A Screenshot Review of KDE 4

billybob2 writes "PolishLinux.org has an extensive screenshot review and commentary on the development version of the Free and Open Source KDE desktop. Highlights include the ability to run any desktop applet prepared for Mac OS X inside Plasma, on-the-fly annotation and rating of files from within the Dolphin file manager. It also has an improved GUI for the Amarok music player, flexible 3D eye candy configuration in KWin, and improved support for both accessing digital cameras via the Solid hardware layer and the DigiKam photo manager."

Comments

Poor server

[DaveV1.0]

It's a smoldering ruin and not a single post.

Seems to be up now.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

But here's the coral cache link to save their server...

Re:Seems to be up now.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

But, "Dashboard (predated by Konfabulator)" ... I seem to remember 1984, which might be a little bit before your time. They both seem to look a little bit like Desk Accessories don'tyathink?

No. I don't think Dashboard is anything like Desk Accessories - the only similarity between the two is that they're both small apps.

And Beagle? Apple hired Dominic Giampaolo in early 2002, who knows if he started working on Spotlight right from the get-go?

Oh FFS. Do you think you're adding anything to your case by speculating that Apple may have been developing Spotlight prior to Beagle's first alpha?

Even if you had concrete evidence rather than pointless speculation, you'd still not have shown Apple to be the innovator - how about this from 1987.

Re:Seems to be up now.

[IntlHarvester]

Desk Accessories were a particular kludge because the Mac couldn't multitask. The idea of quickly pulling up a calculator or notepad wasn't invented by Apple.

Re:Seems to be up now.

[Al Dimond]

FVWM a clone of Win95? This shit is getting modded up?

There was an inexplicably popular mod of FVWM called FVWM95 that tried to emulate the Windows 95 GUI. FVWM unless similarly modified isn't going to look like MacOS at all. Maybe someone has done that? If so, I've never heard of it. I doubt it represents the majority of FVWM users today, at any rate. FVWM is highly modular and ridiculously flexible (without recompiling it can be made to emulate the major functionality of just about any other window manager), but without very heavy customization it shows mostly influences from various early Unix window managers.

Yeah, the whole GNUStep project was out to clone NextStep. And a lot of the ideas for KDE and Gnome are inspired by the very successful GUIs of Windows and Mac computers. If you're going to accuse FVWM of copying something, though, your list shouldn't be Windows and Mac, it should be TWM and Emacs.

Re:ok...

[jeffreymsmith]

The review is (was) about the upcoming release of KDE 4.1.

As the KDE people are often quick to point out, the release back in January was KDE 4.0--the first of many "KDE4" releases.

Re:ok...

[karbonKid]

If you want a lightweight, minimalist windowmanager, why on earth would you use GNOME? It has, admittedly, come on in leaps and bounds in terms of speed, but there are much more lightweight and 'minimalist' alternatives available, many of which I personally think look a lot nicer too - Fluxbox is great imho, or XFCE if you still want a little more eyecandy...

I've been running -dev

[xrayspx]

It's still way too unstable for me day to day, but it's tempting enough to keep trying anyway. 4.0.66 lasted a week before I fired it this morning. My main problems are with multi-head related (it really doesn't work very well from my and others experience, especially non-Xinerama multihead), but it keeps improving. Good work KDE Team

Re:Why is KDE still not the mainstream?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that when KDE was getting started, Qt wasn't "free." GNOME was started to provide a fully-free alternative, is official GNU software, and attracted the support of companies like Red Hat because they could work with it without having to pay royalties.

KDE is the BSD of Desktops.

Re:Why is KDE still not the mainstream?

[dbcad7]

Distrowatch.. Top 10

Ubuntu...................Gnome
PCLinux..................KDE
Suse.....................Your Choice at install
Fedora...................Gnome
Mint.......................Gnome
Mandriva.................KDE
Sabayon..................KDE
Debian....................Gnome
Damn Samll.............Joes Window Manager
Mepis.......................KDE

So default installs... 4 with gnome, 4 with KDE, 1 your choice... and of course on any of these you can add the other manager anyway.. I don't see any conspiracy against KDE... people use what they want.. There is Kubuntu, same people, but it's not in the top 10 (it's 15th).. If done right, I am sure it's a great window manager.. My experiences with it have been ok, but I prefer gnome.. BTW gnome can be done wrong too.. I tried an alpha release of Suse with gnome, and hated their menu.

