Really, these may all be just Ubuntu issues, but kde does not really seem viable to Ubuntu users.
For shaped toplevels ala skinned interfaces, see shaped windows
Beyond basic Tcl/Tk, you might look at Wize, which includes 3 canvas options:
Wize is under BSD licence, has minimal dependencies and offers pre-builts for Linux-i386 and Windows.
Disclaimer: I am a Wize developer
However, Windows comes with hidden costs in the form of viruses, botnets and EOL pressures.
Linux makes sense where "function" trumps "form"
http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=ExperimentalMailUserAgent
Those who installed Mythbuntu learned first hand of the issues with Reiser.
The high throughput of myth recording (2gig per hour) exercised bugs
that most regular users would never see.
In my case my capacity disappeared slowly over the space of
a month or so until my empty disk was full!
So the "most users find it great" endorsement just doesn't mean much anymore.
Really, I hope that Ubuntu has learned by now that ext3 has been hugely
tested, in virtually every concievable combination.
9/11 is simply the result of a well organized terrorist group
recognizing:
- Planes are really flying bombs.
- The open cockpit-door policy.
Most other kneejerk "security enhancements" are simply
various power groups capitalizing on 9/11 to advance their
own agendas.
Yeah their licensing terms could change,...
Did you ever consider that maybe this is googles goal? Just the treat of VP8 could be enough to force h.264 to change to a less restrictive licence...
Presumably, one puts a binary on their system because they intend to execute it. In fact one mainly uses ldd after executing a program, and getting a missing library message.
If ldd was a virus scanner, this would be a big deal. But come on, accepting a binary from an untrusted source onto your system is asking for it, even if ldd didn't do this.
The vast majority of all desktop computers out there are x86. The vast majority of Linux desktops, ditto.
That said, currently we can't even easily produce binaries that run on multiple distributions for just the x86 .
Generally speaking, unlike Windows/OSX, you can not just get "the Linux Desktop Version" of a program. There is no Linux desktop. There is a plethora of them. For better or worse, the issues and complexity that arise from this plurality are due to the lack of central management and control.
I find these glowing reviews of Windows 7 to be, on the whole, quite humorous. After all, this is a continuation of the decades old MS tradition of tailoring software to maximize the demo impact. Specifically, a users first 5-15 minutes is the most important. First impressions and all that rot.
Eye candy certainly plays a part in this, but it's more the subtle hint that the software can do "a lot more than your seeing" that's important. After all, when it comes to software marketing, implied functionality is far more important than actual functionality.
But at the end of the day, what are we really looking at. It looks nicer! For most users, that's about it.
Not to detract from their success. This is a serious psychological coup to pull off.
What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.