Submitted by The newest version of KDE Four Live, an openSUSE-based Live CD for testing KDE 4, was released three days ago, just nine days after the initial version that included Release Candidate 1 was released. KDE/openSUSE dev Stephan Binner announced the release on his blog, celebrating the strong public interest in the initial RC1-based Live CD – over 10000 downloads achieved in the first few days. Meanwhile, although mainstream reviews of RC1 are still scarce, Binner’s blog announcement of the previous version contained this interesting tidbit: “It looks like whatever [version of KDE 4] will be released or presented at the event which was fixed by the sponsor to happen in January will be only used by very early adopters. Hopefully openSUSE 11.0 will be able to ship some KDE 4.1.x release or some very high KDE 4.0.x release (which saw some light features freeze lift),” he wrote. Readers are welcome to download the newest Live CD (Torrent) and test it for themselves. A Debian LiveCD is also available, but it still includes KDE4 Beta4 and not RC1.
I tested the first RC1 livecd, and it sucked. This one however, works much better on my machine. The performance issues are gone. Dunno why.
I would really like an option to remove the top-corner desktop config button. Not remove, but an option to remove
Edited 2007-12-02 23:10
and again :
http://www.osnews.com/topic.php?icon=57
Funny :
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/17534/KDE-4.0-Release-Schedule-Fina…
The title was rather inaccurate, as this is not a RC1 release or any kind of release at all. It’s simply a snapshot of the KDE SVN taken two weeks after RC1, packaged up on a live CD.
And that KDE 4.0 will be only used by very early adopters are not exactly surprising either. It will only be available as source or in different distributions unstable or unsupported backports repositories, both typically used by early adaptors. As far as i can tell no major distribution is planing a release so early in the year, so unsurprisingly they will include later KDE releases corresponding with their release plan.
Edited 2007-12-02 23:36
Yea I’m wondering what distribution will be the first to ship KDE4.x. OpenSUSE already said it isn’t stable enough. I doubt we’ll see it (officially) in Kubuntu 8.04 either since I believe 8.04 is going to be a long term support release, so it won’t officially be there until 8.10 (end of NEXT year).
If a distro does manage to package it and make it the default desktop they’ll be making a name for themselves seeing that a lot of people are interested in trying KDE4 out.
“Yea I’m wondering what distribution will be the first to ship KDE4.x. OpenSUSE already said it isn’t stable enough.”
Depends on what you mean, in fact OpenSUSE already shipped with KDE4 The default KDE install on 10.3 contained bits of KDE4. Only games, but they are still applications needing the KDE4 libs.
The question would be, which distribution will be the first to deliver KDE4 as the default desktop. OpenSuse will definetly include it, maybe not as default but at least as an option. Perhaps like you today can chose KDE or Gnome, KDE4 will be among the choices.
I’d bet on Debian testing, and now let’s hear about how that isn’t a distribution. Well, it isn’t, nevertheless, that’s the place I’ll be looking for it first.
i do believe Fedora 9 will Package KDE4 its already in Rawhide , Ubuntu 8.04 will not have KDE4 at all as was stated in a Community News letter i think, it would only have KDE4.X version in 8.10
Hopefully KDE 4.1 (or at least KDE 4.0.x) will be released before F9 (5/08) hits the mirrors.
Never the less, it’s seems that Fedora’s (excellent) KDE SIG will be the first to ship KDE4.
– Gilboa
i somehow dont see 4.1 being released for atleast a month or 3 after 4.0 is out the door, so expect it in Fedora 10 not 9
Four months might not be enough to 4.1, but may be enough for 4.0.1.
– Gilboa
“Four months might not be enough to 4.1, but may be enough for 4.0.1.
– Gilboa”
I’d be shocked if a 4.0.1 didn’t fall out of the pipe sooner than that. With the broad testing that 4.0.0 will get I’m sure things will come up, probably leading to a snapish 4.0.1. My e-wisdom says four months might actually be more like a 4.0.2…
People seems to forget that much like KDE4, KDE3 was a work-in-progress release and was a far cry from today’s ultra-stable-and-feature complete KDE 3.5.8.
Just compare RedHat 7.3 (w/3.0) to F8 and you’ll see what I mean.
Granted, it took 3 years to get from KDE 3 (mid 2002) to KDE 3.5 (end of 2005) but in the end, KDE4 will get there.
– Gilboa
RC1 was an unstable, unusable piece of junk. This SVN release is approaching release quality (but there are still some bugs). All in less than 2 weeks. Amazing. I’m looking forward to KDE 4.
> All in less than 2 weeks. Amazing.
now consider what would’ve (not) happened had we not scared the living shit out of everyone by calling it an rc and instead said, “oh, alright.. yet another unplanned beta.. whatever.. let’s just continue to slip with no push-back from the release schedule.”
method to the madness, i say.
Edited 2007-12-03 05:24
now consider what would’ve (not) happened if you wouldn’t hype it to much.
Alls I knows is that ain’t not bad.
This is ridiculous. I assume you know what “candidate” means, but otherwise look it up in a dictionary.
A “release candidate” must be er… a candidate to be released? I mean, it is obvious that it would be considered to be release-quality but with possible opt-out should something go wrong. RC1 was nowhere near release quality, and it was impossible it could’ve been released in that state.
