KDE 4.1 Alpha 1 Released

Crobain writes "The first alpha release for KDE 4.1 is out, and bugs aside, it looks promising. The KDE Plasma desktop shell now has preliminary support for Mac OS X dashboard widgets and SuperKaramba, and panels can be added and removed via contextual menu items. 'This alpha release marks the start of the 4.1 feature freeze, so virtually all of the remaining developer effort between now and the official 4.1 release in July will focus on bug-fixing, polish, and stability. Despite the current breakage, the actual feature set that has been stubbed out for this release is pretty darn good. If the developers can deliver on all of this functionality and make it stable and robust, version 4.1 will offer a much better overall user experience than 4.0, and Plasma will come close to achieving functional parity with the KDE 3.5.x panel system.' The KDE Techbase wiki has a full list of the features planned for the 4.1 release."

Plasma again...

[javilon (99157)]

I am a very long time KDE user, and I expected 4.0 to be a great desktop, but it turned out to be a alpha so I kept using the old 3.x series.

The scope of 4.0 was quite big, so understood the problems and I hoped for 4.1 to be a stable release.

Reading the dot news on kde.org I found that the have gone back and rewritten a lot of plasma again. This means that it will need a new period of stabilization again.

I just hope that this time they don't release before it is ready. It would be a huge blow to the project's reputation. 3.5 is excellent, so we can keep using it until they are really ready with the new version. No hurry.

Re:

[lbbros (900904)]

If you read also Aaron Seigo's blog, you'll see that this API change had been expected *way* before KDE 4.0 release. Libplasma is scheduled to go into kdelibs at some point (~ 4.2) so the API must be OK because then it'll be frozen. Besides, Plasma was reaborn from ashes (breakage wise) in just a week. This should tell something.

Re:

[makomk (752139)]

Yeah, and the system tray has been broken for well over a week now (possibly even two weeks) as a result, with no signs it'll be fixed any time soon. Apparently, the version of Plasma in the alpha is a snapshot from when it was even more broken; the trunk version is now finally more-or-less working again (though there have been several interesting additional breakages in it over the last week or two).

Re:

[Psychotria (953670)]

I am not sure even 4.1 will be a stable release. However, they have made massive improvements. Most of the KDE 4.1 ported applications look really nice (and, yeah, it's not all just eye-candy). Running KDE trunk (aka 4.1) today resulted (for me) in quite a few crashes (more than a week or so ago). Do these crashes worry me? Not really, because I send the core-dumps etc to the developers so they can reproduce them and write fixes.

I didn't know that 4.1 went alpha today, and (IMO) that seems a bit hasty...

Re:

[Psychotria (953670)]

In other words, is this KDE 4.1 Alpha 1 Alpha or KDE 4.1 Alpha 1 Release as an upgrade to KDE 4.0 Release Alpha?

That clears things up...

Re:

[cheater512 (783349)]

I've been using KDE 4 for months.

While it still has quirks around the place and isnt production ready, I cannot go back to 3.5.
It looks and feels so old fashioned in comparison. :)

The quirks generally dont impede productivity at all.
They are just there.

Re:

[Enleth (947766)]

If you have a few minutes, could you please take a look at my 3.5 desktop [imageshack.us] and check if it's possible to configure 4.x this way now? I'm using my desktop configuration for a few years now and I'm quite used to it, but last I checked it was impossible to get it on 4.0, especially the top panel.

Re:

[cheater512 (783349)]

Might be possible.
You can create a second panel, make it thin and then put plasmoids on it to get a similar effect.

Re:

[cheater512 (783349)]

I believe that was a deliberate design decision.

They altered the way the desktop works so its no longer a file dump.
Instead its a place to put plasmoids and nothing more.
Their reasoning is on kde.org somewhere.

I quite like it. The desktop is pointless for me.

Too much candy?

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Perhaps the candy is nice if you have a huge dual screen system. I have not tried it on my dual screen desktop yet.

I have tried it on my small-screened laptop and found the candy annoying and pixel hogging. Yes, I know I can turn it off...

As my 16 year old son said of the jello-wobble screens: Cute, but what's the point!

Re:

[gbjbaanb (229885)]

As my 16 year old son said of the jello-wobble screens: Cute, but what's the point!

and to think people said the same of Vista! Look how wrong they tur... oh yeah.

