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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."
constructive suggestions on how to get over the bloat without losing the functionality :)
I think shortcuts are definetly the way forward, for example pressing ctrl+? opens fsck or whatever
Much faster, easier, and makes desktops less clutered (as you don't need icons etc on desktop)
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
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:
I liked the review, but in the end they misspelled "Konclusion".
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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.
This guy is way out there
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.
Perhaps some kind of system that keeps track of how often you run certain programs and when you don't use one for X amount of time then it puts those programs into a submenu or something like that. I think that would be a good feature that Window currently doesn't have (at least as far as I know).
;-)
I guess on open source systems, the tendancy is to install most of the software that is available, so you wind up with a lot available to you, meaning that your games menu is full of things like KFoulEggs.
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...
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"...and some constructive suggestions on..."
konstructiive?
If my brain was an eyeball it would be bleeding! Why do geeks think prefixing K (or G) to everything is witty? It's not; it's just annoying and confusing.
--
Power to the Peaceful
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.
Not to mention... Kommander's Editor (kmdr-editor) is by no means a bloddy text editor.
As someone on dot.kde.org pointed out (and I fully agree with) the ability to customize thing SHOULD not be messed with, because otherwise you go the GNOME/Windows way. KDE can act like almost any other DE if people want it to, and set it to do so.
Eugenia has in my experence not done very good review, and assumes that less choice = better, which I find fundamentally flawed.
Having used KDE since 1.x (and others for a long time) and currently KDE cvs (built every couple of days), KDE has been for some time in my opinion the best DE of all (including MacOS, CDE, Windows, and GNOME) And the 3.2 just got a big speed boost. (on a cable connection (~300KB/sec max) slashdot load in under 3 seconds, as does just about any webpage except /.ed ones, and el reg (that is throughout the cable company, so something is messed up there, and it has gotten better, so even that is .) Koffice is much better since the last time I used it, and it is faster than openoffice, and quite stable. Juk is just great. Kontact should import kopete as well if it wants to be complete, and the talked about kopete-address book integration... if that's what Eugenia calls integration (essentially a link) then no wonder everyone thinks windows and gnome are decent. (Kopete-address book integration is at this point substandard for KDE.) kgpg is also included.
Why do geeks think prefixing K (or G) to everything is witty? It's not; it's just annoying and confusing.
I wrote an app in Java to change all the names because I hate that annoying style too. It's called Jrenamer.
Good riddance! Keramik was KDE's idea of "eye kandy" for 3.1, and looked like someone's poor first attempt at a GUI theme. About as streamlined as a yak. In a word: fugly!
Now they've gone with an off-color ripoff of the Windows XP window decorations (just like Ximian's Industrial), and a QT theme that looks like one of the GTK Smooth variations. Certainly an improvement over Keramik, but not exactly an original look. It seems like they were really sick of people complaining how Gnome is prettier.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
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...
I used KDE for many many years. It was my desktop of choice. It was the only environment which had all the features I wanted. I didn't even use konqueror or anything. I liked the KDE panel most of all, but I also really really like kwrite, kmail and the konsole. I still really like kmail and kwrite.
Recently I got a new pc. I replace my Pentium 3 450 with my Athlon-XP 2500+. Now I knew that KDE was bloated, but I wanted the features and the programs that came in it. I did an XP/Gentoo dual boot on my new boxen and emerged kde. It worked, much faster than previous. But the response on a lot of things was still slow. Keep in mind this was whatever kde version was out a month or two ago.
Every time I remember KDE getting updated they made major changes that were always for the better. The dramatic difference between KDE1 and 2 was outstanding. In the days of 2 I couldn't imagine better, but KDE3 lived up to everything it promised and 2 couldn't even compare. I'm sure KDE 3.2 will do just the same.
Eventually though, the bloat got to me. I was running an optimized gentoo install and my desktop environment was slowing me down. And it was only because I wanted to use the mail client, panel and text editor that came with it. That's when I discovered XFCE-4. It didn't have all the features I needed, but XFCE4 works perfectly with all kinds of software. If I want screensavers I just emerge xscreensavers. If I want keybindings I emerge xbindkeys. If I want cpu monitoring I can get xfce-extras or gkrellm and bubblefishymon.
