KDE Software Compilation 4.10 RC1 Released 59
jrepin writes "Today KDE released the first release candidate for its renewed Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. Thanks to the feedback from the betas, KDE already improved the quality noticeably. Further polishing new and old functionality will lead to a rock-stable, fast and beautiful release in January, 2013. One particular change in this RC is an updated look to Plasma workspaces."
I think KDE (Score:4, Informative)
is the most interesting DE out of the FOSS choices. Enlightenment would be a close second. KDE has everything but the kitchen sink, and it has Kate, a rocking text editor as well as well as K3B, likely the best burning software in FOSS.
Kudos to KDE!
Re:Has its speed improved in any measurable way? (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely. KDE has made many leaps in the past few releases. I fully recommend anyone that has been sitting out for the past couple years to give it a try again.
Unfortunately, the release of 4.0 was a bit botched (rushed out to the public eye in a few distributions) before it was ready for prime time, but the KDE developers laid very good foundations that have been paying off greatly. It looks polished, runs quickly, and I think much of the KDE software is snappier and more useful than its GNOME equivalents.
Re:Stable? (Score:5, Informative)
> Kubuntu's implementation is not without its quirks
Friends don't let friends install kubuntu-desktop.
On Ubuntu, install kde-full, or a selection of the other smaller meta-packages, or a combination of individual packages, etc. This also means not starting out with the Kubuntu distro disk, but rather going with vanilla Ubuntu and going from there. Installing kubuntu-desktop is always hit-or-miss, so it's best to just avoid it and go with your own settings imposed over the default instead of someone else's idea of "good settings." Back in the 4.2x days, this was apparent when Kubuntu's KDE was an unmitigated disaster while the Pardus distro had a spectacular setup, demonstrating that yes, someone could build KDE and not screw it up. These screwed up settings are always pulled in by the kubuntu-desktop metapackage.
I have been using the KDE PPA on Ubuntu 12.04 without installing the kubuntu-desktop metapackage and it works fine.
--
BMO
Re:Stable? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Has its speed improved in any measurable way? (Score:5, Informative)
To me, having used it exclusively for the last 6+ years, it's never been better.
6+ years puts you into the long suffering crowd, (with me) to whom almost anything approximating stable earns high praise.
Somewhere around 4.6 it actually became fully functional again. I can't wait to try RC1. There were many releases where I
wouldn't dream of trying an RC?, having been bitten too often.
It has been a long and bumpy road. One more upgrade like 4.0 would probably kill this project completely. Its not totally the KDE Team's fault,
there were far too many Distros that jumped on way too early, making 4.0 the default, then claiming they really didn't.
Some of the most obvious additions since KDE4, Activities, are still poorly understood [datamation.com], and under utilized. A very large subset of users ignore them all together, finding old-school multiple Desktops much more satisfactory for their work environment.