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."

Comments

Yes but...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it run on Vista?

Re:Yes but...

[Surye]

It's built on QT4, so after they iron out a few details, yes.

Slashdotted.

[Valdrax]

Looks like plasma.kde.org is Slashdotted right now, so hey -- Wikipedia to the rescue.

Re:Slashdotted.

[recoiledsnake]

From the wiki:

Kross scripting framework will be used to allow developers to write widgets in JavaScript, Ruby, and Python in addition to C++ [1]. No prizes for guessing what the gnome version will be called.

Slashdotted

[JBHarris]

The main site is already bogged down. However, the major change is the completion & inclusion of Plasma. I like candy.

Screenshots

[arevos]

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.

Re:Screenshots

[Mistshadow2k4]

I wouldn't say it makes you superficial. Good screenshots can be very informative when deciding whether or not you might like a program (or desktop environment), especially if you can see effects and/or menus.

Re:Screenshots

[nutshell42]

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.

No, it's gonna look like this. In fact, it already does in CVS apparently.

Screenshots and previews of slightly olderreleases

[Rudd-O]

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.

Coming together

[eean]

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.

KDE 4 Live CD

[Rich]

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!

Fat or muscle?

[Valdrax]

And yet I find myself installing more and more KDE apps on my GNOME system because of how slow or boneheadedly featureless their GNOME equivalents are. (Evince, I stab at thee! So much hatred for its sluggish rendering and inability to change its default view.)

And when is GNOME ever going to get a good burning app like K3b?

Re:Fat or muscle?

[DoofusOfDeath]

And yet I find myself installing more and more KDE apps on my GNOME system because of how slow or boneheadedly featureless their GNOME equivalents are.

I find that the KDE apps (k3b, kate, etc.) are more full-featured, but the Gnome desktop seems much cleaner to me. So I'm just glad they can peacefully coexist.

kde 4 apps will run on Windows

[eean]

Plasma isn't planning too, but most KDE apps will be able to run on Windows. If not at the KDE 4.0, then in the near future.

Re:Did they de-fat KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

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.html

http://spooky-possum.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/kdevsgnome.html

KDE doesn't have much fat; it has muscle.

Release Candidate or Beta --what's the diff?

[KWTm]

Am I alone in thinking that people are abusing the term "Release Candidate"? Since there already is a term, "beta", that means "functional, with minor bugs to be ironed out", I would consider "Release Candidate" to refer to a true candidate --that is, it might really be released! KDE (or whoever the responsible author is) might say: "Okay, all those of you who downloaded Release Candidate x (where x=1,2,...), you can just go ahead and keep using it, because the RC has turned into the real thing."

Software or distros that are "coming together" are not Release Candidates. They have no possibility of being released. Suppose everyone who tried this KDE4 RC1 said, "Yup, everything works fine! No changes need to be made," would KDE release it? No, because they're NOT DONE YET --Plasma still has to be put together. Since they won't be releasing this version at all, it shouldn't be called a Release Candidate. It's another beta.

There's no shame in calling it beta (heck, half of Google's services are labeled beta); I don't see the need to keep advancing the terms. What's next? If "Release Candidate" comes to mean "beta", should we start using the term "Release Candidate with Potential For Use Unchanged"?

Maybe someone can correct on this if I'm wrong. What makes this a Release Candidate and not a Beta?

(Btw, diehard KDE fan here --I'm not even considering GNOME until they start having user-configurable key shortcuts. Waiting for KDE4 final release in December to be worked into Gutsy so I can put it on my Came-With-Ubuntu laptop.)

Re:Release Candidate or Beta --what's the diff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I alone in thinking that people are abusing the term "Release Candidate"?

No, you aren't alone, but according to KDE fanboys, beta means that it compiles and release candidate means they've decided what features are going in. And if you disagree, then you're an idiot who doesn't understand open-source.

Whether 4.0 will actually be usable depends on the way in which you ask. If you read the press releases or praise the developers, then 4.0 will be the best thing since sliced bread. But if you are worried about the quality and wondering why they are dropping features that were in KDE 3, then 4.0 is merely a preview release and 4.1 is going to be the real, finished thing. That way, they can get all the praise, but write off any criticism as "it's not ready yet", regardless of how finished the final release is.

