KDE 4.2 Is Released

OhReally writes "It's a great day for Free Software: KDE, the desktop environment for Linux, Windows, Mac, and (Open)Solaris, has just reached version 4.2, exactly a year since the release of 4.0. This is a version suitable for broad usage, with many improvements all across the board, and lots of bugfixes. You can leave a comment or congratulate the developers here."

Comments

Woah

[Keanu Reeves]

It's pretty

Re:Woah

[jerep]

Indeed, very impressive.

Now I can go back to using Gnome knowing it wont hog my CPU as much.

Re:Woah

[JackieBrown]

Go to Settings --> Destop --> uncheck Desktop Effects.

That was easy.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

You created that account just for posts like this right? I love it.

Re:Woah

[Ilgaz]

Isn't there a way to detect CPU/Gfx card acceleration capabilities and disable them in certain conditions? E.g. if there is no hardware support for transform and lighting?

Windows does it, OS X does it. It would prevent a lot of criticism. Not sure about CPU detection but at least OpenGL should give tips about hardware in multi platform manner and it could be scaled to support OpenGL ES in future (on PDA etc.).

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, very impressive.

Now I can go back to using Gnome knowing it wont hog my CPU as much.

That's funny. I decided to use KDE over Gnome years ago 'cos Gnome was way too slow.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

In the official announcement (http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.2/index.php), it says "KWin only enables desktop effects in the default setup on computers that are able to handle them."

Re:Woah

[Mad Merlin]

Isn't there a way to detect CPU/Gfx card acceleration capabilities and disable them in certain conditions? E.g. if there is no hardware support for transform and lighting?

It already does.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

EPIC FAIL

Die!

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. I decided to use KDE over Gnome years ago 'cos Gnome was way too slow.

And you think your conclusion will remain valid forever or something? Software tends to change pretty quickly.

Re:Woah

[aliquis]

... and if it's only in use when you have decent graphics the computer probably don't take much of a hit since almost anyone is actually making good usage of their graphics card in Linux/whatever unix or unix-like OS.

Re:Woah

[GreatBunzinni]

Although KDE 4.1 sucked at multiple levels, I'm finding KDE 4.2 to be a whole lot more polished, responsive and light. It even makes it possible to once again play sauerbraten something I wasn't able to do with KDE 4.1 with it's craptastic sub-20 fps performance. That's refreshing.

Beyond that, it fixed some nasty bugs from KDE 4.1 that were quite shocking and it also packs some features that went missing from KDE 3.5 like auto panel hiding, which is always good. Although it still suffers from nasty bugs, things are looking up. To put it bluntly, it's finally in a decent 4.0 state. It was a shame the KDE team had to drag KDE's brand name through the mud simply because they grossly failed to manage the user's expectations with the version numbering nonsense.

Re:Woah

[the_B0fh]

It was a shame the KDE team had to drag KDE's brand name through the mud simply because they grossly failed to manage the user's expectations with the version numbering nonsense.

Gee, the fact that they explicitly say "don't use this, not for end users", and you can't fucking read makes it their problem?

Re:Woah

[RiotingPacifist]

I disagree about the version numbering, from day 1 its been obvious
4.0 was for testing
4.1 was for developing
4.2 is the 1st end users release
4.3 the 1st release that will be truely ready for end users.
4.4 will be tweaked
4.5 will be so finished they'll get board and start over with a complete security overhaul because they went so far on the web integration that its going to be easier to start over than to just port kde4 to qt5

Re:Woah

[the_B0fh]

Indeed, very impressive.

Now I can go back to using Gnome knowing it wont hog my CPU as much.

That's funny. I decided to use KDE over Gnome years ago 'cos Gnome was way too slow.

That's because Gnome wasn't able to hog your cpu you see...

Re:Woah

[influenza]

And you can even configure power management profiles that disable the desktop effects, for when your battery is low for example. Having used Gnome for the last few years I'd forgotten just how flexible KDE is.

Re:Woah

[jlarocco]

How is that obvious? I know, it's their software, they can do it however they want, and it's my fault for not reading the warnings, but you've got to admit that's completely different than any other project. Almost every other project would have called 4.0 an alpha, 4.1 a beta, 4.2 would have been a release candidate, and 4.3 would have been the official 4.0 release.

Naming releases completely different than anybody else makes it non-obvious in my book. Considering how much grief they've gotten from people complaining it's not ready, I'd guess I'm not the only one.

Re:Woah

[Jurily]

And you think your conclusion will remain valid forever or something? Software tends to change pretty quickly.

Not that much. Fluxbox is still faster.

Re:Woah

[Jurily]

Gee, the fact that they explicitly say "don't use this, not for end users", and you can't fucking read makes it their problem?

The fact they named it 4.0 is much louder than whatever they said.

Remember how Wine took a decade to reach 1.0? That's what we expect from Open Source. You can scream and bitch all you want, but if you named it .0, it's your fault if it sucks.

Re:Woah

[RiotingPacifist]

I can't defend thier choice but from reading the blogs at the time of 4.0 it was quite clear, the people that have screwed over kde4 have been the ditros (looks at kubuntu & fedora) because they should have seen it wasn't really ready.

As for the naming reason I think the arguments went something like:
1) it cant be called 3. something
2) each release cycle produces a stable product at the end of its alpha,beta,rc cycle. Bear in mind that stable is in terms of what the release was for. kde4.0 was released stable enough to test and kde4.1 was stable enough to develop on.
3)security and stability fixes would be released for the previous versions
4)there is no golden rulebook of numbering so they didn't care too much

given these assumtions i cant think of a saner numbering scheme (i can however think of saner assumptions)

Re:Woah

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

Go to Settings --> Destop --> uncheck Desktop Effects. That was easy.

KDE comes with a big red Staples button?

Re:Woah

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

This is particularly true in the world we live in now, where everyone uses google services that are listed in beta and experiences a nominal amount of glitches.

Re:Woah

[GreatBunzinni]

You seem to be confused. From the KDE 4.1 release announcement:

• the new desktop shell Plasma, introduced in KDE 4.0, has matured to the point where it can replace the KDE 3 shell for most casual users

• KDE 4.1 aims at being the first release suitable for early adopting users

• KDE 4.1 already provides a powerful and feature-rich working environment

That sounds exactly the opposite of what you claimed. Could it be due to my inability to read? In that case, could you point out exactly where the KDE explicitly said "don't use this, not for end users"? Because they sure didn't said it when they released it nor when distributions like kubuntu opted to ship it.

Re:Woah

[Toonol]

And, from the perspective of hindsight, every major hit they've taken in the last year (and they've taken a lot) is because they used a standard version number scheme in a non-standard way. I can understand them thinking, a year ago, that their caveats and warnings about it not being a release for users would be sufficient... but arguing that now, after seeing the outcome, is bullheadedness.

It was a mistake. It happens, it wasn't ill-intentioned. It seems to be fixed now, so all that can be done is to learn a lesson about how expectations can and can't be managed in the future.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's your fault for not reading what was explicitly made public.

4.0 was made 4.0 for a very specific reason. It was API stable. There is no excuse for not knowing what it was; they told you what it was. Why should they label it based on your expectations?

Re:Woah

[LaskoVortex]

Remember how Wine took a decade to reach 1.0? That's what we expect from Open Source. You can scream and bitch all you want, but if you named it .0, it's your fault if it sucks.

Not from my experience. Everyone knows not to expect *.0 releases to be bug free. Anyone with a clue waits at least until *.01 to expect the most egregious bugs to be fixed (the ones that the first non-beta user always finds). I'm thinking about OS X 8.0, 9.0, and 10.0. If KDE 4.0 had more bugs than those releases, I'll be pretty surprised.

Re:Woah

[Red Alastor]

given these assumtions i cant think of a saner numbering scheme (i can however think of saner assumptions)

What about 4.0alpha, 4.1beta and 4.2? Or 4.-2, 4.-1 and 4.0?

Re:Woah

[mothore]

Didn't we do this, only 1-2 days ago? Let's move on...

Re:Woah

[Brandybuck]

Correction: I tries to do it, and often succeeds. But sometimes it fails. Is it KDE's fault or the video driver's fault? When the user has a locked system he doesn't care!

The reason it works in Windows and OSX, is because the manufacturers write complete drivers. But in X11 the drivers are hit and miss. Either you have undermanned open source drivers working with incomplete specs, or proprietary drivers that just don't care. It's starting to change, but not fast enough.

Re:Woah

[elashish14]

I say the same thing when I switch from Gnome to XFCE.
Then I say the same thing when I switch from XFCE to LXDE.
Then I say the same thing when I switch get rid of my entire DE and switch to RatPoison.
Then I just say screw it and switch to the shell, kill all daemons and um, well by that point there's not much left, so oh well.

Re:Woah

[X0563511]

When the user has a locked system he doesn't care!

I do care! I care because I want to look for a solution, not throw my hands up in despair like some other users do.

How else do you think things get fixed? People like me notice and write it up. It gets fixed.

How long have you been running 4.2? Have you submitted any bug reports or contributed in testing? No? Then you have no right to bitch about it.

Re:Woah

[tuxgeek]

Reading your post makes this release sound promising.
I've recently tested 2 Linux distros and PC-BSD, all had KDE 4.1. While all 3 systems were very impressive, PC-BSD was much snappier than the Linux systems.

Unfortunately I found KDE 4.1 not yet ready for production use. Much missing usability and some stability issues.
But when it is ready for prime time, it will be one kick ass desktop!

Re:Woah

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

There is absolutely no reason that the API couldn't have been stabilized independently of the actual shell. If the shell was so abysmally behind, they should have just split the development of kdelibs and the rest of it. Much in the way that Gtk+ doesn't follow the same release schedule as Gnome does.

Re:Woah

[the_womble]

How is that obvious?

I think he is being sarcastic. The comment about 4.5 is hilarious.

What is true is that it should have been obvious to distros that KDE4 should not yet be a default.

Re:Woah

[the_B0fh]

You must be new to IT if you haven't learnt that "suitable for early adopting users" means "hey, come be our guinea pigs, if you dare". If you consider that to be suitable for end users, you must hate your end users a lot.

Re:Woah

[cheater512]

I havent seen it lock, but you can very easily disable the autodetection and leave it off permanently.

I turned off the detection and left it on so my screen doesnt flicker when booting.
Its just a checkbox.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

The final releases are stable *milestones* for the goals stated.

The KDE devs are more-or-less rewriting an entire desktop environment from scratch, and providing a whole slew of new libraries to ease development and porting to KDE4. And this is an open-source project, mind you.

Blame the Distributions. No, seriously. Call KDE 4.0 a preview and stable scaffold, like everyone said when it was released, don't call it a hook for a potential sale...

Re:Woah

[cheater512]

That stops working when your dealing with a beast as big as KDE.
Its not a single product. Its hundreds working together.

4.0, 4.1 and 4.2 have each had alphas, betas and RC's.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Does starting a VNC session disable special effects? I often use limited bandwidth connections.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold your horses there. Yes, 0.9 is obviously beta.

But is 3.9 "the ultimate release of 3.0" or "4.0 beta"?

In this situation, they REALLY should have called 4.0 "KDE4 version 0.9 Beta". Then the current 4.2 release could be KDE4 1.0 RC.

Yes, I'm serious.

Re:Woah

[CAIMLAS]

They told me, really?

Sort of like getting on an interstate with a "this road requires you to drive on the left side" sign on the side of the road, in small letters, behind a bush. It's entirely against long-lived convention (at least in the US), goes against common sense, and is dangerous if not foolish.

Anyone who's used a computer for more than a week knows that "point release means it's the new stable release", or at least reasonably close to one. If they intended it to be otherwise, it should have been BETA (or some other versioning scheme, like what the Linux kernel used to use back when you could reasonably download a kernel and have every module included work).

Hell, even Microsoft did this with W7. It went API stable, and then they released a beta. it was very obviously a beta, because they're calling it that.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

What a bunch of bullshit, I am so sick of hearing this nonsense. There were blog posts by a lot of the KDE people, it was (obviously) all over the damn front page of kde.org, it was on frickin' Slashdot, it was in every Linux forum. Everybody knew. You knew. I knew. We all knew. "Here is KDE 4.0.0. It is API stable. It is totally gonna eat your children, but it's API stable. Now code, people."

To further butcher a bad analogy I saw a couple posts down, this is kind of like getting on an interstate with a big sign on the ramp saying "NO FUCKING GAS FOR A LONG TIME! TURN AROUND AND TAKE A LEAK!" and bitching about the incompetence of the highway department when your car runs out of gas.

Seriously. This is getting ridiculous. You can obviously read, because you can write. I'm sure you saw the announcements all over the internet when it came out, God knows everybody else did. If you chose not to believe them for whatever reason, I don't lend your ill-informed self-centered opinion one goddamn bit of credence. Why should anybody care what you think of anybody else's version numbering?

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

Yes, it is manifestly your inability to read the phrase "early adopting users" and parse what the hell it meant. Next question.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

So when features you don't want in Linux are customizable it's easy. When it's Windows it's evil?

Re:Woah

[h4rm0ny]

it also packs some features that went missing from KDE 3.5 like auto panel hiding, which is always good.

Does it let me set different wallpapers for different desktops again. I waited six months to let KDE4.0 settle down a bit before installing and I was prepared for problems and missing features. But if I'd known I couldn't have different wallpapers, I would have held off longer. So what's the status now? Can I make different desktops look different again, yet? If so, I'll be much happier.

Re:Woah

[JohnFluxx]

Speaking as a KDE developer, it seems that most of us are embarrassed by it all and just keeping our heads down, coding the best we can, and hoping that it will eventually blow over.

To be honest, even I thought it was a reasonable idea at the time to release early. The trouble was that none of the application developers wanted to even start developing for KDE4 until we had a release out (since they wanted to develop for a stable API). And we risk ending up being like enlightenment - where they are never happy with the code and are continually improving without ever releasing.

Anyway, benefit of hindsight and all that.. :-)

Re:Woah

[gbjbaanb]

How long have you been running 4.2? Have you submitted any bug reports or contributed in testing? No? Then you have no right to bitch about it.

You must be new here.

KDE 4.2 is possibly the best thing for Linux since the kernel, but that doesn't mean we still can't bitch about the most minor, picky, features.

Now, stop bitching and go fix something. :-)

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a mistake. It happens, it wasn't ill-intentioned. It seems to be fixed now, so all that can be done is to learn a lesson about how expectations can and can't be managed in the future.

It's not a perfect example, but I like the version numbering for Enlightenment DR17. It's still alpha, so its releases are numbered 0.16.99xx . A few months ago, some of the core libraries were declared API-stable, so that was when the libraries moved from 0.9 to 1.0 versioning.

But I do understand (but don't agree with) why KDE didn't just release 4.0 as 3.99.0, and 4.1 as 3.99.1: they wanted to get application developers on board quickly. Like you said, in hindsight they should have taken a different approach. Maybe releasing 3.99.0 as a "KDE4 technology preview" would have made more sense.

Re:Woah

[Sparx139]

Too right.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually everybody has a right to bitch about it. It's just not helpful.

Get off your high horse.

GP's right, when the system is locked up (meaning bug reports can't be generated in a nice way for those who don't know how to submit them manually, from another system) all the user cares about is the fact they can't use their computer. They don't care what's to blame, they just want it to not be locked up. Bitching about it, at the very least, will shed light on the fact the issue exists and is pissing users off. Hopefully some dev will try and fix it then.

Re:Woah

[j_sp_r]

Linux 2.5.x was unstable (but a point release)

Re:Woah

[j_sp_r]

It's an experimental feature somewhere in the plasma config files. You can google for it if you like or wait for 4.3

Re:Woah

[Jane_Dozey]

I have to say, I wasn't really a KDE user at the time so I didn't as I wasn't paying attention.

However, I did know that KDE4 was new and so figured it wouldn't be for wide scale use for quite some time. I tried it out when I first installed Kubuntu a few months ago. My experience was that it was nice and shiny and mostly stable but couldn't deal with my dual screen setup for some reason and so I went to KDE3 and was very happy.

Kudos to the KDE developers for this new release and anyone who thinks that it's magically going to be bug free is most likely an idiot who doesn't understand software.

I'll have to see if they've fixed whatever issue was stopping me from using both my screens properly!

Re:Woah

[L4t3r4lu5]

So, a new designation for non user-ready versions. Community Candidate builds, for instance.

These 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 versions could then have been 4.0 CC1, 4.0 CC2, 4.0 RC1 (bringing us to 4.2) with all of their associated pre-alpha, alpha, and beta stages. We now have a clear designation for community testing versions, as opposed to end-user candidates. CC versions should never be bundled, RC versions are included in non-LTS distro builds. Easy to follow.

Not neurosurgery, guys.

Re:Woah

[drx]

"Why should they label it based on your expectations?"

Because this is what communication is about.

Re:Woah

[cheater512]

Their current system isnt neurosurgery either.
I find it quite easy to understand.

You get the opposite extreme as well remember.
Linux hasnt changed *minor* version number since 2003 and Wine took many years just to hit version 1.

On the other hand KDE 4 has had many sub versions which makes their naming scheme legitimate.
They started in 4.1.70 or .60 I think and the version I'm currently running is 4.1.96. I havent updated to 4.2 final yet.

They are using the version numbers correctly, just slightly differently to normal and they are releasing very often (every 6 months).

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem was not only that users got confused about the naming scheme and disappointed when testing what they may have thought to be the first stable release, i.e. 4.0.

Because, as you describe, the project used the 4.0 and 4.1 versions to get application developers on board, a lot of manpower was removed from the 3.5 branch. Users looking for a stable and mature desktop environment, who were stuck with that branch, only got one update (3.5.10) during that time, and a lot of bugs have been left untouched for over a year while development concentrated on 4.x.

I doubt that KDE will recover from the loss of trust this policy brought with it before, say, 4.3 or 4.4 ist out.

Re:Woah

[hattig]

Meh, I'd prefer the CPU to be creating a basic scene graph for a GPU to display rather than copying pixels left right and centre and applying filters and effects in a CPU based compositor.

Re:Woah

[Zontar The Mindless]

Parent is more Insightful than funny IMO.

Re:Woah

[TomorrowPlusX]

Replace the "4" with "10" and you have OSX...

Re:Woah

[JohnFluxx]

> Because, as you describe, the project used the 4.0 and 4.1 versions to get application developers on board, a lot of manpower was removed from the 3.5 branch.

If manpower wasn't removed from the 3.5 branch then we'd be a year behind at least. There really aren't that many developers. Most applications only have 1 or 2 main developers behind them.

Re:Woah

[Jason Quinn]

This is totally bogus revisionism. This whole "4.0" was not intended for actual work developed AFTER the 4.0 release. Prior to the release there are only minor murmurs from some developers that it was not going to be a workable platform

Re:Woah

[Zebedeu]

The reason it works in Windows and OSX, is because the manufacturers write complete drivers.

Which manufacturers are you talking about?
Here, my computer simply doesn't hibernate in either Windows XP or Ubuntu.
Suspend is a hit-or-miss with both OSs. Most of the time I end up losing either LAN, WLAN, or both (both are Intel, btw).

I've even lost audio on one occasion, I think it was in Windows, but I'm not sure.

Granted, I currently have some problems with my NVidia card corrupting my display completely once in a while in Ubuntu (I think it's an incompatibility with Compiz). Closing and opening the laptop screen resets the display and it's usable again, but it is annoying.

On the other hand, I started getting random cold restarts without even a bluescreen on Windows after I installed Groove Virtual Office. A video driver update fixed it, but it sure sucked for a while.

So who's fault are these? Is Dell to blame for crappy integration? NVidia sure seems to have crappy, drivers for Linux, and the Windows' ones also don't seem to be that great. Is Intel to blame for their network cards not waking up properly, or is it the fault of the crappy ACPI specification/implementation (which I gather Microsoft has a large part of the blame).

Re:Woah

[L4t3r4lu5]

But it's these microbuilds / interim builds which are causing the headache... 4.0 was API stable but not for public release (excluding bug testing / reporting). The issues with it were numerous and well documente elsewhere.

I can't help but think that this could have all been avoided by something simple. It couldn't be 4.0 Alpha, as 4.0 had already had Alpha, Beta, and RC stages to make it API stable. So 4.0 Alpha becomes 4.0 CC Alpha, 4.0 Beta becomes 4.0 CC Beta, and the becomes 4.0 CC1. 4.1 can follow the same convention, but as 4.1 CC Alpha etc.

The big issue is that 4.2 is really 4.0 for the public, and that's what i'm trying to differentiate. 4.0 was not for general use, but the convention of unqualified .0 releases dictates differently.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you submitted any bug reports or contributed in testing? No? Then you have no right to bitch about it.

Ahhh... I see, I lose my rights. Do I talk to you directly to get them back? Am I on a "no right to bitch" list now? Is there an appeal process? Are some people on this list by mistake? Do people lose other rights after they are on this list?

Re:Woah

[geminidomino]

Anyone who's used a computer for more than a week knows that "point release means it's the new stable release", or at least reasonably close to one.

And anyone who's used one for more than two weeks knows that if you're after stability, you have to "Wait for version x.1/SP1/etc..."

Re:Woah

[Cally]

Why should anybody care what you think of anybody else's version numbering?

Because their project, which presumably they would like to be successful, has become a laughing stock?

Re:Woah

[CAPSLOCK2000]

Even better, if it enables the effects and later on detects that the system struggles with the load, it offers to disable them.

Re:Woah

[Asic Eng]

So why was this included in distributions? Including 4.1 in Kubuntu and other distros was a huge mistake IMO. I don't see how it could have been the users mistake though - the user didn't select 4.1.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Having used Gnome for the last few years I'd forgotten just how flexible KDE is.

Hey, an arthritic octogenarian in a straitjacket is flexible compared to GNOME!

Re:Woah

[h4rm0ny]

Thanks. I already have 4.1, so there's little to lose by moving to 4.2 and some things to gain, apparently. I'll try and find a way to do the multiple desktops. Thanks for the pointer.

