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KDE 4.0 RC 1 Released
angryfirelord writes "The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the first release candidate for KDE 4.0. This release candidate marks that the majority of the components of KDE 4.0 are now approaching release quality.
While the final bits of Plasma, the brand new desktop shell and panel in KDE 4, are falling into place, the KDE community decided to publish a first release candidate for the KDE 4.0 Desktop. Release Candidate 1 is the first preview of KDE 4.0 which is suitable for general use and discovering the improvements that have taken place all over the KDE codebase."
Looks like plasma.kde.org is Slashdotted right now, so hey -- Wikipedia to the rescue.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The main site is already bogged down. However, the major change is the completion & inclusion of Plasma. I like candy.
Screenshots are important for superficial people like me :)
I like the widget and window theme, but the kicker replacement at the bottom looks pretty tacky. It was the same in beta, and I'd hoped they'd change it for release, but it seems like they're sticking with it.
I have reviews of the general KDE desktop and Dolphin 4 on my page. I will review RC1 as soon as I can get Kubuntu packages.
Rudd-O - http://rudd-o.com/
I finally tried out a full KDE4 session last week and it is really coming together. I really look forward to the creative stuff people make with Plasma. Its not just a tool for having fun widgets on the desktop (which it is), but its designed so folks can easily develop their own taskbar, interactive wallpaper whatever.
So KDE 4.0 will be cool, KDE 4.0 + 6 months of people creating fun plasmoids, even cooler.
For people who want to check out the RC without reinstalling KDE (and without risking breaking your existing setup) there's a live CD available at:
http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/
Have a lot of fun!
It's built on QT4, so after they iron out a few details, yes.
And yet, despite all the extra features and configurability, KDE still manages to use about the same resources as GNOME:
http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmark.htmlhttp://spooky-possum.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/kdevsgnome.html
KDE doesn't have much fat; it has muscle.
Yes. There already is, in fact. Aaron Seigo has prepared a screencast which will be linked with this week's Commit Digest. Among other things, it shows the true transparency of Plasma applets and the panel. Also, you can check out these old (non-Plasma related) kwin_composite videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WBLlc6xCQ4
Eavesdropping on IRC, I get the feeling that aseigo hates this hack more than you do ;)
I recently had a very busy weekend trying edubutu, ubunutu, xubuntu, and gOS on an IBM T40, with mixed results.
I did not get around to kubuntu, perhaps I should have. Ubuntu is (for the most part) a Gnome environment. Kubuntu is the KDE oriented version of Ubuntu. At this point, Kubuntu lacks the polish seen in Ubuntu. As you seem to be getting your feet wet, you probably would want to stick with Ubuntu and its polished Gnome environment.
Me, myself... I'm using Kubuntu. I just like KDE better and am familiar enough with it to deal with Kubuntu's occasional rough edge. You might feel inclined to test those waters once you're feeling like you've got a good footing.
It should be stressed that the issue of Gnome vs. KDE (vs. Blackbox, Enlightenment, etc., etc.) is mostly a matter of interface and taste. The applications you run aren't necessarily restricted by your desktop... even if they are often bundled with one project or another.
I did a quick test with a KDE 4.0 LiveCD a couple of days ago; it worked well, and I like the way it looks. But who decided on the code name?(from the press release):
KDE Project Ships First Release Candidate for Leading Free Software Desktop, Codename "Calamity"
KDE wrote a lot of specs at FD.org, its not like they have to play catch-up.
KDE has dropped DCOP and uses DBus now, I suppose thats the biggest news on the fd.o front.
For the most part the configuration is much better as well. When I used KDE I'd spend days tweaking everything to get it to a state I want and then I wouldn't be saitified and would up doing even more tweaking. With Ubuntu's Gnome, though, the only things I have to do is get rid of the brown (Clearlooks Classic + Tango and a blue background), enable delete in Nautilus (browser is already enabled, I despise the one window per folder that Gnome (and Fedora) defaults to), and get set the toolbars to "Text beside items". For most apps I really don't feel the need to bother changing anything unlike the endless tweaking I did with KDE. (Evince, I stab at thee! So much hatred for its sluggish rendering and inability to change its default view.) I agree with Evince. It's a PoS. Try to open this in it for example. KPDF handles it perfectly, while Evince does white text on a white background through most of it. WTF? And when is GNOME ever going to get a good burning app like K3b? Try Gnomebaker. The interface is similar, and unlike K3b I can get it to burn cds that don't have the "track 2 that never ends" problem.
Can someone quickly update us on the state of getting Koffice running on Windows? I vaguely remember it was KDE 3.5 that was supposed to precipitate the QT switcheroo which would facilitate compatibility.
I miss KMail, like the desert misses the rain.
The ______ Agenda
while GNOME has Firefox and GIMP
Neither Firefox or the GIMP are gnome apps. They use GTK, but the gnome libraries are entirely optional.
And things like the portland project aim to allow apps to use native file dialogs for the environment they're running in.
If you want lightweight - ratpoison is about as lightweight as you can get.
And when is GNOME ever going to get a good burning app like K3b?
Amen. Gnomebaker is a joke. While we're on the subject, Evolution is irritating and buggy while KMail is actually pleasant to use.
That almost made sense, but not quite.
You can verify the numbers yourself, there are instructions included. Or rather you can find out the current state, since the article is more than a year old. As for something done by somebody from GNOME, there is http://spooky-possum.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/kdevsgnome.html, written later, that says the usage is roughly the same. Note however that despite being some kind of a response to the first comparison this one measures the numbers in a way that is not recommended by it, and it even admits so in the 3rd paragraph (go figure). Not that I have any real reason to disprove the numbers though, it may very well be that in that specific configuration the usage was roughly the same, within the noise caused by the measurement method.
So yes, to sum it up, just generally claiming that KDE is more bloated than GNOME is a nonsense and has been for a long time (and maybe even that's never been true, for fair comparisons, but I don't remember anybody doing one in the long past, at most various flawed comparisons).
PS: And, just in case you find some similarity between my nick and the URL of the first comparison, it is not incidental.