Oh, Requirements :(
If there’s one thing that’s been bothering me lately it is how hardware for computers keeps advancing, but the requirements for a lot of programs goes up with it.
A fine example of this is KDE 4, one of our lovely Desktop Enviornments on Linux. It’s requirements were always relatively a tad higher than Gnome or XFCE, but it seems anymore it won’t even function correctly without an aftermarket Nvidia graphics card and a nice 2GB 400mhz stick of DDR ram at minimum.
That’s great and all, but I guess they are forgetting about all the poor people who can’t afford a new computer that can handle the new tech.
Originally I thought the purpose of hardware advancing was so those nice applications could perform better, not for them to require that much more memory/cpu. Either way, I’m really hoping my favorite apps don’t follow suite on this one.
It’s saddening to see operating systems requiring much more than 256 MB R.A.M. for the core system, let alone the huge 1 GB that microsoft stamps on its newest Windows 7. I’m just glad we have choice over here on Linux. 
Until next time, cheers.
Justin C. Kinnaird
Whats even more amazing is the fact KDE4 was supposed to *speed* things up as a result of QT4 and the the plasma/phenom/etc.
I have been die-hard KDE fan (for desktop use) for years until this past summer. Now a Gnome user, I sit at the sidelines waiting to see if KDE ever straitens back out.