KDE 4 to Be Released on January 11th

VincenzoRomano writes "It's official! KDE 4.0 will be released on January 11th of next year. The release itself doesn't sound very firm, as 'the developers are confident to be able to release a more polished and better working KDE' and not the long awaited prime-time release. At the very first Alpha release on march 11th, the release date had been forecasted to October 2007, and then shifted to the end of the year with the second Beta. Despite this, the promises for the fourth version are quite interesting and maybe deserve a 'stay tuned'."

Comments

Sounds familiar

[TBerben]

Sounds like the Vista launch, pushed back a little further with each test version. Maybe its better for the KDE team to set a date like July 2008 and surprise everybody when they are ready to release it in January?

Re:Sounds familiar

[CarAnalogy]

That's not really correct, IMHO.

The difference with Vista is that the KDE team really has some major interesting new technologies now, though most of them are rather invisible from the common user's perspective. This will change over time. I assume KDE 4.1 will be more about applying/improving those underlying technologies, rather than introducing them.

Aside from the desktop itself, a large number of applications have also vastly improved.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Verunks]

well i think that kde 4.1 would be more suitable for the end user because a lot of great kde applications like k3b aren't yet ported to qt4, but kde 4.0 should be released soon so developers could port and test their apps in a stable kde4 desktop

Re:Sounds familiar

[jotok]

...most of them are rather invisible from the common user's perspective.

As a common user, I care about
1) eye candy
2) rendering times

The last time I tried to use SuperKaramba was a joke and most of the eye-candy features seem to be designed to crash KDE more than anything else. If it now "just works" then I'll be happy. Most of the real improvements are entirely Greek to me.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Close. KDE 4 was set to be the next Vista. What happened was that right when KDE 4 was first being planned, they hyped one particular aspect, Plasma, as being as revolutionary as icons were when they were first introduced, before any code was written. Unfortunately, this technology was MIA for a long time, and it was introduced at a very late stage. The real problem is that it replaced lots of stable code that is absolutely critical to the user experience - the panel, desktop, etc. This really shouldn't have happened, but it was a core developer's pet project. The result is that it's still unfinished, despite them already having released a "release candidate" (which everybody else expected to be basically finished). And anybody pointing out how screwed up the release schedule was got attacked by fanboys.

So it was set to be the next Vista. But thankfully they actually managed to keep their egos in check and put off the release until the code is in a better state. This is a positive thing. I was seriously considering switching to GNOME until I heard about this.

Re:Sounds familiar

[diegocgteleline.es]

Well, yes. The difference is that Microsoft is a company that gets 50.000$ millions per year and shouldn't need to delay projects. If KDE 4 had the resources that Microsoft has, it would have been released before 2008.

Re:Sounds familiar

[w000t]

Nope, KDE 4.1 would be more suitable for users because it will be a lot more polished and it will introduce features that couldn't be included in the 4.0 release. However, KDE3 apps would be able to run on KDE4, so you won't miss things like K3B.

Re:Sounds familiar

[lbbros]

For heaven's sake, don't spread FUD! That "stable code base" you talk about was a mess to mantain (note that Aaron J. Seigo, the Plasma lead developer, was also kicker's mantainer) and to add new features you broke others etc. Plasma it is not by any means aseigo's pet project: there are quite a number of developers involved in developing and polishing it. It matures at an amazingly fast pace, even.

The "fanboys" you talked about were people rightfully ticked off by the constant, uncostructive and negative attitude on the part of the complainers, which did not bring any improvement and only demotivated the developers. Those people did not even bother testing later revisions (right now there's a daily VM image floating around), report bugs or even offer *constructive* criticism.

Re:Sounds familiar

[w000t]

what a load of crap... the early release of KDE 4.0 was meant to provide a stable API for people to start porting their apps. it obviously had nothing to do with developer egos, which would be completely ridiculous (why the heck would they insist on releasing, according to your own view, a shitty product?).
i thought anonymous cowards trolling and talking from their asses weren't supposed to be moded +5 informative...

Re:Sounds familiar

[nurb432]

Personally, id rather a company push back a product release data if after a test release shows its not yet ready. And with something this complex, its bound to happen.

The alternative is they release garbage, and piss everyone off.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

For heaven's sake, don't spread FUD! That "stable code base" you talk about was a mess to mantain

It was a feature-complete, stable mess to maintain. Sure, it's a good idea to replace it with a better design, but not immediately before a major release when the rest of the desktop is pretty much finished and not if you can't finish it on time.

The "fanboys" you talked about were people rightfully ticked off by the constant, uncostructive and negative attitude on the part of the complainers

Those negative attitudes didn't come from nowhere. The initial criticism was reasonable, but it was met with stone-walling and blowing people off. Then they kept releasing beta after beta that didn't work right, continually telling people to wait and that they were trolls for complaining. It is that which really kicked off the flaming you see today.

which did not bring any improvement and only demotivated the developers.

