KDE 4 Promises Large Changes

HatofPig writes "As the dust settles from aKademy 2005, the annual KDE conference, it's a good time to take a look at what the KDE developers are working on. Though KDE 3.5 isn't even out yet, developers are already working on KDE 4. Plenty of work has already gone into porting existing code to Qt4, the GUI toolkit upon which KDE is based, and KDE developers are working on projects that could radically change how the world's most popular free desktop looks and works."

Stability, ease of use and speed

[gilesjuk]

These need to be the main focus of KDE now. There's tons of features but it needs to be faster and more rock solid.

It's a nuisance when Windows Explorer on an average Athlon is slightly more responsive than Linux and KDE on an AMD64 x2. Also Konqueror struggles with some pages, rendering them really slowly.

Re:Stability, ease of use and speed

[Ganniterix]

I don't think that it is a major killer for KDE to be slightly less responsive. I think if linux wants to be taken more seriously by non-geek people, it has to drastically imporve the artwork in the GUI. Even the hard-core developers and internet geeks, as soon as screen shots are out... they hammer down servers to look out for the eye candy. A generic user does not even notice the slightly slower response time, but he will notice if Windows Vista looks better than KDE 4. So ... my two c.. I think KDE is taking a very good direction. Better art-work, means better eye-candy, and more attracting generic users. (I am making an enormous assumption that a generic user will still be able to run popular household applications on the Linux box ...)

Linux needs a good, easy desktop.

[CRC'99]

What linux needs for the desktop market is an easy to use, and simple desktop. The problem with this on current installs is the lack of communication between desktop and kernel etc.

For example, Sometimes, sound on linux can be an absolute bitch to get going. Even something as trivial as playing an AVI caused me *way* too much drama. Not that I couldn't get it to work, but then if I wanted sound to work with other things, I need to use a sound daemon. Fair enough, thats not too hard - but then the audio/video sync was out because of the latency in the sound daemon.

The point is, that as long as simple issues like playing a video become mammoth tasks, then the average person will just stick with something simpler. Hell, 90% of the time I can just install Windows and everything will work right out of the box.

This is what needs to be worked on. While all the technical side of things on Linux just rocks, I doubt that many people have worked on the 'end user experiance' because at the moment, it just sucks.

There is a reason Apple is gaining market share - as well as mind share - and it's the OS that does it. I can do the majority of things I can do on a linux system (console and X side), and have a nice, pretty and *FUNCTIONAL* GUI for everything else. The end user experiance is second to none. This is what Linux should be looking at - not making 'sweeping changes' that you still need to spend a week on getting to run just right :|

Re:Speed and memory consumption

[gowen]

Amen brother. Gnome people -- that goes for you, too.

Re:Most popular!?

[HatofPig]

When you have got a product, and you want it to get marketshare (even if it is free), then you have to push it and advertise! It has got to be in peoples faces, because for every one person like you who already knows that it's a good product and yet is sick of the advertising there are 100 who have never heard of it.

Albeit, Slashdot isn't quite the place to be pushing KDE and *nix if you want it to get seen by Joe Sixpack.

Actually, a friend at school was messing around on my laptop, and was amazed with all the stuff that KDE 3.4 could do and it's bundled apps. His jaw dropped at Amarok (auto lyric downloading, Wiki entry on the band, smart playlist, native iPod support, etc.) and was even more amazed when I told him about stuff like K3b's built in DVD ripping, KAudioCreator CD ripping, Kopete supporting all those protocals in one window, and plenty of other stuff. It's worth showing to people.

-Clinton

Ah, but will KBear work?

[FishandChips]

I guess the acid test for KDE 4 (as for KDE 3) will be KBear, then - the strangely named fpt client with the strange user interface that seems to come with each release whether you want it or not.

Will it run this time? Or will it revert to its lovable self and crash shortly after starting up, taking the kicker down with it?

Madames et Messieurs, faites vos jeux!

Re:C?

[m50d]

KDE has C bindings which are just a wrapper around the C++ interface, which accomplishes the same thing as what you're suggesting. Guess what, no-one uses them, because C++ is far nicer to program in than C. If you really want to, you can program a KDE application in C. On the saner side the API also has bindings for perl, python and java, and probably more.

Re:Linux needs a good, easy desktop.