H.

Re:Woah

[uncmathguy]

I think the point is that even though everyone knew that the 4.0 release would not be a finished product, they wanted it to be. People were not mad that the numbering was strange, they were mad that the product was not finished when they wanted it to be. I mean, honestly, why can't my computer make me coffee, set the water temperature in my shower, and control the heat and lights in my house! Stupid KDE developers!

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

I would not do that, without 3D accelerated desktop KDE (AND Gnome!) use more CPU time than KDE4 with 3D effects. And I dont have any small glitches what I get on GNOME without Compiz-Fusion.

And because KDE4 KWin effects spends only a 1% more battery time from my laptop (calculated with htop and with three times basic usage!), I would not turn that off, even some Gnome users would say otherwise without proofs!

Re:Woah

[Fri13]

Or you can have plasmoid on your toolbar or on your desktop, what looks like a switch and clickin it turns 3D effects OFF or ON. Very simple and nice.

Re:Woah

[pizzach]

Does anyone know if 3.0 was the same way as 4.0? I'm not seeing any real info on a quick Google search. To me, the rollout of 3.0 should set the expectations for 4.0.

The KDE people aren't the Gnome people who do consistent incremental releases every 6 months. They are also not google which insist just about everything they release is beta and forever stays that way. They are also not Microsoft which claims its products are bug free and ready for the masses when they are not. They are the KDE folks. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Re:Woah

[Jurily]

Wine is an exercise in futility 6 days a week and reverse-engineering on Sundays. It's silly to say that its shortcomings are a typical feature of OSS.

Wine does have its flaws, but that's not my point. A .0 is a release the developers feel is ready to, as ESR would say, to bet their reputation on it.

Sorry you got modded troll, wine was a bad example. How about Mplayer? It's been winning awards since 2003 and still 1.0RC2.

Re:Woah

[GreatBunzinni]

Oh so you can't point out exactly the KDE people explicitly said "don't use this, not for end users" and felt compelled to grasp at straws with that early adopting users nonsense. But hey, keep trolling away if that pleases you.

Re:Woah

[drx]

"Does anyone know if 3.0 was the same way as 4.0? I'm not seeing any real info on a quick Google search. To me, the rollout of 3.0 should set the expectations for 4.0."

Most KDE users of today never witnessed the 3.0 rollout. So, you couldn't find the info on how it was back then, how can anyone be blamed for not finding it as well? That is absurd :)

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet-another-linux-zealot...

I don't write bug-fixes and I don't submit bug reports or contribute to testing, THEREFORE I have no right to bitch about it?

It really is fanatical rants like this that help prevent Linux from going very mainstream (read: competing on retail shelves with Windows and OSX).

I suppose since I: don't fix cars, don't test cars, and don't fill out customer surveys I have no right to bitch about cars either?

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

'Gee, the fact that they explicitly say "don't use this, not for end users", and you can't fucking read makes it their problem?'

Where did they state that?

http://kde.org/announcements/4.0/index.php

Re:Woah

[RiotingPacifist]

erm so 4.0 alpha 3 would have been 4.0 CC1 alpha 1 and 4.2 rc2 would become 4.0 RC1 RC2
sorry your system doesn't work

Re:Woah

[estarriol]

2 things:-

"Everybody knew. You knew. I knew. We all knew."

1) You're exaggerating. KDE is (supposed/trying to) reach a bigger audience than just a bunch of hardcore techies. Therefore the front page of kde.org, slashdot, tech forums are irrelevant - it's like releasing a new car for open sale and noting on the manufacturer's website and in car enthusiast magazines that it misses many features you've come to expect from this range and is really for pro drivers only. That's fine for those guys, but the average punter is screwed.

Which brings me to my second point:-

2) The big problem - why the hell was 4.1 in Kubuntu 8.10? This was the real horrific wallbanger and everyone involved in that decision should be ashamed. Kubuntu is far too high-profile and average-joe (or, again is trying to be) to be running experimental tech. This is what really damaged KDE IMO.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years back I found out that Gnome isn't really as slow as it seems:

echo "gtk-menu-popup-delay = 30" >>~/.gtkrc-2.0

Unlike the similar setting in windows this doesn't affect just menus but window focus etc.

Re:Woah

[Dr. Spork]

I think what really generated the anger is that too many distributions, whose administrators certainly can read and should know better, included KDE 4.0. I think it was a self-serving move to generate downloads, because people like the "shiny." In that instance, the distribution system has failed us, and deserve at least as much of the blame for unrealistic 4.0 expectations as the KDE naming team.

Re:Woah

[Dr. Spork]

Thank you for that sincere response. The best way for it to blow over is to keep improving KDE at this rate. You guys are awesome, and I've long since forgiven you for the 4.0. (Actually, what I remember thinking was "How could Fedora put this in a "stable" release?")

Thank you for your work.

Re:Woah

[sqldr]

Actually, one of the main reasons to switch from kde 3 to kde 4 is that it (or rather, qt4) is heavily optimised to use less ram, have faster loading times, and make more efficient use of shared libraries.

One of the key issues with gnome (which I know is being addressed) is the fact that "ldd" on your average gnome program is a mile long.

KDE's konsole now uses barely more memory than 'xterm'

Re:Woah

[not-my-real-name]

The thing is is that most long time computer users know that they should never use the x.0 version of anything. They should wait until at least x.1 or x.2. The x.0 versions are only for the living on the bleeding edge early adopters.

Re:Woah

[eyegone]

More specifically, the KDE developers should prioritize getting 4.x to feature parity with 3.5.10.

From the betas I've looked at, it still doesn't work well with dual-head setups, there's still no obvious way to assign different wallpapers to different virtual desktops (or screens), I still can't get a window list by middle-clicking on the desktop, etc., etc. All of the features that have kept me "swimming upstream" on Fedora all of these years to use KDE rather than GNOME are no longer present in KDE 4.

Re:Woah

[sqldr]

type "glxinfo".

HTH :-)

Re:Woah

[try_anything]

You can obviously read, because you can write. I'm sure you saw the announcements all over the internet when it came out, God knows everybody else did.

They called it the 4.0 release and said it wasn't ready for general use. Which were we supposed to believe? The version number and the non-beta, non-RC status were real, official, and quite clear. The only way to reconcile the release number/status with all of the disclaimers was to believe that the disclaimers were overstated, or that they were just hedging and ass-covering, or that it was a difference of opinion among the developers.

It's like if someone said, "I'm a virgin and I fucked the whole football team." Obviously both statements can't be true. Which statement is more ambiguous? She must have fucked the football team in a figurative way, maybe on a real estate deal or something. So it's perfectly safe to OH GOD MY WHY IS MY POINTER COVERED WITH PLASMIDS?!?

Re:Woah

[lowen]

I did.

I was a Red Hat beta tester at the time. The time was the beta period for Red Hat Linux 7.3. Google for that distribution; I certainly remember having significant issues going from Red Hat 7.2 to 7.3; 7.3 really really should have been called 8.0 in some respects!

To see the history, here's the KDE release for each Red Hat Linux release:
RHL 6.0 -> 1.1.1pre2 (first Red Hat with KDE; piece of distro trivia: Mandrake Linux got its start as being "Red Hat 5.2 with KDE" with Mandrake Linux 5.3, which I am still running on one box to this day)
RHL 6.1, 6.2, and 7.0 -> 1.1.2
RHL 7.1 -> 2.1.1 (no Red Hat with 2.0 that I could find, and I think RH took flack over that decision, IIRC)
RHL 7.2 -> 2.2
RHL 7.3 -> 3.0.0 (yep, double-ought)
RHL 8.0 -> 3.0.3
RHL 9 -> 3.1

Fedora Core releases to KDE releases (initial released version of KDE, not max updated version):
FC1 -> 3.1.4
FC2 -> 3.2.2
FC3 -> 3.3.0
FC4 -> 3.4.0
FC5 -> 3.5.1
FC6 -> 3.5.4
F7 -> 3.5.6
F8 -> 3.5.8
F9 -> 4.0.3
F10 -> 4.1.2

I encourage you to try out the historic linux distributions for yourself and see what the issues and deals were.

Finding the sources for the historical ISO's is left as an exercise for the reader. Finding the related GNOME versions, as well as the KDE versions for other distributions is likewise left as a reader exercise, unless you want to pay me $100 per hour to research it.... :-)

Re:Woah

[visualight]

Hey.

It is the SPEAKERS responsibility to make sure he is understood. It is NOT the listeners responsibility to understand.

Calling an application -.0 MEANS something. The KDE devs who made that decision were very much aware of what they were communicating when they made that decision. The miscommunication is 100% their fault.

Re:Woah

[not-my-real-name]

How many major software systems do you know of where the x.0 version has not been buggy? Experienced computer users know to avoid them.

Re:Woah

[visualight]

No one read that sentence stop repeating it.

People read '4.0'. The people who made the decision to call it knew damn well what they were communicating to the public by calling it 4.0.

I haven't actually used any version of kde4 yet so I don't know or care how bad 4.0 was. But I do that if I don't understand what you're saying, it's YOUR FAULT. EVERY TIME. If you want to be understood it is your responsibility to make yourself understood. There is no onus on me to understand what you write or what comes out of your mouth.

Re:Woah

[melikamp]

I am still not sure what it is an example of, seeing how it's not 1.0. As for being a troll, I don't mind: what's karma good for if I don't burn it?

Re:Woah

[try_anything]

"Early adopting users" is a relative term. Linux is getting more mainstream attention, and we should expect the language to change accordingly. KDE is a Linux desktop that intends to be usable for mainstream users. So anything they say about "early adopters" or "end users" can be interpreted in a bunch of different ways. I'm an "end user" by Slashdot standards but an "early adopter" by mainstream standards -- I figured I would be able to make 4.0 my default desktop at the expense of a few hours spent Googling and reading forum posts. It turned out to be a lot worse than that.

"Missing features" is pretty vague, too.

In contrast to that ambiguity, "this is the 4.0 release" is pretty clear, at least in the open-source world. Has the OSS world decided mainstream acceptance requires that .0 has to be a crapfest, and .2 should be the first usable version? I think OSS should be selective about adopting commercial software practices ;-)

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought people wanted Linux to be popular. That kind of attitude is not helping.

Instead of bitching about how end users don't read, why not plan things around that ?

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

Absolutely. 100% agreed. But that's pretty much the opposite of what lots of people in the KDE camp said they wanted to see happen with 4.0 (and even 4.1), and something you'd need to take up with the Kubuntu developers.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd almost start to wonder if someone in the Ubuntu camp didn't want to see KDE4 succeed. I mean, it didn't take a very long look to tell that 4.0.4 (I believe that was the version first included in 7.10) was totally not ready for prime time, certainly not on a n00b-oriented distro like Ubuntu.

Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I don't think anybody was deliberately trying to hurt the KDE name, but incompetence or over-enthusiasm or an excess of fanboyishness (or what the fuck ever) accomplished exactly the same thing. Damn right I think they've got some questions to answer.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

1. No I'm not. If you didn't read the release notes, or the blog posts, or the commentary from the peanut gallery here on Slashdot, or the reviews in the Linux press, and on and on and on, then you've got no damn business complaining. Blame yourself, learn from it, and move on.

2. I completely agree, see my other post about this. But you've gotta ask yourself whose fault that really was.

Re:Woah

[Fred_A]

How is that obvious? I know, it's their software, they can do it however they want, and it's my fault for not reading the warnings, but you've got to admit that's completely different than any other project.

The problem isn't as much that you didn't read the warnings than that the distro integrators didn't either. A number of the latest KDE based ones were unusable because they shipped with the unfinished KDE 4.

That really didn't help.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

See, there's the disconnect. Actually, people want Linux to work. This was a necessary if painful move to ensure that it would, in time, work. 4.0 (and to a lesser but still real extent, 4.1) was not for "end users." Distributions (yeah Kubuntu, I'm looking at you) packing it by default totally fucked the whole game up for everybody, but if you've got a problem (and I don't blame you if you do), you should take it up with them.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

Calling an application -.0 MEANS something.

Yup. And in this case they were very clear that what it meant was "Here is a stable API upon which to build. The rest of this whole thing's completely fucked and will eat your children, but we've got a stable API, here it is, go code, file bugs." It was all over the internet, dude. The speaker (speakers, actually, like a fucking bunch of them) totally were understood. If someone chose not to believe them, then that person should stop blaming other people for their own mistakes.

Re:Woah

[Deagol]

My WM of choice, evilwm, is faster still! :-P Let's hear it for minimalism! If anyone can recommend a WM with a binary smaller than 30K, I'd love to hear about it.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

In contrast to that ambiguity, "this is the 4.0 release" is pretty clear, at least in the open-source world.

Unless you can give me a link to the Holy Universal Version Numbering Spec, no it's not. It can mean all kinds of different things to different projects, and you know it. In this case, the KDE team was clear that what the .0 meant was "API stable; will eat babies." It wasn't a huge secret, they plastered it all over the internet. .2 has always been the "feature-completeness" target, and I can tell you they totally nailed it. I knew what I was getting into. I mean, did no one else on the internet get that memo?

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

No one read that sentence

Their own damn problem.

The people who made the decision to call it knew damn well what they were communicating to the public by calling it 4.0.

Yup. It meant "API stable." If you'd read the damn release notes, you'd know that. But then you wouldn't be able to come on Slashdot and piss and moan and generally make my hair turn gray.

But I do that if I don't understand what you're saying, it's YOUR FAULT. EVERY TIME.

You are wrong. It's your fault. For not reading. And your use of caps is obnoxious. EVERY TIME.

Re:Woah

[0xFCE2]

... it was (obviously) all over the damn front page of kde.org...

Hm, I just can't find it:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080113080143/http://www.kde.org/
And the release announcement only mentions "major improvements", "major new capabilities", "improvements" etc..
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/
Am I missing something?
The announcement for 4.1 on the other hand has been quite clear about this.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Me, Cookie Monster. I love cookie. You know it, me know it, eeeeverybody know it. Coookiieeeeeeeee mmhmhmhammhma....

Re:Woah

[coolsnowmen]

Ignorance is still no defense. If that little sign says your car will be towed if you park there, but you don't see it; your car will still be towed. If you don't read the fine print in this world you will waste alot of time and money.

IMHO, to exist in the linux world you either trust the distribution to make the choices for you (and what mainstream distrubution picked kde4.0 as their standard WM?), OR, you have to be willing to try an application, decided whether it is for you or not, and move on.

...Anyone who's used a computer for more than a week knows that "point release means it's the new stable release", or at least reasonably close to one. If they intended it to be otherwise, it should have been BETA...

YOU assumed that is what their version meant, but that was your mistake. As far as examples, the linux kernel underwent huge changes all the way up to 2.6.13. Did you use kde 3.0 and it was nearly as complete and usable as 3.3-3.5 (it wasn't)? So 4.0 was lower than _your_ expectations, I'm sorry, that you were delusional, but that is mostly your problem. There were plenty of HONEST reviews for kde 4.0 and 4.1.

Re:Woah

[ConceptJunkie]

If KDE 4.0 had more bugs than those releases, I'll be pretty surprised.

I wouldn't be. KDE was not really usable, regardless of the intention of the developers. I'm not saying this as a criticism, just fact. 4.1 was somewhat usable and Kubuntu using it as a default on Intrepid was a mistake, IMO. By the time Jaunty ships, 4.2 will have been shaken out, and maybe 4.3 will be available. I've been using 4.2 since beta 1 or so, and I really like it. I think it's ready for primetime now. It isn't perfect, nor is it as complete as 3.5.x was, but it has the functionality and stability to make it usable on a daily basis without you wanting to pull your hair out.

Whether or not the way the 4.x rollout went was a mistake, I think it's good now and think we should focus on moving forward and applauding the developers for their hard work and successes.

Re:Woah

[Blakey Rat]

You know who didn't get the message? Despite all the thousands of notices you just mentioned?

The maintainer who put it in Fedora. The one person who MOST needed to read and understand it.

So, basically, STFU. Regardless of what you think, that right there is PROOF POSITIVE that the message was no good, and communicated poorly. It's already happened, you can't deny it.

Re:Woah

[Blakey Rat]

Too bad you're anonymous, I think this should be a +5 post.

This is almost the entire premise of usability: you can't change the 2 million years of hard-wiring in the human brain, but you *can* change the 5-year-old software product to better fit the expectations of that human brain. The fact that KDE doesn't even understand basic communication it does not bode well for its usability.

The idea that people don't read help files, release announcements, etc, isn't just a lame joke techies tell, it's documented fact. If you're just using that for CYA (which really I think is what's going on. "KDE is bad? Told ya it would be!") then fine, but if you're actually trying to communicate a message, then you better pay attention to what people read and what they don't. It's not hard-- there are entire websites dedicated to it-- but you have to make the effort.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

You know who didn't get the message? Despite all the thousands of notices you just mentioned?

The maintainer who put it in Fedora. The one person who MOST needed to read and understand it.

Damn right. Throw the Kubuntu team in there too.

So, basically, STFU. Regardless of what you think, that right there is PROOF POSITIVE that the message was no good, and communicated poorly.

But then you have to go be an asshole and fuck up the one time I've ever come close to agreeing with you. That right there is proof positive (notice how I didn't feel the need to do OBNOXIOUS CAPITAL LETTERS) that the Fedora and Kubuntu teams totally screwed the pooch. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else you extrapolate out of that is based solely on your own erroneous expectations, and totally contradictory to what the release notes said and what the release was supposed to be about.

Re:Woah

[daoine_sidhe]

...Except that it doesn't, at least in all cases. On my lowly Inspiron 8600 (32MB NVidia 5200 video) it was enable by default. Even knowing where to change the settings, it took 10 minutes, due to multiple instances of window corruption and crashes, just to disable it. This particular notebook has 2GB DDR and a Centrino 1.7GHz processor, and even with desktop effects disabled it was almost unusable. Pretty though.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultimately it depends on the perception of the mass end user. And they are the majority and they are not developers. And the majority says that for them 4.0 means a finished product. And since we are the MAJORITY that supposedly will run KDE, what WE say is THE RULE.

Now you can post in a zillion sites that that is not the case cause it makes no difference whatsoever since you and the KDE team are in the **minority**.

And when the majority gets a completely different view, perception and opinion than yours (including KDE devs) than you/KDE team has a problem.

Re:Woah

[Just Some Guy]

Anyone who's used a computer for more than a week knows that "point release means it's the new stable release", or at least reasonably close to one.

When has X.0 meant "stable" for any X>1, for any major application or OS?

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

I do care! I care because I want to look for a solution, not throw my hands up in despair like some other users do.

I do not have the luxury to spend hours looking for a solution and wait for it to be fixed. And I am not a developer and don't feel like being one either. If KDE has bugs I simply look at another desktop that has less. Simple, quick and efficient. And 99% of the Average Joe users will do the same.

Ahh, the KDE won't progress that way ? Oh well, life is tough, isn't it ?!

Re:Woah

[the_B0fh]

Redhat has always been a bunch of fuckers who included shit that was not production ready (gcc 2.96, glibc 2, etc), but in this case, it is *YOU* don't does not get it. FEDORA IS NOT FOR PRODUCTION. How many times did Redhat say that? FEDORA IS RELEASE TO TEST NEW THINGS OUT. How many times did Redhat say that as well?

If you want a production ready redhat that you're not willing to pay for, you know where to find centos, else, STFU. Just because you can't understand simple concepts doesn't mean that others failed at communicating.

Re:Woah

[try_anything]

In this case, the KDE team was clear that what the .0 meant was "API stable; will eat babies." It wasn't a huge secret, they plastered it all over the internet.

Well, let's see: http://kde.org/announcements/4.0/ Or check out the first Slashdot story. Unless you actually read through the comments, you'll never know. And isn't it the LEAST interested people who needed to know? They managed to warn everyone who was deeply interested in KDE4, when they really needed to reach and warn the casual users who ended up thinking, "Neat, it's finally here! I'll try it as soon as my distro makes it an option."

OSS is a big world, and nobody follows alls the news about projects they're only marginally interested in. Linus Torvalds was evidently a casual user of KDE who did not follow the news obsessively enough to have the correct, informed expectations of KDE 4.0 and 4.1.

And even if you're an OSS news junky, you got to read things like this on osnews.com:

KDE 4.0 is the first release of "KDE 4", but take note that the developers have clearly stated that KDE 4.0 is not KDE 4, but more of a base release with all the underlying systems ready to go, but with still a lot of work to be done on the user-visible side.

"KDE 4.0 is not KDE 4." Um, at that point they must have known that they were sending mixed, confusing messages. They could have used a different label for the release. Obviously they wanted broader exposure and credit for making a point-oh release. They got both, and they got the backlash.

Re:Woah

[Random BedHead Ed]

So why was this included in distributions? Including 4.1 in Kubuntu and other distros was a huge mistake IMO. I don't see how it could have been the users mistake though - the user didn't select 4.1.

Hear hear! I totally respect the KDE team's decision to use 4.0 as an API-stable release, but assuming that 4.1 is ready for general use was a major mistake. I installed Kubuntu Intrepid and discovered that a lot of features I took for granted didn't work. Gwenview, a wonderful image viewer, would strip all JPEG metadata if I rotated and saved an image, and had somehow lost the ability to let me rename images with F2 since the 3.5 days. That's quite crap, IMHO.

I realize it's under development, and I'm definitely not trying to knock the developers, but all this should have indicated that KDE 4.1 shouldn't have hit the distros. I used GNOME for a while, and enjoyed it, but ultimately rolled back to Hardy.

Re:Woah

[Random BedHead Ed]

I should add ... the experience of rolling back to KDE 3.5.x is like surfacing after being submerged for an intolerable duration. I'm still catching my breath, glad to be alive. While I'm sure to try out 4.2, 3.5 is speedy and functional, which is what I'm used to with KDE.