Seriously, Microsoft's main marketing effort in flogging copies of Vista, and persuading the world that Vista was the thing to have was entirely down to the UI. The fact that Vista hasn't had the expected take-up is partly down to it being a unhelpful resource hog and that too many bloggers said so. If Vista's UAC, Aero etc worked as we expected and there was just 2 editions, I think MS's recent results would have shown an incre

double the effort

[joe 155 (937621)]

I'm not a kde user but I must say some of the things that I've seen about it would make me consider giving it another go. I quite like some of the ideas they've got, but I can't help but feel that its a bit of a shame that we have two desktop environmnets for Linux which effectively means twice the effort and a dividing of the developers. I know that there are idealigical differences between the two camps... Perhaps this is part of the downside of open source. We've had the same thing with pidgin - in the e

Re:

[ameyer17 (935373)]

Actually, there's more than two.
XFCE definitely counts as a "desktop environment".
If you expand that to include window managers, you'd add at least fluxbox, blackbox, openbox, windowmaker, ratpoison, and icewm.

Re:

[Anthony Boyd (242971)]

I can't help but feel that its a bit of a shame that we have two desktop environmnets for Linux which effectively means twice the effort and a dividing of the developers. I know that there are idealigical differences between the two camps... Perhaps this is part of the downside of open source. We've had the same thing with pidgin - in the end perhaps we could all just get along?

Please no. Let's foster competition. Especially in the case of Pigdin. This is how developers route around damage. This is Ope

Re:

[oyenstikker (536040)]

What is the difference between a "Desktop Environment" and a "Desktop Shell"?

I used to use KDE. At one point I discovered that I could replace "startkde" with "kicker & kdewin" for drastically shorter startup times and I noticed no difference in functionality whatsoever.

I then went to e16 and then to e17. What are these "Desktop Shells" lacking that a "Desktop Environment" provides? True, e17 does not have a system tray, but there are plans to add one, and I currently use a standalone tray.

Note: I do ha

won't work. (Re: double the effort)

[vdboor (827057)]

You're making a simple math equation, but 1 + 1 is not always 2.

If you combine the developers working on GNOME and KDE you won't end up with one project that's twice as productive. In fact, it will be very unproductive because each set of developers have vastly different vision.

Two parallel projects keep each other motivated to become the best one. It also creates playground to implement new features. Sometimes GNOME might not like an idea because it's to controversial. When the developer can implement

Re:

[Psychotria (953670)]

Unfortunately fluxbox is not a Desktop Environment; it's a Window Manager.

Re:

[Cal Paterson (881180)]

Having keybindings and a program launcher certainly does not make fluxbox a desktop environment.

Love KDE4 idea, but devil in the details

[AlvinTheNerd (1174143)]

I am using KDE 4.0, yeah its rough, yeah some basic functionality isn't there. And I think it is a poor setup not to be able to do things like drag and drop and make things smaller than default. Everything can be made larger, but never smaller.

However, despite all the failures, which I believe will come around, KDE is really moving to the next step and once the polish is applied it will outshine the rest. A desktop were apps of every shape and color can be integrated. Where the best ideas don't have to be accepted by the head developers, customization, and opening the doors to open source even further. It is a place were truly original ways to organize data and display information will come. It is were we will begin to move beyond just making a windows 3.1 gui more fancy and with more features. I think these are worthy goals. I put up with the annoyances now because I want to be part of it. I think it will be big.

But seriously, developers, start getting functionality working. You have to get people to use it. The widgets will come but you need functionality to get people to use it. No drag and drop for icons on the desktop, can't move around widgets in the bottom bar, right clicking doesn't give you widget specific options. And when they do, it is very limited, like the digitial clock being set to 12 hour time. I know these aren't sexy to work on, but nothing else matters if this isn't done.

Lastly, what I think will make the biggest appeal is making kde install easy on vista. People hate the vista interface, but have to have it for the new stuff underneath like directx 10. If you can make kde4 stable and install smooth on vista, you will have a firefox style pickup of it.

Re:

[couchslug (175151)]

"And I think it is a poor setup not to be able to do things like drag and drop and make things smaller than default. Everything can be made larger, but never smaller."

That's why I switched back to 3.5. Big effing stupid everything will be fine when I'm old(er) and blind, but I can see ATM and teh largeness is annoying. That's also why I don't use Gnome.

As a user, I want a VERY easy to configure desktop I don't have to spend time fvcking with. and don't care if it looks old-fashioned to some people.

KDE 3.5 i

WUBI is great for testing KDE 4.0

[G3ckoG33k (647276)]

Yesterday I installed KDE 4.0 on my corporate laptop!!! Next to Windows, without touching the partitions! All thanks to a small program called wubi and which makes it possible to install Kubuntu and the others _inside_ Windows partitions. So far I have less than four hours of experience with KDE 4.0, but have only found minor details to complain about - like some menus don't get their contrasting font color if you switch to a dark colored widget style. As Debian user I cannot say that Ubuntu is _easier_ t

Feature freeze, no new features only bugfixing?

