KDE 4 to Be Released on January 11th

VincenzoRomano writes "It's official! KDE 4.0 will be released on January 11th of next year. The release itself doesn't sound very firm, as 'the developers are confident to be able to release a more polished and better working KDE' and not the long awaited prime-time release. At the very first Alpha release on march 11th, the release date had been forecasted to October 2007, and then shifted to the end of the year with the second Beta. Despite this, the promises for the fourth version are quite interesting and maybe deserve a 'stay tuned'."

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

[JamesTRexx]

Here's [wordpress.com] a list of the major changes and the reasons behind them.

Re:Sounds familiar

[CarAnalogy]

That's not really correct, IMHO.

The difference with Vista is that the KDE team really has some major interesting new technologies now, though most of them are rather invisible from the common user's perspective. This will change over time. I assume KDE 4.1 will be more about applying/improving those underlying technologies, rather than introducing them.

Aside from the desktop itself, a large number of applications have also vastly improved.

Re:But does it run Windows?

[lord_rob the only on]

Yes, just google for kde 4 windows. You'll see that a Windows port of KDE 4 is ongoing. See this Wiki [kde.org].

But for the moment it's just a project so if you are really interested in seeing KDE 4 ported to Windows, jump on the boat and help !

Re:Sounds familiar

[Verunks]

well i think that kde 4.1 would be more suitable for the end user because a lot of great kde applications like k3b aren't yet ported to qt4, but kde 4.0 should be released soon so developers could port and test their apps in a stable kde4 desktop

Re:Birthday for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a GNOME user, so I didn't know much about KDE4. Here are some interesting links I just found while researching what KDE4 is going to include:

KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop [linux.com]

KDE 4.0: Well worth the wait! [blogsavy.com]

KDE 4 is almost ready to go [desktoplinux.com]

KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 features new shell [desktoplinux.com]

KDE 4: some reasons for design decisions [wordpress.com]

I don't think I'll switch from GNOME, but KDE4 sounds like it will have some cool features.

Re:KDE File Manager

[abigor]

Konqueror isn't going anywhere, and it will still be the preferred file manager/etc. for power users. Dolphin is included as a simpler file manager with a different design philosophy, that's all. But you don't have to use it if you don't want to, as the same old Konq (KDE4'ified, of course) will still be a click away.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Close. KDE 4 was set to be the next Vista. What happened was that right when KDE 4 was first being planned, they hyped one particular aspect, Plasma, as being as revolutionary as icons were when they were first introduced, before any code was written. Unfortunately, this technology was MIA for a long time, and it was introduced at a very late stage. The real problem is that it replaced lots of stable code that is absolutely critical to the user experience - the panel, desktop, etc. This really shouldn't have happened, but it was a core developer's pet project. The result is that it's still unfinished, despite them already having released a "release candidate" (which everybody else expected to be basically finished). And anybody pointing out how screwed up the release schedule was got attacked by fanboys.

So it was set to be the next Vista. But thankfully they actually managed to keep their egos in check and put off the release until the code is in a better state. This is a positive thing. I was seriously considering switching to GNOME until I heard about this.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[gardyloo]

KDE aims for a Windows-ish philosophy of "everything should be configurable". There are options for just about everything, so you can tweak your desktop to be just the way you want it.

I realize that you needed a good Windows/OS X dichotomy with which to compare KDE and Gnome, but you call Windows configurable?!? I've worked extensively on KDE, XFCE, and Enlightenment, and some with Gnome, and you're right: KDE is exremely configurable, far moreso than Gnome. But Gnome is on par with, if not considerably MORE configurable than Windows. Windows is essentially locked as it is, even with those "power users'" tools.

      I'm highly looking forward to being able to use KDE as a WM for Windows systems, without the added cruft of a Cygwin environment.