Re:Woah

[jadrian]

First. If it's not for end users it should be beta or an alpha.
That's what these tags exist for.

Second. Where the fuck did they say that?
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/

Re:Woah

[Jurily]

I am still not sure what it is an example of, seeing how it's not 1.0. As for being a troll, I don't mind: what's karma good for if I don't burn it?

The One True Versioning Practice, of course. You release a new major version when it's done. The FOSS community does not have external deadlines to ship, so we can take our time, and make sure a major release is a quality one. Read this as well, it's pretty interesting. If you never heard about KDE, and they tell you the two latest versions are 3.5.9 and 4.1.0, which one would you think was worth installing?

Of course, the primary source of confusion may have been that the KDE devs were saying Framework, while the users heard Desktop Environment...

Re:Woah

[visualight]

No. It is ALWAYS the speakers responsibility to make himself understood. Thats a law of the universe fact bud. Just move on already.

Second, 'API Stable'? Too late. Defined already. By the rest of the world. You don't get to redefine it with some qualifying sentence later.

Re:Woah

[CAIMLAS]

And yet it is (was) largely known that minor version releases with odd numbers for Linux were unstable/development trees:

major: first number
minor: middle number
point: last number

Been a while since I've really looked into it, but my understanding is that it's somewhat more confusing than that, now.

Re:Woah

[visualight]

No. It is ALWAYS the speakers responsibility to make himself understood. Thats a law of the universe fact bud. Just move on already.

Second, 'API Stable'? Too late. Defined already. By the rest of the world. You don't get to redefine it with some qualifying sentence later.

Look how many posts here in this thread point out and PROVE that your revisionist history is false. Citations and links even. Bad decisions were made, but enough time has passed that it's only still being talked about because you and others can't give trying to change the past.

Re:Woah

[CAIMLAS]

My recollection might be off, but KDE 3.0 was pretty stable. Much more stable than KDE 4.0. I don't recall KDE 2.0, though.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

Um... no. No, not at all. This is not a democracy. What the hell gave you that idea in the first place?

Re:Woah

[CAIMLAS]

OK; worst case scenario, it's meant "public, sold beta". However, most of these applications are at least usable. KDE 4.0 wasn't even feature-complete to the point of being usable, never mind having half the functionality of the previous version.

Off the top of my head, usable #.0 releases are:

OpenOffice.org
XFCE
GIMP
WINE
Firefox
Thunderbird
Paint Shop Pro
Samba
Apache
MySQL
Pidgin/gAIM
Xchat
Apple OS X 10.0 (no experience with prior versions) or for that matter, all 10.x.# releases (as it's roughly synonymous)

And those are just the applications I'm familiar with/use with some degree of regularity. I'm sure there are many others.

It's one thing to not reach a point release and call it stable (such as calling version 0.9 a stable release, or what have you) or to never making the distinction/calling everything a development release (see: Enlightenment); it's another thing entirely to positively mislead people to thinking

x.0 releases have always meant "this software is ready for general user consumption". Whether it's stable or not, in absolute terms, is mostly inconsequential; the fact is that it's considered "stable" by the developers. To advertise the major point release and not denote it as alpha-quality equivalent is irresponsible and reckless.

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

No. It is ALWAYS the speakers responsibility to make himself understood. Thats a law of the universe fact bud.

It's this sort of attitude, more than the (often reasonable) technical criticism that I've heard, that really just burns my ass when people start talking about this subject. This "you owe me something, how dare you not satisfy my wishes" crap is getting stale. They didn't owe you shit. They don't owe you shit. I don't owe you shit.

Second, 'API Stable'? Too late. Defined already. By the rest of the world.

Could you provide a link to that definition that the rest of the world is apparently using? I can't find it.

Re:Woah

[jadrian]

Actually 4.1 was when they started getting careful with their words. That announcement was not to bad. Try searching for any words of warning in the one for 4.0.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Et tu, B0fh?

Re:Woah

[TheQuantumShift]

I agree, it's about time someone came out with a Leopard skin for Windows 7.

Re:Woah

[Brandybuck]

When I say "the user doesn't care", I mean that the user doesn't care who is at fault. There's one KDE bug that drives me nuts, but it was closed as INVALID within minutes of my logging it. Why? Because "it's an X.org bug". That doesn't make the bug go away, nor does it make it any less annoying. I'm not demanding that KDE fix it, because they can't. But since the bug only exists on KDE 4, it deserves a bit more than a kneejerk response.

p.s. I have submitted bug reports and contributed to testing. And I contribute code.

Re:Woah

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Does anyone know if 3.0 was the same way as 4.0?

No. 3.0 was a pretty good release (for it's time). HOWEVER, it was more of a "super bug fixed with some really nice features thrown in" version of the 2.* series. With 4.* they changed everything, scrapped what had come before and started with a clean slate. 3.* was just super stable version of 2.*.

2.*, on the other hand, could be seen as a 4.0. It was a complete rewrite from scratch, new thing compared to 0.* and 1.*.

I'm no developer so I have no real idea about the similarities or differences from that perspective, I've just been using KDE since 0.8.(something).

Re:Woah

[walshy007]

the people that have screwed over kde4 have been the ditros (looks at kubuntu & fedora) because they should have seen it wasn't really ready.

speak for yourself, I as a fedora user, find it to be a perfect developer system precisely because of the latest releases being used, qt4 and kde4 were in fedora months before other distros, that sure saves a lot of headache over downloading a compiling the lot so you can link against it.

Re:Woah

[Ilgaz]

I used NV5200 on my Apple G5 1600. It wasn't a top end card but it indeed supports almost all OpenGL acceleration and OS X really uses them. You may have an overheat problem on GPU chip and if you aren't a gamer, it will show up on desktop 3d acceleration. Or... A driver problem.

I am almost sure it must be a graphics temp. checker for Linux, you better check. KDE should have something.

Re:Woah

[Draek]

They called it the 4.0 release and said it wasn't ready for general use. Which were we supposed to believe?

Both. You don't develop against beta libraries for obvious reasons, so we need the project to declare when is it API stable.

It's like if someone said, "I'm a virgin and I fucked the whole football team."

Actually, it's more like if someone said, "I'm a virgin, and I gave blowjobs to the whole football team." Yes, one may at first believe both statements are contradictory, but once you think about things a little you realize it isn't, and that she *did* have the cock of the whole football team in her mouth, despite not having any inside her vagina.

Re:Woah

[aliquis]

... i mean't no-one obviously, sorry :)

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

I also want to say "thank you" to JohnFluxx. Whether Gnome users realize it or not, KDE4 is the next standard in desktops. I found that 4.0 was fine, as long as you stayed away from Fedora and Kubuntu. Seemed to run on OpenSuse as well as anything runs on OpenSuse. (Which means, mostly rock-solid stable except for a few bugs that have been fixed in other distros for a long, long time. And you'll never know which ones! It's always a surprise!)

Re:Woah

[firewrought]

Ignorance is still no defense. If that little sign says your car will be towed if you park there, but you don't see it; your car will still be towed. If you don't read the fine print in this world you will waste alot of time and money.

And you will also waste lots of time and money if you don't communicate effectively. KDE has a massive PR problem that might have been avoided with a different version number. Any developer who's been around the block a few times knows that you've got to aggressively and realistically manage perceptions about what your software will do (and how mature it is).

Another key lesson here is that people don't read details, especially when communicating with a broad audience. That's why--to return to the excruciatingly overused car analogy--municipalities and states have specific rules governing the font size, reflectivity, and placement of a tow-away sign.

Re:Woah

[visualight]

This "you owe me something, how dare you not satisfy my wishes"

Your on about something else entirely. This has nothing to do any sense of entitlement as you are and were aware before you made that statement. And pretending you know nothing about .0 releases doesn't change reality.

Re:Woah

[Trogre]

And still the Fedora people saw fit to kill KDE 3.5 for it in their next release.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I didn't know. I read Slashdot, but must have missed it (or not paid enough attention). Luckily I've already learned to trust a good distribution that only includes stuff when it's actually stable.

Might want to try new stuff myself too, sometimes, but it's too complicated because people seemingly can't use simple version numbering schemes.

Re:Woah

[jlehtira]

I can't defend thier choice but from reading the blogs at the time of 4.0 it was quite clear...

And if you go buy a new pencil, will you first read what the pencilmakers wrote about it in their blogs? Didn't think so. A lot of people don't do that for software either. And frankly, if it takes more than two seconds to determine if some program version is worth installing, I'm not going to bother. Getting old, I guess.

As for the other arguments.. Well, I can understand, but can't accept ;).

Re:Woah

[jlehtira]

What about 4.0alpha, 4.1beta and 4.2? Or 4.-2, 4.-1 and 4.0?

Or, rather, 4alpha1, 4alpha124 and 4.0? Or 3.9, 3.99 and 4.0? :)

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

actually it wasn't api stable either (look at the plasma api)

Re:Woah

[RiotingPacifist]

thats fine for a developer system but your average user should have been left on 3.5 with the option of installing 4.0/1 along side.

Re:Woah

[coolsnowmen]

I am sorry for the poor analogy. The rules that require signs to be a certain way exist because you are SOL if your car is towed. While if you try KDE, you didn't loose money in the sense of a fine. You lost time (time=money if and only if someone is willing to pay you for it).

I would agree, that KDE could have made many adopters happy if they simply said "4.0 means API stable, but it is still not for doing 'real work.' But in linux, it is not that hard to have multiple windowing environments installed. So what really pissed you off about it? I mean I have kde3.5.10, kde4.2, and e17 installed. Switching between them only requires me to log out and in again.

Re:Woah

[firewrought]

So what really pissed you off about it? I mean I have kde3.5.10, kde4.2, and e17 installed.

I'm not pissed at all. I read the fine print and decided to wait. :-)

KDE could have made many adopters happy if they simply said "4.0 means API stable, but it is still not for doing 'real work.'"

That's pretty much what they did tell people (if some of these comments are to be believed). The observation that started this thread was that it didn't matter: the ".0" tells people that it's pretty much ready for real work regardless of any disclaimers you may have in your change list. Whether that's fair or not is uninteresting (unless you're trying to point the finger of blame). Communication is not about what's fair, it's about what's effective, and sometime something as trivial as a version number sends a big message. Trying to blame the general public is ineffective because it won't change anything.

Re:Woah

[coolsnowmen]

Communication is not about what's fair, it's about what's effective, and sometime something as trivial as a version number sends a big message.

That is definitely true.

Re:Woah

[mebrahim]

It doesn't seem to be KDE's fault, but distributors fault. KDE people had warned everybody (distributors included) that KDE 4.0 is not for end users, but distributors simply ignored that and released KDE 4.0 in their distributions. Most people don't compile their KDE themselves, but just install what their distribution gives them. IMHO distribution creators are the major responsible for KDE 4.0's debacle.

Re:Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that obvious? I know, it's their software, they can do it however they want, and it's my fault for not reading the warnings, but you've got to admit that's completely different than any other project. Almost every other project would have called 4.0 an alpha, 4.1 a beta, 4.2 would have been a release candidate, and 4.3 would have been the official 4.0 release.

Naming releases completely different than anybody else makes it non-obvious in my book. Considering how much grief they've gotten from people complaining it's not ready, I'd guess I'm not the only one.

I think the point is it's obvious because that was the KDE3 development cycle. :-)

Re:Woah

[Risen888]

Like hell it doesn't. The KDE team said "here's a 4.0 release. That means it is a stable API, inside a desktop shell that will totally eat your babies. Have at it."

You say "No, that's not what I want that to mean! How dare you!" Well, tough shit, dude.

Re:1 question

[sctprog]

I've been running SVN builds of it for the past couple-three weeks. It is stunning the improvement over even 4.1, let alone the crapfest that was 4.0

Re:1 question

[John Courtland]

Are you kidding? Slashdot's general consensus has not been merciful towards KDE. In fact, most of what I have read has been "I switched to [GNOME|xfce|fluxbox] because of KDE4". Pretty damning.

/.'ed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Server's down,

the overlords have arrived...

Re:/.'ed...

[BPPG]

slashdotted after 4 minutes.

Although mind you, slashdot's probably not the only site with member flocking to the KDE forums right now.

Re:/.'ed...

[Ilgaz]

What kind of madness is it to link a dynamic forum message to slashdot? It is really irresponsible as there may be actual people needing to post/reply to that forum. What happened to linking a basic .txt file as "release notes.txt", even pdf wouldn't crash a server.

If I was a KDE user/ 4 adopter and needed official help, I would be really pissed now.

Re:/.'ed...

[frinkillo]

I agree with you. Why not give the links to the official announcement and the visual guide?.

Re:/.'ed...

[bendodge]

Well, at least KDE's choosing MyBB finally got it GPL'ed. I'm so happy to have MyBB GPL'ed that I'll just accept this as collateral damage.

Re:/.'ed...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's a poorly configured web server/forum. Any admin worth their salt would have a caching system in place. It's not hard and requires basic admin skills. Nobody generates real dynamic content on the fly these days.

MyBB? WTF is that... Should be running SMF.

Seems to be working fine now by the way, was probably just a momentary blip when the masses first hit it. Either that or the admin switched on the caching system so that it's displaying a static page now (which is what it should have been doing in the first place).

--
I'm probably drunk, so take this post with a grain of salt and I'm really pissed right now!!!!1111one!

Re:1 question

[JackieBrown]

Get over 4.0. There is no changing what happened and it's too easy a bitch anyways.

KDE 4.2 is functional and should work beyond expectations for most typical home users.

It even intergrates google gadets into plasma!

Re:1 question

[Abreu]

Only one way to find out: I am installing the .debs tonight

Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[CajunArson]

I've been tracking the 4.2 betas on Kubuntu's repositories, and the final release is working very nicely. KDE 4.2 is finally at a stage where the 4 series can replace the 3.5 series for the large majority of users, and I've been using KDE since 2.0 came out.

Now I know there are going to be a ton of complaints about how "broken" KDE 4 is... but I have my own response to the critics. Is KDE 4.2 perfect? No, but I challenge you to show me a desktop that is "perfect". KDE 4 has finally gained critical mass, and even more great stuff is in store.

Thanks again to all the KDE 4 developers and bug testers who kept working even when it wasn't easy or popular! Your perseverance has paid off.

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[CarpetShark]

KDE 4 has finally gained critical mass

Yes, in the pyrotechnic sense of the term.

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear.
I upgraded my kubuntu (via the spechul repo) a few hours ago, and I am actually amazed.

KDE Devs, don't let the trolls get you down. KDE rocks.

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Kubuntu? Beat yourself up much? At least try it on a distro that knows how to put KDE together....

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[elashish14]

Thanks again to all the KDE 4 developers and bug testers who kept working even when it wasn't easy or popular! Your perseverance has paid off.

I wish I had some modpoints for this comment cause it's so true. The devs took a damn big risk when they changed it all up and regardless of whether it pays off or not, it was a noble, worthy endeavor. Here's to the KDE team...

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[MadMidnightBomber]

Er, nuclear weapons physics is NOT pyrotechnics. I think I'll skip any fireworks displays you may be organising.

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be good though. Two fireworks aimed to collide in mid air. Nothing but a big dollop of fissile material on each. Weeee... *KaboOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, I waited until the RC bits were available for my scratch openSUSE 11.1 installation, but I have to admit that they worked quite well. I'd tried 4.0 and 4.1 on 11.1 and was disappointed by missing functionality (compared to my normal 11.0/KDE3.5 set-up), particularly the volume control buttons on my laptop.

However, when the RC kit fixed that, and I was able to install (kde4-)kweather and manipulate the plasma the way I wanted to, I was VERY pleased.

I see a lot of opportunities for enhancement - meaning that there is now a solid platform upon which we can build some very, very interesting applications. I'm looking forward, for example, to a stock ticker, because if it looks anything like kde4-kweather (or plasmoid-weather), it'll be something. (I see a couple that are available, but it's not clear they've been rebuilt against the final/released KDE4.2 bits yet).

Thank you, KDE developers, for hanging in there and getting the job done despite the barrage of criticism !!

Re:Thanks to the KDE 4 Devs!

[Spatial]

I think I'll skip any fireworks displays you may be organising.

Pbbbft. What kind of Mad Midnight Bomber are you?

Re:1 question

[sctprog]

Well yeah.

The 4.0 release was highly reminiscent of the 2.0 days. Nothing worked.. crashes galore.. It has taken the KDE team an entire year to make it usable again.

I don't blame them. I've been a huge KDE fan for years, but even I didn't use 4.0.x

Re:1 question

[Daniel Weis]

Actually we have to wait for KDE for Workgroups 4.21. Good guess though!

Why?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question, but I only ever used MS-DOS, Windows 3.11 up to Windows XP and then switched to Mac (10.4 and 10.5). I also installed Ubuntu with default settings.

My question is: why would people want to install KDE on Windows or Mac? To mess with system-wide capabilities? To break applications that weren't tested on anything but their default desktop settings?

Re:Why?!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If you don't give Konqueror new territory from time to time, it kills you in your sleep.

Re:Why?!

[zach_the_lizard]

The port of KDE to Windows or Mac OS X isn't so that you can have a full KDE desktop. It's so that some of the apps that people would like to run on other platforms, such as Konqueror and Amarok, will be available. Their hopes are that eventually you'll find yourself using only KDE apps and wonder, "Why don't I just switch to Linux w/KDE?" As an example of this, I am running Amarok 2 on Windows.

Re:Why?!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, KDE is kinda like a JAVA interpreter/environment?

Does your "Amarok 2" looks like a native Windows application or is it KDE-styled and looks out-of-place?

Re:Why?!

[zach_the_lizard]

Amarok looks somewhat between "native" and "out of place."

The menubar looks like it should in Windows. Any non-custom buttons look native too. However, the buttons to the left for "Files" and "Playlists," etc. are skinned to look the same.

Konqueror looks okay.

Re:Why?!

[RiotingPacifist]

the otherday a friend asked for a fully blown music manager on windows and all i could recomend (begrudgingly) was itunes. while songbird is an up and coming music manager, if amarok2 is anything like amarok 1.4 it will become my default music player on windows and konqueror will be a necesity on any system i intend to maintain. kate is also good (although there are alternatives) and kopete is also a must as i have 2(+1) msn accounts and one from yahoo and i love resizing input boxes :P

Re:Why?!

[KTheorem]

To be fair, Amarok has always looked a bit out of place even on a Linux KDE setup.

Re:Why?!

[Malc]

Will making my apps look like XP, or Vista or OS X convince people that they might want to dump Linux+KDE and switch to another platform? I didn't think so. In fact most Linux+KDE users would likely complain about it, just as OS X and Windows users are going to complain. Make it native thanks. It's like the GTK people thinking their file open dialog is better than delegating to the native equivalent... but it was so horrendous to use that it was the thing that pushed me over the brink with Gimp about six years, and I haven't touched it since.

Re:Why?!

[Anonymous Coward]

They ARE native, you ignoramus.

Re:Why?!

[FishWithAHammer]

Banshee's getting pretty good.

Re:Why?!

[Anpheus]

Winamp is still around for free.

Sure beats the heck out of iTunes.

Re:Why?!

[aiht]

And while we're being fair, most native Windows media players look out of place in Windows too (eg. Winamp, Windows Media Player), at least in XP.
Maybe Windows Media Player in Vista is themed to match the OS?

Re:Why?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree.

KDE on Windows still sucks.

Re:Why?!

[PitaBred]

Why not run the full desktop, though? Hell, I used to run Litestep since Explorer kept crashing on me and wouldn't let me do what I wanted. KDE has to be better than Explorer... why not use it as the desktop on Windows, especially if you want to play games or use other apps that are Windows-only?

A "Windows 7" release?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually the first KDE 4.x release that I'm proud to say I use. Unlike the disastrous KDE 4.0 and a somewhat less disastrous KDE 4.1, I thought that KDE was going down the road traveled by Microsoft with Vista. KDE 4.0 was Windows Vista. Bloated. Slow. But it had potential. KDE 4.1 was a bit better; Windows Vista SP1. It was getting there. But did it amount to its fullest potential? Nope. I feel KDE 4.2 is pretty damn close to fulfilling it, just like Windows 7.

There are still some slight problems I have with KDE 4.2, but I assume they'll be fixed in a bug release later. Kudos go to the KDE devs.

Re:1 question

[ACS Solver]

Interestingly, the KDE developers almost said plainly that 4.2 is finally KDE 4 ready for most people and usable. The release announcement on dot.kde.org says that this is "a compelling choice for the majority of end users", whereas the previous versions were "targeting enthusiasts".

As for my own anecdotal experience, I've been running 4.2 RC and upgraded to the final build a couple of hours ago, and it's definitely improved. Fixed a bunch of rendering issues I experienced, Plasma is more functional, Wine-installed apps go where they should in the traditional launcher and the new power manager seems good. And yes, after I installed 4.0 a year ago, I actually felt as if jokes about Vista are biting me in the ass, I really wanted to use 4.0 but had to go return to 3.5 because 4.0 just didn't work.

No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Zombie Ryushu]

Its no secret that the majority of /. users Are WINDOWS users. Linux users happen just to be "The Largest Minority". People here attack F/OSS Software almost constant. It never stops. Trolls, astrotufers, you name it, they troll it.

Windows users and OSX users are going to attack Linux users on every front in every way endlessly and relentlessly.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[QuantumG]

I think KDE gets quite enough criticism ;)

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Ilgaz]

KDE 4 series runs natively on OS X and Windows. I think good willing ones will try KDE 4 and it will serve to Linux/FreeBSD eventually.

KDE has been always targeted by trolls, it is not a FOSS matter, it is side effect of "desktop wars" and even GTK/Qt philosophy, C vs. C++ thing.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Enderandrew]

By that I believe you meant that KDE is targeted by jealous trolls because Qt is so much better than GTK. ::ducks::

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows users and OSX users are going to attack Linux users on every front in every way endlessly and relentlessly.