What really sealed the deal was the fact that I replaced Kmail with thunderbird, konsole with xterm, and kwrite... I still haven't replaced that. But I sure as heck wasn't going to keep using the big slow desktop just for the text editor. If you absolutely need to get all the stuff KDE has to offer, stick with it. If you actually use all of that stuff then it is so worth it and nobody does it better. If you want to trim down and increase the performance, try out XFCE4. I see it becoming a serious competitor with Gnome and KDE in the near future.
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Just before we read that browser integration is bad (like MSIE into MS Windows) but now this article reports that KDE's Konqueror is integrated better into KDE. That seems strange to me.
Admittedly KDE isn't an operating system as MS Windows is. But still it's a "system near" piece of software. So where to draw the border?
There is one constant in the universe: Eugenia "I'm an UI expert" Loli-Queru" beating the same old "too many features" drum.
/. 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.
... 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???)
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
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?
Yeah, but I like KDE better. Should I switch to GNOME because it's got more companies behind it? Following your advocacy, shouldn't I then just switch to Windows?
FYI, Mandrake primarily supports KDE, so does Lindows, and now it seems that Debian and KDE are doing their own Desktop thingy.
There's room enough for both DEs. Enough with the flamewars already...
Reminder: find a new sig
and you will end up with names like:
k
OpenKonqueror
FreeKontact
GNUKPDF
FreePlasti
etc.
The only thing worse than an overused prefix is two overused prefixes.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
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I'm really a Gnome fan.
I was thinking that KDE was a bit bloated, a bit ofuscated..
I explain my choice in this Perfect Desktop text
But I must agree that KDE 3.2 seems to be really on the good way and I think I will try it the day of the release. Good Job KDE people. I really like the plastic theme. IMHO, keramik was "fat".
Well, I find this screenshot really interesting.
Don't you think that Gnumeric is more "easy " than Kspread ? There's two rows of icons in Gnumeric : File icons and actions icons.
In Kspread is not so easy, you have icons anywhere.. that's really the bad point of KDE for me and why I prefer Gnome for beginners. Think about it.
Anyway.. Good job guys !
PS : anyway, gnome and KDE aren't anything ! I can't live without FVWM .
Ploum.net.
Gnome was faster. Then they released GTK+ v2, which is a lot slower. Have you ever run Konsole from KDE 3.1 side-by-side with GnomeTerminal from Gnome 2.4? I have. One is fast, the other is Gnometerminal. I have an Athlon 1700+ with 768mb of DDR RAM and a Radeon 8500, why can I type faster than Gnome 2.4 can draw on my screen? KDE can't.
No, I'm not a retard who can't find his own ass with both his hands. I'm using the Slackware distribution (versions 9 and 9.1 have Gnome 2.x, the slow Gnome, in them).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
If I take my Slackware 9 CD and install it onto a box, I can install without Konquerer. If I take a Windows XP CD and install it onto a box, I can't choose to not install IE. It's welded in. Konquerer is only integrated into KDE. Windows has so such separation of window manager/session management/library environment and kernel/base install that Linux has.
Plus, I have absolutely no problem using Thunderbird and Firebird for email and web stuff in Konquerer. It (KDE) respects my choice to use those applications as default, rather than forcing me to use KMail or Konquerer. I've yet to see such respect in Windows.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
What I really do not understand: why are so many people bitching about how terrible KDE is when they have a wonderful *choice* of alternatives? Most of them free? If you think KDE is bloated and Gnome is not, fine, use Gnome. Or use TWM. Whatever.
...And I don't mean horrible for KDE, I mean it is horribly done and poorly researched.
.doc link and zip and email it?)
For the mistakes under "The KDE Solution":
- KDialog and Service Menus have been in KDE since 3.0, they are nowhere near a new feature. KRDC for connecting to windows machines has been around for a long time as well, since 3.1.