[corneliusagain]

I think you're right. It's important to realise though that the problems are not the obvious ones - basic UI consistency and so on is not that disastrously bad. Rather, it's the "user experience" that is the problem - the number of FAQs, the number of different utilities for the same "user purpose" , and the general need to have specialist knowledge to get item X working with item Y. For my money, a good comparison is with iTunes/iPod and windows based DRM MP3 players - iTunes/iPod just works, and does so in a trustworthy way. At the moment, in this analogy, it's Windows which wins. A good example is hardware. Why can't linux boxes automatically search for & install drivers for me? If compiling kernel extensions as as simple as every website claims it is, why not do it automatically with 1 click and make all hardware stuff transparent?... /End-rant.

Re:Linux needs a good, easy desktop.

[ardor]

Wrong. The desktop should provide easy access to sound configuration. It should NOT involve some config file editing as root.

As for videos, desktop linux distros should play them flawlessly, shouldn't they? As the parent poster correctly stated this is not the case. mplayer crashes often, gxine is fine, but is often installed with little codec support (because of the damn licences). gstreamer works, but usually comes with very few plugins installed. O.K., its a license thing with gstreamer too, thats why the USER has to install the ffmpeg plugin, but wouldn't a messagebox with a "you have to agree to take responsibility blabla...." and an OK button to start the install be adequate? Instead the user has to install the package through synaptic or a terminal. And no, it is NOT intuitive that one has to search for the ffmpeg gst plugin just to watch some AVIs!

But your comment on the Macs really pulls the last straw. There are problems with linux desktops, so - don't correct them but use Macs. Brilliant!

And Gnome is no alternative. Its big, has some serious latency problems sometimes (especially with Nautilus), has some screwed understanding of DPI usage, its very easy to screw it up....

Include CVS/SVN stuff in Konqueror!

[ardor]

In Windows I use TortoiseCVS/SVN. It absolutely rocks. Using Cervisia after using Tortoise is anything but pleasant. I don't want to offend the Cervisia devs with this, but I would be glad if a new Cervisia release would integrate in Konqueror like Tortoise does with Explorer.

Re:Speed and memory consumption

[Rapsey]

The overall memory usage is not that high. On my system a huge part of the used memory is cache. Even if it shows that my memory is almost full I can easely run a game that takes up atleast half of my RAM without problems.
I can run alot more applications at the same time on my machine when im in KDE, than I can when im in winxp.

Re:change

[Bogtha]

#1 reason I'm not using KDE: It looks and works like windos

And yet the #1 reason lots of other people won't use KDE is because it doesn't work exactly like Windows. The KDE developers are stuck in a catch-22 situation - if KDE resembles Windows in any manner, people flame them for just copying a poor desktop, and if they try and do something new, people flame them for doing things differently to Windows. Either way, they can't win. Even the compromise they have now - default to Windows-like and offer the ability to configure it differently - isn't enough for some people.

Re:C?

[nonmaskable]

That would be unbelievably stupid. Gnome is in the middle of culture wars over trying to move into this century's technology - either Java or C#/mono, because most on the project realize how high the costs of sticking with C are.

My suggestions

[DrXym]

1) Consolidate and halve the number of pref panels. There's too many, they're all over the place and they contain advanced & seldom used features mixed in with the common features. Throw that crap out of the window and pursue something more minimalist and therefore easier to use. If Apple (and to some extent GNOME) can do it, then so can KDE.

2) Work with GNOME, Trolltech and Free Desktop and produce a common widget theme engine. I don't care if an app runs QT or GTK, I don't care if it's part of KDE or GNOME. I do care that the average Linux desktop looks severely schizophrenic and unpredictable from one app to the next.

Re:C?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please not. GTK is horrible. Right now, I am writing some classes that astract the same behaviour for GTK and KDE

Here is the KDE version for adding the columns to a table widget:

        table->insertColumns(0,cols.size());
        QStringList names;
        for(size_t i=0;isetColumnLabels(names);

Short,nice,readable,whatever you want. If I make a mistake, the compiler will tell me.

Here is the GTK version:

        for(size_t i=0;icols.size();i++){
            GtkTreeViewColumn *col=0;
            GtkCellRenderer *ren;
            switch(cols[i].type){
            case ListBox::ColumnDef::StaticText:
        col=gtk_tree_view_column_new_with_attributes
            (cols[i].name.c_str(),ren=gtk_cell_renderer_text_n ew(),"text", i,NULL);
        break;
            case ListBox::ColumnDef::CheckBox:
        col=gtk_tree_view_column_new_with_attributes
            (cols[i].name.c_str(),ren=gtk_cell_renderer_toggle _new(),"active", i,NULL);
        g_object_set_data(G_OBJECT(ren),columnkey,(void *)i); //Dangerous cast!
        g_signal_connect(ren,"toggled",G_CALLBACK(toggleCh eckBox),this);
        break;
            }
            gtk_tree_view_append_column (treeview,col);
        }

It is twice as long, is not type safe, checkboxes won't toggle aunless you add a callback, and the documentation is very twisted: Look at example for "active": "active" gboolean : Read / Write
The toggle state of the button.
Default value: FALSE
If you read that, do you understand that you have to set "active" to the column number of the checkbox column? On the PARENT of the cellrenderer object?