You have actually dropped the betas out of the release cycle, and made the world think you were happily releasing an unstable, unfinished mess to the masses. You should definitely not be smug about it, when faith on your quality control must be plummeting.
The bare fact that ‘only 95% of KDE is RC quality’ seems to make us stupid. Well, that 95% of the KDE apps which really is ready for feedback, and actually desperately needs it but didn’t get it yet is the main reason we released an RC. We need testing, and if you don’t want to test Dolphin and Okular just because Plasma isn’t RC yet – well, that sucks for us all…
“Sounds like the Vista launch, pushed back a little further with each test version. Maybe its better for the KDE team to set a date like July 2008 and surprise everybody when they are ready to release it in January?”
j/k
I figured I would make the obligatory post of comparing it with Vista.
*Quote material and title borrowed from a slashdot posting.
Cool!
“RC1 was an unstable, unusable piece of junk. This SVN release is approaching release quality (but there are still some bugs). All in less than 2 weeks. Amazing. I’m looking forward to KDE 4.”
I’d call that a little harsh, but fair.
A lot of the ‘issues’ are in the comparative ‘greenness’ of Plasma– But with that being said, watching Plasma has been something like this:
1. Watch the big Plasma PR splash.
2. Watch things go quiet, and the howls of ‘vapour’. (While the Plasma folks were trying to get the ‘back end stuff’ built / sorted.
3. List to the howls of “It’s buggy and sucks” when the developers said, “Here’s your first taste.”
I’m really glad that Plasma is moving on to step 4:
“It’s good”
The libraries seem to be in really solid shape. A few let’s break the dev platform issues lurking, but generally solid. The application that are shipping with 4.0 seem to be generally in ‘OK shape’. With the return of some old apps and some new apps slated for 4.1. (And KDE games is in ‘My God they made this sexy’ shape.) Oxigen has come a long way, and the old themes and probably icons are still there, fwiw. The new media framework seems to be there with one working back end (more to come).
So Plasma, which received the most public attention attention, and on which much of KDE 4 will be judged is starting to look really good… With a few more weeks of polish I have high, high, hopes for KDE 4.
It’ll be a happy new year.
The stability has been improved, I can see that.
The people behind KDE failed to create a new generation DE. They had the opportunity to do it with KDE4 but they kept taking the wrong decisions.
It was clear from the start: to gather more users, they had to innovate. They had to create something different. They had to do what Apple did with OSX. Unfortunately, they failed to do it. They spent too much time working on the underlying technologies. Now, all we have is the same old KDE built on some new but incomplete libraries plus a new theme.
I don’t know why it ended up like this. Alot of people contributed great ideas during the development of KDE4. Someone somewhere refused to listen to people.
I second that, the promises of a fine new desktop, the new revolution, etc etc.
I see a desktop that is not impressing at all.
Well, I guess what you are talking about is for instance those “tear-off” applets and things like that–the good news is that the new kicker-replacement is in very good shape for being extended in the future, so even if the initial 4.0 release isn’t “revolutionary”, there’s plenty of room to grow.
Are you a gnome-troll?
There seems to be this absolutely ridiculous idea, which you are clearly advocating, that there’s a revolution waiting to happen with DEs. What in the world is suppose to go into a “new generation DE”? Is it going to do you work for you? Move the mouse for you? Knows what you’re thinking? Orders a pizza for you? Make you look cool?
Were you around for the first few versions of OS X? A lot of the UI was slow – and sometimes unbearable. It took a few iterations, but now everything is peachy keen.
It could be argued from a programming stand point that redeveloping the underlining technology is the first step to making something better.
It probably ended up like this because the KDE people knew what they had to do to get it to a usable state before going trying something new and different. And unlike GNOME, the KDE developers do not give off an air that all users are stupid and should think the way they do.
But hey, if you’re for an entirely new desktop experience and are fond of strapping a fancy UI and all that jazz on top of a flimsy piece of technology – there’s always Vista.
Edited 2007-12-03 06:12
This post isn’t about KDE vs GNOME or whatever, I couldn’t care less. But I felt I had to answer this particular section of your post…
> And unlike GNOME, the KDE developers do not give off an
> air that all users are stupid and should think the way
> they do.
It’s not about stupid users. It’s about users who have better things to do than learn about computers. It’s about users who aren’t familiar with all the techincal jargon programmers throw in their face. Etc etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_Design
Programmers usually design interfaces for their own kind, even if they are to be used by other kinds of people. In short, programming should be done by programmers, the interface should be designed by interaction designers.
GNOME and KDE _BOTH_ have their warts and for both DE:s, most of the interface is designed by programmers.
Edited 2007-12-03 06:43
It’s not about stupid users. It’s about users who have better things to do than learn about computers. It’s about users who aren’t familiar with all the techincal jargon programmers throw in their face. Etc etc.
It’s this mythical ‘ordinary user’ again. You know what? It’s the easiest thing in the world to say ‘We’re not going to do something because it would confuse ordinary users’. Actually defining what that ordinary user is, what they want to do, what they will want to do, what system administrators will want to do to support them and balancing that against people who actually use your software regularly, file bug reports and who come up with feature ideas is the difficult part.
The problem is that in order to use a desktop computer you have to get to know a little bit of jargon. Hopefully not a lot, but a little. You also have to get used to a computer being able to organise anything in any way you want. This is what makes an awful lot of the spatial and ‘real life’ metaphors bogus from a practical point of view.
