KDE 4.1 Released, Reviewed 475
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.
Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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.
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.
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.
Complaint about this review (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:4, Insightful)
And, taking previous releases of KDE as example, 4.5 will be the full-fledged, stable version, so it will also worth a note ;-)
(no flames, please, I'm a KDE user, too)
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:Remember folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry - a rant about some abusive, ungrateful users isn't informative. It may, however, be funny.
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.
What is a plasmoid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can someone please clue me in as to what a plasmoid is? What are the differences between a plasmoid and a regular application? Why would I want to use, say, a folder view plasmoid rather than a regular file browsing app?
Re:Remember folks (Score:4, Insightful)
BTW, unless you send money, time, or expertise to KDE e.V., you are a leech. This isn't a bad thing; it's what they want. Nevertheless, it means that you have nothing meaningful to contribute but bug-reports and feedback.
IOW, you have gotten absolutely zero reason for a sense of entitlement. When the XFree86 thing went down, I didn't bitch about it because I didn't do a damn thing for the project to earn the right. I just moved to x.org. If you think the KDE devs don't esteem your lofty opinions enough, consider using a different desktop.
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.
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.
Re:Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:1, Insightful)
Because the desktop background is _my_ space as much as anything on the screen can ever be. So anything that's there which I didn't put there is invading my space. And it better has some fucking good reason for that!
Re:Do we really need notification? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The font still sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you provide a screenshot for comparison for what a decent default font should look like in your opinion?
Re:Remember folks (Score:3, Insightful)
Often times it is considered "A feature."
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. :)
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.
Re:Why does anyone care about the 'desktop'? (Score:3, Insightful)
My my, how hard is it to 'right click' then select Sort by Name. Yep that is pretty tough.
It's not very hard—but it's also not very useful, as it doesn't solve the problem that the programs are still sorted by folders almost always named after the vendor.
Re:Please (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Re:The font still sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
It all depends on settings.
I'd say, Ubuntu was first distro which actually made Gnome look good in general and fonts in particular. (Before Ubuntu kicked in, default fonts to read menus/ets in Gnome 2.x required a microscope. No font settings dialog was presentin 2.0.x releases either.)
I would also add that default Kubuntu isn't really good example of KDE setup. Many complain about it. Even I complain about it. If you like *buntus - then use default Ubuntu and do not wander around. The beauty of such easy-to-use distros is in their default settings: do not like them - do not use the distro.
But to give an example of up-to-date Debian-based KDE-centric distro ... Well, I'm still looking for it by myself ~_~
Re:So far, I am impressed (Score:3, Insightful)
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:
Re:Remember folks (Score:3, Insightful)
KDE sounds like it's becoming the new Gentoo: a very nice system that was torn apart from the inside out by people who'd rather bicker than program.
I was once a happy user of both KDE and Gentoo, but for the last year I've been using stock Ubuntu on everything. Since then, my Linux experience has been a lot more... peaceful.
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.
Re:real target audience (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent is not a troll. Parent is misled. Items of note:
1. Amarok is in a separate development cycle, it's managed by totally different people. I'm running the Amarok 2 development version and it's all right. Still lacking some of the features of the 1.x cycle, but they're trying to port it to entirely an entirely new framework. Good work so far. Check it out.
2. If it's not enough for you, there's nothing stopping you from running KDE 3 applications on KDE 4.
3. Yeah, Dolphin sucks.
Desktop backgrounds? (Score:3, Insightful)
So does this release allow you to set the different desktop backgrounds for different virtual desktops across multiple monitors, like KDE 3 did?
Or are they still trying to dumb down the desktop experience a la GNOME, Ubuntu and KDE 4.0?
Re:Remember folks (Score:3, Insightful)
"shareholders they are beholden to which requires that they deliver quality products"
How can someone be so disinformed in this day and age???
Shareholders require to deliver *sellable* products. Sometimes the way to produce a sellable product is by means of its quality. More often than not this is not only unnecesary (marketing usually makes for a better output than quality) but even a liability (on pure market forces in order to oversell a product yours must be even better so if you are already selling a wonderful product your are in fact hurting your tomorrow's sells for a new product).
"No, because if paying customers do not follow the upgrade path because a particular upgrade was bad, Microsoft will be required to address that because they have to make a living. That's why Windows XP support was extended to 2014."
Or is it because *computer* vendors, due to a growing *competency* from other OS vendors like Apple or the Linux distributions pressed Microsoft that way? NT/2000 to XP upgrade mill based mainly on NT's lack of support did work properly.
"so if you are an unhappy customer, they will be obligated to please you."
Yeah, that's true in the country of free market cotton-sugar and capitalistic candy-houses. In the real world unhappy customers are not a problem as long as you can find another (and hopefully -for the vendor, cheaper) way to lock them in.
Re:This time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone says that about every piece of technology until they discover something better. Even if it's ultimately not successful, I find it commendable that the KDE devs are willing to try something new.