KDE 4.2.4 Released

An anonymous reader writes "KDE 4.2.4 has been released. See the release announcement for details." Barring a "security issue or another grave bug," this is the end of the KDE 4.2 line, which means for distros based on long-term support, it might be the thing to get used to for a while.

Re:BSD?

[harryandthehenderson]

Because it's widely used on BSDs as the DE?

KDE 4 looks promising

[overshoot]

But the wait for it to be sufficiently feature-complete to be usable is a strain.

My Kubuntu 8.04 is getting kinda long in the tooth, but the newer ones don't work at all, unless someone knows of a KDE 3.59 or 3.60 backport -- that'd be sweet.

Re:KDE 4 looks promising

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly do you miss in KDE 4.2? My only problem is the poor Bluetooth support (lack of file browsing on my phone, mainly).

How about KDE 4.3?

[yet-another-lobbyist]

" ... this is the end of the KDE 4.2 line, which means for distros based on long-term support, it might be the thing to get used to for a while. "

Are you expecting KDE 4.3 to be so buggy that it is going to be uninteresting for long term support projects? In the past, there were huge leaps of progress from KDE 4.0 to KDE 4.1 to KDE 4.2!

Re:I just tried KDE 4.1

[yet-another-lobbyist]

I had HUGE issues with KDE 4.1 myself. It might be worth trying to switch off desktop effects. In my case, however, even that did not solve all the performance issues.
The big change came with KDE 4.2. Things really became very smooth and fast and rock solid. If you are planning to upgrade to jaunty, I would definitely recommend trying it. (If I remember correctly, there is also a way to run 4.2 on kubuntu 8.10 -- I think I did this for a while.)

4.2 is a grea release: its a good upgrade from 3.5

[jaymz2k4]

As a long term KDE user (since the very first version) I have found 3.5 to be a great release. It's still what I'm running on my work desktop. I have to say, installing 4.0 at home was a mistake. It definitly put me off upgrading my work machine. The 4.0 release basically rendered my home environment as almost unusable. On top of that the semi-upgrade made the 3.5 install messed up, so I was pretty pissed.

When 4.1 came out I was fairly happy with the stability, a lot of little issues (things like the taskbar resizing) had been worked out but it still felt somewhat unfinished. Now, having upgraded to 4.2 I have to say I'm really impressed. I wasn't expecting the change to be as full as it was, 4.2 feels much more complete and definitely is the upgrade path you want to follow from 3.5 if your a KDE user. Things like the windowing effects work much better, the plasma desktop has reached a level that is usable all the time and the level of integration has improved a lot (checkboxes finally render properly when clicked in firefox for one, dolphin is getting pretty damn good and okular is great). KDE is at the point where I'm now planning on an upgrade at work.

I have to agree a bit with some of the UI criticism of amarok, I found the jump to version 2 pretty dramatic. It's almost like a whole new app but I'm giving it a good go for a while. The last media player I really used before amarok was xmms. But yeah, bottom line, two thumbs up for 4.2

The same old question applies ...

[VincenzoRomano]

... as versions go by ...
How does this version compares to v3.5.10 as far as features and stability?
I'm still waiting to replace my ol' KDE v3 without harming my everyday work!

Promising? Yes. Usable? not really

[an.echte.trilingue]

KDE 4.2 is perfectly usable.

You seem to have a different definition of usable than I do.

1. (s)ftp is broken in kde file browsers (dolphin, konqueror). I can load the root directory listing, but not download any files or change directories. Have to use filezilla or something.
2. Similarly, the integrated text editors will not save over an ftp connection. Very annoying.
3. SMB shares: when you refresh on a passwordless windows share in Konqueror or Dolphin, you get an authentication failure that lasts for the session.
4. The fish plugin for ssh in konqueror seems broken, although I did not take the time to investigate so it might be a simple config error.
5. Network configuration does not work for wifi connections secured with WPA-EAP/TTLS encryption. You have to edit the config by hand.
6. This is more of a gripe: klipper is truly black magic that I cannot for the life of me figure out. Copy-Paste should not be this complicated.

Except for number 3, this all works fine in KDE 3.5. It all works fine in Gnome (same machine).

I like KDE4.2, it has a lot of really promising concepts. I am a big fan of the plasma widget desktop. I use it whenever possible, which is why I can actually tell you some of the bugs. But interesting concepts are not enough. For a lot of my work, I simply have to log out and log into KDE 3.5 or Gnome. I am using KDE on two machines, one is debian and the other is kubuntu, so the problem might be in debian's packages.

Re:KDE 4 looks promising

[Ruie]

KDE 4.2 is usable, but not perfectly.

No kprinter, does not see my shared cups printer (previous version worked ok), dolphin instead of konqueror, middle click is broken in konqueror when browsing files (used to open in a standlane application), no kasbar, start menu does not add newly installed programs without restart.

This is on a system that I only use occasionally.

Good work, but it is not 3.5 yet.

Re:Promising? Yes. Usable? not really

[SomeKDEUser]

1. Works for me. Something broken in your setup. did you report the bug?
2. same.
3. Could not try -- but might be linked...
4. same as 1-2
5. Yeah, people complain a lot about the NM applet. this thing is obviously not finished.
6. Really? Always found it to work fine. You are aware there are 2 clipboards?

I did not know GNOME used kioslaves...