> It’s this mythical ‘ordinary user’ again.
No it’s not. If you read a little about HCI and interaction design you will come to know that.
> The problem is that in order to use a desktop computer
> you have to get to know a little bit of jargon.
Well, basically no. You will have to learn new things. Sure. But you shouldn’t have to learn any jargon. New things != jargon…
> This is what makes an awful lot of the spatial and
> ‘real life’ metaphors bogus from a practical point of
> view.
If they are bogus, they are no good. Don’t use them. Come up with something better…
No it’s not. If you read a little about HCI and interaction design you will come to know that.
I never cease to be astonished at this disease that some people seem to have caught, that there is some ‘ordinary’ user out there that means that certain features need to be slashed in case it confuses them to the detriment of all. I have seen no study allowing any scientific reproduction that back this up.
Alas, you will find no such user defined anywhere in any usability or HCI documentation. An awful lot of people seem to have convinced themselves that it exists for some reason. Any good usability book will tell you to identify your users, and you will have more than one group, and you have to allow for your users learning and being able to do more with your software over time, and then look at what they are actually doing and trying to do with your software.
Well, basically no. You will have to learn new things. Sure. But you shouldn’t have to learn any jargon. New things != jargon…
I’m not entirely sure why people get obsessed with ‘jargon’ in computing. If I wander into a kitchen somewhere and expect to cook stuff, I’m not going to get very far not knowing what a knife, a blender or a frying pan is. I also need at least some knowledge about food hygiene.
The same holds true of computing. Yes, you need to understand what ‘windows’ are, what widgets, radio buttons and checkboxes generally are, what digital cameras are, what a USB port is, what a wireless connection is, what files and folders are……..
How the software presents that to you is definitely important, but as for dumbing the whole thing down where you need to know nothing of this stuff, forget it. People are capable of learning jargon quite easily and do it every day, so let’s not insult their intelligence.
A phrase from Einstein seems apt: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler”. For some reason, you seem to think everything can be lumped into the former part of that sentence.
A phrase from Einstein seems apt: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler”. For some reason, you seem to think everything can be lumped into the former part of that sentence.
Ain’t this the exact sentence Mr. Seigo used some topics ago?
Do you think by your self or you just stole sentences from other authors?
Users who have better things to do than learn about computers are only one sort of users.
There are loads of users who have better things to do than adjust their way of thinking to the #@u%&°ing human interface designed by the oh so good interface designers. The interface must be easily adjustable to as many ways of thinking as possible, THEN it is a good interface.
That is why GNOME is next to unusable for me, it cannot adjust to my way of thinking, KDE can.
And yes, good default settings help beginners. But letting beginners explore a huge settings dialog is still a lot less steep of a learning curve, than letting them search the internet for key/value pairs of some registry system.
In my opinion GNOME is good for the 50 or 60 or even 90% of people who can adapt their thinking to the interface, but it is horrible to the rest of us (I just say “save as” dialog).
“There are loads of users who have better things to do than adjust their way of thinking to the #@u%&°ing human interface designed by the oh so good interface designers. The interface must be easily adjustable to as many ways of thinking as possible, THEN it is a good interface.
That is why GNOME is next to unusable for me, it cannot adjust to my way of thinking, KDE can.”
Personally I’m comfortable with both Gnome and KDE. Granted that KDE is more familiar to Windows users, especially the “Save as” and “Open” dialogs. But both Gnome and KDE interface designs make sense to me.
> Users who have better things to do than learn about
> computers are only one sort of users.
You are absolutely right.
> There are loads of users who have better things to do
> than adjust their way of thinking to the #@u%&°ing
> human interface designed by the oh so good interface
> designers. The interface must be easily adjustable to
> as many ways of thinking as possible, THEN it is a good
> interface.
You are absolutely wrong. You don’t seem to know what an interaction designer does. Who is going to use the interface is very important when designing. This should also account for users who are not the primary target to some extent.
> That is why GNOME is next to unusable for me, it
> cannot adjust to my way of thinking, KDE can.
So maybe KDE is your cup of tea then. Use it and be happy. I won’t bother with the rest. Seems to be mostly GNOME bashing.
Anyways. Both KDE and GNOME are kind of vague on their target audience. And that’s a shame.
Compare that to OS X where I can _guarantee_ you that there’s a dedicated team of usability and interaction designers doing the grunt UI work. Most people enjoy using OS X (the iPod and iPhone too for that matter), and that’s not a coincidence.
And NO. I’m not an Apple fan-boy. I’ve never owned an Apple product in my whole life and I don’t ever plan to. I’m just saying the usability engineer/interaction designer vs programmer ratio at Apple is much higher than in KDE and GNOME.
If GNOME and KDE are to succeed at the “Desktop”, the companies interested in that will have to make sure this ratio increases. (It seems harder to attract this sort of people to FOSS than hackers.) I know Red Hat has made some contributions to this. I don’t think Canonical has. And I’m even less sure about others.
There are already usability teams and mailing list in the Gnome and KDE projects. Maybe not enough, like everything in general, but there are discussions.
I use XP. And KDE3 when I need to get work done on a unix env.
I bet you think what you use today is OK. Obviously, you have no taste. What I meant by “a new generation DE” was “something beautiful and easier to use”. Today’s DEs are ugly.
