KDE 3.2-beta2 - Towards a Better KDE?

JigSaw writes "KDE 3.2-beta2 was released last week for general testing and OSNews offers a preview of what's expected from the 'popular X11 desktop environment' early next year upon its release. The article mentions KDE's new features (faster loading times, Konqueror's Service Menus, Kontact, KPDF, Plastik theme etc), the problems that still plague it (cluttered Kmenu and Konqueror menus, too many disorganized kontrol center modules) and some constructive suggestions on how to get over the bloat without losing the functionality."

Comments

The State Of KDE -- new, improved edition

[Anonymous Coward]

NEW! Revised and updated!
The State Of KDE

We have seen a lot of important news regarding the KDE project over recent weeks, so it is worth pausing to consider the ramifications.

Let us start with the recent acquisition of SUSE by Novell. SUSE was the biggest Linux distributor (though still dwarfed by Red Hat) to use KDE as its default desktop. SUSE has, for many years, neglected to package the GNOME desktop properly or even do basic Q&A... much to the delight of KDE fanatics. Now, however, Novell has purchased the SUSE linux distribution and Ximian, a company best known for the producing the most polished and professional desktop available for Linux (GNOME-based). The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that KDE is about to lose its main commercial support.

Let us take a look at some of the reasons why this is so:

• GNOME has always been the commerical desktop of choice. It has long been focussed on getting the basics right and building from there... as opposed to the KDE Project, which is entirely aimed at pleasing the slashdot peanut gallery with pointless eye-candy. KDE features are thrown into the mix with little or no regard for usability, or even good taste. The end result is disasterous, as can be seen by anyone unforunate enough to be forced into using it.
• KDE is extremely expensive to develop for, unless you intend to produce GPL software. TrollTech, the owners of KDE and Qt, license the X11 version of their Qt toolkit under the GPL. This forces anyone wanting to develop software built on top of it (including KDE), to be (L)GPL licensed -- or pay TrollTech $3000 for every developer you have working on the application to purchase a commercial license.
• TrollTech is also vulnerable to takeover by companies hostile to Free software and good corporate lawyers who can blow holes in the laughable FreeQt agreements.
• Qt's/KDE lack of accessiblity. Accessiblity is vital feature for a modern desktop. A desktop cannot be sold to the U.S. government unless it supports the features necessary for disabled users to make full use of it. The lack of said feature effectively cuts it off from the biggest software purchaser of all. GNOME has spent the last 18 months and more doing the ground-work and developing/polishing the accessiblity of the GNOME desktop (thanks to the fine work of Sun engineers). KDE has spent the time making *fake* translucent menus to help make impressive screenshots. Over the next few months you can expect increasing numbers of near-orgasmic announcements of weak accessiblity support from the KDE project, as the full extent of their folly and just how far they are behind GNOME finally becomes obvious to them. The end result will be, as with all KDE features, half-assed and broken -- designed only to function as a marketing feature tick-box filler.
• Novell is already engaged in training its engineers in development using GTK/GNOME -- not Qt/KDE.
• Novell introduced a GNOME integration bug bounty scheme, in which hackers can claim a small bounty for performing nips and tucks on GNOME applications making them work together better. No money is on offer for working with KDE.
• Nat Friedman (co-founder of Ximian), recently made a post to slashdot explaining the take-over and future directions. Much has been made of Novell's claims that it will continue to "support" KDE, but this is merely as legacy software. As Nat's post makes clear, the future of Novell is GNOME and the push for a single dominant desktop. Even the letter written by SUSE a manager claiming that KDE has not been abandoned means very little. The letter itself is 90% P.R. puff, and says very little, other than SUSE will now be shipping GNOME is a reasonable condition, unlike its previous efforts. At no point does it say that KDE will remain the default choice, or that GNOME will not be the main focus

Re:The State Of KDE -- new, improved edition

[neonmagic]

Myself personally:

I used to use Gnome back when it was 1.x. I preferred it to KDE then. But then Gnome was the first Linux desktop that I used. And I also didn't like the qt license issue either. That meant my prediliction for using Gnome at the time.

However, times change, desktops evolve. I find the Gnome desktop unintuitive and not particularly attractive. Humans are visual creatures, nothing you say or do can change that basic fact about our species. KDE looks great and seems very reliable (i'm using KDE 3.0.3 on Libranet 2.7 classic on my laptop). I've also heard of horror issues with Gnome breaking very easily. That said my laptop is an aging Compaq Armada 1750 (333mzh p2, 128mb ram) and KDE runs fine. Bloat? Man if KDE is bloated then Windows XP is really bloated.

Features? KDE has many nice applications. Kstars anyone? I'm an amateur astronomer, and even though I have a legal copy of Software Bisques The Sky pro level 4 I found kstars to be very good (and this was on the early version that runs on KDE 3.0.3 - kstars is improved on KDE 3.2 beta I believe).

Codebase I have no idea, since I don't code. KDE does look very professional and organised. I'll give an example if I may - I noticed that you weren't able to download user manuals for KDE and Gnome in pdf format from their respective websites. I emailed both KDE and Gnome about this - only KDE replied. That says a lot about professionalism.

