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KDE 3.0 beta 1 is out
From the development team who tries to break every development speed record (last month they released KDE 2.2.2) comes KDE 3.0 beta 1, with lots of new features, new QT (3.0.1). It is beta 1 so expect crashes. You can find release notes and download locations over . A full feature list of whats planned to be on KDE 3.0 is also available (hmm, quite a big list) and some screenshots are available here. Please read the README files for your favorite distribution before installing the files as those packages are not replacing the KDE 2.2.X binaries (if you have it installed).
I'll come straight and say it... it looks like KDE is pulling some considerable distance between GNOME and itself. Look I have a lot of respect for the GNOME people... anyone who donates their time to such a massive complex system such as a user enviroment deserves a round of golf claps. The fact is though is that I used to be a GNOME user. And then one day I accidently* logged into KDE 2.2.X (whatever is with RedHat 7.2) and was blown away by the speed and grace. If linux ends up on the desktop in it's present form (X sucks but thats a different story), then most likely it'll be KDE that everyone thinks is linux. They seem to have the perfect model right now... release quickly and update often. Quite impressive really, considering how much shit goes into a project of that magnitude.
* - About the accident... usually I install both enviroments on my machine so I can use apps from both (I always liked KDE's media player and Kmail).
Basically I just always ignored KDE and then one day was checking out what windows managers was available and forgot that I had highlighted KDE and logged in. The rest is history... haven't gone back since.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
One thing that I really would like to see is a better integration of Gecko in Konqueror. I know it's already possible to switch rendering engine, but it's highly unstable in my experience.
Now here's an example of an area in which many of the largest open source projects (Mozilla, GNOME, KDE) could collaborate, benefit from each other's work and find a common standard - the HTML rendering engine. Imagine the Konqueror, Galeon, Mozilla and Nautilus teams putting their efforts behind Gecko development...it would be one important step towards a more unified Linux desktop. Unified as in common standards and shared components, not unified as in lack of choice.
Hello, my name is Robert Lerner, and I pronounce Lernux as "99% cpu"
The biggest problem with KDE (IMHO) is the unresponsive feeling - especially when starting up programs. Are there any changes to this in KDE 3.0?
I know it is mainly something about a compiler/linker issue, but what is the progress in that area?
When I first used WinXP for half an hour or so I was really impressed. I though, 'this looks nice, it has more of the stability of win2000, it's really enjoyable to use and well integrated'. Then I actually began to use it properly, and discovered that it makes itself look more powerful than it really is. There are no advanced features behind the pretty GUI. When I'm back in KDE or GNOME I feel like I have a great deal of power - and I do. The options are there to do various different useful functions that just aren't present in windows.
Windows copies other people's innovations and claims it as it's own. Then people like you think that Microsoft came first and claim that linux is copying. I consider KDE more advanced than the windows GUI, not catching up (there are some deficiencies in KDE compared to Windows, but overall it is better).
Well, I just installed the beta on my SuSE 7.3 workstation, without issue. KDE3 is much snappier, it feels much mpore crisp when opening apps, windows, etc. It has apparently better font rendering. Kpilot, while unfinished, I can tell is much improved in terms of feature and interface, next up is to actually test it with my USB Visor. Konquerer file manager has much more solid support for multimedia previewing/viewing within the file manager window. As a browser, Konquerer still crashed and burned on my Chase banking web site, so Mozill 0.96 is still the way for me. It seems faster as well in KDE3, albeit initial startup is still a bit slow. I've been using Evolution 1.0 for mail, and it still works fine in KDE3. I still cannot cut and paste an URL from an Evolution email into my Mozila browser. KMail looks a bit more fine tuned and launches quicker than before, I have yet to test its use though. KDE3 it seems is primarily an architecture shift to QT3, but the results are impressive in the feel and response. Visually, while a bit cleaner, its the same KDE that you already either like or not.
It's inconsistent (Changing between apps is done through the finder-menu in the up-right corner, changing windows within apps is done using some menu (usually, but not always called "window"))
It's lacking basic abilities every GUI should be able to do (maximize(!), easier resizing)
I bought a Powerbook 2 years ago and I can summarize my experience as following: The software is pretty useless, but the hardware is fine and runs Linux very well.
I only used MacOS to watch DVDs and even that was a PITA (just insert a scratched DVD and see your system freeze -> hard reset)
I did not try MacOS X, but I have yet to hear what MacOS X can do what KDE can't. I won't shell out big bucks just to "try", thank you very much. (Wouldn't probably run very well on a G3/400 192MB RAM anyway)
I noticed on the list of features that they are going to extend the keyboard shortcut mechanism to support more extended keyboard shortcuts and enable them to make DCOP calls from shortcuts. Why is this so important to me? I have a Gateway multimedia keyboard, which, for the "special" buttons sends 3-4 keycodes per button, the windows key combined with at least two letter keycodes and other modifier keys depending on the button. Until now I haven't seen a clean way of getting these keys to work (the few apps concerned with this are limited to single keycodes...). Now I can bind this to applications. Now, is there a DCOP enabled mixer that supports XOSD, or am I going to have to write one? The KDE mixer should suffice. Can't wait to get off of work and try this sucker out, for this stupid little feature alone.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Javascript is the ONE thing that will have really improved between KDE 2.2 and KDE 3.0, if I had to name only one. ;)
;)
Please try KDE 3.0 beta1, retest those Javascript sites, and I can assure you that you'll be surprised.
It's not all bugfree yet, but it's much much better than what was there before. I see those JS popupmenus in many websites, where they wouldn't appear before.
I haven't completely cleaned up the KJS buglist yet - that takes time, even just testing - but we're almost there now
See also the other posts on how to prevent one crash from taking down all your browser windows.
Tabbed browsing: that will come right after 3.0, stay tuned
Although this is a redo of a letter buried in one of the responses, I thought it best to repost here so it could be seen, and maybe do some good.
An Open letter to the KDE Team:
All this talk of how much better KDE is, and how it's going doesn't address one major problem. When is the KDE team going to develop a way to install/update KDE easly, instead of having to go though dependency hell? There was a good article in e-week's Pings&Packets (Dec 17/24 2001) that talked of KDE 2.2.2 and said, and I quote "Most striking in this release, however, is how poor the mechanism for updating KDE continues to be. Whereas users of the GNOME desktop can turn to Ximiam's excellent and pretty much foolproof installer application for GNOME updates, KDE users must download a truckload of packages before installing them in some particular but generally unclear order"
He goes on to say "I've yet to condtuct an update of my KDE system without forcing it's package installer application to ignore dependencies..."
That's the same with me. I've been using GNOME since 1.x, and now up to the newest version. Only time I used KDE 2.x was when I updgraded to RedHat 7.1 and it had it in it. I like what I saw, I liked the speed, and responsiveness, but unless I can upgrade it, I refuse to use it. Although I am coming from Windows, and struggling to learn Linux, that doesn't exchuse the difficulty in installing programs.
If you'd like to respond via e-mail, it's below. Thanks
Shaddock Delaforge
shadwalk AT opera--DELETEME!-mail DOT com