At least it didn’t look horrible. But of course it was buggy, and that’s why I didn’t use it.
Normally.
Are we talking about Gnome?
Vista is OK. Tho there’s of room for improvement.
Edited 2007-12-03 06:45
They had the opportunity to do it with KDE4 but they kept taking the wrong decisions.
Yeah, I know what you mean. KDE4 has been out for years, and now that KDE5 is on the horiz… er… wait. Sorry, we’re still in 2007, and it hasn’t been released yet.
How exactly has it failed? Oh, that’s right– Because someone who hasn’t used it, probably doesn’t know the difference between Phonon and Solid, definitely didn’t contribute meaningfully to it, and bases their entire opinion off of a non-release version of the shiny bits said it’s a failure.
At the end of the day, a desktop UI needs to be functional, and in the modern era of computing, be attractive enough to not cause one to gouge out their eyes after 8 hours of using it. KDE4 isn’t there yet, and they decided the candidate for release wasn’t a good candidate. That’s their prerogative.
I don’t know what revolution you were expecting, but I’m guessing your expectations were completely unreasonable.
They had to do what Apple did with OSX.
What, switch everything they did to someone else’s OS, annoy a bunch of software vendors, provide a moving target of API’s (carbon? Cocoa?), and then release a product so buggy, bloated and slow that practically no one used it? Or did you not actually use Mac OS X 10.0? And here’s a hint for you… If the OSX UI is so bloody revolutionary, why does it look like a reskinned version of MacOS 9?
It definitely looks more like MacOS 9 did than Vista looks like KDE4, but everyone insists that KDE4 is just a poor imitation of Vista.
Alot of people contributed great ideas during the development of KDE4. Someone somewhere refused to listen to people.
Or maybe the ideas were impractical, and didn’t include, oh, I don’t know… CODE to go with them?
I just played with that new LiveCD and I can confirm it’s better than a week ago. The new APIs for Plasma seem more stable.
However, to make KDE4 usable, the people behind KDE needs to:
1- Completely replace the Oxygen style. It’s just too white. The green bars do not fit. It’s really hard to see where a widget starts and where it ends. KDE4 really needs something more refined. Just look at how Apple did it. It’s not that hard you know. PLEASE MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL. PLEASE…
2- Remove OpenSuse’s Kickoff. Usability-wise, it stinks. It’s by far the worst application launcher I have ever used (and I’m not the only one). It makes it really hard to go back and forth when searching for an application. Ever Kicker was better. No replacement for Kickoff? Reintroduce Kicker please! At least it was usable…
3- Plasma needs more work. It’s starting to look beautiful but it needs more work. There should be a way to aggregate Plasmoids together. Also, I hope the new “taskbar” Plasmoid will change dramatically.
4- Keep on removing the useless junk from previous KDE releases. Bouncing cursor? Remove!
5- KDE4 needs a brand new control center. Something more beautiful and easy to use. The current one makes it boring to tweak KDE.
6- KDE applications in general need to adapt to KDE4. They need to be part of the “experience”. Legacy applications do not feel at home.
…
“1- Completely replace the Oxygen style. It’s just too white. The green bars do not fit. It’s really hard to see where a widget starts and where it ends. KDE4 really needs something more refined. Just look at how Apple did it. It’s not that hard you know. PLEASE MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL. PLEASE…”
It still has widget and icon themeing…
“2- Remove OpenSuse’s Kickoff. Usability-wise, it stinks. It’s by far the worst application launcher I have ever used (and I’m not the only one). It makes it really hard to go back and forth when searching for an application. Ever Kicker was better. No replacement for Kickoff? Reintroduce Kicker please! At least it was usable…”
Find somebody to port it, or just wait. New menus are apparently easy to integrate. That was one of the ideas behind Plasma.
“3- Plasma needs more work. It’s starting to look beautiful but it needs more work. There should be a way to aggregate Plasmoids together. Also, I hope the new “taskbar” Plasmoid will change dramatically.”
Once again, wait… It has to get out the door at some point. Many eyes, and more / new hands, with broad testing are what’s needed most. That’s what makes a ‘mature’ technology.
“4- Keep on removing the useless junk from previous KDE releases. Bouncing cursor? Remove!”
If it’s buggy and unmaintained, Sure. If it’s nearly universally unused, Sure. Failing that, I much prefer the move towards sensible defaults with a clean interface, and a well organized config system. You know, one of the joys of free software it that you are free to explore the alternatives. GNOME is rather excellent.
“5- KDE4 needs a brand new control centre. Something more beautiful and easy to use. The current one makes it boring to tweak KDE.”
It has one. Kcontrol is dead– Systemsettings is where its at. Oh, and I hope to god configuration is boring, that’s the last thing want to have adventures with. (Albeit, continuing to usability audit the modules is a good idea. I look forward to future refinements there.)
“6- KDE applications in general need to adapt to KDE4. They need to be part of the “experience”. Legacy applications do not feel at home.”
Well, they’ve been ported… Toolbars cleaned up, some new features, minimal ports away from depreciated frameworks. Other than some apps that won’t ship, and some new additions that were slated for 4.0 but have slid to 4.1, there not really much that’s surprising there. As far as better integrating with all of the new KDE 4.0 goodness goes, it’ll likely happen in earnest on the march to KDE 4.1.
