope you all enjoy this day of victory! Take some days of, enjoy the momentum and attention KDE will get these days and then go and get all those normal PC Users with KDE 4.1 =)

There are only 4 days left until the officiel release and 11 until the release party event at Google in Mountain View, CA.

Now, only the fact, that I have to work on some other projects makes said, because I don’t have the time to play around with KDE 4 packages from OpenSuses Build Service :/

But… only some months left until the stress is over.