If you're echoing the complaints that people aren't "constructively" criticising, I think you're wrong. When you take something that works and totally breaks it, it's your responsibility to fix it, and you shouldn't complain when people point out it's broken and want it back the way it was. There really isn't anything more to elucidate on when you tell somebody that they just fucked everything up and you want it back the way it was.

Those people did not even bother testing later revisions

Can you blame them? "Here's a beta". "But it's totally broken!" "Stop complaining, it's not finished yet. Here's another beta." "This one's broken too." "Stop complaining, it's not finished yet. Here's a release candidate." "Nope, still broken. Aren't release candidates supposed to be at least feature-complete?" "Stop complaining! It's not supposed to be ready until 4.1!"

When you continually feed somebody shit, eventually they are going to realise that the next spoonful isn't going to taste any better. Not testing later betas is completely understandable in light of how the stability has been misrepresented. The devs already know what they need to work on, they don't need testers to tell them. The real WTF is that if they already knew what the problems were and that it wasn't finished, why did they tag a "release candidate" that had absolutely no chance of becoming 4.0?

Re:Sounds familiar

[Kjella]

The rendering times should have improved, so has the potential for eyecandy but IMO that's minor. The area where KDE is improving the most is when it comes to the framework. For example, take Phonon which is a multimedia wrapper API for backends like xine, mplayer, gstreamer etc. What does that mean for you? Well, it means the application developers will spend a lot less time dicking around getting sound and video working and instead provide more end-user features. It means that if you got it configured right once, a different KDE app won't work because it's trying to use some other backend that doesn't work. It's not like it's going to rock your boat, I mean having this working is pretty basic right? Well, for the most part KDE is about making the basic things simple. There's a lot of "basic" functionality that can be really complex and waste application developers' time with few tangible results. It they still can't manage to make something flashy and cool with all the time that's freed up, well that's not really KDE's problem.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem is NOT KDE. It's Kubuntu, as half the interwebs know.

Re:Sounds familiar

[Crazy Taco]

The difference with Vista is that the KDE team really has some major interesting new technologies now, though most of them are rather invisible from the common user's perspective.

That's not a difference between KDE and Vista. Actually, KDE and Vista are very much the same in this regard, and the main point of Vista is a slew of new changes under the hood that aren't immediately visible to end users. In fact, that's the main reason users are griping; they don't see too much difference between XP and Vista except for some eye candy. However, anyone who actually develops programs for Vista is not complaining about it or jumping on the anti-Microsoft bandwagon that seems to be so crowded right now. WPF, WCF, DirectX 10, and WF are all very useful for developers, and the programs we can write using them will be very cool, and will ultimately impress end users. But it will be a while before some of these new features in Vista are fully exploited, and until then, the common user gripes. Don't mistake their griping for knowledgeable critiquing though; most are clueless, and what you just said about KDE applies equally well to Vista.

Re:Sounds familiar

[stilborne]

> but not immediately before a major release when the rest of the desktop is pretty much
> finished and not if you can't finish it on time.

so, we didn't do what you shouldn't do ... good.

> when people point out it's broken and want it back the way it was. There
> really isn't anything more to elucidate on when you tell somebody that
> they just fucked everything up and you want it back the way it was.

hm. see, here's the issue. you think nobody was aware of the regressions at any given point in time? so to have people annoyed, in your face and even asking the same questions several times a day with no real constructive input when there is complete awareness of the situation is not only galling, it's a waste of time. thanks for playing, but unless you have something useful to add to a conversation ... go find someone who isn't me to have it with.

i know how counter that is to the way those raised on slashdot have come to think about interacting with others online. it's also common sense.

the worst part was that at every stage as we added things that needed to be there ... approximately zero people who were the endless whingers about that specific thing would take any note. they'd just settle into the improvements silently at best and whinge about the next most obvious thing (often which we were already working on) at worst. criticism is fine; heck, one could view every patch that changes something fundamental in your code as a "criticism" of the existing code if one was petty enough. what makes criticism bad is when it is empty of content that moves the process towards the goal lines.

dealing with the skewed mindset of many of the users of free software is probably the most horrific thing about working on something in the open. it's amazing to me how so many people see it as some sort of right to be able to make developing in the open as difficult, demoralizing and time consuming as possible.

so i finally just said, "i've had enough, you people start showing some basic responsibility as participants in this process, communication being part of that process. otherwise, you can go somewhere else because i'm not going to take part in that abuse of the process."

i wish more developers would do the same. maybe then the fanboi whingers (on all sides, around all projects) would start to smarten up just a wee bit and we could get on with a much happier development cycle.

Re:Sounds familiar

[bcmm]

If you think Kicker was a stable codebase you don't use KDE.