Notice how the KDE version does not mention what the column contains. The GTK version does. In both cases, I have to specify it later, when I set the column data. Why do I need to tell it twice to GTK?

And this is not an unfortunate choice, but the general case. FOr QT/KDE, I read the docs, and I implement. For GTK, I read the docs, delve trough examples until I find something similar, crash atthe first trys because all the casts make compiler typechecking useless, and the resulting code is in general twice as long.

Please, kill the ugly beast that is GTK.

Re:summary of the goods

[Anonymous Coward]

so instead of using the already existing framework of beagle, they are creating something completely new and redundant, so that users now will have to index their drives 2 times for each application.

sounds retarded to me.

Re:My suggestions

[ardor]

1) is correct, but also pretty ironic, given that there are so much zealots who say exactly this (too much prefs stuff in the control center) and then say "edit bla.conf" when anyone asks how to get sound working (provided the zealots don't quit with a "RTFM"). The advanced options shouldn't disappear completely (like GNOME did). Instead, they should be hidden behind an "Advanced options...." button. For example, the Windows desktop settings behave this way; the most common options are visible immediately, but for editing graphics driver options or setting the monitor refresh rate etc. one has to go to the Advanced Options part.

2) There is already something for GNOME/KDE integration: a GTK theme engine based on Qt. Thus, GTK apps look like Qt/KDE ones. Of course, its only useful if you use KDE...

Re:Linux needs a good, easy desktop.

[DFJA]

The point is, that as long as simple issues like playing a video become mammoth tasks, then the average person will just stick with something simpler. Hell, 90% of the time I can just install Windows and everything will work right out of the box.

You are blaming this on KDE, whereas primarily you should be blaming the hardware manufacturers for not providing support for their hardware, on people who ship their media in proprietary formats, and on the peddlers of those proprietary formats for not providing decoding software for Linux (OK, some do, I know). I have found that these issues aside, KDE just works, with very few exceptions. The exceptions that I do find are no more common than the exceptions that I find with MS Windows which, contrary to popular opinion, is not a "just works" OS. I haven't yet found a "just works" operating system, but the issues I have with my KDE-based GNU/Linux systems are on the same level as with MS Windows.

This is what needs to be worked on. While all the technical side of things on Linux just rocks, I doubt that many people have worked on the 'end user experiance' because at the moment, it just sucks.

You've obviously not used KDE for at least a year then, as if you had you would realise that a whole load of effort has been put into making KDE more usable recently. 3.4.2 and 3.5 beta knock the pants off even 3.3 in terms of polish and usability. There is still work to be done but I already find it far more usable than WinXP. Actually, I am better off when I have a problem with KDE, because at least I stand a chance of fixing it myself. With MS Windows, I am totally at the mercy of Microsoft to fix them for me, which they may or not do according to whether it suits their finances. Even if I don't fix the issues myself, usually someone else does according to their own needs, and lets me have the fix via whatever route.

Re:Speed and memory consumption

[ciroknight]

It's only fair to compare KDE 4 to Windows Vista when they come out.

Wait.. what? In that case what is it only fair to compare GNOME to? Let me try my best to explain something to you; in the computer world, the only thing a version number tells you, is how new the product is (now pay attention to this part) in relation to itself. That's right. KDE 4 means that it's the 4th iteration of KDE. Thus, if you want fair comparisons, you have to go to features.

Now, since a feature set hasn't been frozen for KDE 4 yet, any comparison is simply "speculation", and thus, it's completely and totally fair to compare KDE 4 to KDE 16 to Aqua circa OS X 10(.0). Of course, these comparisons don't mean jack, because you can only speculate on what's going into it, whereas on the other side of the equation, you have a list of what's there, and what isn't.