I mean really, KDE 3.5.x isn’t going to vanish, and will probably even get another release. Or use GNOME. Everything you mentioned is either a non-issue or should be addressed by KDE 4.1. And the last I read, the KDE folks were thinking of having a short cycle for 4.1 anyway.
The only thing that’s going to be hard for me is to wait for all of the killer 3rd party KDE apps to get ported over to KDE 4. I fully expect my KDE 4 migration to be an incremental thing that last until about the time KDE 4.1 gets out the door.
Edited 2007-12-03 07:12
Replacing oxygen just because the contrast is too low? Can’t we increase contrast, that’s just a color thing… Personally I do agree, but they’re improving it already, and you can choose another colorscheme as well.
And about the bouncing cursor, I hope they don’t remove it. That thing has been a major reason KDE has been choosen over Gnome several times in big deployments already. Giving instantanious feedback when starting an application is very good in terms of usability.
I like Kickoff. It’s the biggest reason why I even use openSUSE despite its extremely crappy YAST. I’m so happy that KDE 4 will get Kickoff, I can’t wait to trash my openSUSE installation and replace it with something good (=Debia-based — probably Debian, Sidux or Kubuntu).
Edited 2007-12-03 22:23 UTC
I also like kickoff. I wish I had a choice though, because on my laptop its a bit huge and the old menu would be better. But for my desktop…its perfect.
Bah, ‘great ideas’ are a dime a dozen (and many of those so-called great idea suck), actual work done is much harder to have.
What have you coded for KDE4?
I did not participate in KDE4 development. Windows is my platform of choice for developing applications.
That’s not an either/or choice, is it?
Oh please! OS X wasn’t perfect on initial release either, and if you look at all the things that Apple has done since 10.0 to ‘improve’ it. Can’t KDE do something similar? Or, just because it doesn’t release a 10.4 style desktop environment out of the box (and bypass years of subtle development and improvement), it’s crap? Get a life. If you can do better, get off your ass and go code a desktop environment that IS better.
I smell a Gnomite here. I think Gnome fans are much like the Gnomes in J K Rowlings Harry Potter series – a bit silly and always like having their heads stuck in the dirt!
Dave
PS The 2nd paragraph is humour – get over it!
I think you don’t understand the difference between KDE4 and KDE4.0 which is going to be released, in a few weeks, while KDE4 is the platform which is going to be developed and improved during the following years.
As you mentioned OSX. Lets look like at OSX 10.0, what was in there ? Honestly not much more than a revamp OS9 with the added Docker. And look at how much 10.5 has improved using the technologies that Apple have started to add in OSX 10.0 and improved all over the years.
So, no, developers haven’t refused to list to people, they have been busy making it possible to implement those great ideas.
It was clear from the start: to gather more users, they had to innovate. They had to create something different. They had to do what Apple did with OSX.
You know? I never cease to be amazed with some peoples’ narrow minded thinking about OS X. People are told that OS X is the bastion and benchmark of what a desktop should be, so they believe it. The reality is rather different.
They spent too much time working on the underlying technologies.
If you’re going to build something new, does it not logically follow that you will need a new set of tools? All the really innovative stuff will be built on here, and is yet to come.
You’re an ejit.
Now, all we have is the same old KDE built on some new but incomplete libraries plus a new theme.
How can it be the same old KDE if it consists of completely new libraries that you can do lots of things with you couldn’t before, which KDE then uses?
You’re an ejit.
I don’t know why it ended up like this.
Ended up like what? KDE 4 currently is what it is. A desktop that has had to reorganise itself and its development platform so that new things can be achieved easily that were difficult before.
The development platform is dropping into place for 4.0 and 4.1, not much exciting is happening on the interface and functionality front, and this will accelerate through .2, .3 and so on. I’m going to be mighty interested in what people will complain about as this progresses.
I have to agree with you. There HAS BEEN feature requests and suggestions on the mailing list and bug report tool, some of them that come to mind…
– More contrast in the default window decoration
– Darker color for the default window decoration
– Remove the stripe from the clock (old clock style looks strange in a modern desktop)
– Make toolbars and toolbar handlers less thick, smaller
– Use more contrast in icons (Oxygen icon theme)
– Reduce size of taskbar (it’s way too big)
– Overall space management is bad, everything is too big and occupies more space than needed
I’ve always said KDE 3.x is not polished and everything looks thick and blurry. KDE 4 is about to repeat the same mistakes. I’ve followed the development, and no one has followed the constructive criticism suggested by the community.
Since someone has seen fit to mod you up:
“- More contrast in the default window decoration”
Again, the default colour scheme has not yet been finalised. The oxygen devs are aware of the issue and, as far as I’m aware, intend to solve it. Several alternative colour schemes have been uploaded to SVN, by both Oxygen and non-Oxygen guys, over the last few days alone.
“- More contrast in the default window decoration”
As above
“- Remove the stripe from the clock (old clock style looks strange in a modern desktop)”
This is done already.
“- Make toolbars and toolbar handlers less thick, smaller ”
This I don’t know about. What do people here think? If the advice is followed, how many will complain that that new toolbar grippies are too small to grip? How do we balance out the suggestions and arrive at the optimal solution?
“- Use more contrast in icons (Oxygen icon theme)”
This is new to me – the icons look great, as far as I’m concerned. Does anyone else think they need more contrast? Anyway, even if this is on the cards, since there are hundreds (thousands?) of icons, this will be a long-term task, at best. It’s unfair to say “This task has not been accomplished yet – therefore, KDE guys don’t listen to criticism”.