It was great once, but it's been modified so much since KDE 2 without any real cleanup or rewrite, and is now a bloody mess, especially in not threading the applets.

It's the program that crashes most on me.

Re:Sounds familiar

[andersa]

Sending out a release candidate thats obviously broken is not very clever. Just tell people the truth. Say, "Look, we would really like to send out KDE4 with this and that feature done and working. We will not be able to do that within the current release schedule, therefore we are delaying the release of KDE4 for an unspecified time. It may be half a year, it may be a year. In the mean time please test our work and provide constructive feedback. Thank you."

See.. Not difficult.

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

[JamesTRexx]

Here's a list of the major changes and the reasons behind them.

Re:A fixed release date is not a good idea

[Professor_UNIX]

First, it can put undue pressure on the developers causing a release of faulty code. And missing it looks embarrassing.

On the other hand, not having a release date can make your project into a massive vaporware joke... for example, Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:But does it run Windows?

[Phyrexicaid]

Yes, with Qt4 we should see KDE apps on all, Mac, Windows, and obviously, Linux. It will be nice to see some of the apps I use on a day to day basis (like Kile) ported to Windows. If someone starts using KDE apps, it'll ease the transition should they ever choose to switch to Linux.

Re:But does it run Windows?

[lord_rob the only on]

Yes, just google for kde 4 windows. You'll see that a Windows port of KDE 4 is ongoing. See this Wiki.

But for the moment it's just a project so if you are really interested in seeing KDE 4 ported to Windows, jump on the boat and help !

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Joe Jay Bee]

As I see it:

KDE aims for a Windows-ish philosophy of "everything should be configurable". There are options for just about everything, so you can tweak your desktop to be just the way you want it. This can be intimidating for newbies, but then KDE can also be configured to be very newbie friendly, and indeed many distros already do configure it that way.

GNOME, on the other hand, aims for a Mac OS X philosophy of only presenting to the user what they really need to use to get the job done, with some options hidden and others nonexistant. This is designed to be easy for just about anyone to pick up easily (probably why the Ubuntu team chose it) but it absolutely sucks for configurability.

To summarise: KDE is for end users but can be for power users, GNOME is aimed specifically at end users and noone but.

KDE File Manager

[Drasil]

Konq was the killer app for me, I have to confess I'm a little worried about Dolphin becoming the default file manager. I've not used Dolphin much yet, but it will have to be pretty damn good to match what Konq could do. Will I still be able to have terminal, web and file panes all within the same tab? How about dragging images from a website to my /home within a single window, or middle clicking a file or link to open it in a viewer in a new tab? Konq allowed me to keep the amount of open windows to a minimum. I guess time will tell and I should start playing with Dolphin.

I should note that I bloody hate Dolphins (my ex loved the damn things). They aren't as cute as you think, they smell of fish and have attempted genocide on porpoises and even attack humans. Why is it that every crystal swinging hippie who lives 1000 miles from the sea wants to be a marine biologist? Dolphins!

Re:KDE File Manager

[abigor]

Konqueror isn't going anywhere, and it will still be the preferred file manager/etc. for power users. Dolphin is included as a simpler file manager with a different design philosophy, that's all. But you don't have to use it if you don't want to, as the same old Konq (KDE4'ified, of course) will still be a click away.

Re:KDE File Manager

[Anonymous Coward]

"A click away"? That doesn't sound like the KDE I know and love.

It should be exactly 17 clicks away: menubar -> Preferences -> Options -> Settings -> File Manager Settings -> ... something about a platypus ... scrolling list of Latvian surnames ... -> ah, the Dolphin/Konq switch.

Usually we don't get the tiniest little feature without 49 new checkboxes to control every last aspect of it. If they manage to add a whole new file manager, but allow you to switch back with *one* click, they've already lost. I might as well use GNOME.

No need for a hard KDE ship date

[EmbeddedJanitor]

KDE is already great. There is no burning business need to release an update. No shareholders to let down and start a class action.

For me, KDE is already good enough. I'd rather wait until KDE4 is really solid than ty get it out on some arbitrary ship date.

Re:Birthday for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a GNOME user, so I didn't know much about KDE4. Here are some interesting links I just found while researching what KDE4 is going to include:

KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop

KDE 4.0: Well worth the wait!

KDE 4 is almost ready to go

KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 features new shell

KDE 4: some reasons for design decisions

I don't think I'll switch from GNOME, but KDE4 sounds like it will have some cool features.

release it when it's done

[diego.viola]

just release it when it's done

Re:release it when it's done

[backwardMechanic]

Rasterman, is that you?

