Filed under: Hacks, How-tos, Tips and tricks
KDE on Mac OS X
Today, I came across this article at AppleTalk Australia which describes just how to get KDE up and running on Mac OS X. To get the job done, you'll need Fink, x86 (you'll have to replace X11 if you've got it installed) and, as the article points out, "...plenty of time and coffee." After downloading and configuring the necessary files, you'll have a free (as in speech) file manager on your Mac.This trick requires a Mac running 10.3 or later and the latest Apple Developer Tools. Be forewarned, however. The author recommends a dual processor Mac running 10.4, as compiling KDE and x86 from source took the better part of 8 hours. So make sure you've got the day free. With that said, have fun! Let us know how it goes if you try this out.
[Via /.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
alex said 9:54AM on 9-23-2005
there's gotta be a way to get KDE running without getting rid of Apple's x11 server.
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Jon Hohle said 5:54PM on 9-23-2005
You don't even have to use an X server. Qt has been ported to natively run on OS X, so KDE can run natively (sort of).
http://dot.kde.org/1073009304/
not sure if they've updated it since then, but it worked (mostly) back then, without the need for an x server.
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Joshua Ochs said 10:59AM on 9-23-2005
This is old news - you've been able to do this for years. And if you don't want to compile it from scratch, you can use apt-get to grab pre-built binaries instead, also from fink. Again, you've been able to do it for years - nothing to see here.
If KDE had managed to replace the Finder, that would be news (most peopla have no idea how integrated into the system the Finder is).
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waltham said 11:23AM on 9-23-2005
http://fink.sourceforge.net/
fink commander as well.I did not upgrade to the new version of fink compatible with Tiger. I used an old version and this application:KDE Launcher 2.1.2. KDE seems to work just fine with it and the new version of X11.
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Reefdog said 11:53AM on 9-23-2005
Don't... don't you mean "free as in beer"?
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Sean Flanagan said 12:18PM on 9-23-2005
Reefdog,
Please allow me to explain the intricacies of the "free as in..." nomenclature, before any leet haxorz get offended. :-D
"Free as in beer" refers to things that are monetarily free, such as freeware or t-shirts. "Free as in speech" refers to things that are restriction free, such as open source software or nudist colonies. Well, maybe not nudist colonies. But you get the idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_as_in_beer for more info.
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teece said 1:20PM on 9-23-2005
Sean, you're not quite right (or at least your examples are poor). Opera, the web browser, is free as in beer. It costs no money: it's not open source or free software though. KDE is free as in speech, because it is an entirely open program: it costs no money, and access to the source is guaranteed. That's the distinction: is it simply a closed source program given away free of charge, or is it an open source, free program?
And I run KDE via X11 and SSH. Of course, you need another Linux box for that... I like KDE, but to be honest, it is very unpolished next to Mac OS X. When I bought this iMac last December, I intended to use it as a back up to my Linux desktop. But it turned out to be my main machine.
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Jan said 3:07PM on 9-23-2005
There are tons of old links on this, e.g.,
http://www.macworld.com/news/2002/05/31/kde/
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/29/233236
...
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KRS Juan said 10:25PM on 9-23-2005
When you say x86, dont you mean XFree86???? x86 makes it sound like you need a Mactel machine (or hacked intel running OS X). You should be more clear on this. Look @ http://www.xfree86.org/ for more info.
-KRS Juan-
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SR said 4:47AM on 9-24-2005
Hmm.. I prefer Gnome to KDE on my Suse9.3 Linux on AMD64. And on Mac Os X.4.2, why the HELL would I want an *inferior* windowing system/ file manager? Particularly with Uno unified skinning on my Finder now :D :D ... *puts on HalfLife2-Suit to prepare for flames from KDE fankids*
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Jim Gardner said 4:55AM on 9-24-2005
I've tried fink'ing KDE from source a total of 4 times now and each time I get a different error, which in the words of one #fink irc support user was, "Just the way it goes sometimes". With that kind of reliability I'll be leaving things like this to people who know what they are doing in future. A nice simple Mac UI friendly binary installer of KDE is in the pipeline, and there is already a couple of unofficial buggy versions around.
My advice if you really want to tinker with things like this is to try compiling xorg and gnome first. They actually work and are simpler to compile, as in, you can get things like Open Office and Pong et cetera to work in their natural habitat, rather than using binary builds for OS X.
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