I also personally found the comment by someone in this thread about the 2 Gnome developers that passed away very distasteful. That person should have his/her /. account disabled imho. That's very disrespectful of the dead.

I've used a lot of different desktops and my personal choice of preference is Mac OS X Aqua. It's a joy to use, secure, reliable and just damn well looks good. Whilst KDE does lack the polished look of Aqua, it is still very nice. Gnome no longer appeals to me in both looks and functionality and features. That's MY personal choice. Personally, I'd like to see both major desktops merge, but it's an impossibility.

Dave

KDE preview

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a good article actually. I didn't expect it to be so positive and harsh at the same time but there is definetely some nailing going on there.

KDE is quite complete

[rkz]

I think it is comparable to windows / macs featurewise. What linux needs are the apps everyone can't live without. Things like AutoCAD or MS Publisher (for making those crappy xmas cards).

The control center is very nice i have found it simple and easy to use I don't see how they can make it better.

Heresy

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

KDE is (gulp) >faster> than Gnome? There goes one myth. Take away the Eugenia standard carping over the UI and you have a pretty good review.

Re:Heresy

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Hell, I couldn't tell you. KDE seems just as fast to me but I run pretty high-end machines w/ plenty of memory. I like the uniformity of Gnome but find myself getting stuff done w/ KDE, especially comparing Konqueror to Nautilus which is definitely slower IMHO.

Re:Heresy

[moderators_are_w*nke]

I agree with that. On my FreeBSD 5.2-RC1 box (yes, I know, BSD is dead) at least. I used to use GNOME 2, and on a whim I decided to give KDE 3.1.4 (or something like that) a go. It does seem a lot snappier in general use.

Having said that I still use a number of GTK apps (pan, gaim mostly) and they don't seem massively slower alongside the KDE ones. Maybe its just the desktop and the console that everyone keeps flaming.

Re:Heresy

[randomblast]

fluxbox is technically faster than KDE and GNOME, like GNOME is technically faster than KDE. but you have to take into account the speed boost you get with integration. ie, mozilla is faster under GNOME, konqueror is faster under KDE. GNOME is faster than KDE, but you're not going to get any use out of a desktop on it's own, unless you have some kinky wallpaper :p it feels a lot faster using konqueror with KDE than mozilla with GNOME. and besides, although GTK is GPLed, and Qt has a proprietary license, Qt is actually a better API. i do use GTK apps (gkrellm, gaim, openoffice) but one of them is going to be Qt native soon :) ( http://dot.kde.org/1071245692/ ) anyway, my point is, the GNOME desktop is faster, but KDE has faster applications

KDE 3.2 is going to rock

[qed123]

I installed KDE 3.2 last week, and while it's just a beta I give it two thumbs up easily. The tabs in Konqueror are fixed to more like what I'm used to in Firebird, and theres some nifty new features in the file browser mode. Not to mention there seems like a lot of new configuration options and everything seems even more solid and snappier than 3.1.4. The new theme, Plastik, has really grown on me as well.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

With KDE and Gnome base libs installed alongside Windowmaker, why would I need either? I want a Windowmanager to do just that: manage windows.

Re:I think

[sujan]

To each his own.

For some the options are a nifty thing. For others, a headache. I think KDE team should implement a beginner/advanced profile.

Re:Mac compared to X

[aldoman]

I agree. Mac OSX is so damn good for working in. They have the context menus nailed right down - I never feel they are cluttered but they always have the option I'm looking for...

I "emerged" it over the weekened.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the look, and it appears stable with Gentoo on the 2.6.0-test11 kernel. The only problem I've found (and it appears to be a known issue) is that "Find" just sits there and doesn't continue.

All in all, I think it's a good upgrade.

Linux on the desktop

[martinde]

I have to say that if Linux isn't ready for the Desktop, that it is VERY close with KDE 3.x and OpenOffice. I can't speak for Gnome, I haven't used it in a long time.

For office environments, I think Linux is pretty much there. The only real missing thing IMHO is the expectation that you can plug in random USB things and that they'll work. This is probably a problem for grandma and grandpa, but I don't think it's a problem for your average corporate secretary.

I suppose Outlook calendars are another issue...

fewer features or saner defaults

[molnarcs]

There is one constant in the universe: Eugenia "I'm an UI expert" Loli-Queru" beating the same old "too many features" drum.

Yes, she might be right on certain points (Cervisia in context menus by default?), but saying the KDE has no HIG and GNOME has one is just plain BS. Of course, we were witness to her flamefest fith mosfet over UI issues a while back... Anyhow, I just finished reading the comments when I saw the review posted on /. I was surprised to see how many people hated konqueror (well, all GNOME users of course) - IMHO konqi is the pinnacle of UI design and consistency. An application flamework, that comes as close to the power of CLI as gui-wise is possible. You can mold Konqueror into anything - and this seems to impress even OS X users: check out this review.