[Edulix (726376)]

That's not true my friend, I think you misunderstood the 4.1 Release Schedule [kde.org]. We're in soft feature freeze, but planned features can still be added to the code until May 19th ;-)

Re:

[johannesg (664142)]

You are apparently involved with KDE, so maybe you can help me understand: what is plasma? I have read a lot of "vision", I have seen a few toys applets, but I cannot seem to get a feel for what is really is and what it will mean.

I don't think having puzzle toys and the weather channel on my desktop is a great revolution, so I must be missing something. But what?

Re:Feature freeze, no new features only bugfixing?

[lbbros (900904)]

Shameless plug on the Plasma FAQ (which I, among others, work on):

http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/FAQ [kde.org]

The first three questions should answer at least part of your doubts.

Re:

[Viol8 (599362)]

"incorporating semantic application elements,"

Oh great , more bloatware, just what we need when KDE isn't exactly quick to start with.

Re:

[xtracto (837672)]

Plasma aims to change that, incorporating semantic application elements, and bringing cooperating technologies to the user's fingertips in a way that is visually appealing while easing work flow.

Howdy, it seems some of the Apple and Microsoft marketing guys are contributing to KDE!. BTW, you forgot to add the word synegry. It always sounds more buzzworthy :).

Re:

[Otter (3800)]

Beyond the usual replies to complaints about the duplication of effort, I'd suggest that worrying about duplication of effort by Enlightenment is particularly unnecessary.

PolishLinux (p)review of KDE 4.1

[michuk (996480)]

Here is a related (p)review of latest revision of KDe 4.1 (not the exact alpha just released): http://polishlinux.org/kde/kde-4-rev-802150-work-in-progress/ [polishlinux.org] "Plasma has gone under major API changes and is still a bit wonky, Dolphin gets tabs (hell yeah!), Phonon gets a Gstreamer backend, KWin gets wobbly windows (hell yeah!), and KInfoCenter and K3b get KDE4 ports. KDE 4.1 will be sure to blow your mind." A bit more comprehensive and screenshot-rich than the ArsTechnica article.

Using it in production environment

[xSacha (1000771)]

I am using KDE 4 (latest builds) at home on my laptop and desktop. Yeah, production environment.

Q. But it's an unstable alpha right?

A. Right, a lot of the KDE4 applications crash. Never fear, for any buggy KDE4 app I simply run the equivalent KDE3 version instead.

Q. But this uses a lot of memory to have kde3,qt3,kde4 and qt4 loaded at same time right?

A. Right, but it still manages to use under 500MB and run smoothly with compositing enabled thanks to the new code and efficient toolkits (qt3 and qt4).

Q. So s

Ugh... waste of screen space?

[multi io (640409)]

I mean, look at this [arstechnica.com]. Are they purposefully trying to waste as much screen real estate as possible? It looks like they deliberately put 50 pixels of even more no-quite-brushed-metal-looking empty space around each little button there.

KDE4 in Kubuntu Hardy

[MattBD (1157291)]

I recently upgraded to Kubuntu Hardy. After much agonizing, I eventually decided reluctantly to stick with KDE3.5 - for me it's just not ready yet in Kubuntu. But since Intrepid Ibex will include KDE4.1, I'll be very glad to switch to that. KDE4 is brilliant - just not yet.

The design still looks very confused.

[delire (809063)]

Thankfully they have got rid of those absurd glass borders. On immediate appearance however I think it still looks pretty discontinuous and lost as an overall design.

Why such vast tracts of grey? In some of the screenshots on the PolishLinux site [polishlinux.org] window elements are surrounded by entire football fields of grey nothingness.

Why the faded titles in the panel? What are they intended to signify?

Why are the minimise and maximise icons raised, tiny and 'stuck on' rather graphically integrated into the window

Re:Essentially A Win2k Clone?

[MrNaz (730548)]

Constantly trying to reinvent a perfectly round wheel results in
a) New problems that need to be worked out from scratch
b) Totally different use patterns which may or may not work in the real world
c) Reluctant users

Personally, I don't see a problem with following patterns that were created for Windows. There's no reason that the existing desktop format can't be extended and have features added to it if need be. This "lets go a totally different direction just coz we don't want to follow MS" is stupid. MS spent huge amounts of R&D finding out what regular users will be able to use, and freeriding on that seems like a good idea to me.

Also, open source software doesn't have a good track record when it comes to ground up usability designs. Compare GIMP, Pidgin and Blender with their commercial counterparts. Then look at how long Linux has taken to get to a point where it's considered barely usable by the every day user.

Oh, and anyone who throws in a "but my grandma has been using Linux since 1965 for $fooTinyUseCase" gets a kick in the backside.

