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KDE 4.1 Released, Reviewed
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:25 AM
from the looking-quite-nice dept.
from the looking-quite-nice dept.
StoneLion writes "After months of development and controversy, the KDE project announced the release of KDE 4.1 today. Linux.com (a Slashdot sister site) took a hands-on look at the new code, and reviewer Jeremy LaCroix says, 'KDE 4.1 simply rocks.'" Bruce Byfield's review is quite positive, as well.
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My one erk with KDE 4 (Score:5, Funny)
Hopefully they've gotten rid of that freakin' kidney shaped thing in the upper right corner. Talk about a useless static "feature". ugh!
Re:My one erk with KDE 4 (Score:5, Informative)
Please provide an option to disable the upper right cashew.
Although putting an option to disable the cashew for desktops sounds reasonable, from a coding point of view it would introduce unnecessary complexity and would break the design. What has been suggested is, since the destkop itself (a containment) is handled by plugins, to write a plugin that would draw the desktop without the cashew itself. Currently some work ("blank desktop" plugin) is already present in KDE SVN. With containment type switching expected by KDE 4.2, it is not unreasonable to see alternative desktop types developed by then.
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Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get it. Why all the fuss about the desktop background? It is just a background after all, and hidden by any windows you have open.
From observing 'ordinary users' running Windows, they use the desktop background for starting programs which have a shortcut there - because the Start menu is so congested with crap, they don't even look at it and are often incapable of running anything not on the desktop. Because of this most Windows application installers have taken to adding a desktop shortcut as well as a Start menu item. Of course in the long term this 'icon inflation' will make the background itself unusable and we'll have to think of something else. I can't help feeling that just making a usable Start menu would be a better answer.
The second use of the desktop background is because files get saved there by default from your web browser. Again, this seems to be because unsophisticated users have no idea of directories and if it doesn't go on the background, they can't find it. But on Unix everyone has a home directory and I'd expect KDE (or GNOME) to provide easy access to that directory, even for people who aren't aware that any other location exists.
The kind of technically skilled people who used to run Enlightenment probably enjoy having semitransparent widgets flip into shape in 3d on the background, but I don't see what usability advantages that brings. Would it not be simpler to make the background be a background - just blank? There is no difficulty in putting one application window _underneath_ another, so you will see it when the top window is moved or minimized out of the way.
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Re:Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows Start menu is all fine and dandy until you install some software.
At that point it becomes unusable.
Instead of sorting themselves into categories, programs sort themselves by vendor.
How intuitive is that, exactly?
Of course, it is editable, but how many users are willing to do that? I am a competent user, yet I still can't be bothered.
Instead, I use launcher applications and the like.
Windows Start menu wastes time, and that is why it is unusable.
Compare the Windows Start menu with the new KDE menu... and IIRC, Vista's new menu is a rip-off of KDE's.
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Re:Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you understand.
The parent poster is complaining on behalf of users who don't really have a solid handle on any aspect of the computer other than means to launch and use the few applications they care about. I have known many of them who are afraid to delete shortcuts from their desktop or Start Menu. They are afraid to move them around. They are afraid to rename them. I try to explain the difference between a shortcut and an executable. They do not understand.
And those of us who do understand usually just want to do some work with our computer, not get constantly bogged down with administrative tasks and upkeep. And the free-for-all Windows allows application installers results in just that kind of bogging down.
Install something new:
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Re:Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:5, Insightful)
What can't you do for KDE 4.x that you can do in KDE 3.x that's a show-stopper for you?
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Re:My one erk with KDE 4 (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just surprised its not called a "Kashew"
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I love Linux but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry but Linux.com and Bruce Byfield praising KDE is like PC Magazine praising Vista.
I would like to some more critical reviews.
Some screencasts on Plasma features (Score:5, Informative)
This is supposed to be impressive? (Score:5, Funny)
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So far, I am impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
What I would like to see includes better fonts and more useful and complete help files. I also miss Amarok.
I have had my disappointments too. My college website will not allow Konqueror. Plug-in installation still needs work so that it is as smooth as that on Windows XP.
I have nothing but praise for KDE developers who insisted that we needed a new way of doing things in KDE and therefore started developing KDE 4.0. At that time, I did not see any reason why we needed a new paradigm. Now I see the reason. Thank you so much.
Re:So far, I am impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:So far, I am impressed (Score:5, Informative)
So do I.
Wait, actually I don't. Because I run Amarok 1 with KDE3 libs still installed, even with a KDE4 desktop. There are quite a few KDE3 apps I can run, in fact.
