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KDE 4.2.4 Released
An anonymous reader writes "KDE 4.2.4 has been released. See the release announcement for details." Barring a "security issue or another grave bug," this is the end of the KDE 4.2 line, which means for distros based on long-term support, it might be the thing to get used to for a while.
I didn't know KDE was a BSD project now.
My Kubuntu 8.04 is getting kinda long in the tooth, but the newer ones don't work at all, unless someone knows of a KDE 3.59 or 3.60 backport -- that'd be sweet.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
...or do both KDE and Gnome seem to be headed in the wrong direction so far as features go? KDE threw out a ton of useful features with the 4.x series and managed to screw up the file manager to boot (even Konquerer 4 isn't good compared to its predecessor). And now it seems Gnome's decided to throw its current GUI paradigm out the window for 3.x and replace it with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcpndKUx4pc . At this rate, XFCE may end up being the only sane major DE left... then again, there's always LXDE, with a bit of polish, it'd do pretty well.
Nice troll.
Disparate people/teams all working in isolation with no single controlling authority to enforce a consistent UI over the entire system.
So you have Idea/Concept 1 and 2 that are both great in isolation but when thrown together they make no sense. Everyone dumps their own pet favorite UI ideas into the mix and you get one big mess.
And anyone who dares to question the fatal flaw gets modded as a -1 Troll and a heretic and unbeliever to the 'wonder that is Linux on the desktop'
And that is why Android is exploding onto Cellphones and Netbooks while standard Linux has gotten whipped right out of the market by Microsoft.
" ... this is the end of the KDE 4.2 line, which means for distros based on long-term support, it might be the thing to get used to for a while. "
Are you expecting KDE 4.3 to be so buggy that it is going to be uninteresting for long term support projects? In the past, there were huge leaps of progress from KDE 4.0 to KDE 4.1 to KDE 4.2!
I had HUGE issues with KDE 4.1 myself. It might be worth trying to switch off desktop effects. In my case, however, even that did not solve all the performance issues.
The big change came with KDE 4.2. Things really became very smooth and fast and rock solid. If you are planning to upgrade to jaunty, I would definitely recommend trying it. (If I remember correctly, there is also a way to run 4.2 on kubuntu 8.10 -- I think I did this for a while.)
Yes, I know I can use the backport, but forget it, last time I messed with KDE 4 (on Kubuntu) I found it was still lacking in a lot of really cool utilities KDE 3.x had and I'm just to lazy to recompile all the 3.x versions onto 4 myself. I guess I really have lost some drive as I've gotten older, I'll let someone else do it for me, and when they do I'll use it, and until the 3.5x is good enough.
BTW - kaudiocreator was near the top of that list, that was a stupid easy and useful program. Yes, I can do it other ways, and did for a while, but I kind of liked that one. Oddly, the change in interface was fine, I liked it, KDE4.x and I can get along fine, as soon as the utilities catch up.
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4.1 isn't even close to 4.2. You might as well compare a beta to a release version (think of it this way - 4.0 was the tech preview, incomplete and buggy but with APIs in place. 4.1 is the beta - many of the features but not all, and still buggy. 4.2 is release, with bugs fixed and features in place).
You'd think that talking about 4.1 in an article about 4.2.4 would be obviously absurd, but apparently not...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I speak as a long-time KDE fan. Simply based on my own experience, I would not recommend upgrading to Kubuntu Jaunty. Kubuntu Intrepid sucked. It looked great, but was buggy as hell, not to mention insanely slow on Nvidia cards. It sucked on every box I put it on. Jaunty didn't work at all for me. That was the last straw. If KDE 4.2.4 is the ultimate, then I'm glad I decided to migrate to Gnome. They really screwed the pooch with KDE 4.
$3.00 per month for Windows + $3.00 per month for antivirus + $6.00 per month for office suite + $18.00 per month for enterprise-quality image/illustration editing suite adds up quickly. Linux gives you all that and more for free - or for $3.00 per month (by your metric) if you buy the distro to support its continued development/maintenance.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
As a long term KDE user (since the very first version) I have found 3.5 to be a great release. It's still what I'm running on my work desktop. I have to say, installing 4.0 at home was a mistake. It definitly put me off upgrading my work machine. The 4.0 release basically rendered my home environment as almost unusable. On top of that the semi-upgrade made the 3.5 install messed up, so I was pretty pissed.