“- Reduce size of taskbar (it’s way too big)”
I’ll save aseigo the trouble: “The Plasma panel layout is not finalised yet!”. Which is not to say that the taskbar will 100% guaranteed be smaller than it is now, but it does mean (yet again) that saying that the d”evs haven’t fixed it yet ergo they never will” is premature.
“- Overall space management is bad, everything is too big and occupies more space than needed”
See here for some “old” oxygen, from just a few weeks back:
http://dot.kde.org/1194408884/1194449913/
especially
http://enderandrew.com/kde4/wasted space.png
Now compare and contrast with current, default oxygen:
http://etotheipiplusone.com/oxygen-current.png
” KDE 4 is about to repeat the same mistakes. I’ve followed the development, and no one has followed the constructive criticism suggested by the community.”
Ok, so
a) KDE4.0 is the very, very beginning of the KDE4 cycle, yet – bafflingly – people keep on insisting that what we see in KDE4.0 is what we’ll be stuck with for the next 5 years. So you really can’t make statements about how “KDE 4 is about to repeat the same mistakes” based on *pre-release* versions of KDE4.
b) You’ve cherry-picked a handful of things that purportedly show an ongoing trend of KDE guys not listening to constructive criticism. It’s bad enough that you’ve ignored the mountain of wish-list items and bugs that get fixed all the time (Konqueror users want Undo Close Tab functionality; it is added. Dolphin users want tree-view pane functionality; it is added. Heck, I’m not even going to go on – I’d be here all day!) but the fact that out of the 7 items you’ve cherry-picked to prove your points, *at least* 2 are flat-out, factually wrong is even worse! And this ignores the fact that others in your list might be being worked on right now, or on the TODO list.
c) You assume that all constructive criticisms should be followed. I bet, right at this second, that someone has seen e.g. the changes that have made the Oxygen style waste less space and are thinking “Ugh – what are the Oxygen team playing at? They’ve made it needlessly cramped!” and can give equally constructive and cogent counter-reasons why it should be restored to how it was before. If aseigo makes the taskbar/ panel smaller, someone else will point out that the smaller area violates Fitt’s Law. So basically, in making the case that “A piece of constructive criticism has been ignored ergo devs don’t and will never again from this point on listen to criticism”, you’ve put the KDE guys in a no-win situation. Which, I’m sure most people will agree, is completely unfair.
Thanks for the heads up. You seem to be a KDE developer. You understand that the community is a little worried because KDE is at release candidate and not alpha version anymore, this is why all these changes seem a lot to do by mid-January, and we’re afraid KDE will be released without these changes. One other thing that I often complained about is the dull-grey background color. I suggest a warmer color. Thanks and good luck.
Thanks for the kind response
I’m not actually a developer (yet, at least – although I have made a peripheral contribution to KDE in the form of KDE4Daily which I’m not sure qualifies) but understand your concerns. One thing you have to bear in mind is – again – that just because some things suck for the release of 4.0 (which they will 
), does not mean they will not be fixed later. If the Oxygen guys don’t come up with a good colour scheme for 4.0, it’s because they haven’t had time, not because they don’t care, and it is practically certain that they will attend to it in a later release. 4.0 is not the “final” release of KDE4 (you’d be surprised at how many end users on IRC use this exact wording – “final release of KDE4”) – it’s the initial release, and there is no reason why sweeping changes to the look and structure of the desktop enviroment can’t occur after it.
As for the fact that KDE is currently at “Release Candidate” stage – the topic has been done to death, but let’s just say that KDE is using a (ahem) “novel” definition of the term
Still lots of scope for big visual changes in between now and the release of KDE4.0. I hope this sets at least some of your worries to rest 
Usually by new generation, people mean irritating, confusing, reinvented wheels. KDE 3’s foundation was great while KDE 4 refines and adds to it. That is a good change. Unlike upgrading to the “revolutionary” MS Office 2007 that sent my dad into a fit of anger
You do realise that the underlying technologies /are/ the most important thing when reinventing the wheel?
It’s no good just slapping a new theme on the same technology or bolting on bloated addons – you essentially just end up with the same product but in a new box.
Once the underlying technologies are sorted (which they’re slowly getting there) then they can show off the advancements they’ve made either their true glory. After all, I really couldn’t see them going to all this trouble and through this much PR if their final product was exactly the same as v3.5.x
All we can do at the moment is wait patiently for the final product rather than making rash comments about an incomplete product
To what degree will NetworkManager be integrated into KDE4? I think that should be one of the issues of priority since everyone wants rock solid networking. After all, if people can get their wireless up and running by clicking one place in other DE’s while KDE4 requires like…who knows…then I think people will find other DE’s more polished and usable. Just my 2c.
Network is one of the items covered by the Solid hardware framework. I am pretty sure the default backend on Linux is done using NetworkManager.
Right. But since it has been “one place to click” in KDE3 (using KNetworkManager), I think it is quite save to assume it will be similar in KDE4
To what degree will NetworkManager be integrated into KDE4? I think that should be one of the issues of priority since everyone wants rock solid networking.