I don't know if that's real fair to say. Linux users have a stigma (right or wrong) of being egotistical holier-than-thou types, from the new user newsgroups and IRC channels, all the way to here. Linux users are very quick to point out why your way sucks and why their way is better and clearly more superior, even if your only fault is that you use a different text editor. Moreover, the entire site of Slashdot is one big Microsoft troll, right down to the sarcastic and biased headlines and summaries, through to the tired 1-line comments marked +5 (has anyone made a joke about how Balmer likes to throw chairs lately?)

I don't see a lot of Windows and OSX users going around attacking Linux users. I do see a lot of Linux users who go around attacking anything that doesn't involve compiling your operating system.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe, but ... what does that have to do with anything?

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[mr_matticus]

"People here attack F/OSS Software almost constant."

People here attack proprietary software almost constantly, and in far greater numbers, too. There are an equal number of trolls and astroturfers on both sides, which is impressive considering the proposition that most "/. users Are WINDOWS users", as if that means they automatically support proprietary software or are automatically opposed to open source solutions.

Windows crashing jokes and Apple cult jokes are okay, but Linux pile of half-broken crap jokes aren't? Develop a sense of humor, because guess what, there are pros and cons to everything, and not everyone has to have a religious devotion to everything discussed.

Windows has its uses. Proprietary software has its uses. Linux has its uses. Open source software...you get the picture. People can make choices. Developers are free to release their code with an iron fist heavily slanted in their favor, or they can send it out into the world with no strings attached, or they can find some suitable middle ground. All approaches are valid. People are free to choose to walk into limitations--everything has them: Windows, OS X, Linux all have flaws.

If Linux users get attacked constantly, it's that small subset of "Linux users" who believe that There Can Be Only One Software Model and that TEH LINUX IS PERFECT. They are trolls, astroturfers, and zealots themselves.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Zombie Ryushu]

I am rather tough on Linux myself, but constructively tough.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Repton]

So, what does KDE look like on Windows?

Does it replace explorer.exe? Does it manage windows? Or is it just a library that lets you run KDE applications on top of explorer?

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Handover Phist]

Yeah, right, I bet you wrote that in emacs. On Windows.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Malc]

As I've read this article, I was trying to figure out why I would want to run this on either my Mac or my Windows PC. What's the point? Both of them have already got fantastic GUIs, so why add another? Some sort of twisted cross-platform bloat?

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[gbarules2999]

You don't see it because you're not a Linux user. Especially when you step outside Slashdot, the Windows fanboys start howling up a storm over Ubuntu's "success."

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Spikeles]

http://windows.kde.org/

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE 4 series runs natively on OS X and Windows.

D/L link please? I have been unable to locate one. It would be fun to try KDE4 on Windows.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has a holier-than-thou attitude?

Dude, that's just the developers, not the users.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Rennt]

There have always been holy wars, but I seem to remember that back in the late 90's the community talked a lot about Linux advocacy and even had a code of conduct

It basically went that abuse and trolling is counter productive, if we want people to start adopting Linux we need to approach them with respect, point out the advantages, and allow them to arrive at it in their own time.

Even on Slashdot, fanboys (who had been using Linux for perhaps 6 weeks) were frequently bitch slapped for being an ass and giving the community a bad name.

I wonder what happened? As the movement has gained momentum this seems to have been left by the wayside.

Woah, GET OF MY LAWN! or what?

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Per Wigren]

Its no secret that the majority of /. users Are WINDOWS users.

That depends on how you count. I'm sure the majority of /. users use Windows on a regular basis, like at work or dual booting to play games.

I'm also pretty sure that the majority of /. users are also Linux users in some way. Either as their primary/only desktop OS or as a secondary OS they boot into to play with or learn every now and then.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[MadMidnightBomber]

I've adminned a 7000-host network, 3k of those being Microsoft boxes. Now, I have to admit to running Linux myself, but if it wasn't Linux it would be *BSD or something.

Maybe the fact that everyone has it in for MS has something to do with their products, their licensing, their support suck in a really, really big way?

Ask some Windows and some UNIX admins how many boxes they can support per person and then tell me I'm wrong.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see a lot of Windows and OSX users going around attacking Linux users.

Too busy attacking each other I expect.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[ultrabot]

I think KDE gets quite enough criticism ;)

I agree. And every time, it's about KDE 4.0.

Some people are just too dimwitted to quit. They get something for free, and get shocked, SHOCKED when they have problems. KDE4.0 discussion was an interesting drama piece in the beginning, but now it's just old.

Back in the day, people got excited about future promise of software, even if it was too buggy for daily use. Now, we are flooded with dimwits who don't really care about the tech, and want the whole world to know it.

Here's a tip: if it doesn't work, don't use it. There is no need to go around every forum on the net and whine, whine, whine.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[domatic]

I tried the last 4.2 beta that is available for Windows in VirtualBox on XP. Konqueror basically would render maybe one out of ten graphics. I don't know what the state of the OS X port is but I doubt it is much better. When they get their code and build system debugged enough that KDE4 basically works on all three platforms is when I'll make the jump. Until then I'll just run the occasional KDE4 app on 3.5.10.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[ramandu]

A lot of people have a elitist attitude in the Linux community; but it's not restricted to just one group (i.e., the developers or the users). It's the same elsewhere in other OS's as well. But still I find the users are the most likely to espouse elitist attitudes, not the devs.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[dfdashh]

(has anyone made a joke about how Balmer likes to throw chairs lately?)

I don't see a lot of Windows and OSX users going around attacking Linux users.

Hold on, let me go get my chair.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[shutdown -p now]

Dude, that's just the developers, not the users.

On Linux, is there a difference?

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[shutdown -p now]

If Linux users get attacked constantly, it's that small subset of "Linux users" who believe that There Can Be Only One Software Model and that TEH LINUX IS PERFECT. They are trolls, astroturfers, and zealots themselves.

Speaking of zealots and trolling... of course Linux isn't perfect; only OpenBSD is. ~

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Ilgaz]

I guess Amarok 2 will be a major hit on Windows, most parts of KOffice like Krita has that potential too. Other than that, it will be more like Windows kernel, top of line drivers running KDE desktop suite which may give a huge boost in corporate adoption.

This is too similar to GNUStep/NeXT on Windows which unfortunately isn't too popular because of lack of apps. KDE has all apps.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux users have a stigma of being egotistical holier-than-thou types

I think you'll find that's because we're better than they are.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[MasterOfMagic]

This is why I stopped releasing software that I wrote. The idiot count just proved too high. Specifically:

• People not reporting bugs to their distro when my programs were in their distro, and 9 times out of 10 it was something their distro fucked up
• People emailing me asking if I would configure the software for them (at least twice a day)
• People telling me they wouldn't use my software if I didn't add "xyz" feature (good, fuck 'em)
• People demanding I make a DEB, RPM, ebuild, autopackage, etc for their distro
• People telling me that they really liked my software and would like to use it in a commercial product and could I just let them do that for free pretty please (fuck off)
• People complaining that my software wouldn't compile on their Windows box (oh noes!)

Basically people wanting my time for nothing. I agree that software should be free as in speech, but that's not the end goal. That is only the beginning. Once the source is out there, if you can't program, you can find somebody who can make the changes for you and release them for other people to use. That is the end goal.

Re:No Critisism of F/OSS?

[doom]

Windows has its uses.

Yeah. Where would botnets be without it?

Cool

[binarylarry]

It's good to hear KDE isn't garbage anymore.

Unfortunately, for all its cool tech, I still find the default look and feel hideous.

Is there some kind of "style" they're going for or is everything just kind of randomly put together or what?

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, no Windows bashing here, this thread is about KDE!

Oh wait, you were talking about KDE.

Sorry, force of habit. Carry on.

Re:Cool

[binarylarry]

I have a feeling the day when I can say "It's good to hear Windows isn't garbage anymore," is far, far away.

Re:Cool

[gmuslera]

Hey, no one in Slashdot think that Windows is garbage. Is unfair, offensive, and without basis. Why you hate garbage so badly?

Re:Cool

[pseudonomous]

Hey, now that KDE has been ported to Windows, you just have to wait for KDE to look like you like!

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

THey might be telling you it's not garbage anymore, but they are wrong...I couldn't even get online with my rt73usb stick. Fuck KDE. Fuck all of them for fucking up what was once a beautiful DE. I doubt Linus will be changing back any time soon.

Re:1 question

[Enderandrew]

Download it and make your own judgment, however I will echo the sentiment that it is a VAST improvement over 4.1 and 4.0.

I find it odd that Linus just made a stink about KDE a week before 4.2, and had he tried 4.2, he might have felt differently. Then again, last I heard he was using Ubuntu, and they made a big mess of their Kubuntu/KDE 4.x packages, which has really caused the KDE project some undue negative press.

That being said, there are some legitimate gripes about the previous releases, and some bickering over whether or not the KDE devs need users, or value their input, to which the varied KDE devs (expectedly of such a diverse group) gave varied responses.

openSUSE probably puts out the best packages, though I hear the Arch KDEmod packages are quite good as well.

I also really dig that I can run KDE (including Plasma) on Windows.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I'm feeding the troll, but...

I think that KDE since KDE 4 has been one of the most criticized projects, even more than Windows.

Nice improvements

[digitalderbs]

I just upgraded on kubuntu 8.10, and I'm very happy with it. It's considerably more polished than 4.1. The dialogs look more polished, the eye candy is faster and smoother, the new taskbar looks great -- and you can now have other applications cover the taskbar.

I was thinking of switching to XFCE this week (after about 8 years on KDE), but I think I'll hold off.

good job devs!

Re:Nice improvements

[pseudonomous]

I DID switch to XFCE, and while I think XFCE (and, importantly, not Xubuntu or some loaded up XFCE based distro, but a plain, vanilla XFCE) is THE desktop environment for a low-resource system (your only real alternative are WMs), I think that I'm going back to KDE, now that I've got a quad core phenom w/ an onboard Radeon HD 3300. It's a seriously, beautiful Desktop, but MAN, this thing is a heavy weight.

Re:Nice improvements

[muchmusic]

Are you looking forward to April's release? I'll try it out tonight with 4.2

Re:Nice improvements

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure is a heavy-weight. Yeah, I mean, far-out....

Wait....I'm using it on my OpenMoko phone.

Oh well, I guess you suck.

Re:Nice improvements

[couchslug]

"I was thinking of switching to XFCE this week (after about 8 years on KDE), but I think I'll hold off."

You don't need to "switch", BTW, just add whatever WM you want to try.

Read the Sign

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't Feed the Trolls.

Oxygen

[Enderandrew]

Well, in the infancy of KDE 4, there was this project that was supposed to provide a consistent look and feel to KDE called Oxygen.

The early mockups looked fairly different from the first incarnation, and both look very different from what we have today.

Overall, it does look more consistent and polished. The taskbar looks sharp. The plasma theme looks sharp. The Oxygen widgets and window decorations are still plain and boring. I also still don't understand how Oxygen was largely plain white with no contrast for a year, where as the Plasma theme and taskbar was plain and black.

It was jarring and inconsistent.

However, the icons (save for the horrible folder icon) do present a very consistent, very professional appearance. It is hard to argue with the icon set on the whole.

I just want to see an Oxygen set for OpenOffice. I know OpenOffice isn't a KDE project, but most every distro ships with OpenOffice, and it would be nice for integration to see some Oxygen-based icons for OpenOffice.

Re:Oxygen

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I kept 4.0, and then 4.1 around just to log in occasionally and enjoy the beauty. Didn't take long for me to head back to GNOME to get things done, though. If the stability has improved, its going to be a big deal. To the GP, well..., some say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Others suggest (golden ratio, etc...) that our brains are hardwired for certain attractions. Whatever. To me, KDE4's styling is fantastic.

Re:Oxygen

[Anonymous Coward]

The color settings improved quite a bit in 4.1. Did you try another color theme?

Re:Oxygen

[bendodge]

I'd like to see OpenOffice run in KDE without messing up everything else's color palette whenever the OO's window isn't minimized. It doesn't really affect usability, but it's really, really obnoxious. I don't know exactly what it is but it looks terrible.

Also, someone tell the KDE devs to at least replace the gfx buffer with a solid color. At the minute whatever barf is left over is shown while dialogs are initializing.
(Note that I happily use KDE 4.1 every day.)

Re:Oxygen

[sqldr]

One thing that's always bothered me about modern user interfaces is black text on a white background. I find the opposite much more soothing. Unfortunately, I can't turn it on, for one simple reason, and you're looking right at it.

If I go for that setting, it results in a generally darker (but no less visible) desktop. The problem? You're staring right at it. Open a full-screen slashdot, and suddenly AAARGH GOD DAMN, MY EYES! As blinding white light suddenly gets beamed into my eyeballs.

So I have to begrudgingly use black-on-white all over the desktop, to avoid sudden drastic changes of contrast every time I visit a web page.

Re:Oxygen

[Enderandrew]

I always liked yellow on blue. High contrast and easy to read, yet easy on the eyes.

Oh, how I miss NC on DOS. Those were the days!

Future Roadmap

[Enderandrew]

Now that KDE has laid the framework for development, and recreated most of the features from KDE 3 as well, where do they go from here? Can they do something truly innovative?

(No, widgets aren't innovative).

The folderview, as a fullscreen containment with wallpaper theming is a plus. I'm looking for other innovations in how we interact with software.

Adjusting dialogs and the interface to work well on small form factors is another step in the right direction, but honestly I think they also need an Oxygen-widget derivative specifically for minimalist screens.

Multi-touch gestures are trendy, but other than mobile devices, I don't expect to touch my PC screen.

The concept of a fully-realized semantic desktop sounds interesting, but is currently half-baked at best.

Would it be a crime for KDE to steal some of the better innovations from OS X and Windows 7? Should KDE offer an official dock, or revamp the taskbar? What about both?

Kwin, for all its nifty-ness could take a few pages from Windows 7.

What about a crazy concept? People keep talking about a Web OS, cloud computing, etc. I've seen a proof of concept of Plasmoids served via a web plugin. KDE runs natively on Mac, Windows, Linux and Solaris today. What if you could store your KDE desktop settings and sessions online?

Sit at any computer with most any OS, and have your desktop. Plasmoids that aren't installed locally could even be served up online.

Where do you think KDE should go in the future?

Re:Future Roadmap

[pseudonomous]

Q: Would it be a crime for KDE to steal some of the better innovations from OS X and Windows 7?

A: Only if they're patented

Re:Future Roadmap

[mangu]

People keep talking about a Web OS, cloud computing, etc

The most innovative thing KDE did in this respect was having the same application, Konqueror, act both as a web browser and file manager. Then, what did they do to improve this? Fix Konqueror's faults? No, that would have been too easy. They created the most stupid file manager I ever saw, Dolphin, to take the place of Konqueror as a file manager.

Re:Future Roadmap

[gmuslera]

Considering how similar is Windows 7 interface is to KDE 4 one, seems that Microsoft made himself a similar question and found that KDE innovations weren't patented.

Re:Future Roadmap

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see, at the very least, Plasma expand beyond *nix. The Plasma plugin idea is a very interesting one. I remember reading about it as well. Perhaps one day plasma could enable some pretty sweet web pages.

Some of the KDE4 themes are adding interesting features. For example, IIRC, the latest Bespin theme allows you to have a separate menu bar, such as on Mac OS X. An official dock may be nice, if it can be removed at will. I don't really like the Dock myself, but some do.

I would also like the Webkit K-part to get some lovin', perhaps even always being installed. The KHTML/Webkit split needs to be evaluated. What is gained by ending KHTML? What is lost?

I would like to see the option to have multiple sources for downloading themes. At least it should allow us to point to a local tar.gz and let us install it from there. I'm too lazy to untar it myself =).

For now, they should keep squashing bugs. KDE 4.2 is a huge improvement (even when I was using it from SVN, since, like June or August), but I bet it could use a little more work.

Re:Future Roadmap

[dr00p]

If I remember right, IE was the first filemanager/browser in one. I believe it was IE3.0 ...

Re:Future Roadmap

[Rod Beauvex]

And if I remember correctly, IE/Windows is evil for this exact behavior.

Re:Future Roadmap

[Anonymous Coward]

Konqueror still is, and will continue be both a web browser and file manager...

In fact, you can set it as the default file manager in KDE 4.2 if you want...

I personally do like Dolphin, just after shifting things around a bit...

Re:Future Roadmap

[gujo-odori]

Yes, KDE should have a Mac-style dock. There's a reason why there are so many dock clones out there, and why people put effort into making their Linux desktops Mac-like in appearance and behavior: Apple has some great UI designers and themers and they have, in most respects, produced the best desktop environment out there. That doesn't mean OS X perfect - there's a reason why my only Mac is a notebook but my home server, home workstation, and work workstation are all Linux boxes, too - but its GUI gets top marks for consistency, functionality, and good design. For example, to bring up the prefs in any OS X app, all I have to do is hit Command+, on a Mac. Even within KDE, there's nothing that out of the box simple for bringing up app prefs, and if you mix in apps from GNOME, XFCE, plain old X apps, etc, it gets even less predictable.

There's a lot that could be borrowed from the Apple playbook to improve Linux desktops, and yes, even some things from the Windows playbook, although most of the good ideas there have already been mined.

Re:Future Roadmap

[RiotingPacifist]

Oh NOES!2 options for what file manager to use. well i figured out how to compile the kernel but choosing between a webbrowser with tabs/frames style file manager and a simplified but more intuitive one is jsut too much.

Screw you guys, im going home^H^H^H^H back to windows

Re:Future Roadmap

[RiotingPacifist]

I would also like the Webkit K-part to get some lovin', perhaps even always being installed. The KHTML/Webkit split needs to be evaluated. What is gained by ending KHTML? What is lost?

Screw that i want a gecko kpart

Re:Future Roadmap

[gujo-odori]

Uh, no, Konqueror was the stupidest file manager I ever "saw" - it's not even that great of a web browser, I wish Firefox had a native KDE version.

Re:Future Roadmap

[Enderandrew]

Actually, last year Nokia started working on Qt branch on Firefox, but I haven't heard anything on it for a while. You can download a version here:

http://timeless.justdave.net/maemo/firefoxqt3.tar.gz

Re:Future Roadmap

[bendodge]

That playbook is called "complete control over every aspect of everything". Doing that in Linux would require some serious cooperation in the desktop wars.

Re:Future Roadmap

[im_thatoneguy]

Yeah... windows definitely must have ripped off KDE's interface.

Window with Minimize, Maximize and then close in the top right.

A Large application list at the bottom which has a launcher icon on the left. Then some quicklaunch icons and then running applications. Finally on the bottom right we have some notification icons and persistent apps and lastly a clock.

Wait... what's this? Instead of having an address bar they've moved to a bread crumb system?

And is that a Vista st---sorry KDE style gradient on the taskbar I see?

And in the official screenshots are those "My Computer" and "My Documents" Icons I see?

Yep. I'm suprised KDE doesn't sue Microsoft for look and feel infringement. Because Windows is just one giant rip off of KDE.

Re:Future Roadmap

[Wheely]

OSX is not particularly consistent nor is it particularly well designed. It is, however, pretty.

The dock from a functional point of view is awful. It gets in the way when your mouse is near the bottom of the screen so you can accidentally start apps, the small blue dot is a ridiculous visual clue as to what is running, it takes a single click to start apps whereas in finder you do double clicks. Not very consistent that and neither is apps not exiting when you hit "close", apart, that is, from that apps that do exit when you hit "close".

Still it works well enough but I really wish people like KDE and Microsoft would stop stealing ideas from what isn't a particularly good interface.

Re:Future Roadmap

[ion.simon.c]

Wait... what's this? Instead of having an address bar they've moved to a bread crumb system?

The first time that I saw the breadcrumb address bar system was when I used the FLTK User Interface Designer (FLUID) v1.1.6, back in 2004. I bet that the FLTK guys stole that interface from someone else, too. ;)

(It'd be really cool if we both thought that "theft" of good UI design enriches the world of computing.)

Re:Future Roadmap

[shutdown -p now]

With all due respect for KDE, I think that OS X is a much more notable borrowing source for Win7. You only have to look at the new taskbar to realize that.

On a related note

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

It's also a great day for sweeping statements.

Guys are you kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

To all the flamers:

1. Free Software
You didn't pay anything for this software. No one paid the developers anything for this software. You have the capacity to change this software if you don't like something about it.

2. Don't like it, don't use it
No one is forcing you to upgrade to KDE 4. If you don't think it's ready, don't use it, use KDE 3, gnome, or whatever else you want.

Re:Guys are you kidding

[QCompson]

1. Free Software You didn't pay anything for this software. No one paid the developers anything for this software. You have the capacity to change this software if you don't like something about it.

False. Plenty of the developers for KDE are getting paid. Aaron Seigo (one of the main developers and project leader) gets paid, and he's in europe right now partying it up, just like he was partying at Google headquarters last year for the 4.0 release.

Re:Guys are you kidding

[mpyne]

I don't get paid. :P

Some devs get paid by Linux-related companies but not to work on KDE necessarily.

Lots of KDE devs get paid... to work on Qt.

There are a few sponsored devs though, including Aaron Seigo (who is a core dev and KDE e.V. President of the Board but is not "project leader")

But all in all, the vast majority of developer time seems to me to come from volunteers. Perhaps someone should chart it someday a la the LWN.net tracking of Linux kernel contributors.

Re:1 question

[rubycodez]

usable doesn't mean bug-free though, I'm waiting until they unfutz some annoying bugs before going back from my temporary GNOME-refuge

So how do you build it from source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple question...

Re:So how do you build it from source?

[c-reus]

emerge kde-startkde

Re:A couple of questions

[CajunArson]

1. Icons: If you like the old ones so much import them. Due to the fact that the "old" KDE had multiple sets of Icons there was never any "one" set of icons that were the perfect standard for all time anyway. Nice attempt at a troll though.