Re:release it when it's done

[sqldr]

I'll answer this question when I'm ready.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[gardyloo]

KDE aims for a Windows-ish philosophy of "everything should be configurable". There are options for just about everything, so you can tweak your desktop to be just the way you want it. I realize that you needed a good Windows/OS X dichotomy with which to compare KDE and Gnome, but you call Windows configurable?!? I've worked extensively on KDE, XFCE, and Enlightenment, and some with Gnome, and you're right: KDE is exremely configurable, far moreso than Gnome. But Gnome is on par with, if not considerably MORE configurable than Windows. Windows is essentially locked as it is, even with those "power users'" tools.

      I'm highly looking forward to being able to use KDE as a WM for Windows systems, without the added cruft of a Cygwin environment.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[stew77]

I still wonder who or what that mythical power-user is, because I don't think I ever met one in person. The skript kiddie that spends 6 hours per day hunting themes and posting screen shots to forums? Some of the most knowledgeable and experienced developers I know barely change anything in their computer's configuration, even keeping the default OS X desktop image.

But that means

[joeflies]

That it will miss the all-important Christmas Shopping season! Just think of all those disappointed kids who wanted KDE4 from Santa.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[jackuess]

I get the impression that the KDE devs are simply aiming at delivering the best DE possible, with no particular user group in mind. Besides, I think thats a common dominator for most FOSS, since market share is secondary to good design (maybe a bit exaggerated but still), at least when compared to the proprietary world. Further more I would like to believe that KDE resembles OSX more than Gnome, at least from a developers point of view, with it's rich and structured dev platform. KDE is more than just a DE, it's a platform!

Actually, it IS 1 tool, concept

[WindBourne]

Konqi is pretty much one tool that does 2 things. Its job is to work with filestreams OR allow plug-ins. Of course, the filestreams utilize a plug-in approach approach as well(KIOs). Think of the KIOs as being similar to unix FS drivers in Unix's VFS. All of our common unix tools use a filesystem, but of course, the FS could come from a number of places (100's of different filesystems mapped onto either blocks or streams). Likewise, the plugins for Konqi are varied. In particular, Konqi includes by default the KHTML Library for a HTML handler.

who might slip the release date?

[icepick72]

the release itself doesn't sound very firm, as 'the developers are confident to be able to release a more polished and better working KDE' and not the long awaited prime-time release.

One simple question: Why can Microsoft not slip release dates without getting flack, but it's okay for open source projects? Both are slipping for the same reasons.

Re:who might slip the release date?

[jackuess]

Because people at /. are simply much more enthusiastic about KDE4 than Vista. Hell I even bother to compile KDE4, and Vista: well I'm not even prepared to pirate it! That's by the way another explanation for peoples forgivingness: you can at any time check out the svn and try it (discovering that it's not ready for release yet). People who are enthusiastic about KDE get full insight, Vista enthusiast get/got mostly nothing.

Slippage

[Tony]

Simple: because most open source release schedules slip by weeks. Microsoft often slips by years.

Re:Slippage

[zlogic]

I remember that in early 2006 KDE 4 was promised to be released about the same time as Vista, or even earlier. But at least the KDE team didn't spend three years writing stuff and then completely dumping it and starting from scratch!

Re:Birthday for me?

[rubycodez]

the only reason I use KDE rather than GNOME is the memory footprint on my older gear. I've seen rumblings in the forums that KDE 4 can be set to have less footprint than 3 with compositing turned off, hope it's true.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[White Shade]

If I had mod points, I'd definitely mod you up...

I agree completely; most people I know who are "hardcore" linux users spend time tweaking their systems, but it's usually just to the point of getting all their hardware working, and then maybe glitzing it up a little bit, usually by downloading a theme they think looks cool. The thousands of fancy customization options usually get left behind, and completely reconfiguring how applications look and run is totally beyond what they care to do. The linux users want to *USE* linux, not waste hours and hours digging into arcane details to reach some potential "perfect setup".

Windows can be tweaked too, but definitely much less-so, and there isn't much support about it either. I don't know anything about tweaking MacOS, other than the fact that i've never seen anyone using a recent version of MacOS that looked like it had been customized any significant extent.

Re:KDE vs. Xlib/Unix

[the_humeister]

I don't think Xlib is very easy to program with.

Re: Dolphin Attacks

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the researchers believe the attacks were porpoiseful?

It gets worse

[Anonymous Coward]

There's been a particularly heated exchange going on in the developer's blogs which started with someone describing the new desktop/plasma as "useless crap." Aaron Seigo (the above mentioned core developer) then replies in the comments "i'm tired of this shit".

Now, one of the complaints leveraged was the lack of familiarity a KDE3 user would have with the alien and unfinished Plasma desktop due to a lack of migration path from the familiar kicker/kdesktop/kmenu. After a few more exchanges (which are displayed in all their sordid glory on Planet KDE, Mr. Seigo then announces that he already had some code written to implement a more traditional menu system, but in light of being pissed off by people pointing out some pretty glaring flaws, he will not work on it anymore. Classy.

