Is KDE 4.0 the Holy Grail of Desktops?

An anonymous reader writes "With KDE 4.0 being expected some time this year, expectation runs high in the linux/unix users camp and the media read a lot between the lines of what the KDE developers say and do. In some ways KDE will provide a standard as to how a desktop should look and behave. This interesting article wonders whether KDE 4.0 will become the complete desktop which will meet the needs of a wide cross section of computer users. One of the common complaints that some Linux users have over KDE is that it is too cluttered. And by addressing this need without putting off the power users, the KDE developers could make it an all in one Desktop. Keep in mind that KDE 4.0 is based on Qt 4.0 and so can be easily ported to Windows and other OSes too which makes this thought doubly relevant."

Comments

I've got a few suggestions...

[JAB Creations]

1.) If developers wants the everyday non-savvy users to use Linux then as a professional web developer I shouldn't have to even think of messing with the console just to install a Firefox nightly build. I don't care how much power is in the console I'm not using it and regular computer users sure as hell aren't. Point: get a unified installer system setup. Hell OSX is based on Unix (just like Linux) and it has a "drag the icon from here to there" installer. Why doesn't Linux (ANY flavor of it for that matter) have something ANYTHING along those lines? 2.) Don't use the crappy AC97 onboard audio in place of my Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum audio card... and then give me no GUI option to switch from the onboard (no-3D audio btw) audio device. 3.) Keys need to work include Win+D, CTRL+ESC, ALT+TAB, CTRL+ALT+DEL, among many others. Xandros gains credit in my eyes for at least saying, "Hey, we know since 99% of the frigin world is stuck on Windows we thought it'd be cool to let you use those same keyboard controls". 4.) Call your control panel a control panel, or at least use the words preferences, settings, or something exceptionally obvious instead of just plain "YAST". If I'm a non-savvy user YAST sounds like spyware. 5.) If you debate me don't use your family who have all been learning Linux ANYWAY and aren't considered the typical non-savvy computer user. 6.) Stop using virtual memory by force. Sure it's a safety belt to some degree such as with web servers but I have yet to see any program that say, "Oh crap, using the hard drive as memory, maybe I should say something". And don't give me the "Well it doesn't need to be in memory" crap argument because if it doesn't need to be in memory then DON'T FRIGIN LOAD IT. Kudos thought to Linux for running on really old hardware. 7.) Stop turning my hard drive in to swiss cheese. One drive one partition. 8.) Make Konqueror's GUI a little easier to use by allowing icons to be dragged instead of the extremely confusing separate CAGE layout where I can't move an icon all the way to one side because it's locked up on another. Firefox's GUI has the potential to be good (it's default settings just aren't any good for the non-savvy). Kudos though for it doing pretty good on the CSS3 selectors test... http://www.css3.info/selectors-test/ Don't get me wrong, Linux is great and all but for as long as it's been around you'd think someone would have fixed these problems by now. I'm sticking with XP for now though for now I give Xandros the most credit thus far. Hey, at least they have made an honest attempt with their Windows EXE installer even though it did not work with a Firefox nightly build, kudos for making it to begin with.

KDE's Achilles' heel

[Cthefuture]

... is Qt. GPL is by far the biggest problem with KDE. It's impossible to develop non-GPL applications using the KDE stuff without paying a crapload of money to Trolltech. Currently Qt is way too expensive compared to other things like MSDN and it just keeps getting more expensive while MSDN gets cheaper (plus Apple's tools are free!).

I have tried KDE many times over the years just to check it out but I stick with GNOME based pretty much solely on the licensing. Qt is a fairly nice API (if buggy at times) but forcing me into GPL isn't good (I prefer LGPL and BSD-style). I wouldn't even mind paying for Qt if it was reasonably priced.

Granted you don't have to use Qt to develop for KDE but then you're not really integrating with the desktop (especially for anything with a UI).