2. K-menu working the same as the old one: YES and it has existed since KDE 4.0. If you read my post you would have seen exactly how to add it as well.. although that might require using a mouse in a slightly different way than the exact way you claimed you used to do in in KDE 3.5 so maybe it's beyond your comprehension.

3. The taskbar manages tasks and can group them together or not group them together and can have one or more rows depending upon how you configure it. I'm sorry if one task item might be off by one pixel which would cause you to have a cardiac infarction.

Let me guess: You never actually used KDE 3 and your trolling... AND the next post about KDE 4 will be how much you hate it because you don't think the developers have added anything new & exciting whily also making KDE 4 a carbon-copy of KDE 3 for no reason other than the fact you cannot make minute adjustments to some simple changes.

Re:1 question

[Zephiris]

KDE was adamantly clear that KDE 4.0 was not a 'user' release, but was solely for third party developers to actually get involved and start porting, and to make a difference. A pure developer preview. KDE 4.1 was stabilizing third party apps and the platform. KDE 4.2 is the first user-centric general use release for 4.x. It's not their fault that apparently many users and distributors didn't listen or care.

It's not as if they KDE left people without working 3.5, either. KDE 3.5.9 and 3.5.10 both brought bug fixes and improvements. "We're having an unstable/preview release, deal with it, the people who care about it will know about it" used to be common in the open source world.

It tends to lean towards better results if people can get ahold of things ahead of a 'stable' release, bazaar style, so bug fixes can be made, design issues can be settled, before it becomes a 'user' release.

If they were allowed to persist and fester, any such issues outstanding would affect people using the software version for years to come (and longer if backwards compatibility mandates are taken into account).

I'm not trying to be pointed about it, but flaws and bugs creeping in and staying there more or less defines the Windows experience. It's okay if you have an app from 10 years ago you can't recompile (and hopefully still works on current video drivers/hardware), it's not so good if all of the source is available, and bad design choices can cause serious problems in writing and maintaining software.

Just because everyone jumped the gun and wanted KDE 4.0 to be perfect and immediately available even while KDE 3.5 maintenance was ongoing, was pretty much fooling themselves. GNOME seems to maintain a large number of projects under its umbrella, and when a release is made, everything's updated in line. KDE has a lot of major third party apps which required a significant amount of porting and rewriting to move from Qt 3.3 and KDE 3.5. Being able to shake down the libraries, and applications mean that the final release products tend to 'just work'. Less vendor patches needed just to clean things up.

The .0 preview, .1 stabilization, .2 starts as stable tends to mirror GCC's typical schedule in this case, however, and GCC's used for everything, took two years to get to the point where most things would finally touch it and ditch GCC 3.4.

A year's not long when you consider the entire KDE ecosystem has had time to work on things and most projects are releasing near-concurrently with full support.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

Well for the $ MS charges for their Desktop and Server software, it had better be bug free or close to it. You see, KDE and Gnome, in spite of whatever problems or features they may have, are free and open source. Use it for what it is or improve it. At least they aren't selling a half finished product for a premium!

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus didnÂt really make a fuss over KDE4. That was just the media spin on his comments. What he actually said was that he found KDE4.0 unusable for his everyday use, and that heÂd switch back if it was sufficiently improved. Which is a fair assessment.

Re:A couple of questions

[jmorris42]

> Remember this, we, the users, do not care for eye candy, we do not care for how
> much better the system is for developers.

Bull. You don't care for eye candy. I don't care for eye candy. End users care. No matter how hard we wish it were otherwise it remains a fact. And if the new stuff makes things easier for developers it usually means more stuff gets developed. And remember, users don't buy an OS for what IT does, they buy for the applications they can run on it. So if KDE4 enables better apps to get written faster that benefits users.

As someone who has used GNOME since it first replaced FVWM95 as RedHat's default DE I'm starting to consider KDE. The last of the license issues (that launched GNOME in the first place) are finally fixed and GNOME has been making it crystal clear I'm not in their target audience for years.

Straw man?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this what's called a straw man argument? I guess it's possible you aren't trolling and actually missed all the criticism free software (and especially KDE) has received.

Linus Torvalds himself thinks KDE 4 is a 'disaster' and I'm sure you'll find many who agree with him on this slashdot story, just as you'll find people who don't but trying to make it look like free software get no criticism and everyone is bashing Microsoft? That's just bullshit.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/24/1842218

Re:Straw man?

[HermMunster]

He never said disaster. He just indicated he wasn't happy and chose to go to gnome. He also said he had hopes for KDE 4.2 and might go back if it turned out to be promising.

Re:1 question

[aliquis]

This will be moderated troll instead of funny but who cares about karma? :D

Only one way to find out: I am installing the .debs tonight

You mean "tonight" like two-three years from now?

I know there are .debs for other dists than Debian, or the testing and unstable versions.

Re:1 question

[greg_barton]

Ah, no need to feed the "ya'll are a bunch of hypocrites!" troll.

Re:1 question

[aliquis]

I think that KDE since KDE 4 has been one of the most criticized projects, even more than Windows.

I think they have on thing in common:
* Don't overhype it if you can't deliver on the promises!

Re:1 question

[Greg_D]

You get one version of KDE.

Slow.

Re:A couple of questions

[mangu]

Let me guess: You never actually used KDE 3 and your trolling...

You guessed wrong, I have been using KDE exclusively since 1998, except for my gaming M$ machine. I just want to use my computer to do its job exactly the way it has always done, I don't want to be retrained unless it's an improvement. I think a new user interface is OK, but the old functions should be the default ones.

A new set of icons? Sure, anyone is free to install it. I did import the kde classic icon theme once, I don't want to redo that job again and again just because some developer is too lazy to create a function to import the settings file automatically. The old K menu? It should be there by DEFAULT. Don't like the traditional K menu? Delete it! Do not force people to ADD things or LEARN things just to keep it working the way it did before.

The change from KDE 3 to 4 should have been as smooth as "apt-get dist-upgrade" and then working exactly as before but, from time to time, finding this neat new function that makes one say "wow, this is great!". It should not make one stop everything one was doing until one learns how to configure things.

The problem with KDE developers is that they started thinking KDE is the center of the universe. Well, it isn't. Computers exist to make things easy. I use a computer as a tool, I don't want to be distracted from my job or from my hobby just because some user interface developer thinks he has had a great new idea.

Re:Vista clone

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the other way around...

Pretty

[CarpetShark]

Woah...it's pretty

Yes, because they did away with the well-established themeable, accelerated, accessible, translatable, Qt GUI Widgets, and based made up a new "plasmoid" system that's almost entirely incompatible with all that. It's pretty, but most of the features have been sacrificed for that, and it'll take AGES to get those features on a parallel, if they ever can.

Re:Pretty

[mpyne]

Woah...it's pretty

Yes, because they did away with the well-established themeable, accelerated, accessible, translatable, Qt GUI Widgets, and based made up a new "plasmoid" system that's almost entirely incompatible with all that. It's pretty, but most of the features have been sacrificed for that, and it'll take AGES to get those features on a parallel, if they ever can.

?

Plasma is if anything more themeable than kicker and kdesktop were.

Plasma (especially in its KDE 4.0 and 4.1 incarnations) was short of the old kicker in features (although much better than the old kdesktop, even including SuperKaramba) I know there are still things that kicker did that Plasma can't (multiple panels stacking on an edge springs to mind) but featurewise it's mostly there now.

As far as widgets go, Plasma does use subclasses of Qt widgets, just like the rest of KDE. I wasn't aware that this is considered weird or out of place however. (To be pedantic, the widgets are subclasses of a QGraphicsView proxy widget and not direct QWidget subclasses e.g. Plasma::PushButton).

The translation system is KDE's not Qt's so that works fine in Plasma. To be honest accessibility support was never KDE's strong point so it could hardly be worse now. :(

Re:Pretty

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

Ah, but the problem is those widget's aren't descendants of all of the themed stuff in Qt, which means they are completely unable to leverage most of Qts theme support. Instead, they reinvented the wheel with some kind of SVG system, so hooray, KDE now gets to maintain its own theme engine when Qt provides a good one for free.

Re:Pretty

[mpyne]

Do you have even the slightest clue about how "the themed stuff in Qt even works?

Qt doesn't have themes, Qt has widget styles, which are used in Plasma just like they're used everywhere else in KDE. Where that support ended we got to innovate, so Plasma provides a common appearance API so that widgets will look and feel the same across the whole desktop.

Re:Pretty

[CarpetShark]

Qt doesn't have themes, Qt has widget styles

Don't be ridiculous. It's the same thing to anyone who's not being pedantic. Or maybe it's not, like a .0 release is beta release in KDE-world.

Re:Pretty

[ultrabot]

As far as widgets go, Plasma does use subclasses of Qt widgets, just like the rest of KDE. I wasn't aware that this is considered weird or out of place however.

Can I draw a plasma widget in Qt designer? Can I drop my own QWidgets on plasma widgets?

I'm not trying to be confrontational here - I'm trying to find out how easy it is to leverare existing non-plasma stuff in plasma (if I don't feel like going for the low level stuff & graphics view).

Re:Pretty

[mpyne]

I don't think you can use Qt Designer for plasmoids, no.

However you couldn't have any kinds of widgets with kdesktop. kicker you could, but when you're talking about something that goes on the panel you're talking about a widget that should be simple enough to generate the UI for in 10 lines of code anyways. If someone is making a panel applet that is so large that it can benefit from GUI layouting and such there's probably other issues. :)

Re:Pretty

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

No matter how scathing you opening comment is, it doesn't make what you are saying any more true. Plasma, by its definition, cannot provide a common appearance across the entire desktop (at least not by itself). Some of us like to have windows open in addition to gazing upon the gooey goodness that we have configured our desktop to be. I'm sure the situation has improved with QGraphicsCanvas (or whatever it is called) and widget embedding, but don't you dare tell me that Qt widgets follow an identical theme to plasma components. They have to be configured separately even...

Re:1 question

[RiotingPacifist]

im fairly sure linus uses fedora.

Re:1 question

[QCompson]

KDE was adamantly clear that KDE 4.0 was not a 'user' release, but was solely for third party developers to actually get involved and start porting, and to make a difference.

Wha?!? Please point me to where on the KDE4.0 release http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/ page they made it "adamantly clear that KDE 4.0 was not a user release." They did say:

The KDE Community is thrilled to announce the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era.

and

The KDE 4 Desktop has gained some major new capabilities.

and

Lots of KDE Applications have seen improvements as well.

and

KDE 4.0 is the innovative Free Software desktop containing lots of applications for every day use as well as for specific purposes.

I wish the KDE fanboys (and the KDE developers themselves) would stop trying to rewrite recent history and just admit there were mistakes made.

Re:1 question

[CarpetShark]

KDE was adamantly clear that KDE 4.0 was not a 'user' release, but was solely for third party developers to actually get involved and start porting, and to make a difference. A pure developer preview. KDE 4.1 was stabilizing third party apps and the platform. KDE 4.2 is the first user-centric general use release for 4.x. It's not their fault that apparently many users and distributors didn't listen or care.

Of COURSE it's their fault. They were FORCED to explain that time and time again because they deliberately chose version numbers that say the exact opposite.

Besides, IMHO, 4.0 wasn't fit for developers either. Even in 4.2, they're STILL calling some of the APIs experimental.

Re:1 question

[ArcherB]

It's laughable that /. bashes Windows for it's SP2 is functional development but has little to no criticism for open source software(and especially KDE). If somebody releases x.0 I expect it to be functional with major bugs as they should be caught in alpha/beta/rc. Should we have to wait for KDE4.5 instead?

That's the beauty of Linux that you won't find in neither OSX nor Windows. We can bitch and moan about KDE while we log off and log back in using Gnome, XFCE, or even KDE 3.5. It's that simple.

Now if you don't like the new Windows or OSX interface... well, sorry. Life's a bitch! Get used to it. Oh, and thanx for the cash.

Re:1 question

[Enderandrew]

I could be mistaken.

Re:1 question

[the_B0fh]

I'm so damn glad that someone here knew what was going on. I can't believe there're so many mucking forons in the world who can't read or comprehend simple english. "not for end users" apparently is not simply enough.

Re:1 question

[kilgortrout]

KDE was adamantly clear that KDE 4.0 was not a 'user' release, but was solely for third party developers to actually get involved and start porting, and to make a difference.

Well, here's the original release announcement for KDE 4.0:

http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/

Now can we please stop with this revisionist history.

Re:1 question

[the_B0fh]

KDE did not hype KDE4. Only the people who can't read and understand that it was a developer release, to prepare and have a framework ready so that 3rd party developers can have a target to develop against.

But, apparently this concept is too difficult for people to understand.

The definite article?

[__aakqkc2748]

"The desktop environment for Linux, Windows, Mac, and (Open)Solaris" The definite article! Oh Really?

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

That was why 4.0 was released with a big "not for end users" note.

Please provide a link to this supposed "note".

Re:1 question

[moniker127]

Nope, he uses leopard.


I guess I should start running.

Trolls?

[phorm]

In this case, I don't think that that's the root of the problem. Yes, you're going to get people trolling about any contentious issue, but the fact is that many people that have been bitching the loudest about KDE4 are those that were strong users of KDE 3.5. I would include myself among those, as one of the first things I tended to do when setting up a new 'nix machine installing KDE in favour of gnome. However, KDE4 has been a big mess. A lot of functionality that one might almost take for granted in the previous version was dropped, apps haven't been ported, or didn't work properly. The whole configuration system has changed, and overall it looks like a lot more focus seems to have been put on "prettiness" VS functionality.

I don't doubt that eventually KDE4 will turn out fairly polished, but for the current release the existing quality has been more on par with a beta than a proper release. With major distros pushing KDE4 over KDE3 (and tending to drop 3.5 overall), it's certainly ticked off a lot of users, and in many ways rightfully so.

Re:1 question

[aliquis]

Oh well, someone overhyped the functionality atleast, I for sure remember that I was reading on about Plasma and such. Though the webpages probably never promised that it would be excellent at 4.0.

Personally I started to use OS X before it was out so I've never tried it. Would be fun to see 4.2 though, liked 3.5 a lot.

Re:1 question

[RiotingPacifist]

As a user that's stuck with kde3.5, i have just one question have they finally made the panel usable at the same size it was in kde3.5?
What stops me switching is the large plasma panels, i just want a lean 24px bar at the top of the screen, last time i checked there was no way of disabling the rounding making it impossible to go below about 50

For OSX and Windows?

[ihatewinXP]

Ok pardon the ignorance but I was under the impression that OSX and Windows had pretty stable window managers already. What would be the benefits / drawbacks of installing KDE on a non *NIX system?

Re:For OSX and Windows?

[RPoet]

KDE is not a window manager; it is a desktop environment backed by a rich development framework. The benefits of installing KDE applications on Windows or Mac is that you can run KDE applications on Windows and Mac :-) Perhaps you would like Amarok, or KOffice, or something.

Re:For OSX and Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Access to the applications. KMail, for example, is (or at least /was/ in 3.5) a pretty good mail client, and kate is an editor that can serve nicely as a replacement for UltraEdit.

The KDE 4.2 package I installed on my Vista test box yesterday did not bring its own window manager but relied on Windows' WM instead.

Re:For OSX and Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE is a bunch of libraries that some applications are based on, and some people might have some tiny desire to run some of these apps on other operating systems. The KDE window manager is just another application for KDE, and KDE doesn't require any specific window manager (I use KDE with ratpoison and it works nicely).

Re:For OSX and Windows?

[Chelloveck]

Perhaps you would like Amarok, or KOffice, or something.

Yes, I would. So imagine my disappointment when I got to the KDE download page and read...

Windows and Mac OS X

KDE under these Operating Systems is experimental state. Things might, or might not work properly at this point in time.

An installer for KDE applications on Windows is available on windows.kde.org. These are experimental packages. On TechBase you can find detailed installation instructions.

For Apple's OSX, there are technology previews of some applications available on mac.kde.org.

Okay, pop over to mac.kde.org. Oh, look, "Official support for Mac OS X is targeted for KDE 4.1.0." Wasn't that a while ago now? Isn't this supposed to be the 4.2.0 release? What's on the download page? Looks like 4.1.2. Well now, isn't that special?

Doesn't look to me like it's time yet to include either Windows or Mac in the phrase "KDE, the desktop environment for Linux, Windows, Mac, and (Open)Solaris, [...]".

Re:1 question

[RiotingPacifist]

Im waiting till 4.3, 4.2 will most likely only meet the expectations of typical home users.

Re:Vista clone

[gujo-odori]

Well, no, it's not. Vista was under development for over five years before it was released, which puts it back a lot farther in time than KDE 4. Granted, they have rather little to show for five years of development effort, but the statement that Vista copied Oxygen is whack. One of the things I like least about KDE 4 is the Oxygen theme, particularly because it resembles Vista, which I also find to be fugly. They should have copied the look of OS X, or even of KDE 3.5, if they were going to clone something.

Copying Vista is like being a mad scientist who builds a girl and could make her look like anything in the world and chooses Broom Hilda as his model.

Re:1 question

[bh_doc]

I know there are .debs for other dists than Debian, or the testing and unstable versions.

FYI, KDE 4.2 Debian packages are currently arriving in experimental where they will live until Lenny is released. Unstable and testing have 3.5.

Re:1 question

[the_B0fh]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4

Read the section labeled "Stable releases" and notes 24 through 27.

Here, I'll help you out, the link for note 24 is: http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2008/01/talking-bluntly.html

Re:1 question

[Jurily]

Are you kidding? Slashdot's general consensus has not been merciful towards KDE. In fact, most of what I have read has been "I switched to [GNOME|xfce|fluxbox] because of KDE4". Pretty damning.

Including Linus.

Re:A couple of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is ever "absolutely better for everybody without exception".
And "better enough for the vast majority of people" fairly obviously translates to "better for me, because most people like what i like, and always will"

Re:1 question

[pilsner.urquell]

That is a stupid question, 4.2 is in the state of disbelief.

Re:1 question

[influenza]

I've been using KDE 4.2 since the first beta on Kubuntu 8.10. There have been a few things I had to fix myself that typical end users probably wouldn't be able to figure out, but mostly that's been distribution related (conflicting audio servers, and for some reason I ended up with two power management daemons at first).

To be honest I like it so much I was even using it every day before Nvidia released updated drivers. Before the drivers things were a little slow and glitchy. But now everything is smooth and fast.

Plasma has been improved substantially in this release. It's very usable. I really like the idea of FolderView widgers. When you drag a folder from the file manager to the desktop you get a little menu asking if you want an icon or a FolderView. Plasma also lets you have multiple "activities". So I have a desktop set up for quick access to my music and videos, another one for reading comics, and a few more that a project specific. This is so much better than a single desktop folder. What they still need to work on though is removing some of the confusion between Plasma's multiple desktops (which controls the contents of the desktop background) and KWin's multiple desktops (which lets you have application windows on different virtual desktops like any decent window manager).

I also really like being able to place multiple images on the background (in the picture frame plasmoid, which also does slide shows).

Amarok 2.0 deserves special mention. It still doesn't have all the features from the 1.x series (notably the ability to transcode on the fly when you transfer to your mp3 player) but I am very impressed with the interface. It has its own Plasma containment for holding widgets, and when you drag items from your library to the playlist this containment becomes a set of drop targets for "append to play list", "queue" etc.

KTorrent is now my favourite bittorrent client. Actually KTorrent was pretty usable back when 4.0 was released, I even used it in Gnome for a while.

Kontact, KMail and the rest of the PIM suite I'm not so sure about. They're connected to Akonadi which hasn't been working very well for me. I loved KMail back in the KDE 2 and 3 days.

Dolphin is a pretty decent file manager. The only thing I really miss from Nautilus is the spatial mode, but at least they added tree style expandable folders in the list view.

In general I'd call this a good-for-end-users release. Hopefully there will have been a few 4.2.x point releases before Kubuntu 9.04 is released to clear up any remaining bugs.

In terms of speed the system is very usable. On my Core 2 Duo with 2 GB of ram it seems just as fast as using Gnome. On my friend's Pentium M with 512 MB of ram it's usable, but not as snappy as Gnome.

Since I've been using KDE 4.2 on my laptop, I've had a lot of people notice how cool Linux is. Instead of trying to show them something and explain it while their eyes gloss over, they're asking questions and wanting to know if it would work on their computer. That doesn't mean they're going to try it (on Linux at least) but it does mean that KDE has finally figured out how to be visually appealing to non-nerds. The default theme in 4 is much better than Keramik from 3.1, that's for damn sure.

So to answer your question, this is the release that distributions should have waited for before replacing KDE 3.5. It was simply madness that so many distros went to 4.0 and 4.1 as a default and not letting users switch back to 3.5.

If you have a Unix-ish desktop KDE 4.2 is definitely worth a try. It's probably also worth a try on Windows and Mac but I don't have those so I can't comment on them. Still, if you have a free afternoon and you're a big nerd like me who enjoys playing with new software, KDE 4.2 is worth a try.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that concept isn't too difficult to understand. We understand it very well.
But apparently it is too difficult to stick to sane numbering schemes.
Releasing it as KDE4.0 was nothing but a marketing gimmick saying "we're finally there".
I'll stick to 3.5 until 4.3 or 4.4

Too late!

[kindbud]

Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes. I just cross-graded to Xubuntu today, because I had finally had enough of Kubuntu's barely functional desktop. I mean, 5-7 seconds to make the equivalent of Windows' Start menu to appear? It's a wonder I stuck with it so long.

Re:Too late!

[thevoice]

...like rain on your wedding day...

Re:Too late!

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched away from Canonical all together and ended up on sidux (running e17 of all things).

I had been a happy #ubuntu lemming for a couple of years and switched many people over from windows to it. But I needed to escape the bugs of #DE 4.2RC because they were preventing me from getting stuff done and I was tired of the point release treadmill.