Actually, it IS 1 tool, concept

[WindBourne]

Konqi is pretty much one tool that does 2 things. Its job is to work with filestreams OR allow plug-ins. Of course, the filestreams utilize a plug-in approach approach as well(KIOs). Think of the KIOs as being similar to unix FS drivers in Unix's VFS. All of our common unix tools use a filesystem, but of course, the FS could come from a number of places (100's of different filesystems mapped onto either blocks or streams). Likewise, the plugins for Konqi are varied. In particular, Konqi includes by default the KHTML Library for a HTML handler.

Slippage

[Tony]

Simple: because most open source release schedules slip by weeks. Microsoft often slips by years [wikipedia.org].

Re:Birthday for me?

[rubycodez]

the only reason I use KDE rather than GNOME is the memory footprint on my older gear. I've seen rumblings in the forums that KDE 4 can be set to have less footprint than 3 with compositing turned off, hope it's true.

It gets worse

[Anonymous Coward]

There's been a particularly heated exchange going on in the developer's blogs which started with someone describing the new desktop/plasma as "useless crap [blogspot.com]." Aaron Seigo (the above mentioned core developer) then replies in the comments "i'm tired of this shit".

Now, one of the complaints leveraged was the lack of familiarity a KDE3 user would have with the alien and unfinished Plasma desktop due to a lack of migration path from the familiar kicker/kdesktop/kmenu. After a few [blogspot.com] more [blogspot.com] exchanges (which are displayed in all their sordid glory on Planet KDE [planetkde.org], Mr. Seigo then announces [blogspot.com] that he already had some code written to implement a more traditional menu system, but in light of being pissed off by people pointing out some pretty glaring flaws, he will not work on it anymore. Classy.

The whole thing is just childish and immature on both parts and doesn't really fill me with confidence, especially in light of the unfinished and buggy RC.

But again, the only problem with the KDE4 platform so far seems to be Plasma, and it's unfortunate since the project as a whole really seems ready to shake up the Linux desktop. Unfortunately the most visible part of it isn't up to snuff.

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

[pherthyl]

Keep in mind these are only the controversial features that people have whined about the most. There are tons of new features in the individual KDE apps that aren't mentioned there.

Re:Sounds familiar

[w000t]

Nope, KDE 4.1 would be more suitable for users because it will be a lot more polished and it will introduce features that couldn't be included in the 4.0 release. However, KDE3 apps would be able to run on KDE4, so you won't miss things like K3B.

Re:Sounds familiar

[lbbros]

For heaven's sake, don't spread FUD! That "stable code base" you talk about was a mess to mantain (note that Aaron J. Seigo, the Plasma lead developer, was also kicker's mantainer) and to add new features you broke others etc. Plasma it is not by any means aseigo's pet project: there are quite a number of developers involved in developing and polishing it. It matures at an amazingly fast pace, even.

The "fanboys" you talked about were people rightfully ticked off by the constant, uncostructive and negative attitude on the part of the complainers, which did not bring any improvement and only demotivated the developers. Those people did not even bother testing later revisions (right now there's a daily VM image floating around), report bugs or even offer *constructive* criticism.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Coryoth]

In GNOME you can not open files with applications isn't officially GNOME sanctioned to open those files, and there is no way to change that

Yes, there is. Select a file, right click and select Properties. In the Properties window there is an "Open With" tab which lists all the programs that are currently registered for that file type, and lets you select the default program. At the bottom there is a button "Add". Click that and it will bring up a list of applications, as well as a little expander for "Custom command" which will allow you to enter absolutely any arbitrary command you wish to run. Stick whatever program you want there, hit okay, and lo and behold that program will be in the "Open With..." options for files of that type from then on. Not that hard really.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

"right now there's a daily VM image floating around" Here, in fact:

http://dot.kde.org/1195829316/ [kde.org]
http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html [etotheipiplusone.com]

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[ianare]

That's weird because on my default ubuntu 7.04 install I can right click on a file or folder -> 'open with other application' -> select from list of applications OR 'use a custom command'.
I can also right click -> 'properties' on a file or folder, there is an 'open with' and there I can add, remove, and select which application open that type of file.

