KDE 4.8 RC 1 Now Available 140
jrepin writes with this quote from an article at Phoronix: "Just in time for some holiday testing, the KDE SC 4.8 Release Candidate is now available. The final release of KDE 4.8 is about one month away, but now the release candidate is available to ensure it shapes up to be a solid release. Among the features of KDE Software Compilation 4.8 is support for Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces, quite visible improvements to the Dolphin file-manager, KSecretService is now available as a shared password storage pool, and there's many performance improvements. Lots of bug fixes (measured in hundreds) can also be found in KDE 4.8."
Serious Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Which major distributions still come with KDE as the default option. There used to be Mandrake/Mandriva, but that's pretty dead now. I guess Fedora and RedHat still use it, but RedHat is mostly for servers, so the desktop doesn't really matter that much, and I don't hear much about Fedora anymore. Seems like KDE is still very actively developed, but you have to go out of your way (Kubuntu) to even use it.
Serious Reply (Score:5, Informative)
OpenSuse.
Re:Serious Reply (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Serious Reply (Score:4, Informative)
Note that by "default" they mean that the OpenSuse installer has a radio button with KDE selected by default. If you just keep hitting "Next" you get KDE. You can install Gnome instead with one extra well placed mouse click.
However, the odds of clicking it at random are apparently low enough that the OpenSuse team doesn't consider it a bug. :O
Ohhhhh it's funny because it implies being able to pick Gnome is a bug!!!
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If you have to explain your joke, it isn't funny.
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Slackware uses KDE as default
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Slackware uses KDE as default
Yep, Slackware threw out the window GNOME many years ago, all the while keeping those 3-4 GTK+ useful applications.
The best decision they ever took. A pity some major distros never followed suit.
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Just as an aside, Slackware doesn't even have Gnome as a package. You actually have to get one of the other distributions based on slackware to setup Gnome.
Though also it is important to note, this is about the degree of vertical integration required and predates the latest issues regarding Gnome2 -> Gnome3.
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OpenSUSE uses it as the default desktop. That is probably your best bet as many KDE developers are using that distro.
I prefer the Fedora KDE spin as the nicest distro, but I am partial to yum.
Other notable distros using KDE by default: Pardus, Chakra, Slackware, PC-BSD.
Re:Serious Question (Score:4, Informative)
OpenSuse, Kubuntu, and several others not cloned off of Ubuntu come with KDE. Some have it as the first choice, but not all are so single minded as to not offer a choice like Ubuntu.
You don't have to go out of your way, you just have to expand your horizon beyond your little Ubuntu world.
Re:Serious Question (Score:5, Informative)
Some have it as the first choice, but not all are so single minded as to not offer a choice like Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop and log in to KDE. All the *buntu variants actually point to the same repositories, you pick one during download but if you want more they're an apt-get away. I'd call it one less confusing step for a new user, how should he know how to answer? Give him the defaults of what he downloaded and trust that power users can use 30 seconds on Google to find out...
Re:Serious Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Some have it as the first choice, but not all are so single minded as to not offer a choice like Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop and log in to KDE.
Reading comprehension 101:
Offering a choice means being given a selection of desktops to to install when you are installing.
Suse does it.
Slackware does it.
Fedora does it.
Ubuntu can't be bothered.
I find it condescending how you suggest offering "no choice" at install time is somehow protecting the new user.
The new user may be years away from doing an apt-get. But they can pick from a list, because they have all been to a Restaurant in the past.
Re:Serious Question (Score:4, Informative)
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The new user may be years away from doing an apt-get. But they can pick from a list, because they have all been to a Restaurant in the past.
It'll do about as much good as an untranslated Thai menu, people know what food is when they order. Okay, so you've decided that you should try this "Linux" thing. But, wait there's so many distros like OpenSuse, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Mint but okay most recommend Ubuntu. But wait, even if you've picked Ubuntu they're still going go give you a choice of GNOME, KDE, XFCE and maybe even some more obscure ones and I dare you to explain that as simply as you could a menu of beef, chicken and fish. Okay so it
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Windows doesn't ask what desktop you want, it just gives it to you one. Same for OS X. I don't see why Linux dists should be any different.
Sam Houston's Ice Cream Parlor has vanilla ice cream. Harry Wombat's Parlor has Chocolate. Howard Johnson's has 38 flavors. Which ice cream parlor is best?
I moved from Windows to Linux because in Windows, it's the Microsoft way or the highway. With Linux, I have it like I want it. If my only desktop choice was Gnome, I'd probably have stuck with Windows.
Choice is GOOD. T
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Of course it is. Would Ford be a better car company if they only offered the Mustang? Would Mustangs be better if you had no choice whether it had AC, a radio, heated seats, and you had to use whatever color they picked? I get the idea that you're being deliberately dense.
