Filed under: Software, Open Source, Developer
Native KDE Applications Coming for OS X
To be frank, I'm not entirely sure why, but somebody has taken it into their mind to port Linux KDE4 applications to Mac OS X. As we've previously mentioned, KDE has been able to run using Apple's X11 Window System, but this new effort will be better integrated into OS X, including the use of Aqua. What this means is that the KDE Workspace (desktop environment) itself won't be ported, but certain applications like KOffice and Konqueror will. They will appear to run just like native OS X applications, with Aqua windows, etc.
The author mentions at the end of his article the advantages of bringing KDE applications to the other platforms. His main point seems to be that KDE users will benefit as developers on other platforms are exposed to the KDE Applications (e.g. Safari's underlying HTML rendering engine-Webkit-started out life as KHTML from KDE, so as websites have moved to support Safari better, Konqueror users have benefited as well). Perhaps it's just because I'm not that familiar with the KDE applications, but I'm just not really seeing how this benefits OS X users that much. That said, I guess I'll chalk this one up to more is better, and besides, it's a pretty cool technical achievement if nothing else. Let me know in the comments if there are any applications from KDE you're really looking forward to.
Thanks Paul!
[Update: As usual TUAW readers are great. Thanks for all the app suggestions; now you've got me excited!]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kevin S. said 8:05AM on 1-16-2007
ktorrent is pretty good.
as is k3b for a free burning solution.
and i'm all for another native open office variant.
Reply
Panzerboy said 3:11PM on 1-16-2007
Amarok.
Reply
Peter Upfold said 8:17AM on 1-16-2007
This just rocks.
As a long time Linux (and KDE) user literally about to buy a MacBook, it means all the KDE apps I'm used to I can bring with me over to OS X natively and it will just work.
It might seem pointless - and rightfully so - to people that have never used and never had an interest in running KDE apps. But for people that want to use both Linux (or any KDE-running platform for that matter) and OS X, it means you get native apps wherever you are and you don't have to adapt to two different sets of applications depending on which platform you're on.
BTW, there's also a project to get KDE apps running on Windows too.
I'm looking forward to using Konqueror on my new MacBook - not for the browser, but because it's an awesome file manager with tabs, split views and more features than I've ever seen in a free file manager. Also, my favourite web development IDE Quanta will be native on OS X too and that will rule.
Reply
wookyhoo said 8:17AM on 1-16-2007
digikam is great too, as is amarok.
Reply
deluan said 8:41AM on 1-16-2007
Amarok!!! Yes!!!!
Reply
Ian said 8:32AM on 1-16-2007
I'm looking forward to Konsole, the KDE terminal program , so I can replace the incredibly deficient iTerm, and Amarok, which is an incredible jukebox program.
Reply
wastern said 8:34AM on 1-16-2007
I'm not sure why you seem so down on this idea. I don't see how more free software for OS X is anything but good. The more software and developers working on great applications for OS X the better
I am mostly a Gnome user when in Linux, but I will surely use a lot of the KDE apps once they go OS X native.
I think a lot of people coming from Windows will like the idea of Konqueror as a Finder alternative as it is more like Windows Explorer, something they already know well
Reply
Andreas Nemeth said 9:03AM on 1-16-2007
I very much welcome the ability to natively run KDE applications on my Mac. Together with the macports this will truely enable the Mac users to benefit from both worlds: the open source tools with a build/packaging enviroment together with the coolest UI available!
The application I really yearn for is Kile, probably the best LaTeX typesetting enviroment.
Reply
Matt Stocum said 8:55AM on 1-16-2007
I can't say I'll ever use this, but more apps is always a good thing. I'm sure someone somewhere out there has a KDE app that absolutely need and have X11 installed just for it. This would certainly make things a lot easier for them.
Reply
Hendrik said 9:05AM on 1-16-2007
Konqueror is the program I miss the most since my switch to OS X. It is way more powerfull than finder.
Amarok and digikam are also very nice.
Reply
Ultim8Fury said 9:08AM on 1-16-2007
I'd rather see GTK make its way over so that Gimp would run better and I could finally dump X11.
Reply
jijin said 10:34AM on 1-16-2007
KDE'apps are mostly better than many of osx'apps as the audio player, bittorent client, etc... and also, osx is an unix as linux and BSD, so it could open a way to devellop move of apps from osx world to unix libre world... and get, everywhere unix ground good apps to work or have fun :)
Reply
Steve said 10:25AM on 1-16-2007
I echo the collective "Yay!" for Konqueror. Good web browser, great file manager.
Reply
Phil said 9:44AM on 1-16-2007
The thing is, this has been in the works since WWDC 2003 (http://www.racoonfink.com/archives/cat_kde.html). Actually, there's already been a build of KDE that doesn't require an X server, too - http://dot.kde.org/1073009304/ .I'm excited to see it making some progress.
Looks like KOffice is running natively and not hellaciously ugly like it used to be, so I guess I'll be running that. :) See, the thing is, this is based on Qt/Mac, which has been around for four years or so, so this isn't really a "coming soon" thing - this is something people can do today with some technical expertise. I guess the next step is making downlodable KDE apps for anyone, not just developers. :)
Reply
David Rodrigues said 9:46AM on 1-16-2007
This is great, because sometimes Mac users are not just Mac users. They can also be Linux, BSD or even ... Windows users...
I feel that bringing KDE apps to MacOSX will help bind diferent worlds and the choice will be done one a per user basis.
Reply
Caio Romão said 9:51AM on 1-16-2007
Amarok and Konqueror are must have applications for me.
Konqueror's KIO-Slaves are amazing. Going through svn, ftp, filesystem, web, ssh, samba and others in the same app, same look, same shortcuts is a must for me.
Reply
Michael Salmon said 10:37AM on 1-16-2007
One of the things that many forget is that KDE is built on top of QT and not X11. I don't think that it is going to be easy but as QT is available for the Mac it is a good deal easier than it might have been.
Reply
Lerxst said 10:34AM on 1-16-2007
Amarok is amazing. Would love to have it in my Mac!
Reply
Carl Caum said 11:04AM on 1-16-2007
Actually all KDE applications will run on Mac OS X and Windows as well as Linux. KDE is built on QT which is a fully cross platform toolkit. KDE 4 will utilize QT4 to its full potential which means that any application written for KDE 4 will automatically run on any OS with KDE libs installed.
Reply
Ray said 1:47PM on 1-22-2007
A better Konsole than OSX's would be nice.
I'd love to have Konqueror on the Mac. Finder is a hateful and lame dodo bird of a file manager, no cut-file command, move-file is screwed, etc. The other Mac substitutes like Pathfinder are obtuse, leaving you feeling like you're trying to masturbate with toothpicks. Finder needs to be replaced in Leopard or be completely updated. I'm a switcher but there is simply no way to manage files as flexibly with Finder as you can with Windows Explorer. And Konqueror is even better.
Finder is the absolute pits and Terminal stinks. OSX deserves much better basic utilities.
Reply