Under "The KDE Problem"
- She says "Konqueror's context menu is a mess, why would I want to zip a web page or use Cervicia with it, is beyond me". She obviously does not grasp that KDE is totally network transparent, and that indeed all these options can be used with any media on any device. There is no need to restrict their ability while browsing a web site (in fact who is to say that you wouldnt* ever want to, say, right click on a
- She then goes on about how the KDE menu is too bloated, and posts a screenshot as an example. However, in the screenshot, which contains 32 applications, only 7 are KDE applications! You can't claim the KDE menu is too blated because of all the other junk on the system.
- She then advocates putting all the "Configure" options under one menu entry under "Edit" instead of "Settings". Not onnly would this violate the KDE Style Guide which has been agreed upon by usability experts, it just seems foolish. In no OS does "Edit" imply "Settings". Edit is for Editing the active document.
Namely this is one of the poorer reviews I have read on OSNews, and that is saying ALOT since they are normally quite bad.
Oh, I'm a zealot, really? Why, I never...I mean, you're the one foaming at the mouth, while I express a personal preference, therefore I'm the zealot. Makes sense.
:-)
Rrrrright!
As far as I'm concerned, the "business users" have chosen neither GNOME nor KDE, but Windows. Some business users have chosen GNOME, others (like the folks at WETA digital) have chosen KDE. More importantly, GNOME and KDE, through the efforts of freedesktop.org, are coming together on common standards.
So, to sum it up: I am a real user who supports both KDE and GNOME and their effort to better integrate (while keeping a personal preference for KDE), and you are a zealot, who makes this KDE vs. GNOME thing into your own personal war. You're like a kid arguing that "the Xbox is waay cooler than the PS2" or vice-versa.
The truth is that KDE, IMO, has more feature, is better integrated and more customizeable - not to mention that QT as a development environment is a thing of beauty (or so my programming friends tell me - all I've done is a QTDesigner tutorial, and found it to be very user-friendly).
Also, K3B 0wnz any GNOME CD- or DVD-burning app, suXorz!!!
Reminder: find a new sig
Don't get pissed off at me, but I just wanted to say something about this:
Translation : GPL is freerer than LGPL. LGPL allows corporations like Novell
and Sun to have propeitry forks and lock away their changes from the user. Now
that Novell has taken over Ximian you can expect Gnome to get put under
corpirate lock. With KDE you have the choice, you either PAY UP or pay with
your source code.
I think this is THE one issue that will end up screwing KDE. I think its sad, but its too late to change it. Here's the deal, you can write closed code for both Gnome and KDE, however you can't write free (as in it doesn't cost a company any money to do so) code for KDE. I'm not saying this is good, but just think about it. If you were a big corporation and you could port your code to Linux and pay "not very much" to use QT, or nothing to use GTK, which are you going to pick?
I wish just as much as you do that companies would say, "Hey its not that much money and its a better development environment for our coders, let's spend the extra cash". But that's a dream world. They'll say "Use the free GK++T thingy...its free right?..yeah use that".
I'm not trying to stir up a flamewar, just think its sad that in the long run thats what will probalby make the most difference.
"Luke, I am your node.parent();"
Who cares if KDE or Gnome is faster if it is just faster at things I don't want to do?
As far as I'm concerned, both are fast enough. Stop carping on speed and start giving me new and interesting software.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Um, SuSE used KDE. And will continure using KDE (this has been pubically stated by Novell people). Mandrake's default is KDE. And I head that Debian is focusing on KDE more and more.
Whoops... there I go again, feeding the GNOME trolls.
#include "sig.h"
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.
The KDE architecture is a lot further on than GNOME. Whatever the eye-candy, the engine that drives KDE does appear to be more advanced and better put together than GNOME. KDE is very well put together, and like the article says, once you've got that down, it's not too hard to streamline. GNOME will have a harder job getting to KDE's standards then KDE would have imitating GNOME's ease of use. If it even wants to. It's not like there has to be only one desktop for everyone.
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.
As opposed to GTK, which is fully LGPL, with no proprietry license. What was your point again?
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.
Huh? The current copy of Qt is GPLed. TrollTech cannot retract that, even if they wanted to. If TrollTech stopped developing GPL Qt, then the KDE project would just fork the codebase. As others have said, the GPL is very legally secure.