The whole thing is just childish and immature on both parts and doesn't really fill me with confidence, especially in light of the unfinished and buggy RC.

But again, the only problem with the KDE4 platform so far seems to be Plasma, and it's unfortunate since the project as a whole really seems ready to shake up the Linux desktop. Unfortunately the most visible part of it isn't up to snuff.

Re:It gets worse

[stilborne]

urg, first, please just .. .aaron. not "mr." i hate that.

however, you missed the point of why i said what i did. it was, quite specifically, to not reward negative community behaviour. if i was a "take my ball and go home" sort of guy, i would've been gone with a lot more than a menu a long time ago.

i'm sorry you (or the grandparent poster) don't like how plasma has come around. i wish it could've gone a different way. perhaps when you try to do something really interesting that's a non-trivial amount of work that tends to push at pretty much every boundary in the frameworks (from x on up) we can have some fun story swapping sessions. until then ...

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

[pherthyl]

Keep in mind these are only the controversial features that people have whined about the most. There are tons of new features in the individual KDE apps that aren't mentioned there.

Excellent news for old-farts.

[B5_geek]

I love the KDE backend (dcop, kio-slaves, et al.); {I am a little worried that it might provide an avenue for malware in the future a-la Windows}.

Good news: the memory footprint of 'Strigi' is supposed to be lower then Beagle
Great news: You can install/use KDE4 without 'Plasma' (KDE 4 eyecandy)
Awesome news: KDE-based apps should work on Mac & Windows (properly ported)

Firefox has done an awesome job of weening people off Internet Explorer as "The Internet", as more killer-apps (Amarok I am looking at you) become available on Windows it will be easier to get folks to switch.

I use Fluxbox as my WM with KDE-base and KDElibs for my backend. Conky is as fancy as it gets for my eyecandy. I look forward to KDE4 because of all the good stuff that I can make use of. I just hope to $deity that they keep the eye-candy as optional. I am not looking forward to their whole concept of active-desktop/"its where you work dude"/make it an experience that people can interact with.

Rule #1) The DE/WM is HOW you access your programs, and should be invisible to the process.
Rule #2) Just because the median processor/ram is 42-times more powerfull then it was x-years ago does not mean that your programs can be 42-times more bloated.
Rule #3) Keep everything optional. Just because you think that everybody on the planet is stupid for not wanting something, does not mean everybody actually does want it.

Re:Excellent news for old-farts.

[pherthyl]

Yeah it's not the same thing. GTK is pretty garbage on windows. Qt has been running on windows for ages and is properly integrated with the native environment.

Re:KDE vs. Xlib/Unix

[conares]

"As sort of a disclaimer, I can say that do not find the desktop metaphor useful; an environment consisting of openbox/xterm and a text editor is all that I need most of the time."

Well then it would seem you are NOT the target audience for KDE, just STFU and move on...

Re:Birthday for me?

[antdude]

Same here. I noticed many people have this day as their birthdays. Weird! :D

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Kjella]

Powerusers, like other users, prefer to use the defaults when they're sane and appropriate. But the 1% that I do change are the things that annoy the hell out of me, and that 1% isn't very different. Think of it this way, you can get into any car and drive. But, you may want to adjust the mirror up, down, left, right and that separately for the one on the left side, right side and center. And don't get me started on adjusting the seat, or hanging up a CD cover on the sunscreen, or adjusting the fan or the air conditioning or change the radio frequence, volume etc. Do I use them? Quite rarely. Would I get really annoyed if I learned it was bolted down and not changable? Yes. I'm a great fan of easy setups - this is what you must do to use it in a meaningful way. I'm also a big fan of "advanced"/"expert" settings, where the user could seriously bork the application. Gnome is too much either safety scissors or scalpel. I'd rather have a swiss army knife - looks rather complicated but it's not worse than finding the one function you do need.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Coryoth]

In GNOME you can not open files with applications isn't officially GNOME sanctioned to open those files, and there is no way to change that Yes, there is. Select a file, right click and select Properties. In the Properties window there is an "Open With" tab which lists all the programs that are currently registered for that file type, and lets you select the default program. At the bottom there is a button "Add". Click that and it will bring up a list of applications, as well as a little expander for "Custom command" which will allow you to enter absolutely any arbitrary command you wish to run. Stick whatever program you want there, hit okay, and lo and behold that program will be in the "Open With..." options for files of that type from then on. Not that hard really.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Ruie]

I still wonder who or what that mythical power-user is, because I don't think I ever met one in person. The skript kiddie that spends 6 hours per day hunting themes and posting screen shots to forums? Some of the most knowledgeable and experienced developers I know barely change anything in their computer's configuration, even keeping the default OS X desktop image.