As for the current generation of desktops, comparisons are completely valid there too (imagine that)! Simply take a list of features that both desktops have, and look at both of them, noting what's the same, and what's different. This is what we call "comparison". Thus, if I want to compare or contrast KDE to the look and feel of Windows 95, that's perfectly valid. My conclusions based on that comparison may or may not be correct, and you may or may not like them, but the point remains that the comparison is completely and totally valid.

The Open Source world needs to be apt to be compared if they refuse to innovate. The reason why so many Apple products are awe inspiring is simply because there is nothing available yet to compare them to, and that's what drives a lot of appeal and dislike of Apple; people have to build their conclusions as they see it, as they use it for the first time, instead of drawing the knowledge from what functionality already exists. (Of course, I'm simply using Apple as an example here, there are a lot of companies out there that are perfect drop in replacements for them, but they're the easiest to think about, and Slashdot readers can probably relate better to a computer company than a speed boat company).

Now, lastly, the points that you make about KDE can be made about practically any modern desktop environment, that's right, every single point you made (well, perhaps not the Windows Explorer one, but then again..) can be used to describe practically any DE existant right now. I can't tell you the last time I installed a DE that didn't come with a desktop, file manager, instant messaging, mail, address book, calendar etc. But I can tell you the features which exist within those applications, and I can tell which ones are exclusive to which DE/Application.

Please, comments in praise are great, but you really need to give reason why that praise belongs there, and draw valid conclusions with your arguments, or else you're just talking out of your ass like 98% of slashdotters.

Re:My suggestions

[Waffle Iron]

If Apple (and to some extent GNOME) can do it, then so can KDE.

Apple didn't do it. They use the Model T paintjob approach: They just don't let you tweak a lot of stuff that you should be able to tweak.

I use a lot of the obscure preferences in KDE. There are plenty of dumbed down alternatives out there already; KDE doesn't need to try to be another one of those.

Re:change

[Tom]

And yet the #1 reason lots of other people won't use KDE is because it doesn't work exactly like Windows.

Yes, you have a point there. If you copy something, then any difference to the real thing will be noticed more, the closer you copy. Essentially, you can make a 100% clone, or you can make your own thing, anything inbetween will be perceived as bad.

The way KDE does it, nobody is really happy with it. I figure it's "good enough" for a large share of people, and since many of them are ex-windos users and have grown up to live with "good enough" being all they should ever expect - it kinda works.

5 years ago, there was much hope for the Linux desktop. Today, even I seriously consider buying myself a Mac. And that's after my main machine has been a Linux machine for over 10 years now.

Either way, they can't win.

Learn a lesson from the real leader in computer desktop UI. Copy the Mac or come up with your own alternative. Do things because they are good things and not because windos does them.

Ah crap, I tried convincing the Gnome UI group when it was formed (and I was an early member) and couldn't. Now we have two badly copied windos-like UIs for Linux. And we all pretend to be surprised that it's not making as much progress taking over the desktop world.
Hello? You can't overtake anyone if all you ever do is drive slipstream.

Re:C?

[jcupitt65]

Heh, it did get mangled pretty bad, it's hard to see what's going on there. I've not used gtk_cell_renderer_toggle(), maybe it is very odd like you say. The times I've used other parts of the TreeView widget, it's been fine: a bit wordy, but quite logical and easy to use.

You're right in general that Qt is higher-level than GTK+, since Qt is a C++ API. Of course this has disadvantages too; for example language bindings for Qt are much harder. Gtkmm is worth a look: it's at the same level at Qt (in terms of abstration), but doesn't need MOC. And it plays nice with the STL too.

Re:Linux needs a good, easy desktop.

[ardor]

You are right with aRts. Unfortunately, there are little alternatives. esd has serious sync problems (just ask the Ubuntu devs). dmix is nowhere near stable. I hope something better comes, like a new sound daemon, or a stable dmix.

About streaming capabilities: a desktop absolutely NEEDS a multimedia infrastructure like gstreamer. OK, its not KDEs job to install it, nor handling the infrastructe (after all, gstreamer already exists). It doesn't even have to be an integral part of the desktop.

But what is actually needed? A way to configure the damn thing! I mean something like an easy way to change the sources & sinks with the control center, having a list of all installed codecs, maybe with an "Install new codec" button for easy install and so on. This would actually be a BIG advantage of a Linux desktop over Windows, since DirectShow isn't easy to configure, and if it gets messed up with broken codecs, you better get prepared for a full Windows reinstall. gstreamer is in many ways better than DirectShow (except seeking, this works more reliable with DShow), so we shouldn't miss the chance of using this advantage.
In a Nutshell: KDE shouldn't require gstreamer, but it should include optional support, with autodetection for gstreamer presence, thus enabling all gstreamer-related stuff when its there.