For a while, I couldn't properly verbalize why it was that people li#e Linus and I jumped the #DE ship altogether when a perfectly good 3.5 is still out there. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that running #DE4 for any length of time in its current buggy state literally turns you off to using anything with the letter "#" in it, even the one on your #eyboard.

I've been using GNU/Linux since the 1.1 days, so like Linus, I've used more than a few distros in my day and am probably less married to any one than some of the newcomers here tend to be.

What's really sad, is sidux is basically vanilla Debian Sid (you #now, the uber-scary, touch it if you dare, development line) and it's still 20x more stable than #DE4 on #ubuntu Interpid.

That being said, I'll still recommend Ubunutu and and any #ubuntu up to Hardy to newcomers and people with laptops and limited time to figure their wireless card.

Perhaps I'll revisit #DE4 in a year, by then they should be on 4.4 and might have something worth using for day-to-day. Until then, I've wasted far too much time with it, because I use my computer for far more than staring at eye-candy and moving widgets around constantly. So I'll stick with something that is beyond the stage where the the best the developers can telling everyone is "Well, it mostly works" or "That'll be there in version x.3".

Oh, and in case you didn't realize it by now, throughout this entire post I've used # in place of #. ;)

Re:Too late!

[Anonymous Coward]

no. like 10000 spoons...

Re:1 question

[mpyne]

I wish the KDE fanboys (and the KDE developers themselves) would stop trying to rewrite recent history and just admit there were mistakes made.

There were mistakes made.

Re:1 question

[aliquis]

Ah, three "unstable" levels, Debian for sure ..

Anyway I just was pretty confident that it won't show up in a stable version of Debian for quite some time. And back in the days .deb used to be synonym with Debian, and therefor he'd have to take quite a nap if he wanted to use it (in a stable version atleast.)

But as I said without the comment I'd get hit with the troll stick immediately. Moderators hate me! :D

Re:1 question

[QCompson]

There were mistakes made.

Thank you!

WTF? Akonadi Requires MySQL?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no words - can anyone point me to a sane sounding explanation as to why on earth is a full fledged RDBMS installation is required for using PIM?

What problem does it solve that hasn't already been solved by many people across many platforms time and again?

Wow.

Re:1 question

[carlmenezes]

One more question...

What is the state of KDE on NVIDIA? I'm on Ubuntu with KDE nightlies and its as laggy as hell. Have yet to check the released 4.2 though.

Re:1 question

[mpyne]

Of COURSE it's their fault. They were FORCED to explain that time and time again because they deliberately chose version numbers that say the exact opposite.

At the end of the day what 4.0 means is that the kdelibs it ships will not run KDE 3 applications. It's a major incompatible release.

What we could have done instead is to forgo releasing until it was at 4.2 quality or so, pushing back the betas and RCs to that point.

Although 4.2 is a year away from 4.0, delaying 4.0 until it was 4.2 would have taken much longer than a year, since people only test releases.

We at KDE did not communicate effectively enough that 4.0 would be in many ways a step down from 3.5, but we didn't force distros to shift to it, and people able to grab theirs from source are certainly more than capable of going back to their distro's 3.5 packages.

So could we have done better? Of course. But I disagree with the notion that you can't make a release just because it's not suitable for 95% of the user population.

Besides, IMHO, 4.0 wasn't fit for developers either. Even in 4.2, they're STILL calling some of the APIs experimental.

Even if that's the case (and I'll admit I'm not sure as to what libraries you're referring to), are you really trying to claim that an entire desktop release should be held back because there is a library that may change? (Let's assume that we clearly announced in the API docs and such that the interface was subject to change)

Even if the library changes, it's not likely to change that much, which gives developers a leg up in getting started. And if 98% of the library API is frozen and you only use 25% that's in the frozen set, what's the issue?

This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Just because a release is not suitable for 100 developers doesn't mean that the other 99900 developers who want a release should have to wait.

4.0 was so bad I switched to

[fast turtle]

Vista just to get shit done and now that I'm running Vista SP2 Beta (Win7-Beta) I can't see switching back to Linux just for principles. Sure I'm wearing my Abestos undies so flame away but the truth is, I simply couldn't get enough work done under Linux to justify using it.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid I need some more help. Was this the part of your link you wanted me to pay attention to?

"KDE 4.0.0 is our "will eat your children" release of KDE4, not the next release of KDE 3.5. The fact that many already use it daily for their desktop (including myself) shows that it really won't eat your children, but it is part of that early stage in the release system of KDE4. It's the "0.0" release. The amount of new software in KDE4 is remarkable and we're going the open route with that."

or maybe this part?

"KDE 4.0 rocks in a number of ways. Whether one looks at the new frameworks (solid, phonon, akonadi et al) or the revamped existing ones (kconfig getting multiple back end support, the UI-less kdecore), or examines the apps like okular or kdeedu or the games or dolphin or ksnapshot or konsole (ok, I won't list every app) or many of the new workspace features like composite and widgets or the new artwork or ... you get the picture. There's a lot that is just amazing."

Maybe you wanted me to see this...

"What leaves people wondering about quality is that there is a disparity between our stated end goals and 4.0. This is, to be blunt, due to a lack of experience on their part: most people have never been involved in the creation of something great."

Please clarify. I'm still looking for the "not for end users" part. Thanks.

Son of a bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

I started compiling KDE 4 days ago and it just finished this morning. Now I have to upgrade already lol.

Re:1 question

[mpyne]

You would have to make the taskbar fonts way smaller but I just did it and it doesn't look completely atrocious. Except for it being on the top of the screen, wtf man! ;)

Re:1 question

[bigstrat2003]

But, apparently this concept is too difficult for people to understand.

No, the concept of the standard versioning system is too hard for the KDE developers to understand. If the product is labeled 4.0 (and not 4.0 beta, or something like that), it means it's for end users. PERIOD. I don't give a damn what the developers say. If I say that a red car is green, and someone sues me for misrepresenting it, no one is going to have any pity on me. My own damn fault for misusing standard terminology.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god! Not being bashed!? KDE!!?! Are you sure you've been reading /. ?

There wasn't a time when KDE wasn't criticized for naming a developer release as 4.0.

Re:1 question

[MikeUW]

Seems to work fine for me...you can't set it by entering an actual pixel hight, but you can drag it to whatever height you prefer.

Personally, I will set it to just the right height to get two rows in the system tray. Its nice that the windows in the taskbar will also split into two rows when you have enough of them open.

Re:1 question

[Zephiris]

"The aim of the KDE project for the 4.0 release is to put the foundations in place for future innovations on the Free Desktop. The many newly introduced technologies incorporated in the KDE libraries will make it easier for developers to add rich functionality to their applications, combining and connecting different components in any way they want."

From the 4.0 beta 4 release notes. Apparently someone forgot that paragraph in the final notes, but it still stands.
Anyone who actually cared at the time, and was looking over things, playing with pre-release versions, looking over blogs, actually listening to what people were saying, it was said countless times. One KDE developer joked it was the 'eat your children' release.

Even in the KDE keynote address (at the launch event, available online), they talked about how it was more of a foundational release.

Several months later, they officially countered many of the points being put forth about KDE 4.0 and 4.1.

People are happy enough to complain, but people, including KDE developers, were talking about this for months in advance of KDE 4.0's release, and after. It's been widely expected that KDE 4.2 would be the 'proper' release for a long while.

It's not that KDE fanboys, or developers (I'm neither) have revisionist history, it's that some people who'd prefer to argue or complain after the fact, weren't paying attention or conveniently develop amnesia.

Who was expecting the KDE folks to pull a magical perfect fully functional release, all of a sudden out of their collective arses, concurrently with KDevelop, KOffice, Amarok, and other software versions, when they had to rewrite major portions to take full advantage of Qt 4.4? KDE 4.0 was internally in development for over two years. It took them a scant year to circle the wagons after a "we're eating children and releasing early to sync up with third parties and make it possible to develop against more conveniently" release to make a stable user-oriented version. Big deal. According to other posts and snarky comments on Slashdot, it's taking Windows 7 3 years (with no development libraries or early previews to target as an average developer, until Beta 1 SDK released, concurrently with Beta 1 itself) to release an annoying graphical update to Windows Vista. People tend to be 'slightly' overreacting and skewing for their own fan base there as well.

KDE 3.5.10 was released just this last August (2008). I'm not saying that 4.0 or 4.1 was a great idea, just that it was sensible from their point of view, and warned about in a copious manner. It's fairly unbelievable that people would freak out -that- badly if they weren't interested enough about the software or desktop environment to read anything surrounding the event, including previews, beta notes, statements from individual developers, color commentary from the peanut gallery, or much of anything else.

When KDE 3.0 was released, did every possible feature and customization for 2.x somehow survive immediately? People used to be more on the fence until a few releases in.

I bet that by the time KDE 4.3 is released (currently scheduled for July), it won't even matter that everyone was so eager to complain about the developer versions when the stable version (3.5) was still available, worked, was maintained, and could easily be installed side-by-side.

Even if, somehow, you were confused about the nature of KDE 4.0 or 4.1, no one was holding a gun to your head to force

Re:A couple of questions

[MikeUW]

So don't upgrade?

Re:1 question

[Abreu]

This page: http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2 has the install instructions for Kubuntu

...I stopped using Debian when it was still called "Potato"

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

Pff. I'm waiting until KDE 4.4! Surely no earlier version could be suitable for my advanced needs!

What's that, computer?

Fetching external item into 'kdebase/workspace/kwin/clients/oxygen/lib'
Updated external to revision 917587.

Updated to revision 917586.

-- Found Automoc4: /home/kdedev/kde/build/kdesupport/automoc/automoc4

-- The following external packages were located on your system.
-- This installation will have the extra features provided by these packages.
+ MySQL Server
Congratulations! All external packages have been found.

Err... Umm...

Re:1 question

[Abreu]

There were some very bad mistakes made... 4.0 should have been named 3.99

Sincerely,

A KDE fan

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

No, it's too difficult for me to read anything more than a version number, so I'm not even going to try. I'll play the blame game instead, so's I don't have to do any thinking at all.

FTFY.

Re:1 question

[bendodge]

They're still huge. I hated it until I got a 19" 1680x1020 LCD. Now KDE looks perfect and XP looks tiny. Everything about KDE is geared for large displays. It's actually very nice if you have one.

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

*grumble* And I lost my mod points yesterday. :/
That's some good writing you've got there.

Re:1 question

[bigstrat2003]

No. Version numbers have a set meaning. You simply don't get to play games with standard accepted terminology, and then hope everyone will accept your bullshit explanation. There's a reason we have terms mean specific things, not just whatever you feel like having it mean.

Re:1 question

[QCompson]

If a man takes a car and gets in a freak accident that blows it up because he didn't read the manual, it isn't the car company's fault. If no one could be bothered to read anything surrounding KDE 4.0 or 4.1, it isn't KDE's fault that there was confusion. They probably could've addressed such confusion in a more timely manner, but I'm sorry, I don't know of anyone else who managed to miss the fact that KDE 4.0 was anything other than a developer release.

And here is the crux of the problem. The KDE team attempted to redefine the meaning of betas, RCs, and final releases.

If a man takes an experimental rocket-car for a drive and it blows up, it isn't the rocket-car company's fault. However, if a man takes a Honda Civic for a drive, and it blows up unexpectedly, then Honda would most certainly would take a lot of the blame.

And please... lots of people missed the fact that KDE 4.0 wasn't anything but a developer release. Hence the controversy. If they wanted it to be just a developer release, they could have (duh) labeled it a developer release!

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

Speaking of multiple Activities... Panning the "big checkered Activity field" to find another activity is pretty slow on my system [1]. How's it on yours?

[1] Radeon R420 AGP (x800), Athlon XP 2800+, 2GB DDR 400Mhz (PC 3200?) RAM.

Re:1 question

[rob1980]

It's laughable that /. bashes Windows for it's SP2 is functional development but has little to no criticism for open source software(and especially KDE).

Not to mention the summary including a link for you to "congratulate" the developers on top of that.

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

No. Version numbers have a set meaning... not just whatever you feel like having it mean.

$ eix -I openssl
[I] dev-libs/openssl
          Available versions: 0.9.8e-r3 0.9.8f 0.9.8g-r2 0.9.8h-r1 0.9.8j

Would you like to reconsider your statement?

Re:1 question

[evil_aar0n]

Free vs. paid for.

Humongous monopoly vs. unpaid volunteers.

Notice a difference?

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fairly sure that anyone who gives a shit should get over his love of celebrities and use what works best for him.

KRunner

[spiderbitendeath]

Why won't they let you turn off that stupid search in krunner so you can actually use the damn thing with out having to wait for it to catch up to your typing?

Re:KRunner

[RichiH]

That has been fixed ages ago.

Re:1 question

[CajunArson]

I already posted so I can't mod you up, but well said sir!

Re:1 question

[Simmin]

If you install the nvidia-glx-180 driver/package, performance is flawless.

Firefox?

[Dwedit]

Does Firefox still look like ass on KDE?

Re:Firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

No

Re:Firefox?

[swilver]

Dunno, it looks almost exactly like the Windows version for me, although I had to download a theme for it:)

Re:Firefox?

[Cro Magnon]

Dunno, it looks almost exactly like the Windows version for me

So, it DOES look like ass?

Re:1 question

[influenza]

It's a little slow for me too. I only zoom out to create a new activity. I also can't find a way to switch activities with keyboard short cuts.

Right now I have two panels, one on the bottom and one on the top. The bottom panel has a task manager. The top panel has an "activity switcher" plasmoid that works like a tab bar for your activities. You can rename the activities in the appearance settings dialog.

Switching between activities using this tabbed switcher is very quick, even when my laptop is in powersave mode (800 MHz).

Re:1 question

[3p1ph4ny]

Amarok 2 does not have support for an equalizer, because Phonon (KDE4's media backend) does not have equalizer support. I have seen no timeline which indicates that there are even plans to add equalizer support to Phonon (although, presumably I'm not the only one missing this feature).

A google search of "phonon equalizer" yields nothing of any value.

Does anyone know if there will be an equalizer for phonon?

Re:1 question

[X0563511]

Well, testing 4.1 in OpenSUSE... the bar is the same (or smaller) than KDE3.5 was, and the desktop is easy to restore to a "normal" desktop instead of a widget dock.

Try it out and play around. It won't bite.

Re:1 question

[bigstrat2003]

Considering I have no idea what you just said, why would I?

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

From here: http://www.openssl.org/source/

openssl-0.9.8e.tar.gz
openssl-0.9.8f.tar.gz
openssl-0.9.8g.tar.gz
openssl-0.9.8h.tar.gz
openssl-0.9.8i.tar.gz
openssl-0.9.8j.tar.gz

Would you like to reconsider your statement on versioning?

Re:1 question

[uvajed_ekil]

No, I think you are forgetting that every article like this gets replies like yours. Relevant open source software sees plenty of criticism (much of it done internally and prior to release), and points like yours seem to come up in every thread here. The catches are that most of open source source software is either not relevant to most people (common), isn't available at Best Buy or Walmart (very common), doesn't deserve as much criticism because it doesn't require an an excessive outlay of money for purchase or replacement (sometimes, at least), and it doesn't generally necessitate tons of patches every month to keep PCs from being hijacked and protect bank accounts from being drained (generally true, though debatably due to a lack of popular use). Open source software would get more of the negative attention you desire if it got any mainstream attention to begin with. Many folks here tend to like or prefer it to closed-source security risks, so if we are slightly biased, that is why. Our bias is not without reason, and it is far from dogmatic or so extreme that it stifles debate.
As for KDE 4.2 specifically, I think I'll stick to Gnome for now. I really liked some of the earlier KDE versions, but I used mainly Windows then, and I know my Gnome setup works and does what I need it to. I must admit that I'm kind of excited to try a new, "stable" version of KDE, but my hopes are not too high for it. Why? Because there has been so much KDE bashing lately that expectations for it are not what they used to be, except perhaps amongst fanatics that will never be swayed by factually-based criticism. 4.2 is supposedly stable and probably ready for widespread adoption, or so I hear.

xinerama?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could never get KDE 4.1 to work with more than one display (other WM and KDE3 worked fine with same xorg.conf). Is that fixed now?

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

Good to know that it's not just my "crappy" hardware that's making the "Activity Workspace" slow.

Aye. I knew about the activity switcher widget. It's no slower to switch with that on my Athlon XP machine than it is to switch KDE virtual desktops. :D

Seeing as how I used to use Window Maker, I've only one *tiny* panel that contains the new K menu and the "recently connected devices" widget. I really wish that one could dump those widgets on the desktop as icons, rather than the expanded windows.

Re:1 question

[Artemis3]

"I use Fedora for historical reasons."
"I thought KDE 4.0 was such a disaster, I switched to GNOME."
"I got the update through Fedora, and there was a mismatch from KDE 3 to KDE 4.0. The desktop was not as functional, and it was just a bad experience for me. I'll revisit it when I reinstall the next machine, which tends to be every six to eight months."

Open source identity: Linux founder Linus Torvalds

Re:1 question

[bigstrat2003]

I still fail to see what you're trying to get at. Look, stop trying to be clever about it. Explain your point in words, because giving me a bunch of version numbers that mean nothing to me doesn't give me a reason to change my opinion. All I can tell is that it looks like either those are a bunch of different language options, or the Open SSL developers are abusing version numbers too, just in a different way than the KDE developers.

Re:1 question

[Mostly a lurker]

Although 4.2 is a year away from 4.0, delaying 4.0 until it was 4.2 would have taken much longer than a year, since people only test releases

I understand. Your solution was to tell people that something was a release when it wasn't. In extreme circumstances, I suppose a case can be made for misleading people to achieve an intended result. However, you should not then be surprised if you take a big hit to your credibility.

Re:1 question

[HermMunster]

This KDE guy is using hindsight to explain what they did. I don't believe him. They messed up. Even remotely considering a little plasmoid as the desktop was a total joke. I used Linux day in and day out and anything without a traditional desktop metaphor would have been a joke--the KDE guys were trying to redefine against the face of what we all wanted.

I know KDE 4.2 has the option to use a traditional desktop, but you can see by them setting the dinky plasmoid as default that they still believe in their vision. Wrong!

Again, hindsight is the better part of valor. These guys are revising their response to fit what they saw happen, because we here will accept anything, because we know there are thousands (or millions) of opinions that can be voice on the matter.

Re:1 question

[HermMunster]

Well said.

Re:1 question

[HermMunster]

I read the original release and it didn't limit it to development. They went so far as to explain which distros would have packages and when. Nothing I read indicated it was a development release. This doesn't mean they didn't revise it when they found out all the negative feedback they were getting.

But, KDE 4.2 is so much better. I might even consider making it my default desktop--though I do dislike the slowness, especially of the window resize. They need a resize applet for their compositing manager just like compiz has.

Re:1 question

[HermMunster]

That's a wikipedia article and not an official announcement from the folks at KDE. Remember, wikipedia can have anyone edit that. Any note written in that could easily have been added as a revision when they found out about all the negative feedback they were getting--or rather, even, someone else's opinion of it and not representative of KDE at all.

Re:1 question

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

You speak true. Which is fascinating, since I think the trend is towards notebooks and smaller devices. Ooops! KDE can look great on my laptop when its plugged into the external monitor. When it's not, everything seems absurdly large.

Re:1 question

[mpyne]

Although 4.2 is a year away from 4.0, delaying 4.0 until it was 4.2 would have taken much longer than a year, since people only test releases

I understand. Your solution was to tell people that something was a release when it wasn't. In extreme circumstances, I suppose a case can be made for misleading people to achieve an intended result. However, you should not then be surprised if you take a big hit to your credibility.

*sigh*

4.0 was a release. It was a release that was not even up to 3.5 in terms of feature set but it was definitely the solid base of the KDE 4 platform.

My point was not that we should simply rush out releases no matter how bad they were. (In fact, 4.0 was delayed from its original release date for bugfixing). My point is that getting 4.0 into a 4.2 shape with just the testing and use we could provide internally would have taken much longer than the year it took between 4.0 and 4.2. Pretty much any large project will ship a release that even has known bugs. We fixed the large ones that we would thought would block release before we shipped 4.0.

Obviously some got by us but really 4.0 was more of a letdown in features IMHO than in bugs. Some experienced more bugs than others (for instance this is when the issues with the nVidia driver at the time really became apparent).

Wait... Doesn't support T&L?!

[im_thatoneguy]

What video card doesn't support T&L?

T&L was added to the Geforce 2 series. Do you have a Voodoo 2 tucked away somewhere that you're wanting to use?

Re:Wait... Doesn't support T&L?!

[0123456]

"What video card doesn't support T&L?"

Intel integrated crapsets?

Certainly the one in my Windows laptop doesn't support DX7 hardware T I believe it emulates vertex shaders in software for DX8 and above.

Re:Wait... Doesn't support T&L?!

[cheater512]

I'm not so sure about that because I've used KDE 4 with effects on a P3 laptop with Intel graphics.
Worked fine. Tad slow but still surprisingly fast.

Re:Wait... Doesn't support T&L?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently, only the Intel® G35, G41, G43, G45, G965, GL40, GL960, GM45, GM965, and GS45 Express Chipsets support hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L).

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-011910.htm

Those aren't exactly particularly old chipsets these days.

Re:Wait... Doesn't support T&L?!

[Ilgaz]

i950 (Intel) is the most famous and (unfortunately) popular one. It is the main reason I don't upgrade my PPC Mac Mini to Mactel one since it includes that disaster.

Re:1 question

[mpyne]

KDE 4.0 supported desktop icons even without the Folder View plasmoid. (The catch being that the desktop must be unlocked first to drag-drop new ones on). The same mechanism still works to this day.

All Folder View allows over that is it will pull the icons from a specific folder, which allowed us to remove the 4.0 feature that caused all the files in your ~/Desktop to have an icon created automatically on the desktop. Or in other words, you've always been able to use ~/Desktop for your desktop.

