KDE 4.0 Is Out

Many users wrote to alert us that KDE 4.0 has been released. Here's Computerworld Australia's take on the release KDE 4.0 is based on the Qt4 toolkit, which brings significant enhancements in the way memory is used. "So it ends up making KDE less resource intensive than KDE 3, which is quite an improvement," according to Australian KDE developer Hamish Rodda, who calls the new architecture "future-proof." Computerworld notes that developers are already at work porting the new environment to Windows and the Mac.

Comments

I've been served

[minginqunt]

Australian KDE developer Hamish Rodda, who calls the new architecture "future-proof."

That sounds like a challenge to me.
Oh, it's on.

Love,

The Future.

Why only 4 words on the main page?

[donscarletti]

I'm a keen and loyal Gnome user and a former Gnome developer.

I think the 4.0 release of KDE deserves an un-abbreviated summary on the front page.

Congratulations on this milestone guys, keep up your work.

More than Memory

[Assembler]

The KDE4.0 release is about so much more than memory usage!

o. Complete library overhaul
o. Complete graphical overhaul
o. Simplification (see Dolphin)
o. New desktop, taskbar, dashboard

The changes to a desktop environment don't get any bigger than that. I'm very surprised that the article summary only seems to mention memory usage.

Re:Configurable?

[debilo]

Maybe you should get work done instead of masturbating with your desktop environment. Other than changing the background image and window color scheme, how much more diddling do you need ?

Ah, a GNOME user!

Re:This Could Be The Worst Thing For KDE

[teslar]

at the same time they are clearly advertising that the KDE 4.0 desktop is probably not ready for general use on most people's desktops.

No, they're not. The /. crowd knows about it because enough of us read kde-devel and all the flaming between devs on whether or not to release has come up in every KDE4-related story here.

But consider Joe Average, the non-technical guy who decides to ditch Windows in favour of Linux, since he's read a few good things about it and all that. Exactly the kind of user everyone feels Linux should be targetting if it is ever to achieve critical mass. Assume for the sake of the argument, that he installs Kubuntu. His current KDE version - and he is probably aware of it, or will find out very soon - is 3.5.8. Now he visits kubuntu.com. The site tells it in no uncertain terms that "KDE4 is the start of something amazing" and to "be free with KDE4".

If that's not enough to make him install KDE4 without second thought, he can visit kde.org and learn, again, to be free and that the " KDE Project Ships Fourth Major Version of cutting edge Free Software Desktop". He also learns that The KDE 4 Libraries have seen major improvements in almost all areas. and that the KDE 4 Desktop has gained some major new capabilities. and so on. Nowhere immediately obvious does it say that it is not, in fact, ready, feature complete or stable.

So, what happens to Joe Average? He installs KDE4, tries out a few things, finds it broken in several places, not working as expected in others and not configurable where he may want it to be configurable. Compared to WinXP, it will feel to him as a significant step backwards (probably more because of the brokenness than the lack of features compared to KDE3). In the end, he'll just go back to Windows because, clearly Linux isn't there yet.

Bottom line, this should have been a Beta and it should have clearly been advertised as such, not via comments on some mailing list but clearly visible within the main announcement.