Re:ok...

[cheater512]

Just yesterday I tested my laptop (Pentium 3, 512mb ram) vs a Turion laptop with a gig of ram.

Mine started KDE 4 far faster than KDE 3 on the superior computer.

Re:This is especially interesting

[theLime]

I think you would be very, very surprised at the state of Linux pro audio (esp. Ardour.) Graphics apps (Gimp, Inkscape, Maya, etc) have been very mature for several years. Unless you need to stay with your current programs (and play Games For Windows(TM),) Linux is ready for you now.

Re:Why is KDE still not the mainstream?

[Vertigo Acid]

Where are you getting that top 10 list from?
From http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Ubuntu (Gnome, although you might argue that since kubuntu is official and not really a fork, that this could be either)
openSUSE (either)
Fedora (Gnome)
Debian (Gnome)
Mandriva (KDE)
PCLinuxOS (KDE)
MEPIS (KDE)
KNOPPIX (KDE)
Slackware (KDE)
Gentoo (either, neither. same with sabayon)
FreeBSD (not a linux distro, I know. anyway, either, neither)

So, conservatively, I see 3 Gnome, 2 either, and 5 KDE

Re:Still waiting for KDE 4 to be ready

[nutshell42]

Next on my hit list are the widgets. We need to be able to hide the widget launcher in the right hand corner of the desktop. I've always been able to keep a super-minimalist desktop with KDE, and this menu is nothing short of distracting.

Yep.

And why is the panel now a widget that can only accept other widgets (of which there are a very small amount)?

Because there's no reason to have half a dozen different classes and types of little doodads that are fundamentally identical.

Where are the great little applets and buttons from KDEs past?

Currently being rewritten.

Why can't I add an application launcher icon to the panel, like in any other desktop environment out there?

You can by now.

Why can't the panel be made to be a custom size?

Because they probably shouldn't have called KDE4.0 4.0.

KDE4 is a major rewrite the way KDE2 was. And if you think back KDE2 didn't become usable until KDE2.1/2.2 either but the code they wrote then was the basis for KDE all the way through the 3.x series. Linux 2.6, Gnome 2.0, none of them were ready for primetime and inclusion in distributions. But with OSS you have to release at some point because otherwise you end up with Enlightenment 0.17.

At least they 'fessed up and told us that the lack of functionality was caused by a lack of time and not by some brilliant vision for a new simpler, "more usable" DE. =P

That kicker replacement

[metamatic]

The new XP-style kicker replacement is an absolute abomination to use. Too many clicks, practically impossible to browse the program hierarchies quickly.

Absolutely right. I came here to see if anyone was going to mention it. I have a long description of what's wrong with the new KDE 4 application launcher on my web site. I've told the maintainers, I've tried to bring it up on the KDE 4 HCI discussion mailing list. So far, I've heard absolutely no response.

I gather that the window is now resizeable, but the other basic design defects remain.

Re:Unoriginal?

[Enderandrew]

Sonnet - It isn't simply spell check but a bevy of language tools including language recognition and grammar check.
Nepomuk - This is FAR more than search. http://nepomuk.kde.org/
Solid - I don't know anything about I/OKit, but Solid provides an easy API for apps to interact with hardware.
Plasma - In many ways it offers previous functionality (panels, dock, widgets, etc) but it brings them all together under one library and framework, however the real innovation and advantage of Plasma is the ability to generate apps easily in most any language. And while widgets have existed for a while, most widgets are useless toys. Plasma provides powerful data engines to create actual useful apps.

Re:Why is KDE still not the mainstream?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Is is because it[KDE] is mainly European based and all the so called major distros are American based? I hope not.

Lets see, the highest market share distributions using Gnome are:

• Ubuntu - developed by Canonical, main offices in London.
• OpenSuse - developed by Novell but Suse development branch is in Germany. Doesn't really count since it is KDE/Gnome agnostic.
• Fedora - developed by Redhat in the US.
• Debian - distributed development and KDE/Gnome agnostic.
• Gentoo - distributed development, but centered in US

It looks to me like there are as many KDE users as Gnome and it doesn't really correlate to where the company is based.