Submitted by The KDE team has released version 4.3.2 of their Free software desktop environment. It’s a minor release which comes with a number bugfixes and enhancements, with the focus being KMail and KWin. It’ll find its way to your distribution soon enough.
The KDE team has released version 4.3.2 of their Free software desktop environment. It’s a minor release which comes with a number bugfixes and enhancements, with the focus being KMail and KWin. It’ll find its way to your distribution soon enough.
i used to be a satisfied kde3 user. BUT,
Why is it that i consider widget driven deskop as the worst WIMP in existance… I cant tell but kde has still not “wow”ed me in any way, frustration, bad implementation and an akward control panel….. it feels almost like windows 7 or a really bad knockoff from osx. It does not what i want it to do.
On the lighter note i LOVE kwin. that part is a godsend for people like me. i even use it on my gnome desktop.
Also i really like kgeography.. (end point) that is all.
What distro did you test it out on?
Because I’ve found a large number of distro’s have very poorly implimentations of KDE4 (particularly Kubuntu – which is simply terrible).
By far the best implimentation of KDE4 I’ve used is ArchLinux (with the KDEMod packages).
In fact, it’s what I’m running now.
The only problem with ArchLinux is it’s not a 15min “hands-free” install like Kubuntu is.
Ironically I don’t like Kwin all that much as I find the compositing very slow compared to Compiz-Fusion.
So the 1st thing I do on an KDE4 install is replace the WM with compiz.
Can’t even imagine how that can be a problem, since nothing makes your desktop fill with widgets. You only get what you select.
Personally I have ony one widget on my desktop, a folderview used as containmnet(fullscreen).
In addition to the desktop I use tre more widgets, a menu, taskbar and notifications widget.
Incidently this is exactly the same as my KDE3 setup, the only difference is that it was done by two different applications kdesktop and kicker.
same. I’m just not sold on the idea of having desktop + shell by SuperKaramba.
I try it out once in a while, but I don’t feel comfortable there. I’m riding KDE3 into the ground, until it is no longer in Debian Stable (maybe Old Stable) though that means I am using a non maintained, non updated desktop, not to mention it makes it a little hard to get updated packages for other things if I am stuck with Stable. Which is basically why, as I have detailed before, I don’t use Linux as much anymore. For me personally, KDE4 has been a disaster.
You do realise you can have the traditional KDE3 style desktop on KDE4.
It’s an option in the Desktop Control Panel applet.
In fact, it literally only takes 3 mouse button clicks to switch between widget mode and icon/folder mode
Actually when they polish all rough edges of KDE on the software level, some good themes and widgets finally may make hearts of the audience more, you know, warm in relation to KDE and friends.
At least I hope so.
For me KDE 4 is still not catching up. Also I dont see people now moving back from GNome to KDE the way people moved from KDE to GNome.
I also agree with earlier post that says “KDE 4 is now feels more like a bolted Windows Vista/7”
KDE4’s biggest problem now isn’t KDE4 itself but the disappointing numbers of distro’s that implement KDE4 packages badly.
Take Kubuntu for example: it’s simply terrible! And they’re no excuse for it to be so bad as it’s a distro that’s supported to be pre-configured for KDE and aimed at KDE users.
The ironic thing is, one of the best distro’s I’ve used KDE on is actually a distro that doesn’t push any WM/DE onto it’s users -> ArchLinux.
The KDEMod packages in ArchLinux are nothing short of outstanding and really demonstrate what KDE4 can be like – correction: SHOULD be like!
Hopefully Kubuntu (and others) will get their acts together pronto and fix the mess they’ve made. (I’m sure I’ve recently seen an article on here titled “Kubuntu Gets Some Love”, so maybe there’s hope for it yet)
Meanwhile, the KDE devs continue to refuse to get their hands dirty with packaging, while simultaneously moaning about how badly other entities package KDE.
When the KDE devs say “we do this for fun”, as they are so fond of saying, it should be taken very literally. Packaging isn’t fun, so they refuse to do it.
This phenomenon is not limited to the issue of packaging. Stuff that isn’t fun they leave to someone else to do.
Edited 2009-10-08 16:32 UTC
And the KDE developers are totally and utterly right to say so, it’s the distributors and pakagers job to make packages. It’s in fact their main task, so one should come to expect they manged to do that in a satisfactory manner.
The most revealing point here is, if you take the pristine released source packages from KDE and compile them, you get a better result than some distribution packages. In the source packages the KDE developers in a very precise way, have alredy described how the code should be built and deployed. That some packagers deviate from that and generate a sub-par product, should really have the packagers step back and re-evaluete their process as it’s clearly shown to be flawed.
The problem is KDE allowed GNome to catchup during the 3.5 to 4 transition. I was hardcore fan of KDE and used KDE from Version 1…
I also agree with you that distos are not manging KDE implementation properly and KUbuntu sucks if you directly compare it with Ubuntu implementation of GNome. Also God knows whats up with PCLinuxOS! After there 0.9.2 version which was shipped with KDE 3.5, I still have not seen them releasing full fledged KDE 4 release.
Never the less I hope KDE gus without losing there momentum continue to develop KDE 4 and someday people may move back to KDE.
At risk of sounding like a troll, I think Kubuntu sucks period.
It’s not only the ugly duckling of the *buntu family, but it’s one of the poorest KDE4 distro’s to boot.
But at risk of repeating myself (and because I’d hate to leave this post on such a negative tone), Canonical have announced that they’re going to be giving Kubuntu some much needed TLC. So hopfully KDE4 will soon have a flagship – n00b-friendly – distro to be proud of.
KDE 4.3.x is awesome. Do you know of any reviews/writeups similar to “Linux Distros that Don’t Suck” but compares running KDE?
KDE 4 has been an unmitigated disaster from the moment the dev team cynically and deceitfully declared KDE 4.0 to be “ready for the desktop” without any caveats, and implied that it was ready for production use.
In fact, it’s still nowhere close.
Not only that, but the dev team seems to be contaminated with Windows refugees who never once ran KDE 3 (The constant refrain of “we can’t restore missing KDE 3 functionality if you don’t tell us what’s not there” when most of the deficiencies were bleedingly obvious to even a blind man.) nor ANY system with multiple virtual desktops (Hence the emphasis on the unweildly “plasmoids” — which would make sense on the no-virtual-desktop Windows platform, but makes absolutely NO sense in a programming environment with has history of virtual desktops for almost 15 years now — CDE, which inspired the original KDE in both name and style, was a virtual-desktop system (originally HP-VUE) dating back to the early 90’s).
I’m staying with KDE 3 until either Aaron Segio pulls his head out of his anus (doubtful) or until someone who knows what they’re doing comes along to take over. God help us if it takes until KDE 5 for the latter to happen.
In fact, it’s still nowhere close.
I did find it useable. It’s quite cluttered and some things just aren’t clear or obvious enough. But still, useable.
The constant refrain of “we can’t restore missing KDE 3 functionality if you don’t tell us what’s not there” when most of the deficiencies were bleedingly obvious to even a blind man
Stop being stubborn/arrogant then and list those things that are missing. Simple as that.
nor ANY system with multiple virtual desktops (Hence the emphasis on the unweildly “plasmoids” — which would make sense on the no-virtual-desktop Windows platform, but makes absolutely NO sense in a programming environment with has history of virtual desktops for almost 15 years now
Plasmoids and virtual desktops have nothing in common. Why are plasmoids are bad thing on a system capable of supporting virtual desktops?