--the KDE guys were trying to redefine against the face of what we all wanted

You seem to have a mighty expansive definition of "all". Especially in light of the fact that pretty much every major desktop environment has widgets on the desktop in one form or another now.

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

...giving me a bunch of version numbers that mean nothing to me...

From earlier in the thread:

No. Version numbers have a set meaning.

And still earlier:

No, the concept of the standard versioning system is too hard for the KDE developers to understand.

You have been presented with version numbers representing the latest versions of OpenSSL. Have you heard of this software? Lemmy jog your memory. If I were as naive as you claim to be, I would be have started waiting for the real ready-for-end-users release oh... ten years ago, and would still be waiting today.

Re:1 question

[the_B0fh]

I'm not sure how you claim it is revisionist.

While reading this article, it is important to keep in mind that KDE 4 is still largely incomplete. Many of the details provided in this article reflect the fact that the 4.0 release is not a finished product. The KDE development team controversially decided to release 4.0 in a premature state in order to stimulate user interest and promote accelerated development. The result is that KDE 4.0 is, in many ways, like a preview for developers and technical enthusiasts rather than a release for enterprise desktops and production environments. My extensive testing shows that KDE 4.0 can be used on a day-to-day basis, but there are many inconveniences posed by the software's current limitations.

http://arstechnica.com/software/reviews/2008/01/kde-40-review.ars

KDE users who require mission-critical robustness and the full feature set of the KDE 3.5.x series should probably wait until KDE 4.1 before making the transition, but application developers and Linux enthusiasts who are eager to experiment with the new features will be able to make the transition now without too much trouble.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2008/01/kde-4-0-rough-but-ready-for-action.ars

And since you seem to be too lazy to read the one link I included, I've cut and pasted it for you here:

To bring it into high-relief: KDE3 is our current product line for production, and KDE4 is our mid-term production line. For there to be any KDE worthy of succeeding KDE 3.5, we needed a mid-term project. No short-term project would cut it. We're at the beginning of where we can bring KDE4 into "current produce line" condition, which is to say that KDE4 is that transition period from mid-term to short-term project. That's exciting, and one more reason 4.0 rocks.

http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2008/01/talking-bluntly.html

You see the part that says "KDE3 is our current product line for production"? Gee, I wonder what that means in your world.

Re:1 question

[the_B0fh]

His point is that you have false expectations. Why should 1.0 have any specific meaning other than what the developers give it? People were using linux 0.92.x to run power stations. Were they wrong in doing it, in a production environment? No. You find the tool that best fits what you need, and use it.

openssl is at whatever version they are at, and they will keep making changes, and upping the version number. Same for anything else.

Linux kernel used to be even versioned for prod, and odd versioned for development/test. Linus decided to do away with that after more than 10 years of that. And so now prod and development/test are all in 2.6.

And guess what. People adapted to it.

Re:1 question

[pcgabe]

Yup.

I didn't particularly care for Gnome when was into Linux a few years ago (ahhh Mandrake 7.0; why didn't I stick with your defaults?). My friends convinced me that Gnome was the future, but it fought with me the whole time.

I tried using KDE and it was great, so I switched.

Fast-forward to Kubuntu 8.04 and its KDE4 option. After all, if it's in a main distribution, it should be ready for prime-time, right?

Disaster. WHY would they put something out with such reduced functionality compared to KDE3.5?

Recently I reformatted my computer, and instead of returning to the comforting familiarity of KDE, I thought I would take another look at my options.

I tried using Gnome and it was great, so I switched.

Maybe if Gnome screws up big in the future, I might try KDE again, but for now I see no reason to.

Re:1 question

[cheater512]

You can if you edit the config file. :)

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Trademark Notices. KDE® and the K Desktop Environment® logo are registered trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. (who is no more a KDE user) UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

Re:Yes! 7P

[jjohnson]

Seriously, who the fuck is doing this? It was mildly funny when it was actually Kirk Johnson; now it's just a warmed over crust of a joke, like saying "this is excellent news! for (Hillary|McCain)!" was after about August.

Re:1 question

[RAMMS EIN]

``It's laughable that /. bashes Windows for it's SP2 is functional development but has little to no criticism for open source software(and especially KDE).''

Oh, come off it. There has been plenty of criticism of KDE 4.0 on Slashdot. And Microsoft gets praise when they deserve it; there have been plenty of positive comments on the Windows 7 beta. Of course there are Microsoft bashers on Slashdot. There are also Microsoft fanboys. And, on the whole, I think the sensible comments tend to be brought to the top and the noise suppressed, thanks to the moderators. Bias? Yes, I'm sure there's some. But it isn't like everything open source is automatically great and everything Microsoft is automatically evil.

Re:1 question

[rastos1]

Nope, he uses leopard.

Nope, he uses The Force, Luke.

Re:1 question

[RAMMS EIN]

``People are happy enough to complain, but people, including KDE developers, were talking about this for months in advance of KDE 4.0's release, and after. It's been widely expected that KDE 4.2 would be the 'proper' release for a long while.''

Still, I hope we can all learn from this experience. The way I see it, releasing an x.0 that wasn't ready for end users was an experiment, and we now know it wasn't a good idea. It's been complained about enough, let's hope everybody has learned the lesson and it won't be done again. That _does_ leave the question of what you _should_ name the versions leading up to your x.0 release. Clearly, they aren't (x - 1).y when they're based on a whole new platform. But you do need to name them something, especially when development on them is going to take a long time. Suggestions?

Pretty much what KDE 4.0 should have been

[golodh]

As far as I understand (without installing it myself yet), lots of things actually work the way they are supposed to (as opposed to KDE 4.0). Like in a first release.

So as far as I'm concerned this release is KDE 4.0 as it should have been.

Re:1 question

[SomeKDEUser]

That is precisely his point. version numbers are just that, pointless numbers.

See, LaTeX has a version number converging to e.

Emacs only changes the last digit nowadays, even for big updates.

For a long time, linux odd minor version number meant unstable.

Ubuntu gave up on numbers, they have dates!

A version number means what the devs say it means, nothing less, nothing more. So basically, you _have_ to read what the devs say. You cannot assume anything from the version number.

Hell, someone might decide that the first three characters of the hash of the tgz might be a good version number. And it might be, too.

Re:1 question

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm fairly sure that anyone who gives a shit should get over his love of celebrities and use what works best for him.

Right, because it's just idle adulation; Linus could never make an informed choice about a linux desktop that works well for developers.

Re:1 question

[alukin]

Seems that KDE people will not ever agree that 4.0 was an management and PR mistake. They think they was firmly right to do this crap and will do it again.

Re:1 question

[amRadioHed]

I was not disappointed by 4.0 in the slightest, because I read the reviews and decided to wait for 4.1. Some people just love to complain.

Re:1 question

[amRadioHed]

Despite what that release note may lead you to believe, it was common knowledge at the time that 4.0 was not for general consumption. If you read even one article or review about it at the time you would have known that.

Taskbar, Grey Slabs, Consistency and Colors

[RAMMS EIN]

Two criticisms, just by looking at it:

1. The taskbar won't scale to more than a few windows. The buttons are too wide, causing the whole width of your screen to be used up quickly. Instead of using a Windows 95 style taskbar, why not use NEXTSTEP style icons? OS X does it, and it looks like Windows 7 will, too.

2. The screenshots feature windows with solid grey backgrounds. I find this ugly. It's bearable if windows contain only small unused areas, but if those areas are larger, you'll find yourself looking at an ugly grey slab. Do something textured, like Aqua's stripes or the brushed metal in that old version of Enlightenment.

3. The screenshots feature windows in a variety of styles. I guess this is all hip these days, but I'd rather set up a pleasing theme for my applications and then have every window on my desktop use these settings. Sure, some applications have a good reason to look different, but, really, the vast majority don't.

4. Looking at the desktop screenshot, a I see an active window and an inactive window that look almost exactly the same. This is really bad for usability. It should be obvious which window I'm working in, even after a 10-hour working day at the end of a week with little sleep. Make the active window stand out!

As an interesting tidbit, my first impression was "wow, it looks like Vista". I think this is mostly a Good Thing; about the only thing I like about Vista is that it looks beautiful. On the other hand, I'm not sure you really want to be associated with it.

Re:Taskbar, Grey Slabs, Consistency and Colors

[Anonymous Coward]

To address your concerns:

Two criticisms, just by looking at it:

0. Two is not four =P

1. The taskbar won't scale to more than a few windows. The buttons are too wide, causing the whole width of your screen to be used up quickly. Instead of using a Windows 95 style taskbar, why not use NEXTSTEP style icons? OS X does it, and it looks like Windows 7 will, too.

1. The buttons get smaller as you open more windows, and you can also group them the way Windows does so many e.g. Firefox windows can share one button.

2. The screenshots feature windows with solid grey backgrounds. I find this ugly. It's bearable if windows contain only small unused areas, but if those areas are larger, you'll find yourself looking at an ugly grey slab. Do something textured, like Aqua's stripes or the brushed metal in that old version of Enlightenment.

2. I agree with your assessment but there are probably more important things to be working on...

3. The screenshots feature windows in a variety of styles. I guess this is all hip these days, but I'd rather set up a pleasing theme for my applications and then have every window on my desktop use these settings. Sure, some applications have a good reason to look different, but, really, the vast majority don't.

3. I'm not sure which screenshot you're talking about, but of all the ones I saw that were linked from the 4.2.0 release page, all of the windows had the same style. You might be talking about the Plasma widgets on the desktop, which are themed differently, but they aren't windows and are more comparable to Google Desktop gadgets (in fact Plasma is compatible with those).

4. Looking at the desktop screenshot, a I see an active window and an inactive window that look almost exactly the same. This is really bad for usability. It should be obvious which window I'm working in, even after a 10-hour working day at the end of a week with little sleep. Make the active window stand out!

4. This is pretty annoying with the default theme, but you can just change the window decorations to something other than the default.

Re:1 question

[Wheely]

It is a development release now but it wasn't then. When KDE 4.0 came out it was linked to as "Stable release" on the KDE web site with the "Legacy release" being 3.5.X.

The KDE crowd eventually admitted this was a mistake and changed it to what we see now which was the right thing to do. However, revisionist history does not make their mistake go away and I know they lost a lot of users over it.

I, for one, was KDE only from the original KDE Beta 2 realised KDE was now a dead end for me and ended up on a Mac as a result. I dislike OSX but if you're going to run a desktop you hate you may as well get simple hardware integration as compensation.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

What we could have done instead is to forgo releasing until it was at 4.2 quality or so, pushing back the betas and RCs to that point.

Calling a beta product as "beta" is "pushing back"? For me it means "being honest to your users".

Although 4.2 is a year away from 4.0, delaying 4.0 until it was 4.2 would have taken much longer than a year, since people only test releases [lkml.org].

So, you forced people to test your alpha/beta product by naming it as "release", and you are surprised by angry responses from those, who know the difference between 4.0-alpha, 4.0-beta, 4.0-RC, and 4.0 (i.e. it seems everybody but KDE developers, and Microsoft)?

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mean "fucking moron"? It's OK, this is the Internet. You can swear if you want to.

Re:1 question

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

That _does_ leave the question of what you _should_ name the versions leading up to your x.0 release. Clearly, they aren't (x - 1).y when they're based on a whole new platform. But you do need to name them something, especially when development on them is going to take a long time. Suggestions?

Hmm. Google and KDE together screwed up alpha, beta, release candidate minor versioning - so that's out. However, how about doing away with the minor version numbering/lettering all together and label them something meaningful? Like so...

KDE - eat your children release

KDE - may turn off your cooling fan release

KDE - discover bizarre screen artifacts release

KDE - one size fits all release

KDE - half functionality of previous major version release

KDE - 4.0 (stable and more or less feature-complete)

Sure the KDE folks wouldn't have got so many takers for the first few, but people ought to be warned if it may eat your children (as thoughtfully mentioned in this thread first by the GP).

The real question is (to me):

[VincenzoRomano]

Is v4.2.0 comparable in real features with v3.5.10?
If you throw away eye candies, styles and other cosmetic features, can I replace my v3.5.10 with v4.2.0 without loosing a single feature?
If the answer is "no" or "almost", the v4.2.0 is no better than v3.5.10.
And the bad news is that some mainstream distros are not taking this into the proper account.

Re:The real question is (to me):

[JohnFluxx]

That's pretty awful logic you have there. If the value of the features added is greater than the value of the features lost, then it should be worth switching.

Re:The real question is (to me):

[VincenzoRomano]

Also your logic smells bad.
I wouldn't expect any "real" feature loss in a major version upgrade. Maybe some temporary instability, but not a net loss of any non cosmetic feature.
I use Linux+KDE on my main PC I use for work. When I tried 4.0.x and 4.1.x I had to revert back to 3.5.x.
And KDE developers suggested me so. You can browse the KDE Forums for complaints like mine.
The bottom line is that the current v4 KDE is for early adopters and testers, not every-day users.

Re:The real question is (to me):

[JohnFluxx]

> Also your logic smells bad.
Specifically where is my logic bad?

> I use Linux+KDE on my main PC I use for work. When I tried 4.0.x and 4.1.x I had to revert back to 3.5.x.

Which comes back to exactly what I just said. If the set of features lost is worth more to you than the set of features gained, then don't switch.

However it's quite possible to imagine the situation where features gained are worth more than the features lost. In such a case, a user would be willing to trade.

Re:The real question is (to me):

[VincenzoRomano]

> Specifically where is my logic bad?
After the upgrade I was unable to go on working as a number of things were actually missing, not even broken.
So no extra feature was worth it, to me.
And I clearly stated in my original post this is my personal point of view.

Re:The real question is (to me):

[JohnFluxx]

You still don't seem to get it.

For you, the missing features were more important than the features gained.

From that, you cannot conclude that "loosing a single feature" makes upgrading not worth it.

A simple counter example would be - if you lose the feature to auto-hide the taskbar, but gained the feature to search all the files on your system for certain keywords. For some, the new feature is worth more to them than the old feature, and thus it would be worth them upgrading, even though they lose a feature.

Re:The real question is (to me):

[VincenzoRomano]

I got the points, both yours and (of course) mine.
That is MY OWN policy, as stated, and I won't upgrade.
My best wishes to ANYONE ELSE BUT ME upgrading.

Re:1 question

[Wheely]

All quotes are pretty irrelevant when the kde.org website linked to KDE 4.0 under the heading "Stable release" and 3.5 under the heading "Legacy release".

They fixed that since though.

Re:1 question

[Risen888]

I switched to KDE because of KDE 4.

Re:1 question

[Risen888]

What exactly is this Worldwide Standard Numbering Scheme that people seem to be referring to when they make these comments? Did you pick it, Mr. Coward? Is there a spec for it? Did I miss a big email here or something?

Re:1 question

[Risen888]

No, *you* are attempting to define the meaning of version numbering. There is no such standard. Lots of teams, companies, groups, and lone crazy hackers number their projects in lots of different ways. The current version of Ubuntu is 8.10. Not because it is the tenth update of the eighth major version, because it was released in October of 2008. Go bitch at them for their non-compliance with your holy version numbering scheme.

Re:1 question

[Risen888]

I was not disappointed (using the strict definition of the word) in the 4.0 release either. Because I read the reviews and put on a cup before I installed it. I knew what I was walking into, and it was damn messy, lacked any configurability, regressed in many areas from 3.5, crashed hourly, major pieces of the KDE app suite weren't there at all, the ones that were were often pre-beta versions. Which is exactly what they said it was gonna be.

Through all that, I'm glad that I went for it and stuck with it. Watching this project evolve over the last year has been absolutely inspiring. Congratulations to the KDE team on the 4.2 release. It's been a hard road, thanks for sticking with it.

Re:1 question

[Risen888]

Then GTFO. I'm really excited about the prospect of leaving the "traditional desktop metaphor" behind, it's an idea that's way overdue. If you don't like it, find something you do like and use that.

Re:A couple of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't upgrade?

If you rant a distro like Fedora, "don't upgrade KDE" was nearly the same as "don't upgrade Fedora". I.e., stick with Fedora 8 or lower (they are on 10 or higher now). Fedora made the mistake of dropping 3.5 as a default option. Now, like Ubuntu, they are Gnome shop. I suspect that KDE is a checkmark not a concern. "Yeah, we got your KDE... freak." If you used their package manager, you got bumped into KDE4 and the only route out I saw was to abandon the default package manager or switch to a different distro. I could *not* use KDE4. There was just too much wrong about it. Anyway, the experience has left me wiser and now I run Debian which - still a Gnome shop by default - seems to have a better, more flexible package manager. I.e., I can run a 2008 version of Debian and still have my KDE3.5 without having to abandon the package manager.

Re:A couple of questions

[amRadioHed]

Seriously, what's wrong with some people? When the KDE team release a new version, do they come to his house and force him to upgrade? If you want your software to always work exactly the same, just don't change it.

And come on, complaining about having to "relearn" icons? This is the most pathetic criticism I've ever heard.

Re:1 question

[caluml]

It even intergrates google gadets into plasma!

So fucking what? I haven't any idea what Google Gadets (sic) do, least of all do I care that they intergrate (sic) into Plasma. I want a stable, fast, functional desktop.
I downloaded Kubuntu 8.04 to try out the new KDE, and boy was it a mess. I use KDE 3.5 on Gentoo at home, but am using Ubuntu (with Gnome) more and more recently, and I don't think I'll try KDE 4.* again for a good long while.
You can blame KDE for their release numbering, you can blame Kubuntu for jumping to such a load of junk, you can blame me for not reading all the documentation ever written about all the software I ever install, but at the end of the day, once burned, twice shy.

Re:1 question

[beaviz]

Hell, someone might decide that the first three characters of the hash of the tgz might be a good version number. And it might be, too.

You're brutal, you know that?

About ready for the festival

[CarpetShark]

In what state is it?

pre-alpha?
alpha?
beta?
rc?
actually functional?

Put it this way: if you know any country singers who need a topic for a depressing song...

Re:A couple of questions

[richlv]

i spend most of my day in console. i never change widget themes, and i use default or plain desktop background.
but damn kde 4 is pretty =)
ok, some of the prettiness reduces usability (that oxygen titlebar blending comes to mind), but i hope they'll deal with these issues until slackware moves to kde4 :)

Re:1 question

[drx]

KDE is a system admired and used by many people. Most of them don't have time to read scattered blogs, scroll through endless feature logs or visit KDE conferences or compile from source or loads of other things you seem to consider a normal thing to do. WTF, even Linus didn't do it because he has more important things to do.

KDE's communication has to change to fit their audience. Who cares about 2.x to 3.x transitions or other historical comparisons? Today there are people using KDE who weren't even born at that time. As soon as free software projects develop reasonable communication, e.g., understanding cultures different from their own, the Year of Linux on The Desktop will finally arrive.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE was adamantly clear that KDE 4.0 was not a 'user' release, but was solely for third party developers to actually get involved and start porting, and to make a difference.

Well, here's the original release announcement for KDE 4.0:

http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/

Now can we please stop with this revisionist history.

That pretty much says it all right there.

Re:1 question

[R_Dorothy]

WHY would they put something out with such reduced functionality compared to KDE3.5?

8.04 server is going to be supported until April 2013. Since KDE3.x is probably going to be be long gone by then it was decided to go with the 4.x series for the LTS.

I'm not defending that decision, just pointing out "WHY" it was done.

Re:1 question

[aix tom]

because giving me a bunch of version numbers that mean nothing to me doesn't give me a reason to change my opinion.

So is your argument that version numbers mean something or that they mean nothing? What is it now? ;-P

One of the standard version number schemes is that any n.0 release is something where they changed great parts of the underlying n-1 version to some new framework or did a mayor rewrite, or something like that. Of course when your software is the base a lot of other developers have to use, you need to get a version out to those developers early, so that they can prepare for the release.

Oracle for example does it that way, too. They release ".0" versions pretty early, so that all the vendors that write client software can start testing and programming early. It's quite clear there, too, that those version should not be used in production systems.

The ones at fault are the distros in this case, for switching to KDE 4.0 by default.

Funny enough, I use Gentoo which usually is one of the first to switch to newer versions of software by default, yet when I last checked the default was still the 3.5 version.

Re:1 question

[Jane_Dozey]

Exactly. I've recently released some software to a customer of my company. It's just a small utility to get rid of a small problem.
I had my own version numbers for my own use which were all 1.0. On release my boss asked me to bump it up to 1.0 purely because the customer would feel better seeing it. As for as I'm concerned it's still a beta release but the version number says 1.0 and the next will say 2.0. In other words, the version number is there to make the customer feel better, not to indicate the state of the software.

Re:1 question

[dotancohen]

Here:

Give it a spin...
For those interested in getting packages to test and contribute, several distributions have notified us that they will have KDE 4.0 packages available at or soon after the release.

Also, the download page had two versions clearly marked at the time:
KDE 3.5: For most end users
KDE 4.0: For early adopters

Re:1 question

[hattig]

I think it really needs the KDE people to say "yes, we made a mistake and accept that". Otherwise with the continued denial they will make the same mistake again.

KDE 4.0 should have been "KDE 4 Beta" with a very brief description/subheading of "API Stable Release for Developers and Beta Testers".

KDE 4.1 should have been "KDE 4 Release Candidate".

KDE 4.2 should be "KDE 4".

KDE 4.3 should be "KDE 4 Update 1"

and so on. The entire point is that we have "KDE 4" as the brand, so stop abusing it with point releases.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. How long will these people insist on beating the dead horse? It's as if they live for it.

Re:1 question

[hattig]

No.

"KDE 4" is a brand. That KDE have screwed up royally.

4.0 should have been "KDE 4 Beta". The beta-ness of it shouldn't have been written about in a paragraph on the release notes halfway down the page.

The point releases are just versioning information that can be rebranded upon release.