In between these two extremes there are people who actually use their computer. You don't have to change everything to make yourself more comfortable.

Here are a few things that I tweak/use regularly:

• Window manager: sloppy focus for the mouse, no autoraising or anything. If I want to raise a window I'll click on it, thank you very much.
• Decoration: I drag close icon to the left, with the right being sticky/minimize/maximize.
• Desktop: new desktops come with big widescreen monitors. I usually remove taskbar, put the panel in bottom left corner and put KasBar in the top right. this way the space on the left is completely free - and is the size of the regular 4:5 monitors. Great for VNC, reading papers or having a big terminal.
• On my notebook I changed desktop background to be a slideshow that changes every 20 minutes. When you concentrate on something you will perceive these to go by much faster - after 10 or 20 it is likely time for another meal.
• Konqueror !! The first thing I chased down on Kubuntu Gutsy is how to switch away from Dolphin. Doplhin is fine manager if you don't have many files. Konqueror is the best thing after the shell tools - with the order being reversed when you have images. Right now I have a window open, with several tabs open in different simulation runs, some showing particular documents and this all mixing transparently the documents on my local systems with those on remote systems (using sftp://). And if you are writing a webpage you can have local source in one table, destination public_html in another and a test display in yet another. Just drag files from local to remote when you are done editing and click refresh to display the results !
• Konsole - the first thing I do is kill the menubar and everything else that uses up space, though I now keep the tabs. There is much misunderstanding about terminals. What they are is the perfect (and only) way to display a matrix of symbols with perfect control of individual elements. If you make an image you can squeeze more info into it, but you cannot tell which exact pixel is that dot unless you use a magnifier and kruler. And, of course, you can dump output from find/grep and see it align visually.
• Sessions in Kate are wonderful if lists of files you are editing extend way past screen.
• I set my default viewer to gwenview - so I can change files by using a scrollwheel. If you have many similar files rotating the wheel makes an animation (I could just make a real animation - but why bother typing)

I think this is about it - does anyone else has tricks to share ?

Display bug kills my KDE experience

[slapys]

I really don't care about any new features in KDE. It is already fast and packed with enough power to get my work done. All I want is for the KDE team to fix one annoying bug that has been in Konqueror for years. If you use the most compact view available, listing the icons from top to bottom, long filenames are drawn incorrectly, leaving artifacts all over the window. To reproduce the bug, use the small icons (from top to bottom) or list mode of Konqueror or Dolphin, navigate to a folder with lots of files/folders with long names, and scroll to the right. There is no way that I can use a file browser with a bug like this. The fact that the bug happens identically in Konqueror and Dolphin indicates that it may lie in the QT libraries. In any case, it's been listed as a Konqueror bug for years. I'm using Thunar in Xfce for now; Thunar puts more space between icons than I would like in its Compact List view, but at least it renders everything correctly. Once the KDE team decides to get around to fixing this, I'll start using KDE and recommending it to my friends.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[ianare]

That's weird because on my default ubuntu 7.04 install I can right click on a file or folder -> 'open with other application' -> select from list of applications OR 'use a custom command'.
I can also right click -> 'properties' on a file or folder, there is an 'open with' and there I can add, remove, and select which application open that type of file.

Re:So what makes this better than 3?

[Almahtar]

The most noticeable difference to me is that it's built on Qt 4, which is much faster, uses less RAM, and has stellar Windows, OSX, and X11 compatibility.

Most Qt4 programs (all that I've written for that matter) don't need a line of code changed to work on OSX or Windows.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Curien]

At first I agreed with you two, but then I started thinking.

o My wife spilled water in my keyboard (which I love, so I don't want to replace). The left control key doesn't work, so I have X configured to rebind the capslock key ask control.
o I have tons of non-standard apt repositories configured for different programs that I want to keep up-to-date automatically.
o I configured a 32-bit chroot environment so run WINE and Opera work with a 64-bit OS.
o I have a few locally-compiled apps, some of which I've added shell support for.
o I've customized the keyboard shortcuts, albeit mostly to mimic windows. I prefer Win+R to Alt+F2, so shoot me.
o A buncho of UI adjustments (mainly the Kicker)

OTOH, I do still have the default background.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[onefriedrice]

> I don't know anything about tweaking MacOS, other than the fact that i've never seen anyone using
> a recent version of MacOS that looked like it had been customized any significant extent.

Yeah, it isn't very configurable. I'm not sure about Leopard, but in every OS X I've used there are only two sanctioned "themes," aqua and graphite. Aqua being the most common and graphite being nearly the same thing as aqua but using grey instead of blue. There is no sanctioned way to change to custom themes and there are no event sounds. You can manually change system files or run a 3rd-party app to try to do it, but I don't trust that. When it comes down to it, OS 9 was considerably more configurable than OS X in this sense.