For example, the much exalted Plasma has been hyped since long before it ever existed. It had its own website when it was nothing more than mocked up screenshots and vague descriptions of how awesome it was going to be. And it was hyped right up until the alphas, when people were wondering where it was. It seems to be a last-minute job, and when people on dot.kde.org complain that "basically nothing works" in response to the third beta, one of the core developers responds with "i'm not particularly taken by the heartstrings people are plucking here. there are lots of things to test and bump around with in these betas. stop fixating on plasma for the moment; you'll get to play with more of its features as more releases come. [...] there is exactly one release that counts for plasma, and that'll be 4.0, though the rc's leading up to it will be important as well. there is also exactly one canonical place to gauge the "workingness" (hm. neat word.) of things right now and that's svn.". The KDE project is not interested in using the release cycle as a method of quality assurance, they release betas in order to show off how far they have gotten with features for the people who can't compile it themselves. As somebody else put it: " I know Plasma is barely more than a fetus at this point, and it doesn't even fully replicate all the features of the old desktop." - that's in response to the third beta, and still people tell him to wait. Shouldn't a core part of the desktop be relatively finished by the third beta?

Disclaimer: I've used KDE since the 1.0 betas. I'm no GNOME troll. I just think the attitude the project is taking towards 4.0 seems to be all about ego and has dropped the transparency or quality that I've become used to with open-source projects.

PS: I think it utterly sucks that I have to add disclaimers like that because otherwise I get called a troll (which is apparently the term for people who do something other than emit unadulterated praise for the developers on dot.kde.org). Christ, look at the fawning that is normal on the dot: many people says that kde3.0 was untable, full of bug and that kde will be the same, but kde4 look really stable, some parts crash, but the are apps like juk, kwin4 like composite works without problems, dolphin stable, i have hope that when kde4.0 is released can be used like kde3.5.x." That's right, it's not unstable or full of bugs if some of the apps work, and it's considered praiseworthy to hope that KDE 4 is as good as KDE 3.5. This is ridiculous.

Re:Release Candidate or Beta --what's the diff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Took the words out of my mouth. Yes, IP theft is rampart in Slashdot nowadays.

...where's the meat?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Well, I can't say I object to any of these improvements, but most of them seem pretty minor and incremental. Cleaner APIs and more efficient libraries are nice. For the end user, where's the meat of this release? Okay now it supports Widgets. Well, that can be sort of useful if there is a good selection of them. I've heard claims they added support for OS X native widgets and that could help a lot to make this actually useful. Anyone actually tried using them yet?

When a new full version comes out and I find myself looking forward to the improved spellchecker, because it is still worse architecturally than on other platforms I use, but at least it is better... well I start to wonder what happened. I'm not trying to put down the developers or anything, this is obviously a lot of work, especially Dolphin, but I guess I was hoping for more. When will KParts be upgraded to work like OS X system services? Where's grammar checking? Where's anything we haven't seen on another OS/Window manager already? As a Kubuntu user, I guess I'm just not really as excited by this as I'd like to be.

Re:do not stop progress by not wanting 'bloat'...

[orclevegam]

Well, there's two kinds of "bloated" and people often don't differentiate between the two. There's bloated in the sense of being written poorly and wasting a lot of resources for no reason, and then there's bloated in the sense of having a whole bunch of features that various people may or may not want (which usually determines if they consider it bloated or not). The first kind of bloated of course is clearly a valid criticism that needs to be addressed, the second kind however is mostly a matter of taste. Myself, I like a bit of eye candy, but at the same time I don't like to waste a lot of space, so I tend to lean towards either Enlightenment, or Blackbox for my WM. Both can be configured to be relatively minimalist in terms of screen real estate used by the various pieces of the WM, but in the case of enlightenment it tends to use some resources because of all the eye candy options. Does that make it bloated? Maybe, but that really depends on if you like eye candy or not.

Re:Why do I want a giant clock or battery widget

[Anonymous Coward]

Kand Kwhy Kmust Kevery Kapp Kbe Knamed Klike Kthis?

Gexactly. GGNOME Gdoesn't Ghave Gthese Gissues.

Re:KDE vs Gnome

[_Sprocket_]

KDE or Gnome?

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.

Release Candidate?

[Columcille]

Release candidate? Come on, I know people are pretty lax about terms to use - alpha, beta, RC, what do they even mean anymore? But come on, this is going a bit far:

This release candidate marks that the majority of the components of KDE 4.0 are now approaching release quality...

And so on. Now, unless I missed something, a release candidate is when you think your product is about ready for public release but you want to have people test its "final form" first. You think it is ready, but you want to real-world test it to iron out bugs that have escaped you. Release candidates are not packages that are known to be incomplete. Is KDE doing this just to show some progress since the year is stretching on without a release of KDE 4? Just call it another beta. Heck, it sounds like it might should be alpha still. They are not yet to the final bugging stage, it is not feature complete, they are still adding new code. I can forgive them for calling an alpha a beta, but calling an alpha a release candidate? Come on!

(P.S., I know I'm hijacking a thread to get higher position with my post. Please forgive me. This post is in release-candidate status and the final form of this post is expected to be relevant to the current discussion thread.)