KDE 4.0 -> KDE 4 Beta
KDE 4.1 -> KDE 4 RC
KDE 4.2 -> KDE 4
KDE 4.3 -> KDE 4 Update 1

I think the KDE people need to learn about not exposing internal version numbers to the point of having them in the branded product.

Even if they had gone with "KDE 4 RC" for 4.0, the feedback would have meant that 4.1 would have been "KDE 4 RC 2"...

Re:1 question

[hattig]

I think you have a brand management problem.

Firstly from the fact that a lot of your users are more geekier than the average person, and thus get frothy around the mouth about version numbers, which are as meaningless as you say.

And secondly that your KDE brand, and especially your KDE 4 brand, are now sullied, from poor release branding. Yes, you should have had a major public release at 4.0, but it should have been marked a beta in the brand, and the release of Windows 7 Beta shows that people do in fact download these. If people get burned, hey, it's a beta. You can't sacrifice your everyday users!

I am sure that one of your core team knows someone who works with branding or marketing or similar. See if they can get talked into sorting out the public KDE branding, i.e., a mapping of internal version numbers to external branded releases as a first step, to ongoing brand management throughout the KDE website and press releases, etc.

If you already have someone doing this, I suggest that their help has been counter-productive.

Seeing this KDE 4 debacle has been like watching a team of total fuck-ups on The Apprentice. You can see, as an external viewer, everything they're doing wrong, yet even when told by Alan Sugar that they've been total fuck-ups, they refuse to see where they went wrong, and how they can improve, because they were so involved.

Re:1 question

[hattig]

I actually think that the work that KDE have been doing to extend the desktop beyond a "pile of icons" is well worthwhile. I love the idea that I can have multiple views into my file system, rather than having a Desktop folder that becomes unmanageable.

For example, people have "Download to Desktop" enabled. It then appears on your desktop amongst your Shortcut Icons, Trash and Computer Icons, etc. It really should fall into a "Downloads" folder, and a plasmoid view of that folder on the desktop will still show it, managed nicely, for you to process without getting it all mixed up.

I'm sure it can do far more powerful things as well.

The "Desktop As Repository Of Everything" concept has to die. This could be one thing that keeps Windows 7 a mess.

Designers need to be more anal

[shish]

A couple of days ago some guy got flamed for saying "The alignment is off, doesn't anybody even look at their software before releasing it?", with the most useful response being "your font settings are probably different to the developer's, they don't see what you see"; and I agreed with them. But looking at screenshots for myself, even the official screenshots showing how good it looks, look bad. annotated example. (PS. Any idea where I can send that to to have people fix it?)

/me goes back to enlightenment 17, ever more appreciative of Raster's perfectionism...

Re:Designers need to be more anal

[JohnFluxx]

bugs.kde.org is a good place to start to file bugs.

I forwarded your link to the Oxygen team on irc, but probably best to file a proper bug report so that you can track the status and help out. (Reporting bugs is often a good way to help out)

Whoopie...

[Anonymous Coward]

and it still sucks.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, IMHO, 4.0 wasn't fit for developers either. Even in 4.2, they're STILL calling some of the APIs experimental.

Even if that's the case (and I'll admit I'm not sure as to what libraries you're referring to)

Akonadi and Decibel come to mind. I'm not the GP and I think it's perfectly fine for them to still be in development, but the goal of having Kontact using Akonadi and Kopete using Decibel by 4.2 was clearly overly optimistic.

I do think that those frameworks represent a fundamental evolution in the nature of communication on the desktop. I look forward to seeing some early versions of them in place so the rest of us can hack together some really innovative apps.

Yeah, but does it run Linux?

[ickeicke]

Yeah, but does it run Linux?

...

Re:1 question

[roystgnr]

The current version of Ubuntu is 8.10.

No, the current version of Ubuntu is "Jaunty Jackalope Alpha 3", and it can be found in the "Test Releases" section of their webpages under the URL http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ surrounded by boldfaced warnings like "This is still an alpha release. Do not install it on production machines."

That's the right way to release snapshots of alpha software.

KDE 7

[fulldecent]

And slashdot wont update the topic icon until KDE 7 is released

Re:A couple of questions

[drinkypoo]

Seriously, what's wrong with some people? When the KDE team release a new version, do they come to his house and force him to upgrade?

No, they force him to upgrade from the comfort of their own home. When a new API comes out, most people abandon the old one and stop updating the version of the software which is on the old API. This happened to a number of critical KDE apps, basically forcing people to go to KDE4 if they depend on that software and their pet bug is fixed in the KDE4 version. Your argument is also used to defend Apple charging for new revisions, and it's a stupid argument there too, for the same reason. Just try to run some new software on OSX 10.2.

Re:1 question

[catxk]

If you read even one article or review about it yes, you will notice that it was common knowledge, but this was expressed as a critique of the release, not a pink, fluffy and widely accepted fact.

Re:1 question

[Keeper Of Keys]

I also really dig that I can run KDE (including Plasma) on Windows.

I had severe doubts about your sanity when I read that, but it turns out you're right! I have to try that...

Re:1 question

[aliquis]

Same for me, used slink and then unstable potato which never got stable, kind off .. :D

Re:1 question

[RiotingPacifist]

I managed to set it fairly small but the rounding meant that as it got smaller less of it got useable. so once it got down to the "tiny" in kde3.5 sizes, over a third of the bar was just used on the corners.

Give me productivity as well as looks..

[Sonicprogress]

When KDE4 came out I switched to Gnome. Then I discovered wmii. Give me an accelerated tiling wm and then my life will be complete!

BSD?

[nurb432]

Curious the schedule for it to hit the ports tree.

Re:1 question

[the_B0fh]

No, but apparently you caught some trolls. /. is full of trolls moderators nowadays.

The Taskbar! Arrgh!

[Grokker]

Taskbar buttons now has a 1-pixel inactive border at the very bottom edge. The taskbar buttons no longer extend all the way to the bottom of the screen! A most annoying change. I can no longer just "fling" my mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen and then just quickly click on a taskbar button. Now I have to be careful NOT to make the pointer go all the way to the bottom edge. What's up with that? KDE even has a Fitt's law guide somewhere on its website (if I remember correctly).

KDE versioning -> Windows versioning?!?

[zooblethorpe]

Okay, I am getting a serious case of déjà vu here...

Almost every other project would have called 4.0 an alpha...

I.e., Vista's initial release.

...4.1 a beta...

Vista SP1.

...4.2 would have been a release candidate...

Vista SP2.

...and 4.3 would have been the official 4.0 release.

Windows 7.

Naming releases completely different than anybody else makes it non-obvious in my book. Considering how much grief they've gotten from people complaining it's not ready, I'd guess I'm not the only one.

So, basically, the same (valid, IMHO) argument that people have been making about Microsoft's OS branding.

Egad! Ballmer's infiltrated the KDE team!

Cheers,

Not so nice change

[Grokker]

Taskbar buttons now has a 1-pixel inactive border at the very bottom edge. The taskbar buttons no longer extend all the way to the bottom of the screen! A most annoying change. I can no longer just "fling" my mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen and then just quickly click on a taskbar button. Now I have to be careful NOT to make the pointer go all the way to the bottom edge. What's up with that? KDE even has a Fitt's law guide somewhere on its website (if I remember correctly).

OH GOD MAKE IT STOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Pissing contests in order of their usefulness to society:

1)Inter-religious pissing contests (aka "war")
2)Physical pissing contests
3)The World vs. Microsoft pissing contests
4)Linux distro pissing contests
5)Programming language pissing contests
6)The World vs. Apple pissing contests ... ... ...
(as N tends towards infinity)
N)THIS THREAD

Re:1 question

[jonaskoelker]

Yet the general assumption across different version number schemes is that once you climb to the top of the hill and blow the horn that can be heard all over the valley, and come storming down screaming "listen everybody"...

Then you have something important to say that most people want to listen to.

KDE made noise, but had a message only for the people on the hill, not everyone in the valley.

Re:1 question

[Taevin]

Why is this modded up? The parent is the one making revisionist history (though I must commend him for having the balls to post a link to the information contradicting his statement). From the 4.0 announcement (emphasis added):

For those interested in getting packages to test and contribute , several distributions have notified us that they will have KDE 4.0 packages available at or soon after the release.

What part of the release being intended for people to test and contribute is unclear there? The statement was not "For those interested in getting packages to install and replace their existing desktop environment." In that same section, there is a list of distributions that had/have packages for the 4.0 release and many have "alpha" or "experimental" in the description.

Neither the WayBack Machine nor the kubuntu.org site have complete records around that time, but this shows that at least 4.0RC2 was also being released as a test "If you want to test KDE 4 ...".

If we go look at the 4.1 announcement:

While KDE 4.1 aims at being the first release suitable for early adopting users, some features you are used to in KDE 3.5 are not implemented yet. The KDE team is working on those and strives to make them available in one of the next releases. While there is no guarantee that every single feature from KDE 3.5 will be implemented, KDE 4.1 already provides a powerful and feature-rich working environment. Note that some options in the UI have moved to a place in the context of the data they manipulate, so make sure you have a closer look before you report anything missing in action. KDE 4.1 is a huge step forward in the KDE4 series and hopefully sets the pace for future development. KDE 4.2 can be expected in January 2009.

That's also pretty clear that 4.1 is not intended for the average end-user. As if declaring it is the firstKDE4 release intended for even early adopters wasn't enough, the tone of the announcement is still one of "Get it, run it, test it."

Contrast that with the 4.2 announcement that "the KDE Community is now confident we have a compelling offering for the majority of end users." The tone of the 4.2 announcement is much more install it and "Spread the Word."

So maybe the KDE devs didn't plaster the site in blink tags with spinning siren gifs and bold red text saying "OMFG DON'T USE THIS, IT IS BROKEN AND WILL EAT YOUR COMPUTER. IN FACT, IF YOU EVEN ARE THINKING ABOUT USING THIS YOU ARE RETARDED AND SHOULD BE STERILIZED." That doesn't excuse you from ignoring what they stated in the announcement. Of course they mentioned the new technology and features they were developing into the new platform. The point is to get people excited about it so that they will test and contribute. Do end-users test and contribute? No, not really.

Re:1 question

[Civil_Disobedient]

Exactly.

One Question:

[gillbates]

Is the interface still five years ahead of Microsoft Windows? It's hard to tell from the screenshots.

I remember seeing features in KDE several years ago that would later show up in Vista.

KDE is one of the few truly innovative projects in the open source realm - they're actually moving forward and trying new things rather than trying to clone existing products. Which is what we need more of in the open source realm.

Re:One Question:

[Blakey Rat]

As an old-school Mac user, it always seemed like a complete Windows clone to me. (Well, version 3.whatever did, I haven't used 4 yet.) From that perspective, GNOME looks the more "innovative."

Anyway, what's up with your post? You're basically just saying: "hey, KDE used to be 5 years ahead of Windows!" which is fine, but why the lame "hard to tell from the screenshots" framing device? Are you seriously looking for someone using KDE4 to reply with, "oh yes the screenshots are accurate, it is still 5 years ahead of Windows!" or something?

Re:One Question:

[gillbates]

I'd like to know the features in KDE now which aren't (yet) in Vista. You know, what people think of them, if they've used them, etc...

Re:1 question

[ion.simon.c]

I think it really needs the KDE people to say "yes, we made a mistake and accept that".

Elsewhere in the discussion attached to this article a KDE dev says just that.

Finally

[DigDuality]

KDE 4.x series has reached alpha quality. Good job tards!.

Re:A couple of questions

[Blakey Rat]

End-users care for *usability*, which is often confused for "eye-candy" by geeky types.

Putting drop shadows around window borders isn't "eye-candy", it's a visual reinforcement of how the windows overlap each other and make the system easier to use in a subtle way. Minimizing animations aren't "eye-candy", they visually show the user where to click to restore the minimized item-- without them, the window just seems to disappear, which is more confusing. "Ghost" icons, while dragging-and-dropping, are helpful as a remind to what exact files/items you were dragging. The highlight that appears around drop targets tells you you can drop the content there, and saves you wasting time when you release the mouse and nothing happens.

All of these things are valuable usability features, not eye-candy. They all existed in Windows 2000, which looked like ass. Frankly. And Classic Mac OS, ditto.

Now that said, there is such a thing as eye-candy. For example, the glassy-translucent window titles in Vista don't really serve any purpose other than to look cool... but users react to usability, not eye-candy. (Well, take Vista as an example; that glassy-translucent window didn't help them sell any more copies, did it? All the graphical usability features mentioned in the first paragraph are already in XP.)

Anyway, long story short, next time I see a person equating "making software usable" with "adding eye-candy", I'm going to smack them.

Re:1 question

[danomac]

Whatever happened to alpha/beta tagging?

4.0 should have been 4.0[.x]a (alpha)
4.1 should have been 4.0[.x]b (beta)
4.2 should have been 4.0

Wait...What?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can put KDE on Windows?

Re:A couple of questions

[Just Some Guy]

(that oxygen titlebar blending comes to mind)

Amen to that! Note that the replacement fork, Ozone, doesn't have that problem.

Congrats KDE 4.2 Rocks!

[Anonymous Coward]

4.0 is year old release = old. Why are you still talking about it anyway? I'm pretty sure gnome 2.0 kde 3.0 and so on sucked back in their days.

4.2 is what we have today and i love it and want to say congrats to everyone involved! It's awesome!

Positive/encouraging criticism is a lot more you know nicer and saying things like good job is actually pretty cool...

On Digg.com everyone is like "Congrats" and on here are just some stupid short sighted assholes ranting about a year old release.Seriously WTF is wrong with you people!?!?!?!? :D

Re:1 question

[gnapster]

The current version of Ubuntu is 8.10.

No, the current version of Ubuntu is "Jaunty Jackalope Alpha 3", and it can be found in the "Test Releases" section of their webpages [...]

How can you call that their current version? The only version mentioned on their home page is 8.04 LTS, and that is in the link to a press release. On their downloads page they list 8.04 and 8.10, and call the latter "the latest version".

There is no way you can call Jaunty the current version if it is linked neither from their home page nor their downloads page.

Live CD's yet

[Pytr13]

Anyone found some live CD's of the final 4.2 release?

I'd rather test it in Vmware before switching....and yes I do know the 3D effect aren't fully support in Vmware Workstation...I turn them all off anyway. I just use a basic KDE 2.2 theme I made years ago.

Re:1 question

[metamatic]

When you drag a folder from the file manager to the desktop you get a little menu asking if you want an icon or a FolderView.

With no explanation of what the difference is, or why you should care.

The fact that you can have two objects on the desktop which look exactly the same, have the same properties (as per properties dialog), but are two different kinds of object, is a UI disaster. But not one the KDE developers care about.

Re:1 question

[Samah]

Im waiting till 4.3, 4.2 will most likely only meet the expectations of typical home users.

Typical home users run Windows.

Re:1 question

[shutdown -p now]

Version numbering differs, but the meaning of "beta" is rather well-defined. More importantly, the meaning of "non-beta" is very well defined.

Re:1 question

[roystgnr]

How can you call that their current version?

Because it is the public version of their software that developers have worked on most currently. It's just not the version you want new users to pick up.

The only version mentioned on their home page is 8.04 LTS, and that is in the link to a press release.

That's a good idea; if your only knowledge of Ubuntu releases comes from their press releases, the Long Term Support version is the safest option. (see also: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, etc)

On their downloads page they list 8.04 and 8.10, and call the latter "the latest version".

What, do you think they're denying that newer code exists? Trying to trick people into thinking they stopped development after 8.10? No, they're using "the latest version" as shorthand for "the latest version intended for average users".

On a project I work on we call a year-old tarball "the latest version", despite the fact that the real latest version is obviously the stuff we checked in to revision control this morning. People who really want and are able to use the latest bleeding edge stuff can figure out how to get it; people who need something more well tested should be pointed to that instead, not an alpha release announced with no unusual warnings and called "4.0".

Nice

[slygrayling]

Sweet as hell, i love KDE. :-)

Re:A couple of questions

[doom]

Bull. You don't care for eye candy. I don't care for eye candy. End users care. No matter how hard we wish it were otherwise it remains a fact.

Some end users care, but many actually don't. No one is a "newbie" any more, and I think even "non-technical" people are developing attitudes much like old unix-hackers -- like groaning when they realize someone did something weird in Flash when they could've just used the old familiar HTML approach.

The Path of Darkness

[doom]

One thing that's always bothered me about modern user interfaces is black text on a white background. I find the opposite much more soothing. Unfortunately, I can't turn it on, for one simple reason, and you're looking right at it.

If I go for that setting, it results in a generally darker (but no less visible) desktop. The problem? You're staring right at it. Open a full-screen slashdot, and suddenly AAARGH GOD DAMN, MY EYES! As blinding white light suddenly gets beamed into my eyeballs.

So I have to begrudgingly use black-on-white all over the desktop, to avoid sudden drastic changes of contrast every time I visit a web page.

Okay, I feel your pain (literally), but you can fight back against the third-degree if you want -- admittedly though, it requires some determination, and you can probably only get about 95% of the way to success.

The first step on the road is Firefox Edit-Preferences-Content-Colors Then you can choose your own colors -- I use a black background, a light green foreground, and I make the link color a light-blue and the visited link color a light-pink/purple. You will also probably need to uncheck the boxes "Use system colors" and "Allow web pages to choose their own colors".

That gets you pretty close -- but you'll still have to deal with white text edit boxes, but even worse are the occasional form that has you typing black text into a box with a black background. Further, if a webpage uses color as a UI element (e.g. error messages colored in red), you won't see those. The solution will probably be to keep another browser around (Konqueror?) to use when your customized Firefox fails you. (It would be nice sometimes to be able to start a second, virgin Firefox on occasion -- there are ways to do it, but Firefox fights you.)

It also helps to find a good, dark, firefox theme (I use "In The Dark" myself).

Then of course, you'll need to deal with the "themes" for you desktop environment. (I have a slight preference for KDE over gnome, but really I use icewm as my window manager, with the "Infidel2" theme).

But there's always going to be that irreducible 5% of software where some idiot hardcoded a white background on you... the way is hard, but well worth traveling. If enough of us do it, our complaints might reduce some of these problems some day.

(Particularly frustrating to me are both "gdm" and "kdm" which have very limited "themability" as far as I can tell -- when I start up my laptop late at night to read in bed, I get flashed by some super-bright log-in screen. I may just dump the whole "*dm" business -- I never had any problem with typing "startx" after logging in.

Re:1 question

[Zephiris]

What kind of system administrator or average user, blindly upgrades to a major version, without considering the caveats of such an action? The general disclaimer of "everything has to be ported, this will break things" wasn't obvious enough?

Linus didn't bother to read anything, he doesn't also bother to use KDE. I don't think anyone mentioned compiling from source, or visiting conferences. Please don't tell me you're suggesting we should all follow Linus's example on everything. He's not a god, and even if he were...that'd be a pretty weak-willed excuse.

Somehow, I don't think 'open source software' is going to bend over backwards to cater to that crowd any time soon. Let alone people the people you say are apparently upgrading KDE versions at 6 years old.

Nobody held a gun to anyone's head and said "upgrade to 4.0, especially despite our warnings and disclaimers". If someone does anything with their software, it is their sole responsibility, and that happens to includes (but not be limited to) upgrading, deleting, switching to alternate software, pirating, using it for work, using it for play, or pinging FBI.gov 160000 times per day. Part of that responsibility is such a basic tenet as to understand what you're doing before you do it.

I shudder to think what would happen (and how people would complain) if KDE, GNOME, Linux, and other developers 'just did stuff' because someone it was an option, or because someone else suggested it, without first considering what it means, what the pros and cons are, if it's worth their time. I believe the proper response to not having time to 'look over things' is let me google that for you.

Re:1 question

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BULLSHIT. How stable and usable was Linux Kernel 2.6.0? 2.0? Gnome 2.0, then? Final releases of Vista, Mac OS X 10.0, Xp - none of those were stable. The fact other projects decide to continue developing something for 10 years (wine) until they call it 1.0 - it's their choice.

Re:1 question

[drx]

Well, you are a bit extrapolating and overestimating the importance KDE has in people's minds.

Let's assume a user did a conscious distro upgrade to his computer because he read the changelogs and blogs and beta announcements, maybe even visited dev conferences -- for the software he or she cares about most!

KDE has gained the reputation of a reliable work horse. People use it, the last releases it just got better and better. You would never think about upgrading or not, the upgrade was always good. KDE was almost transparent to use, a great achievement for a DE.

Then, suddenly, a new major release comes along and i should devote all my reading and informing activities to the KDE project? I should reflect on all my usasge patterns and extract messages from the announcements that read like marketing for users while it was intended to be marketing for developers??

Dude, that is user unfriendly.

Did you do anything to PREVENT major distros shipping this developer release to the masses? Did you do anything to prevent loads of people from wasting countless hours with a product that was not intended for them?

No offense though, i love you KDE guys, i did read your stuff and was careful. However you should consider that you already gained such an importance that you cannot joke around with your users like that. Your users are becoming normal people, like Windows or Apple users. You have to watch their behaviours and learn from them. The users will make you immortal or vanish in obscurity.

Re:1 question

[skynexus]

You have a point, there is no comprehensive version numbering scheme that is universally accepted. I think you are also wrong as the issue is about the very well accepted beta, RC and final release scheme, not simply number sequences.

No number sequence, such as 8.10 or whatever comes to mind, is going to tell you that the release is a beta, RC or final release. However, outside developer circles, people are going to assume a final release, and that is precisely why one should label a version as beta or RC if confusion is to be avoided. Obviously, confusion was not avoided with 4.0, and again, not everyone keeps track of developer blogs and announcements.

Obviously, KDE 4.0 was barely a release candidate to end users, so one could at least have expected the RC label. Had it been "properly" named, I would find it hard to imagine distros like Kubuntu or Fedora shipping a first release candidate in the manner 4.0 was delivered. It would have been an embarrassment to them. Instead, KDE was embarrassed. Needlessly.