But I agree with this discussion in that, it is plenty configurable enough for me. When I was a kid, I thought it was cool to change everything and make it look like sci-fi or whatever, but those days are past. Now that I'm older and a developer, I've found that beyond changing the desktop picture, positioning the taskbar or dock how I like it, and perhaps optimizing some menus to my workflow, I really don't change the default configuration all that much. Most things that I change relate to making me use the computer faster (get stuff done) rather than on aesthetics.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Mistshadow2k4]

Hello, nice to meet ya. I'm no script kiddie nor do I spend time posting screenshots. I do, however, spend about 10 minutes with a new KDE installation to configure it and I change practically everything. I change the size of the taskbar and add a new one on auto-hide along the left side of the screen for applets and my favorite shortcuts. I remove all icons off the desktop and use the trash applet instead. Of course, I also change the wallpaper and select a screensaver. Then I pick out a theme, colors and window decorations. No, not all power-users are script kiddies or any such nonsense, some of us just like to have control of our system, right down to the GUI, to make as usable as possible. If that costs an extra 10 minutes every couple of months or so, no big deal.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[GreatBunzinni]

I don't know about power users but KDE's philosophy of letting everything be configurable to the extreme brings wonders to the end user. For example, I'm no power user, at least according to the colloquial definition but nonetheless, thanks to KDE, I was able to tweak the desktop environment so that it helps me be more productive. For example, in my laptop, which has a small screen, I configured KDE so that the panel is placed vertically along the left side of the screen, automatically popping up and hiding whenever I want. I also configured KDE to add a second horizontal panel in the bottom of the screen that only shows the application tabs. In my desktop, which has a 19'' 1440x900 screen, I tweaked KDE so that the KDE panel to automatically hide/show whenever I want. Then we have the window behaviour teaks. When I double-click the window's title bar the windows maximize and I tweaked KDE so that some windows, like my IM client's chat windows, stay always on top and are shown on all desktops. Last but not least, we have the windowing features like the "maximize only vertically" and "maximize only horizontally" that are invaluably useful, along with the "always on top" window flag. Simply great stuff.

If we look at those individual tweaks, the first thing we realize is that the KDE options which made them possible may sound whimsical. I mean, an option to define where and how a precise window of a certain application is shown when it is displayed? Yet, what we realize when we think about it for a moment is that no one in their right mind expects anyone to tweak all those options. On the other hand, what KDE's vast tweaking potential does offer is a way for each and every user to be able to adapt KDE to their particular use pattern instead of being forced to adapt to whatever default behaviour was configured by someone. It may take a single tweak for a user to feel perfectly confortable with KDE but what we must understand is that not everyone likes the same thing. So, in order for each and every KDE user to be able to perform their single tweak, KDE must support a whole universe of configuration options in order to support whatever feature every single user may wish.

On a side note, the users aren't the only people tweaking KDE. All distros perform their fair share of customization. The difference between KDE and some desktop environments like the windows shell or GNOME is that in order to customize them, the developers will have to break out their compilers and write their own features. With KDE it only takes a few strategically placed mouse clicks.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[FooBarWidget]

Why would I want to add my own MIME types? I shouldn't have to. If I don't have to then I won't need a MIME type editor GUI.

And this is exactly what GNOME's doing - there's a sensible default database of MIME types. I've never felt the need to edit the MIME types, nor should I have to feel the need. This applies to other areas of GNOME as well.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[cecil_turtle]

Agreed. From a fresh install of Ubuntu I actually spend more time configuring Firefox than I do the OS/desktop itself. Gnome gets out of your way and allows you to work, that's why I like it. From a fresh Windows install (XP or 2k3 Server) I spent most of my configuration time turning off stupid user warnings and un-hiding the useful information. Vista hasn't gotten any better in that regard, arguably worse.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[marcansoft]

The point is not to change everything. The point is to be able to change everything. If you look at my desktop, it isn't much changed from the default. I have an extra kicker panel on top with a few useful applets and I use the Polyester style, but other than that I haven't tweaked things much.

However, there are dozens of little tiny obscure features that I use and love, and that wouldn't exist if KDE weren't so configurable. Examples: I have a "stay on top" button on the window titlebars, which I use fairly often, I have several windows configured with custom settings through "Special Window Settings" (to make them show up on the right desktop, for example), I've disabled icons on my desktop altogether, I've tweaked my keyboard shortcuts and configured the extra keys on my keyboard for common actions, and a whole bunch of other little things that I've added over the years. These are less than 1% of the available options, but the point is that they're the 1% that I care about.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[onefriedrice]

> And it's really in this regard the fact that Windows and Mac OS X are unconfigurable becomes obvious.