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

[Almahtar]

The most noticeable difference to me is that it's built on Qt 4, which is much faster, uses less RAM, and has stellar Windows, OSX, and X11 compatibility.

Most Qt4 programs (all that I've written for that matter) don't need a line of code changed to work on OSX or Windows.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[onefriedrice]

> I don't know anything about tweaking MacOS, other than the fact that i've never seen anyone using
> a recent version of MacOS that looked like it had been customized any significant extent.

Yeah, it isn't very configurable. I'm not sure about Leopard, but in every OS X I've used there are only two sanctioned "themes," aqua and graphite. Aqua being the most common and graphite being nearly the same thing as aqua but using grey instead of blue. There is no sanctioned way to change to custom themes and there are no event sounds. You can manually change system files or run a 3rd-party app to try to do it, but I don't trust that. When it comes down to it, OS 9 was considerably more configurable than OS X in this sense.

But I agree with this discussion in that, it is plenty configurable enough for me. When I was a kid, I thought it was cool to change everything and make it look like sci-fi or whatever, but those days are past. Now that I'm older and a developer, I've found that beyond changing the desktop picture, positioning the taskbar or dock how I like it, and perhaps optimizing some menus to my workflow, I really don't change the default configuration all that much. Most things that I change relate to making me use the computer faster (get stuff done) rather than on aesthetics.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem is NOT KDE. It's Kubuntu, as half the interwebs know.

Re:Excellent news for old-farts.

[pherthyl]

Yeah it's not the same thing. GTK is pretty garbage on windows. Qt has been running on windows for ages and is properly integrated with the native environment.

Re:Sounds familiar

[stilborne]

> but not immediately before a major release when the rest of the desktop is pretty much
> finished and not if you can't finish it on time.

so, we didn't do what you shouldn't do ... good.

> when people point out it's broken and want it back the way it was. There
> really isn't anything more to elucidate on when you tell somebody that
> they just fucked everything up and you want it back the way it was.

hm. see, here's the issue. you think nobody was aware of the regressions at any given point in time? so to have people annoyed, in your face and even asking the same questions several times a day with no real constructive input when there is complete awareness of the situation is not only galling, it's a waste of time. thanks for playing, but unless you have something useful to add to a conversation ... go find someone who isn't me to have it with.

i know how counter that is to the way those raised on slashdot have come to think about interacting with others online. it's also common sense.

the worst part was that at every stage as we added things that needed to be there ... approximately zero people who were the endless whingers about that specific thing would take any note. they'd just settle into the improvements silently at best and whinge about the next most obvious thing (often which we were already working on) at worst. criticism is fine; heck, one could view every patch that changes something fundamental in your code as a "criticism" of the existing code if one was petty enough. what makes criticism bad is when it is empty of content that moves the process towards the goal lines.

dealing with the skewed mindset of many of the users of free software is probably the most horrific thing about working on something in the open. it's amazing to me how so many people see it as some sort of right to be able to make developing in the open as difficult, demoralizing and time consuming as possible.

so i finally just said, "i've had enough, you people start showing some basic responsibility as participants in this process, communication being part of that process. otherwise, you can go somewhere else because i'm not going to take part in that abuse of the process."

i wish more developers would do the same. maybe then the fanboi whingers (on all sides, around all projects) would start to smarten up just a wee bit and we could get on with a much happier development cycle.

Re:Sounds familiar

[bcmm]

If you think Kicker was a stable codebase you don't use KDE.

It was great once, but it's been modified so much since KDE 2 without any real cleanup or rewrite, and is now a bloody mess, especially in not threading the applets.

It's the program that crashes most on me.

available on XP

[HeroreV]

WPF, WCF, DirectX 10, and WF are all very useful for developers

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) are part of the .NET Framework 3.0, which is available for Windows XP. No matter how nice they are, they're not going to convince anyone to move to Vista.