The choice is between having a choice and having no choice. I guess you prefer the USSR's one political party?
And no choice is not good if the consumer has no idea what the answer is to the question.
So you prefer that people remain ignoran
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Re:Serious Question (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it condescending how you suggest offering "no choice" at install time is somehow protecting the new user.
How the hell is a new user supposed to know or care why there are bunch of different desktops, all of which do more or less the same thing but in different ways? How the hell is a new user meant to pick apart the war of words that has been going on for over a decade over which desktop is supposed to be the best.
The sensible thing for any dist is to pick one desktop and be done with it. If someone is in any way informed on the matter they will choose a dist which matches their preference, or will know how to install an alternative post-install.
So yes it is protecting the new user since it relieves them a question that they don't know the answer to, and of downloading a larger iso file. Arguably it also protects the dist since they don't have to waste time & resources supporting multiple desktops with all the overheads in support and bug fixing entailed by that.
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sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop and log in to KDE
...after downloading a few hundred MB of new apps and libraries to replace the few hundred MB of old apps and libraries that the user probably didn't want in the first place if they were trying for a KDE desktop.
Re:Serious Question (Score:4, Informative)
And if you install regular Ubuntu with Unity and don't like it (and most people don't, I think), then install KDE and you're good to go in a few short minutes.
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I think people accustomed to GNOME 2.32 or KDE or XFCE, or power users, will dislike Unity. But for someone trying Linux for the first time, who is not especially technical I think they'll take five minutes to adapt and then use it without a second thought. The biggest problem I had with Unity when it first came out in Ubuntu 11.04 was not anything in its design, it was the fact that it kept crashing. But w
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Among experienced users: they almost invariably hated Unity, many of them liked Gnome, but the consensus was still that KDE was pretty clearly the winner.
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Aptosid
Re:Serious Question (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Kubuntu is hardly going "out of your way to use it"."
Windows users don't like installing software.... ......oh......(runs)
Re:Dumb Question (Score:2)
aptosid, slackware, kubuntu, debian come to mind immediately. How is that out of your way?
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Seems like KDE is still very actively developed, but you have to go out of your way (Kubuntu) to even use it.
How is getting/installing Kubuntu going out of your way?
Re:Serious Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Because "nobody" knows about KUbuntu. People getting into Linux for the first time pick Ubuntu, because that's what they've heard about, and they have no idea that Kubuntu even exists, let alone what it means, what Unity is, what KDE is, what Gnome is, or anything else that you take for granted.
The end result is that people are getting an exposure to "Linux" thinking "Linux = Unity", and by implication, "Linux sucks - this is garbage". They could, instead, be getting exposed to KDE, which does not suck, but the Ubuntu maintainers are too proud to admit that they have made a mistake, even with overwhelming feedback from the community.
Don't take YOUR level of linux knowledge as representative of everyone's. Most people have no idea that unlike most OSs, you can pick different desktop environments like KDE or Gnome or XFCE. It isn't something they necessarily even want to understand. If it's more complex than "Push this single download button" on your distro's download page, then in a very real sense people DO have to go out of their way to get KDE. And they don't know that they can, by and large.
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Judging by how Unity turned out, I think they felt that Gnome 3 wasn't crippled, frustrating, or slow enough.
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I laugh at the mess Ubuntu fanboys have made. They worked so hard trying to make the Ubuntu mono culture a reality. Now, for the first time they're considering how stupid it was. For the first time they're actually expanding their horizons and trying things on other distributions. They're finding out that Linux + GNU + GNOME/KDE isn't all that different from distribution to distribution. Sure there's different package managers... but GIMP is still GIMP. Gnome is still Gnome (with a different wallpaper
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The unity around Ubuntu was because Ubuntu was essentially universally regarded as the easiest desktop to use. One of two things will happen:
a) The move to Unity will be successful and Ubuntu will continue to be the easiest desktop. New users who don't Unity will discover that Linux means choice quickly.
b) The move to Unity will be unsuccessful and the beginner Linux distribution will fragment again, like it was before Ubuntu. That will create the space for lots of differently tailored beginner level
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Right. I don't think Kubuntu is directly related to Ubuntu. It's certainly not offered as a download choice at ubuntu.com, which is where most newbies would go. But apparently (according to other posts here), the standard Ubuntu repositories do host the bits to support kubuntu's desktop stuff. Other distros support GNOME and KDE out of the box, but Canonical hasn't taken that approach. Presumably, that's because their approach is to simplify things and have there be 'one Linux' as much as possible (a r
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People getting into Linux for the first time pick Ubuntu, because that's what they've heard about, and they have no idea that Kubuntu even exists, let alone what it means, what Unity is, what KDE is, what Gnome is, or anything else that you take for granted.