As for all the other points, whilst I could argue that KDE has made headway into the business environment as well (Lindows, SuSE 9, and so forth), I don't see why I should bother. Open Source software does not need corperate funding to continue. If it did, Linux would never have gotten off the ground. Commercial backing can't hurt, but it's not necessary for a project, either.
Nor does a project die if another overtakes it. KDE is technologically ahead of GNOME, and has been ever since GNOME's creation. Does that stop people working on GNOME? Nope. Because the Linux desktop is a varied thing. Just because Windows gained a monopoly, doesn't mean that there has to be a desktop monopoly. I'd like greater inter-compatability between the two systems, but I don't see a need for there to be only one.
Some offices do thrive on Lotus Notes, although I think there's a native port to Linux from IBM. Others have lots of custom VB thingies, too.
Just the server but the client does work in wine and probably in Crossover too.
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.
Examples of what I understand by crufty "desktop setting and application self data": fonts, menus, icons, colours, content of files .ICEauthority, .mcoprc, .i18n, .qt, .mailcap, temporary files, caches, symbolic links created by applications, and other things that are spread troughout my home directory which can make my desktop misbahave after upgrading from RedHat 8.something to Mandrake 9.something unless I delete them by hand.
Examples of what I understand "user data": .kppp connection info, imap mail server settings, .signature file, contact lists, email content, user documents, browser bookmarks, document history.
It all boils down to the mess that kde (oofice, gnome, and other applications) damp into my home directory and which makes my desktop computer choke after an upgrade. ooffice seems to be the worst damping brainless stuff into my home directory, but kde and gnome follow closely.
Could I suggest two directories in user home:
.unimportant_settings_and_general_cruft_delete _if_desired
.user_important_setting_data_docs_dont_delete Best regards.
Don't give me that crap- I've extensively used both-
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Keyword: "extensively." I use Linux as my only desktop OS. While KDE is my primary desktop, I try the latest GNOME every time a new one is released.
I don't think anything is particularly "killer" under KDE's hood contrasted to GNOME-
>>>>>>>>
KIO, DCOP, KParts, KConfig, XML-GUI, etc. While there are counterparts to most of those in GNOME, they're not really leveraged across the desktop. Its hard to find apps, for example, that really use Bonobo. Abiword-GNOME apparently doesn't use Gnome-VFS. Not many apps use GConf yet, etc. On top of that, the KDE framework libraries are tightly integrated and very powerful. The reason so many KDE apps have advanced features built-in is because it either comes free via the framework (KIO, XML-GUI), or is ridiculously easy to use (KParts, DCOP). Try developing on both systems and see what I mean.
and "default look" is a pretty weak measure of each package as a whole.
>>>>>>>>>>>
You just can't get KDE to look like GNOME. Take something simple like "text next to icons." KDE has an option for it, but KDE apps have so many icons that it makes the toolbar enormous. Same thing for context menus. Much longer in KDE than in GNOME. I mean, you could go and edit all the toolbars and context menus in every KDE app (because configurable KAction holders are built into the framework), but that'd be a development project in and of itself.
And I don't see how you can say they're "completely different"- each of them has a "default layout"- and each can be customized to act roughly equivalent to each other's default layouts-
>>>>>>>>>>
No they can't. Unless you whip up a ton of code and add-back all the features they removed in GNOME 2.x, or heavily refactor all the panel, toolbar, and menu layouts in KDE, they can't.
In my mind they're roughly equivalent in all areas, sure, KDE might do this and that better, and GNOME might do this and that better, but its all details.
>>>>>>>>>>
Let me guess --- you don't use either on a regular basis, right?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I know that there's more that I'm missing, but these are some that came to mind first.
-clee
The biggest problem I've had with KDE is that EVERYTHING has to be on the Start menu (or whatever it is that KDE calls it -- the K menu?). If I remove an app from the Start menu, then I have no way of knowing it's still installed and available on the system, unless I happen to remember how to start it some other way or I go into a package tool to see that it's still there.
What KDE needs is an Applications directory like Mac OS X has -- show me a window with pretty icons and clear names for all the applications I have available on my computer, and let me customize the launcher (Mac OS X's Dock, Windows's Start menu, KDE's Startorwhateverit'scalled menu) to just list the apps I want to get at most often.
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