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Best KDE 4 distro? (Score:5, Interesting)
For the adventurous that have been using KDE 4, which distros do you think have done the best job at packaging it? Also will they be releasing packages for KDE 4.1 shortly, or are they waiting for their next normal release cycle?
I've been having all sorts of kernel/Xorg headaches with Hardy Heron, and am looking to dump it. I'm planning on moving all my must-have software to another box running Debian stable which will free up my desktop to experiment with a new distro.
Re:Best KDE 4 distro? (Score:5, Funny)
Gentoo. Not only do you get to run KDE 4.1, but you also get to watch it compile from source.
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KDE 4.0 was always more of a test release (Score:5, Insightful)
After months of development and controversy
I've never been sure why there was much controversy. The various announcements around the time of the 4.0 release and in advance made it clear that KDE 4 was the entire new desktop (in all its future versions) with new core technologies like Phonon and Plasma, whereas KDE 4.0 was the very first release of said desktop, wherein the underlying technologies were frozen so that developers could start using them, but the apps and desktop were incomplete.
I tried it as a LiveCD and the desktop experience was lukewarm, so I went back to 3.5. But I never wrote off KDE 4. No one should have, and there never should have been any controversy, considering what 4.0 was. The 4.1 release is the one people have actually been waiting for, since the apps and desktop components have had time to adjust to the new libaries, so if you adopted 4.0 thinking it would be your new desktop and you hated it, you probably jumped the gun. Have another look.
Re:KDE 4.0 was always more of a test release (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never been sure why there was much controversy. The various announcements around the time of the 4.0 release and in advance made it clear that KDE 4 was the entire new desktop (in all its future versions) with new core technologies like Phonon and Plasma, whereas KDE 4.0 was the very first release of said desktop, wherein the underlying technologies were frozen so that developers could start using them, but the apps and desktop were incomplete.
The controversy is that it redefines what .0 means to most computer users and has meant throughout the release history of KDE.
It only occurred to me today, but I actually think KDE should do it again for KDE 5. If consistently used, there's nothing wrong with the following version numbering:
[b].0[/b] is the [i]zeroeth[/i] release set of a new product or technology generation. It could be used instead of silly names such as alpha, beta, preview and technology release alltogether and would indicate incompleteness.
[b].1[/b[ would be the [i]first[/i] release and would be complete.
This would probably also be more intuative to end users because only developers use zero-indexed lists.
Then again, it would not have provided the KDE release team with a way to push forward their new platform the way they did now. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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Re:KDE 4.0 was always more of a test release (Score:5, Insightful)
It only occurred to me today, but I actually think KDE should do it again for KDE 5. If consistently used, there's nothing wrong with the following version numbering
I agree. I actually like the KDE 4 scheme better than the usual one. Partly I like it because terms like "alpha" and "beta" are used inconsistently nowadays, and are [google.com] often [google.com] abused [google.com]. The so-called controversy with KDE 4 erupted mainly because KDE didn't go the easy route and call it 3.99 or beta. The complainers didn't pay attention to what they were getting and had false expectations as a result. However, the paradigm that .0 would be a library freeze to build a platform foundation was very sound, IMHO.
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Complaint about this review (Score:5, Insightful)
Power management? Decent WiFi controls? (Score:5, Informative)
I've got to say, Kubuntu Hardy with KDE4 was extremely disappointing. Neither Ubuntu nor KDE provided a functional wifi manager - The Network Settings application shared by many Ubuntu desktops couldn't write a interfaces file that preserved WEP keys, and was insanely cludgy. Steal some code from Maemo, people.
More KDE4 specific, using it stripped me of any sort of effective GUI-based power management. Hibernation, sleeping, and battery usage controls were completely absent. All it brought to the table was a (commonplace and unimpressive) battery monitor.
I enjoy using KDE4, but I really hope they're getting their acts together with this release, so far as laptops go.
Re:Power management? Decent WiFi controls? (Score:5, Interesting)
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one-click install for openSUSE 11.0 (Score:5, Informative)
People with openSUSE 11.0 can just click here [opensuse.org] to run the one click installer or go to http://news.opensuse.org/2008/07/29/kde-41-released-with-opensuse-packages-and-live-cd/ [opensuse.org] (or KDE developers [kdedevelopers.org])
KDE41: my experience (Score:5, Informative)
So far I've had the following issues/nags/etc:
* Using the resize on the upper right of the new menu instantly made the default size *bigger*, which isn't what I wanted, and there was no way to resize back to even its default size.
* Input Actions don't work at all. Yes, the action and the group it's in are not disabled, and KHotKeys daemon is activated from Global Settings. No key combos work.