That's your own fault. The only people in meatspace I know that heve even heard of Linux know that "unlike most OSs, you can pick different desktop environments like KDE or Gnome or XFCE" because I tell them when I clue them in that there's a free, super
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sabayon
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I use Sabayon with KDE for both my desktop and netbook. It is very good (but not perfect). I definitively prefer it over kubuntu.
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Seems like KDE is still very actively developed, but you have to go out of your way (Kubuntu) to even use it.
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
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Off the top of my head the following have KDE as the default option or as a high profile spin...
openSUSE
Kubuntu
Kororaa
Slackware
PCLinuxOS
Mageia
Mandriva
Chakra
PC-BSD
Fedora has a KDE spin
Mint has a KDE spin
Not sure how it would be considered "out of your way" to find a KDE-friendly distribution.
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Serious Question
Which major distributions still come with KDE as the default option.
Serious answer: Kubuntu.
Re:Serious Question (Score:4, Informative)
Then there are all the other distros mentioned above. And typically, while Gnome may be the default, most distros, during installation, offer one the option of installing KDE instead.
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Mandriva is hardly dead. It is not as popular as it used to be but it is still maintained and used. And there is its recent offshoot Mageia which also defaults to KDE.
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RedHat defaults to Gnome, a good chunk of Gnome development is paid for by RedHat. You are getting some good answers below. Suse being the big one. But Kanotix is the one I'd add to the list.
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Which major distributions still come with KDE as the default option.
I've been using kubuntu, but I may go back to Mandriva
There used to be Mandrake/Mandriva, but that's pretty dead now.
Well, I heard that which is why I switched to kubuntu -- but it appears Mandriva's death is greatly exaggerated. I DLed a copy of their newest distro that just came out a couple of months ago. It's been so long since I used it it'll be a test run when I install it. I kind of have to do an OS install, the hard drive on my main
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Post #38466666??
Holy mother of Satan!!
KSecretService (Score:2)
Ok, what is this?
They just barely got Kwallet working and now something totally new?
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They heard you like cross desktop integration, KSecretService seems to be some kind of DBUS thingy, http://www.devheads.net/desktop/kde/core/kwalletksecretsservice-git-workflow.htm
Re:KSecretService (Score:4, Funny)
What an ugly name. I'd much prefer the tagline: With KDE, KGB protects you.
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Re:KSecretService (Score:5, Interesting)
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I debate your assumption of KDE 4.anything "working" let alone "for years"
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I was running kubuntu 9 and nothing seemed broken to me. 11.1 is even better. I may DL the new KDE just to see if they've added any major improvements, or bugs, or hosed something that was already perfect.
I *really like* KDE (Score:5, Insightful)
I like KDE. I don't hear that said often, though. So I figured I'd say it, and relate my excitement and thanks for all the hard work that's gone into this impending new release.
Thanks, devs.
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Same here... I really like playing with KDE in KNOPPIX [knopper.net], but it has never quite made it to my desktop for some reason. I suppose I just like the simplicity of gnome-terminal (once I hide the menubar and scrollbar), and am also more familiar with how to strip down gnome-panel to the bare essentials. I don't really use much else from the desktop environment outside of those and the window manager.
Haven't really played with KNOPPIX much lately, mostly because I like running 64-bit systems. Ooh, looks like K
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kanotix might be worth trying if you like Knoppix and KDE.
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I, too, really like KDE.
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Me too. Looks great and works great. For something that is free and that polished is awesome
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It's the best desktop going right now if you haven't drunk the "dumb it down" cool-aid like, well.... damn near every other environment on every other OS.
So yeah, KDE rocks.
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I love kde and a host of open source applications that make it awesome.
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
http://k3b.plainblack.com/
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.openssh.org/
http://www.pidgin.im/
http://www.eclipse.org/
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html
Just to name a few.
Looking Good (Score:3)
Running RC1 on my Kubuntu and it seems that we've finally arrived at where 3.5 was... only kidding.
I realize that the 4.0-4.3 releases were "experimental" and should never have been pushed as defaults by distros, but...
I may still give up on KDE (weren't expecting that, were you?). Personally, I think tiling window managers are way more efficient once you get past the initial learning curve. Most of the KDE programs are great (Kate, Okteta, Gwenview, etc), but the whole desktop...? Not sold.
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Window Behavior -> Advanced -> Enable Tiling
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You don't like KDE's tiling support, or you don't know about it?
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I use awesome [naquadah.org] with KDE in quite a few places and find it to be a generally excellent combination. The procedure for doing so is documented on the awesome wiki [naquadah.org].
noah
IOW KDE 4.8 final is NOT available (Score:2)
4.7 KMail == Total Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been a KDE fan since 1.x, but one of the worst pieces of OSS I've ever used was in KDE 4.7 -- KMail 2. I thought it might just be me, but a little research showed that every distro shipping it has had many angry users. For me on OpenSUSE it's been an endless source of lost incoming and outgoing mail, performance problems, and generally horrible bugs. Totally broken development process -- the problems were widely reported during at beta, but ignored since KDE leadership insists on pushing the buggy/leaky Akonadi-Nepomuk stuff regardless of what it means to end users. I'll give KMail in 4.8 another chance, but I don't hold out much hope -- it's been years since Akonadi was introduced and everything associated with it has been a disaster.