Anyhow, I don't expect osnews to change its bias towards (but I was surprised at the review, it was more level headed than usually it is) - and I'm not going to point out every flaw in the criticism (well, I shall point out only two: 1) its the same old argument on part of eugenia 2) check out the screenshots - and tell me: how many of the applications in the menus were KDE specific? ... talking about clutter...) but I want to say this: Keep up the good work KDE developers! And listen to your users (as I know you do) not these so called UI "experts" who think GNOME (don't take me wrong, I like some aspects of GNOME) has the leading edge in usability, despite overwhelming odds (if it is more usable, why do more newbies stay with KDE???)

Re:fewer features or saner defaults

[Anonymous Coward]

> if it is more usable, why do more newbies stay with KDE???

Can you show me your statistics? And dont say online polls since that is the biggest load of BS I have ever seen. Here is one newbie that changed from KDE and hasn't been happier!

1:0, meanwhile gnome seems to be ahead ;)

Re:fewer features or saner defaults

[Anonymous Coward]

> And dont say online polls since that is the biggest load of BS I have ever seen.

Perhaps, but I've *never* seen GNOME defeat KDE in *any* sort of poll, and in most cases KDE defeats GNOME handily-- many times by nearly a two to one margin.

Re:fewer features or saner defaults

[Anonymous Coward]

Konqueror is technically very impressive. Its design is extremely powerful, and it's a model for apps of its kind. However, I don't use it, at all, even though I use KDE. Because it's such a bloated pig. Not that it's slow, but rather visually bloated. Overly long menu's and toolbars, ui elements that are crammed together, overly complicated configuration mechanisms (the configuration changes depending on what type of view konqueror is in, which is really confusing), and so on... It might be the most powerful browser and file manager in the world, but power isn't everything. Make it usable, and then I'll use it. Less IS more.

I don't like Eugenia's reviews, since she often refuses to do things in documented ways, even if she is aware of them (a bit too much of a free spirit), so she tends to break things in ways she shouldn't be trying, and then uses that to declare the entire reviewed product as crap. However, she's dead on that KDE needs major UI redesign, even in 3.2. It's WAY too complicated, even for me, and I study computer science.

I think more newbies stay with KDE, because all the newbie distro's use KDE as default, and newbies aren't aware they could be using GNOME. The reason for the distro's to use KDE is obvious, its flexibility allows a distro maker to finetune it a lot better than GNOME to the distro's specific needs.

So why do I use KDE and not GNOME? As pretty and clean as GNOME is, it's just not powerful enough, and a lot slower to boot. Besides, except for firebird and openoffice every app I use is a KDE app.

Re:Kan't stand it

[Minna Kirai]

The same problem has occured on Microsoft(tm) Windows(r) computers. Prehaps it's fixed by the XP/2003 versions, but recently you'd see a menu full of "Microsoft Word" "Microsoft Excel" Microsoft Powerpoint"...

That's actually much worse than how KDE does it, because instead of one meaningless extra letter there are 10 characters to read past before the name is disambiguated. (It looks horrible on the taskbar too)

Re:Fact.

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

That's funny.

I have a Pentium III 500 notebook with PC100 256M memory, a piss-ass slow disk, and an unaccelerated Xserver, and the GNOME terminal (Dropline GNOME 2.4, Slackware 9.1) is *still* way faster than I can type.

Re:This is a horrible review

[Blakey Rat]

Classic MacOS put the settings for a program under Edit, but it was named Preferences. So the user's train of thought was "Edit Preferences," which I think made perfect sense.

Re:Alpha Blending

[Tyreth]

Personally, I don't think desktop users will notice it's missing, except for a small niche. Most people working in a company or using it at home for email and web browsing won't notice, and simply won't care.

I'm really looking forward to having alpha blending, but I don't believe it to be a necessary or even wanted feature by most people.

Re:I think

[wolrahnaes]

IMO Xteq X-Setup has the config utility UI just right. There are wizards for the most common changes and full featured (and well grouped I might add...) panels for advanced tweaks. There is also a feature that warns you before entering any panels that may let you bork your system.

I think that kcontrol is in the same place as many other parts critical to a Free (speech/beer) desktop, where it is very good and on the right track, but still has some problems. Someone mentioned the sheer number of tweakable options. I like to tweak as much as the next guy, but sheesh! I would personally prefer the way I have customized my Win systems to, which gives me four stages when I want to change a setting:
1. Normal Control Panels - The basics. Plain and simple, only the most commonly used options like desktop, themes, resolution, etc...
2. Advanced Control Panels - Hidden options buried in the stock control panels. A good example in Windows is the Advanced properties of the Display control panel.
3. Add-on tweakers - X-Setup, TweakUI, etc.
4. Manual tweaks - tweaks that require digging in to regedit, obscure config files, or odd CLI commands.

Most people will never venture beyond stage 1, except for the occasional trip to stage 2 when instructed by a tech. Most "power users" are content with the capabilities afforded by stage 3, and the most hardcore can put the time in to performing stage 4 tweaks

I'm not sure how clear this rambling post is, but I hope someone can understand what my sleep deprived mind is thinking ;)