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KDE 4.1 Beta 1 Released
appelza contributed a link to Tuesday's announcement of the next step toward KDE 4.1: "The KDE Project is proud to announce the first beta release of KDE 4.1. Beta 1 is aimed at testers, community members and enthusiasts in order to identify bugs and regressions, so that 4.1 can fully replace KDE 3 for end users. KDE 4.1 beta 1 is available as binary packages for a wide range of platforms, and as source packages. KDE 4.1 is due for final release in July 2008." I haven't used KDE much for the past few years, but the screenshots of a "grown-up" plasma are enough to make me correct that.
The GNOME guys idea of user friendly is strip features and configurability rather than refining features, picking good defaults, and laying out dialogs for ease of use by normal users and having tastefully accessible extra options for the particular and demanding power user. And no guys, clicking around in gconf which may not even respect those customizations on the next login doesn't cut it.
Historically KDE has fallen down by making configurability difficult for casual users and a pain for power users but at least power users could eventually get things the way they want them. I read good things about how KDE4 is going with that but have yet to see it for myself as it was a mass of regressions from KDE 3.5 the last time I tried it. Once it acquires polish and forward ported features and apps from 3.5, I'll be switching too.
That would be the best thing ever. Desktop icons are an abomination. I find myself unable to use them with proper discipline, and my desktop becomes a complete and utter mess. All I can do is use a WM that doesn't support them (fluxbox). I might actually have to check out kde4 now.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Feel free to mod this redundant or OT but I just ordered a Dell Inspiron 1420N with Ubuntu and I feel really good about it :)
/. posts a story about Dell being hammered in court for false advertising but I really don't care. I've been using Linux since '97/'98 and this is the first time I've bought a computer that's had Linux pre-installed and I can't even begin to tell you how good that feels.
My wife and I have been talking about me getting a laptop for the last 4 years since I work from home, so this is going to give me a lot more mobility. I may finally be able to take a vacation. Anyway I really didn't want to pay the MS Tax and at the same time I wanted to send the message that I want Linux. It's a little ironic that this comes the same day
This really IS the year of Linux on the desktop even if most people still don't give a flying fsck.
I dunno ... I'm running kde 4.0.4 right now, and I have to say that while there are apps that are prone to crashing (darned open-source imperative to release early and release often, but, hey, I knew that before electing to install it), I do love what they've done with many things. A few things stick out in my mind: konqueror - VASTLY improved, okular - replaces kpdf and can read MS's "compiled html" (.chm) format (which is helpful for me), the composite effects are not all just eye candy - things like dimming background windows help me focus on the foreground application and pushing my mouse into a corner of the screen (default: top-left) to show all the windows on the desktop (or on all desktops) is HUGELY helpful.
That's just some of the KDE3 apps that are already ported to KDE4. Even extras like ktorrent have already been ported to KDE4, which is nice.
I really miss the PIM stuff (kmail, knode, kalarm, kaddressbook, etc), so I'm really looking forward to seeing KDE 4.1 in the main Gentoo portage tree, even masked, as soon as possible.
I expect to see MANY kde3 apps moved to KDE4 this year.
Heck, I was running the KDE4 version of ktorrent on KDE 3.5.8 earlier this year (yes, I know, 3.5.9 is out), so it's not like it's entirely a problem to have these apps coexist. This provides apps the opportunity to port to KDE4 without needing their users to actually use KDE4 as their desktop.
But does it run on Windows?
Seriously, if there was a Windows version, I could replace the crappy Windows shell with it. I still need Windows for certain critical applications like Rollercoaster Tycoon and Battlezone. Losing the Windows shell (and I.E of course) would reduce the attack surface area somewhat and maybe allow me to connect to the Internet occasionally with it.
By slowly replacing Windows components with Linux ones (OOO, Firefox, KDE), it makes it much easier to convert someone to Linux later.
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."