* The main panel glitched out and everything was horribly spaced out when I tried to add and remove widgets from it; I had to completely recreate a new panel to fix it.
* While it's not exactly slow, it does have several slow redraw issues (e.g. the classic launcher menu) and I've seen it lag at random times much more than KDE3 ever did. I know this is probably to be expected, but it's worth noting. No, I don't use desktop effects (compositing), as I've seen that slows things down much more in general (games, etc) than it helps with desktop elements.
* System Settings crashed on me on more than one occasion.
Overall, much better than the completely unusable 4.0, but they still have a long way to go to make KDE4 even remotely stable.
Mish-mash (Score:5, Insightful)
I look at this screenshot [linux.com] linked from the article however and I see a confusing mash-up of design agendas. Dolphin file manager looks drab and strangely cluttered with shallow implied 3D for tabs and other delimiters yet the OS X style scroll bars bulge out. What are those scrollbars supposed to be made of? Blown glass? Gel? The panel at the bottom caves in with greater depth than the background image.. The simulated lighting model they're using to shade elements come from all over the place. I can count about 3 contradicting implied directional lights, from the panel to the icons to the widgets themselves..
Other things confuse: What is that Logitech logo doing in the top-right corner? Those tiny minimise/maximise buttons look like they're from another universe entirely: not echoed in any other element on the desktop, lest of all the stripey title bar.
I'm not convinced much effort has been spent on making KDE look 'stunning'..
KDE was very tweakable last time I looked so I'm sure someone will come up with a unifying theme. Glad to hear stability and speed have been greatly improved.
Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Funny)
Do we really need notification of a (dot)1 release?
You must be new here.
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Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Funny)
You must be new here.
he says as I compare UIDs ....
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Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Informative)
If he knew anything about Unix nomenclature, that'd be a dot(1) release.
Heck no.
(I don't, I'm still confused when people refer to man(6) or what-not. Can anyone help me out, I couldn't find a wikipedia page or FAQ on the numbers in parenthesis anywhere.)
It comes from the fact that the manpages have headings that look like e.g.:
LS(1) manual LS(1)
So ENTRYNAME(MANUALSECTION).
So essentially the thing(2) notation simply indicates in which section of the (now electronic) manual the thing is. For instance, commands are section 1, system calls section 2, library functions section 3, kernel interfaces section 4, file formats section 5, and so on.
It is mostly used to indicate that we're talking about manpages, so e.g. "see open(2) for details" indicates "open's manpage." More verbose usages such as "see the manpage for open(2)" are also seen.
This overlaps with a second usage, which makes more sense to me but is less common: to use the manpage notation to indicate which type of thing you're talking about. For instance, there is a command 'printf' and a library function 'printf,' so saying 'use printf(1)' or 'use printf(3)' to disambiguate the two is a convenient use of the 'manpage notation.'
But mostly people mean it as a shorthand for 'the manpage.'
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Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The font still sucks (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you provide a screenshot for comparison for what a decent default font should look like in your opinion?
(This is not a flame! I do use KDE mind you!)
I am not the OP, but if you want to see what decent fonts look like google for a Ubuntu (Gnome) screen shoot.
Here is an anecdote for you:
As a full-time KDE user, when I bought a computer for my parents (1 year ago) I installed Kubuntu on it. Since Kubuntu has been such a mess in the last year, upon my last visit, I installed Ubuntu on that computer.
My mother (~60 years old, has no clue whatsoever about what KDE or Gnome are) upon being presented to what I called a new Linux flavor, said, spontaneously, within some 5 seconds looking at the Gnome menus:
Oh, the fonts are much beter
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Re:The font still sucks (Score:5, Informative)
How could you not understand the claim?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/KDE_4.png [wikimedia.org]
Look how the "R" pushes against the "o" in Root, how the "F" is against the "r" in Fresh, and how the "T" is against the "o" in Tools. Look how the "T" is right up against the "r" in Trash.
Look how freakishly wide the "H" is in Help and the "V" is in View. Look how weirdly thin the "F" is in File and the "T" is in Tools. "W" in general just looks strange.
Some letters are properly spaced from their siblings, and others are jammed right up against each other. Some letters are cartoonishly wide while others are strangely thin. Maybe you don't notice or care about any of this, but it's a lack of professionalism and attention to detail that has lasted for years. They keep rewriting their panels and shells and file managers, but they still won't change the goddamn font!
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Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a lot more concerned about the substance of the release than what number they throw on it.
For instance, MacOS has only had point releases for going on a decade now. In this case, the release is a huge improvement over the point-oh-no.