Both Windows and Mac OS X may be less configurable in this respect, but I would just emphasize that it doesn't decrease my efficiency at all, and it probably increases the efficiency of many other users. Here's why:

Tools contribute a lot more to efficiency than many things that would be configured in the window manager. For this reason, it is possible for me to be very efficient anywhere, even in Windows as long as I install a decent shell and terminal, install some vital command-line gnu tools, and install one or more script runtimes (I use perl). I also am dependent upon vim for efficiency in many things, but that's just me. Once I've got that, I don't care about much else that has to do with configuring the window manager. I just need it to switch me between processes and that's about it. Each window manager or desktop (Windows, aqua, kde, gnome, or even fluxbox) does things a little differently, but honestly the differences won't contribute to or degrade efficiency on a large scale: it's the availability of the tools that is important (and fortunately, the important tools are available on any platform, although it's too bad Windows doesn't come with any). A lot of people try to argue that a window manager is better than another in terms of workflow efficiency, but it's nonsense. You can learn and get used to any modern window manager and use it just about as effectively as someone using a different window manager, but if these vital tools are gone you're hosed.

Now I'll tell you why OS X is probably better for new or casual users in terms of efficiency: casual users don't know how to write perl scripts to perform mundane or repetitive tasks, and they don't know how to use grep or the other tools that make us more experienced users effective, but Apple has succeeded in creating smart gui front-ends to these tools or features that really work well. The three things I am referring to are AppleScript (which has been around a very long time), Spotlight (which also has comparable implementations on Windows and other platforms), and Automator (which is like a front-end to AppleScript which lets you do repetitive tasks without knowing any scripting at all). Even I use these tools sometimes; they're dead simple to understand and they certainly increase efficiency more than window manager options.

Re:Birthday for me?

[ATMD]

My friend, you are misinformed! Thanks to SVG support, you can make GNOME's footprint as big or small as you like, with no loss of quality whatsoever!

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[ozmanjusri]

Windows is essentially locked as it is, even with those "power users'" tools.

Windows is infinitely configurable by power users, often remotely.

All you need to do is persuade the regular users to click on the right web link or email attachment, and you can do what you want with their box.

Re:Birthday for me?

[CastrTroy]

So wait, they're adding a bunch of features, making it multiplatform (via QT4) and it's going to be faster. Maybe they can pass on some programming pointers to Microsoft. I'm amazed how quickly Compiz Fusion runs on my discount laptop, I only wish Vista would run as quickly. Flashy doesn't have to mean slow.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Ash-Fox]

does anyone else has tricks to share ?

• kpdf has a checkbox to stop obeying DRM.
• Yakuake is a awesome Konsole based terminal, it works similar to how Quake's terminal pops down when you hit tilda.
• I use fish:// for file access over SSH instead of SFTP.

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[yanyan]

o My wife spilled water in my keyboard (which I love, so I don't want to replace).

Which, the keyboard or the wife?

Re:What are the main differences between KDE &

[Curien]

>> My wife spilled water in my keyboard (which I love, so I don't want to replace).

> Which, the keyboard or the wife?

Yes. :-)

Re:I find the introduction of Dolphin interesting.

[Burz]

Dolphin and Konq both drive me crazy.

Though Dolphin nicely allows you to set your default view type (I choose Detailed List), and seems to mimic the OS X Finder left-side bar, it has problems. First, the left-side bar isn't matched with a top-side 'shelf' like Finder has... so your ability to quickly place/remove custom locations in the UI has no counterpart for placing custom tools. Second, you can't drop items onto folders in the left-side bar to copy them; Dolphin will simply add all those items to the bar! That it encourages users to split the window vertically is no help for novices sense of confusion either; I have recommended Dolphin to other users for the last time.

Konq has no setting for default view type, and it defaults to thumbnails. Ugh. Even worse, Konq's identifying icon changes to whatever you're viewing at the moment, so it shifts from default to folder to web page icon, etc, leaving me unable to find windows in a busy task bar. Finally, Konq's tree view is generally un-helpful: Its difficult to know when it will follow your movement to another dir (and its rare) and the categories that I must constantly shift between ('home' and 'services') just to move files between home and external drives are asinine. (Also: the Printers category doesn't play nicely with CUPS, Network is useless for samba shares, and don't get me started on the KDE dir properties dialog that sets up samba shares guaranteed not to work).

Though Konqueror has great abilities WRT protocols like ssh and sftp, it doesn't make up for the fact that NONE of the FOSS file browsers can match the balance of usability and (non-broken) features in OS X and Windows browsers.

Re:Birthday for me?

[SigmundFloyd]

Not that weird... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

available on XP

[HeroreV]

WPF, WCF, DirectX 10, and WF are all very useful for developers Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) are part of the .NET Framework 3.0, which is available for Windows XP. No matter how nice they are, they're not going to convince anyone to move to Vista.