Slashdot Mirror
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."
It's pretty
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
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.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
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!
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.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
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.
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.
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.
I have a feeling the day when I can say "It's good to hear Windows isn't garbage anymore," is far, far away.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
By that I believe you meant that KDE is targeted by jealous trolls because Qt is so much better than GTK. ::ducks::
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
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.
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!
Hey, no one in Slashdot think that Windows is garbage. Is unfair, offensive, and without basis. Why you hate garbage so badly?
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?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
"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.
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.
SSC
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.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
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.
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
> 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.
Democrat delenda est
im fairly sure linus uses fedora.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
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.
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.
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.
Nope, he uses leopard.
I guess I should start running.
Yeah, right, I bet you wrote that in emacs. On Windows.
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.
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.
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.
"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
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
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.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
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!
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?
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?
"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
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
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.
Nope, he uses The Force, Luke.
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.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
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.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
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.