The rest of KDE 4.7 is absolutely terrific though.
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In KDE 4.7, I have issues where sometimes when I click on apps in the task manager, it doesn't bring them up. I get this on my desktop and laptop (Kubuntu). It generally takes another click or 2 for it to work.
I have another issue where sometimes I get 2 programs overlapping in the task manager (you s
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Which version of KMail are you using? Since 4.7.4, it seems to be running nicely.
Re:4.7 KMail == Total Fail (Score:5, Informative)
I just switched to KMail 2 in 4.7.4, and so far it's working out nicely---definitely better than the old KMail. I was quite apprehensive, because I have a complex setup, with multiple IMAP accounts, local mail storage, several identities, and so on, and I had read all the issues people have. But it's working like a charm, and even mail folders with several thousand mails are snappy.
I think there has been a lot of progress since the first official release of KMail2 in 4.7, so I'd definitely give it another try.
Some of the most annoying bugs, like KMail IMAP not surviving a sleep-wake cycle or a brief network outage, are finally gone.
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Does Kmail allow you to use html in emails yet?
KDE Works Great For Me (Score:2)
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Ubuntu vs Kubuntu (Score:1)
I am leaning towards the Gnome desktop for a couple of reasons. The first and most annoying is the KDE Wallet. The second is load and reaction time. The third is reaction speed. Gnome is reacting faster than KDE. The fourth is just today KDE (Kubuntu) had 278 updates and Gnome (Ubuntu) only had 144. I try to keep both systems similar (same addons from basic i
Plasma this, plasma that (Score:2)
I love how every release never seems to finish the ``feature plan'' list always listing a large portion as `in progress.' You might want to clean up those Release Plans to what has been actually accomplished in a cumulative list and what still needs to be done and then the final, ``future plans.''
By the way, it's all about the Apps and as usual most of these apps that are good are just the utility apps like Kate or GwenView with the rare Digikam or Gimp/Inkscape for GNOME/GTK+. When in the hell is the core
tinge_of_nostaliga() (Score:3, Interesting)
It was KDE4 that started my migration away from Linux after fifteen years of hardcore Linux use, advocacy, development, etc. (The pending arrival of GNOME 3 sealed the deal, but it was KDE4 that happened first.)
I still miss Linux, sometimes—the ethic, the openness.
Too bad things didn't work out and Linux didn't ever "arrive" at the same UI quality level as Mac OS or even Windows. But I still have a very soft spot in my heart for Linux and I am continually tempted to install the latest Fedora release in a VM just to have it around. No particular need though—don't actually know what I'd run in it—so I haven't yet.
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I wish I could tell people that free software is engineered better, less buggy, easier to install, and more aesthetically appealing in all respects than proprietary software.
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Wayland, Konqueror & Rekonq (Score:2)
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KDE rocks! (from former Gnome user who switched) (Score:1)
I have been using KDE since the summer when I migrated from Gnome to KDE. I'd always used Gnome because it was the Red Hat/Fedora default, but Gnome 3 was cripplingly unusable.
KDE rocks! Please, KDE developers, DO NOT SCREW THIS DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT UP! Keep doing what you're doing!
I expect Gnome 3 in a year or so to be a footnote in the long list of attempts to give people what they don't want, along with the new Coke and the TNIV Bible.
Re:Release candidates. (Score:5, Informative)
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I wouldn't know - I don't print anything from my Linux systems, and rarely print anything on other systems. People still print regularly?
Re:Printing (Score:4, Informative)
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While I agree that a working print system is basic and necessary, I "do actual work" in an actual office for an actual paycheck and I've printed maybe 20 work-related pages in the last decade.
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Not in my company. That whole "paperless office" thing is coming to fruition in a lot of places.
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Hmmm.. Works GREAT!
Sharp MX4501N
Sharp AR620M
HP C7280's
HP 4500W
HP 7500A
All via network...
And HP makes it stupid wintard easy to print, scan and fax with their HP printers or AIO's.
sudo apt-get install hplip-gui
DONE! Print, scan, fax.
XSANE works great to scan via the network.
What was your point?
Oh still trying to use non PCL or PS printers in Linux, good luck.
Hell, even my beloved Kodaks have been set free, free at last with c2esp, scan and fax is still not supported, but you can at least print!
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I think he is talking about this bug : http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=180051 [kde.org]
There is no way to have default printer settings, which means setting again the options you need every time. This is the fourth most hated bug in KDE.