Re:

[GreatBunzinni (642500)]

Also, open source software doesn't have a good track record when it comes to ground up usability designs. Compare GIMP, Pidgin and Blender with their commercial counterparts. Then look at how long Linux has taken to get to a point where it's considered barely usable by the every day user.

Your comment is a bit silly, to say the least. After all, in order to try to prove that all F/LOSS is somehow inferior to all commercial software, you picked up the GIMP and Pidgin, which are two of the most god-awful U

Re:

[suckmysav (763172)]

I agree. I like that KDE is there, and I like that other people like it, and I know that a lot of people hate Gnome.

Me? I simply don't get KDE.

To me, it looks messy, cluttered and slightly juvenile.

That is coming from someone who migrated to Tux around about the time XP was released (meaning I was a bonafide 2K user). The person that helped me switch told me that I should use KDE because "it is most like Windows".

That lasted about 6 months until I discovered Gnome. I much prefer the clean lines of Gnome.

I s

Re:

[Spacejock (727523)]

I dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu Linux, spending 95% of my time in the former (MS Visual Studio and my own novel writing software), and 5% in the latter. What I'd really, really like is a way to make the KDE or Gnome desktop font as similar to Windows XP as possible.

I've searched the web and found a few solutions, but I don't want a theme which adds a Windows start button to KDE, and I don't care about the system tray. It's the desktop font - resolution, type face and size - which I find really distracting

Re:

[Macka (9388)]

From what I can tell its dick heads like you that don't like what's on offer who should STFU and go do your own coding.

Re:

[suckmysav (763172)]

Hey, that's a great idea.

Alternatively, I guess he could just go and use another desktop.

Re:

[Psychotria (953670)]

Have you even used KDE 4.1? It is nothing like Windows 2K. I guess I really shouldn't respond to trolls.

Re:

[dhavleak (912889)]

It's not really as bad as the ars screenshot would have you believe. For instance, look at this one [wikimedia.org] instead. And remember how easy it is to apply themes to any linux desktop - there are some really slick themes out there.

But your point is still valid. The one thing I've never been able to get to grips with about the linux desktops are the fonts. Unfortunately between MS, Apple, Adobe all the font rendering IP is locked up pretty tight so it doesn't look like we're gonna get better fonts on the Linux deskt

Re:

[Trogre (513942)]

Do you really have three photos of the same hot air balloon, with 3 different names?

Please tell me that KDE 4.x does preview icons like 3.x and every other current desktop.

Re:

[Psychotria (953670)]

"Pretty much well established" by who?

Re:

[cp.tar (871488)]

>neooffice sucks balls Good thing the Aqua port of the selfsame free office suite is now in beta, and NeoOffice will soon be history.

This is welcome news.

I don't like OO.o too much, though I guess it is the best open office (heh) suite. NeoOffice, however, takes all the bad sides of OO.o and adds total lack of integration on Macs, including the keyboard shortcuts for Home, End, PgUp and PgDn.

What I want is a simple, modular office suite with good desktop integration.
But I'll be quite satisfied with better integration alone.

Re:

[Kangburra (911213)]

I've been using KDE for a while now but a quick try-out of 4.0 made me install XFCE and Gnome again. I am now happy in GTK-land with GDM loading xfwm4 and nautilus.

Sorry but my DE should not take that much power, Vista is a mistake, why follow them down that road?

Re:

[arevos (659374)]

KDE 4.0 is allegedly meant to use less memory and processing power than KDE 3.5, so I'm not sure what you mean by following Vista.

The 4.0 desktop effects did seem sluggish though, but hopefully they'll have sorted that out by 4.1.

Re:

[Teun (17872)]

After running Kubuntu 8.04 Remix for 2 days I recognised a lot of what you just said and reverted back to the KDE 3.5 desktop which is stable, highly configurable (and pleasantly familiar).
I sure hope the developers will not go the Gnome way of locking everything up!
But right now KDE4 is a system in it's infancy and we have to give the guys some time to develop this impressive new model.

I'm an idiot

[Viol8 (599362)]

Ah hell , just spotted its an alpha , ignore my stupid comment.

Re:

[chuckymonkey (1059244)]

Also with Opensource, nobody is forcing you to upgrade. If you don't like what they're doing you can refuse to upgrade and not suffer any detriment or you can just fork it and start your own branch.

Re:

[pherthyl (445706)]

So you gazed into your crystal ball and figured out that 4.1 will not be stable? Since it hasn't been released that's quite the accomplishment. I use a snapshot of 4.1 at work, and I haven't seen it crash in weeks.

Re:

[bh_doc (930270)]

There is always time taken in loading the supporting libraries, which really only affects the starting time of the first app that uses them. For subsequent apps that also use them, they're already loaded. Have you ever tried to start gedit while running a KDE desktop? It might give a similar result.