Why gstreamer? Why not xine or mplayer? gxine is very nice, and xine-based Kaffeine rocks, yeah. But there are legal problems. Anybody remembers the MPEG-4 license problems? gstreamer is much safer, since the plugins can be binary, closed-source (useful! for example, DivX could exist as a binary codec, and Cyberlink could create a DVD decoder - finally, watching DVDs without cracking them).

The problem with most package managers is that its not easy to find out what codecs are needed. Hell, most users don't even know what a codec is. In Windows, the media player automatically tries to download a suitable codec, and if there isn't any, it prints out an error message (which is not very helpful :) ). What I would like to see: for example, User X gets a MPEG-4 AVI. gstreamer doesn't know how to handle this, so it starts to look for a codec with the matching FOURCC. It doesn't find one. Result: gstreamer-based Kaffeine shows a message box "couldn't play video because playback software is missing." And then, under "Details": "no installed codec is able to play video with the FOURCC 'DIVX'." Yes, thats Kaffeine and not KDE itself, but Kaffeine is often bundled with KDE desktops, so this setup would be very nice.

Re:Stability, ease of use and speed

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of crappy KDE releases are you guys using? KDE has been consistently faster for me on both my current system, AthlonXP 1800 with 1GB, and my last system, Athlon 1400 (thunderbird) with 512MB. And that is both in actual operation and in perceptable response time.

And I'm not exactly sure how more "eye-candy" is going to attract anyone, since windows is already the ugliest desktop around. I think being pre-installed on 99% of hardware wouldn't hurt the chances of people using Linux. But until it is they're just going to go "I won't want Linux, I just want something that's easy to use for email and web and ebay." Which Linux is already far better for than windows since you don't need to know ANYTHING about it do to those things (if the system is pre-installed) and it'll definitely run a lot smoother, and at least for the time being more securely.

Re:Stability, ease of use and speed

[IdleTime]

Interesting.

I use KDE but not Konquerer, but I would be very interested in hearing what the background for your bombastic statement is? What work exactly is needed?

I'm sick and tired of people who throw out unsubstantiated claims like this without a single example to back it up. Most of the time I feel these claims are made by anti-KDE people since such a claim without further information only has one purpose, to make KDE look bad. If you have one or more examples of what work is needed, I expect that you have either:

a) Created bugs or enhancement report on the issue or at least checked that it is in the pipeline.
b) Used any other means to make sure that the right developers knows about the flaws you claim.

If not, then I understand that you are just trying to be a troll.

Re:Stability, ease of use and speed

[Otter]

Let's be honest here, you're really comparing apples to oranges when you compare completely different hardware like that. KDE and Win overall performance *as a desktop on the same hardware* is similar.

Huh? His point (its validity aside) is that Windows is faster on slow hardware than Linux/KDE is on faster hardware! It's not apples and oranges, it's a fortiori.

Re:C?

[labratuk]

Well that's not quite fair. At the same time, you're also comparing two different programming languages.

If you want to compare c++ interface with c++ interface, you could look at gtkmm.

Re:C?

[Anonymous Coward]

GTK Troll...

Ofcourse it is easier to work with objects than the old way. QT is just a nice toolkit for C++ programming. I still prefere something more highlevel, like Delphi or C#, but that is just my problem...

Re:C?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here isn't Gtk+. It's C.

And you cheated by writing the Qt example in C++, but the Gtk+ example in C. If you want to make them equal, write the Qt example in C, too -- oh, wait, you can't even use Qt from C!

Everybody I know writing GUI apps uses a higher-level language. Why you'd write a GUI app in C or C++ is beyond me.

Take Python, for example. Try writing the same code in PyQt and PyGTK -- both of which are very popular for writing apps these days. PyGTK is very Pythonic; PyQt requires you to write C++ method signatures to bind any events.

The first step in writing a program is to write it at the appropriate abstraction level. Writing a GUI app in C is just dumb; use something like Python. Of course, the Qt folks seem to think C++ is correct for *everything*, so even if you use Python you have to use C++.

Gtk+: You can use any programming language you want, and it feels like a native library anywhere.

Qt: You can use any programming language you want, except C, and it feels like a C++ library anywhere.

Re:Stability, ease of use and speed

[tyrione]

You've always been able to disable the eye-candy and use a minimalist theme.

If you aesthetically don't find any of those themes appealing them visit kde-look.org and make your own.