Well, NetWork manager and ‘rock solid networking’ don’t really go very well together ;-). However, support for NetworkManager on Linux will probably be built into the new Solid library I would imagine. This should have the nice affects of:
1. All applications wanting to do networking related stuff don’t all have to have dependencies on NetworkManager.
2. Solid should ensure that a binary compatible interface should be available to all KDE applications, insulating them from outside changes. If changes are made to NetworkManager that interferes with compatibility, then this will affect Solid and nothing else.
3. In the future, something different to NetworkManager can be used should it be appropriate, without affecting any applications.
4. Application contributors can pool all their efforts into one library rather than half a dozen separate efforts. More communication should occur as a result.
5. All network related information comes from one place.
By themselves these look like developer oriented improvements, but in terms of ‘rock solid networking all this has a knock-on effect for end users.
After all, if people can get their wireless up and running by clicking one place in other DE’s while KDE4 requires like…who knows…
That’s the whole point. It’s all done in one place.
Ok. let me put it in another way: When all the new laptop users (at least where I live there are more laptops sold than desktops currently) want their built in wireless to work. Gnome can do it through networkmanager (although perhaps not rock solid, but still better than nothing). In KDE3, wireless networking is a pain if you ask me. I really think getting networkmanager (or something better) working should be one of the top prorities to attract users. It doesnt help that KDE4 is the best DE ever if the user can not read their mail og check out the news.
This is not a rant, just a friendly observation. I really do want KDE4 to work since I always preferred KDE3 over Gnome except for issues like network configuration and such. It is just better integrated in Gnome unfortunately.
What’s wrong with NetworkManager in KDE3, i.e. KNetworkManager?
Works flawlessly for me:
– wired and wireless networks, with and without encryption
– automatically switching connections when the network cable is plugged/unplugged and the wireless hardware is activated
– KWallet integration for WEP and WPA passphrases
It was a little flaky for me in Kubuntu Fiesty, but seems rock solid in OpenSuse 10.3. It even gave me a choice about whether I wanted to store my WPA keys in KWallet or an unencrypted file.
I do think I saw that the latest Kubuntu release didn’t have it working since they upgraded the backend, so maybe that’s what he’s referring to?
No, I was actually thinking of KDE making it an integrated component of KDE rather than some distro addon. Although user can get it working in some distros it still is an addon rather than a component of KDE. I would like to see it as a part of KDE and thus any distro that uses KDE.
Edited 2007-12-03 17:04
It isn’t a distro addon, unless you count Amarok and K3B also as distro addons.
I am not aware of any distribution which has KDE but does not have KNetworkManager.
Actually some distributions might have their specific wireless addon instead of KNetworkManager.
I don’t see any difference to GNOME’s network-manager applet in terms of integration and usage.
Slackware 12 has neither NetworkManager nor knetworkmanager, but after all Slackware is special in that it tries to keep as minimal as possible and has a userbase, that is largely compatible with this goal.
Networkmanager / knetworkmanager is available via user-contribution repositories, but those packages have their own issues (esp. in combination with wpa_supplicant). Slackware is kind of an extreme data point, admitted (although I use it almost exclusively und it is still one of the major distributions out there), but there may or may not be other distributions, that don’t ship networkmanager and KDE together.
I guess my solution for (wireless) networking with Slackware is quite typical (and I’m not complaining, btw. ): A *sh script with a big tree of case instructions.
For the record: Slackware ships both Amarok and K3b and pretty much defaults to KDE. But ironically, until the arrival of Slackware 12, k3b was indeed more or less an “add-on”, since the corresponding package was located in /extra on the installation media and not in the default /kde package group (packages in /extra are not available for installation during the default, menu based installation).
Regards
EDIT.: Wording
Edited 2007-12-03 21:06
It was a little flaky for me in Kubuntu Fiesty, but seems rock solid in OpenSuse 10.3…
You said everything that I needed to hear right there. So Kubuntu’s KDE still has boat loads of small weird glitches everywhere that one can’t reproduce anywhere else, eh? Looks like it hasn’t really changed that much since the last time I played with it, then…
Edited 2007-12-03 19:28
To be fair, that’s an older version of Kubuntu and the newest version of suse. But that was generally my experience when I switched, yes.
In fairness, knetworkmanager is sponsored by openSUSE and maintained by one of their devs.
With the recent change in nm, knetworkmanager will need to be reworked. From the reported changes in nm, it will probably be worth the effort, but this is the drawback to being a separate project from nm itself. The gnome applet is developed in tandem with nm itself, knm is developed somewhat independently (not to imply, though, that the NM devs are unsupportive of knm, they just have no responsibility for it).
I believe Fedora recently shipped with the latest version of nm, and because of this, had to use the gnome applet even for KDE installs.
they actually have devs left at Suse/Novel?
Ok. let me put it in another way: When all the new laptop users (at least where I live there are more laptops sold than desktops currently) want their built in wireless to work. Gnome can do it through networkmanager (although perhaps not rock solid, but still better than nothing).
KNetworkManager works fine, most of the time, but all the problems you’ll see in the KDE front-end you’ll see in the Gnome one because NetworkManager still has some issues.
The code was added to solid, I don’t know if knetworkmanager is ready to use it yet for KDE4. They basically took the libraries from knm and ported them to solid, so knm for KDE4 will probably be an abstracted interface dependent upon solid, rather than a static application dependent upon the knm libraries and nm itself.