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Answered my own question: (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.kde.org/download/#v4.1 [kde.org]
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Re:SARCASM CENTAL (Score:5, Funny)
Here is a picture of the recommended minimum system requirements for Vista:
http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/markrussinovich/WindowsLiveWriter/PushingtheLimitsofWindowsPhysicalMemory_878B/image_4.png [technet.com]
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Re:SARCASM CENTAL (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that I'm defending Vista, but KDE isn't an operating system.
Using a KDE release to rag on Vista's stability is like using a new product line from BF Goodwrench to rag on Ford Explorers.
I would say though, that KDE appears to kick GDI+'s ass. I haven't played around with KDE 4 or Aero enough to make such a comparison though.
-Rick
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Re:Nvidia cards (Score:5, Informative)
It is definitely worth downloading and I say it is more then sufficient to replace KDE 3.5
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Re:Nvidia cards (Score:5, Informative)
Use this setting:
nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1
Using this trick, resize becomes snappy.
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Re:Nvidia cards (Score:5, Informative)
I reply to mysel: to make this change permanent, I created a file called: /etc/X11/xinit.d/20nvidia-te-acceleration
which contains:
#!/bin/sh
if [ -x /usr/bin/nvidia-settings ]; then /usr/bin/nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1
fi
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Re:Firefox 3? (Score:5, Informative)
I also use an Oxygen icon theme for Firefox, since that program doesn't change any icons.
The scrollbar bug doesn't happen for me, not entirely sure under what conditions it happens, it's also possible that it has been fixed in newer version of that software or only happened with FF2.
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Re:Remember folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they need you? Do they have an obligation to do anything for you?
From my perspective, they're Santa Claus: they may not give me all the free gifts I want or asked for ("I want the entire GI Joe collection"), but they give me a helluva lot of free gifts regardless.
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Re:Remember folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Which would be why Microsoft has been getting a lot of bad publicity recently (just joking!)
You would have that power, and more, if you paid for a support from Canonical, Novell or Redhat (this last not so much, since we're talking about the desktop here and Redhat is more of a server distro).
You see, Microsoft or Apple don't really have an obligation to fix your bugs, as when you buy the OS you've handed over the only bargaining counter you held. Companies that support GNU/Linux, on the other hand, live and die by the quality of their support, and ability to retain customers in support contracts.
Let me give an example: if you have a heavy investment in GNU/Linux, and support contracts with Canonical. If they do something you don't like, you can switch to Mandriva or SLED. However, if you have a heavy investment in Windows, and Microsoft does something you don't like, what other Windows vendor are you going to switch to?
Microsoft in particular has a lot of power to force people into upgrading, they can leverage the other software they produce: Office, DirectX, games etc. to force you to upgrade by tying them to new versions of Windows.
Note that I'm not arguing whether desktop GNU/Linux is a joke, just that this is not the reason for it. :)
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Re:Remember folks (Score:5, Informative)
According to the article Troy (the one who wrote the blog post you're referring to) already apologised [livejournal.com] for it:
Also note that this is just one person, they are not representative of the entire KDE4 dev community. Secondly, note from that apology blog post, that Troy -- I keep wanting to write McLure -- Unrau has stopped working on KDE, so your point is not only inaccurate but untimely.
I agree with the Funny mod though.
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Re:Remember folks (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really see any problem with what he said. He's RIGHT. Regular users, especially rabid, demanding ones, don't add anything useful to an Open Source Software project. The number of users a piece of software has is just a pissing match. Unlike commercial software, where more users means more revenue, the opposite is true. The more users you've got, the more you're spending to serve them(Bandwidth isn't free), the more effort you've got to expend to meet their demands. Further, the less resources you have to focus on individual issues.
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Re:Remember folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry - a rant about some abusive, ungrateful users isn't informative. It may, however, be funny.
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Re:Remember folks is Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
"KDE 4.1 is great. I'm running it on an old Thinkpad t21 just fine"
That is great news. Whenever I see something with a long list of new features I kind of groan about what the new hardware requirements are likely to be.
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Re:What is a plasmoid? (Score:5, Funny)
As usual, Wikipedia is your friend:
Hope that clears things up some.
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Re:What is a plasmoid? (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, a plasmoid is generally a visualisation of a Data Engine. There can be many plasmoids for the same data engine (eg. this means that if we write 10 task bars then the back end code is all shared). Unlike an application a plasmoid doesn't have its own process, and simply responds to changes in the underlying data engine (because of various bits of wizardry this means that they will consume less battery power too btw). In a model-view design, you can consider a plasmoid to be a pure view. That said, many of the current plasmoids blur this by including model functionality - this is likely to become less prevelant as we determine what data engines we need.
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