True that. The network management layer has been abstracted and can probably use whatever backend the devs or anyone else chooses to provide, but for now it will likely remain nm.
Or better yet, the DE guys no longer need to worry about what the hardware guys are doing. As long as solid maintains compatability with the backend of choice, the front-end interface shouldn’t have to change, as opposed to the situation now where knetworkmanager for 3.5.x is going to have to be ported to the new version of networkmanager.
To a certain extent, it already has this; knetworkmanager hooks into KDE well enough to indicate network availability / online/offline status etc. for those applications that wish the query it.
I think one big advantage will be the ability to integrate network management with the general desktop configuration infrastructure, rather than relying on external/stand-alone applications.
The network integration in solid should also alleviate potential quirks that may come up with network-based applications running on Win/OSX, though I’m not sure of exactly what those quirks might be. Speculation on my part, I suppose.
i will be a happy man if opensuse 11.0 ships in July with KDE 4.1.
Neither the first one nor this one boots!! What’s going on???? The ISOs do NOT boot!! I have two DVD drives!
Booting CD-ROM….
Booting CD-ROM….
That’s it and the carries on loading the default Ubuntu installation. Two bad downloads? I don’t think so. The hash values match. Something IS wrong with these ISOs, the way they are built!
Edited 2007-12-03 08:45
Or with the way you burned them, of course. For instance by adding the iso to a data project and burning that.
KDE 4.0 is really just the scaffolding for better things to come. I think everybody feels this beast has been rushed towards the end, but with such a dramatic change in the software architecture its a taste of better things to come. If you don’t release it sooner or later you’ll miss the boat. Just look at the OSX 10.0 it was really slow as a dog but it got released and provided a platform for Apple to improve upon.
KDE 4.1 will be a testament for things to come, and will provide breathing space for developers to hear from early adopters on how the software is performing.
Patience is a virtue, so be patient and sit back because it is going to be a beautiful road ahead.
had a quick play around with the livecd, and im impressed, although it doesnt have anything killer, apart from been free :p
In fact, not just them specifically, but they seem to be getting the worst of it lately.
Basically they announce a product, everyone gets impatient and demands early releases. So, perhaps wrongly, they comply only to be bombarded with comments about how crappy it is.
Well you can’t have your cake and eat it. If you want a stable finished product then wait patiently for the stable release. If you want early previous then expect there to be bugs, incomplete modules and a lot of spit and polish missing.
I say that I’ve had many problems with the reliability of and never been happy with both knm AND (GNOME) nm. I want a totally reliable, hot-swap proof wifi GUI where I only have to enter my WEP/WPA(2) password ONCE unless I decide to change it. I have only seen these requirements met with Mandriva’s own network/wifi management tool – Mandriva 2008 having by far the best wifi networking support I’ve seen yet in a Linux distro.
What is all this nonsense with knm and kwallet?? I need to enter a password to use kwallet which makes a sick joke of the whole situation!? No I DON’T want kwallet to remember my password as I don’t want to enter a password for my passwords!! Is this a joke? nm does remember my passwords without a password but still has its quirks and doesn’t work sometimes.
The drak tools are GPL right? What about ‘KDE4-ifying’ Mandriva’s network manager because it really does work! I’ve been publicisig this quite a lot because Mandriva have done a great job here of solving one of Linux’s biggest remaining weak spots- EASY, RELIABLE WIFI.
KDE devs: please just ignore the sad trolls. Why do people pay ANY attention to the KDE/GNOME mudslinging? Its totally immature and pointless. We’re all very lucky to have (at least) 2 great FOSS DE’s and its good that they have different philosophies, designs and toolkits.
Keep up the great work KDE (and GNOME) devs! Now I’m going to check out this new KDE4 live CD!!!
Edited 2007-12-04 00:55
I use a blank password for kwallet and have never had an issue, I’m not sure where the quirks would lie. It’s part of the KDE infrastructure, and is utilized by kmail, konq etc. so it’s fairly transparent. If you’re having problems with kwallet integration, then you should open a bug report with your distro because it’s more than likely an issue with the base libraries rather than knm. Really, the integration is not a cataclysmic problem, and for users that prefer the security of having transparent login credentials for a variety of services including web and email clients, kwallet integration is a huge benefit.
NM is the future for desktop-based network management, it’s only problem is that it’s reaching farther ahead than many of the drivers are capable of supporting yet. It relies on hal and udev functionality that not everyone supports correctly, but then that’s neither Red Hat nor linuxs fault in general.
Sure, Mandriva has their own infrastructure, as does openSUSE and I’m sure various others, but they invariably consist of scripted workarounds for a variety of corner cases to deal with network driver quirks and inconsistencies. They’re a stop-gap without a long term outlook.
NM has many warts right now, but it makes more sense to support and contribute towards it, since it represents a universal solution, rather than an infrastructure-specific one. Ideally we’ll start to see more and more of the wireless drivers port to softmac and present more of a standardized API, at which point many of the more common problems with NM should (hopefully) start to disappear. That’s where the real issue lies.
If somebody wants to port Mandriva’s backend to solid, KDE4 will work transparently with it, by design. But I’m sure the devs knew what they were doing when the opted towards networkmanager as a default.
anyone know what it is?
with that said, i thinkl the KDE team will be pushing to get KDE4.1 out the door quicker than prior releases of KDE3.x.x versions