When 4.1 came out I was fairly happy with the stability, a lot of little issues (things like the taskbar resizing) had been worked out but it still felt somewhat unfinished. Now, having upgraded to 4.2 I have to say I'm really impressed. I wasn't expecting the change to be as full as it was, 4.2 feels much more complete and definitely is the upgrade path you want to follow from 3.5 if your a KDE user. Things like the windowing effects work much better, the plasma desktop has reached a level that is usable all the time and the level of integration has improved a lot (checkboxes finally render properly when clicked in firefox for one, dolphin is getting pretty damn good and okular is great). KDE is at the point where I'm now planning on an upgrade at work.
I have to agree a bit with some of the UI criticism of amarok, I found the jump to version 2 pretty dramatic. It's almost like a whole new app but I'm giving it a good go for a while. The last media player I really used before amarok was xmms. But yeah, bottom line, two thumbs up for 4.2
jaymz
I'm also a long term KDE user since the day I first switched to KDE from fvwm2 WAAAY back in the day.
And oddly enough I've had pretty much the dead opposite experiences with KDE4. The whole series, starting with the 4.0 release and right up to present, has been rock solid and reasonably responsive. My guess is that I must have lucked out with my video card, as much as people were complaining about driver compatibility issues.
But the thing is just terribly, terribly unfinished. Missing features here, blatant oversights there. The flash-to-polish ratio is still very high, which means I like it for the first few days and then by the end of the week I've already switched back to 3.x.
I have high hopes for 4.3. But then I also had high hopes for 4.0, then 4.1, then 4.2...
Is Konsole finally able to remember custom profile menu visibility settings again? It's not fun checking the 'Show in Menu' checkbox for all of my profiles every time I boot.
Take into account that there are only a couple of distros that still ship kde 3.5. It's about time for kde 4 to become a decent upgrade, but it's just too late. The old argument, why upgrade when you can still use kde 3.x just doesn't hold water.
I say Lunix to make fanboys angry
Why would misspelling a word make anyone but grammar fanboys angry?
Rock solid as in tossing up kdeinit errors whenever I try to launch more than one instance of konsole? Smooth as in still not having simple video thumbnails in dolphin/konqueror?
The KDE team is too busy trying to dream up new ways to make their desktop annoying (more eyecandy, more, more!) to fix longstanding bugs. And yes yes, I know that in opensource people work on what they want to work on, etc, but it doesn't change the fact that the KDE4 series is a slow buggy piece of garbage.
Aaron Siego ran KDE into the ground.
4.1 isn't even close to 4.2. You might as well compare a beta to a release version (think of it this way - 4.0 was the tech preview, incomplete and buggy but with APIs in place. 4.1 is the beta - many of the features but not all, and still buggy. 4.2 is release, with bugs fixed and features in place). You'd think that talking about 4.1 in an article about 4.2.4 would be obviously absurd, but apparently not...
It's a real shame there is no way to label software releases as "tech previews", "release candidates", or "betas". Oh well, I guess we'll just have to stick with generic number releases and let users find out what they've installed after the fact.
That is just plain bullocks. The developers have come out practically every occasion and said it will not be everyday usable at least until 4.2. This ha been stated in practically every article posted on slashdot and as been pointed out numerous times in the discussion forums. It is also why it has never been the default desktop on any Distro and is only now starting to gain traction. This is a nonissue.
The old argument, why upgrade when you can still use kde 3.x just doesn't hold water
Sure it does. If the distro only has KDE4, and KDE4 is still not usable, don't use the distro. Simple.
Looks like I'm sticking with openSUSE 11.1 until then.
Becuase real linux fanboys know it's a minix clone, not a unix clone?
... as versions go by ...
How does this version compares to v3.5.10 as far as features and stability?
I'm still waiting to replace my ol' KDE v3 without harming my everyday work!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
By 4.2, nearly all KDE utilities and applications have been ported, and as of 4.2.3 nearly all the noticeable bugs were worked out (it worked better than 3.5.9, the last 3.x I used). Don't assume anything about 4.2 based on 4.1 or 4.0; both of those were released before they should have been,a dn should have been considered more like a tech/API preview (4.0) and early beta of a finished version (4.1). Frankly, they both sucked, and it has cost KDE a lot of reputation, but 4.2 is solid. It's what 4.x should have been from the beginning.
In other words, give 4.2 (or later) a try; they finally lived up to the promise of the earlier versions, plus the apps you're used to have all been ported now.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Yeah, the KDE developers (rightfully) caught a lot of crap for this. I can see their point of view leaving KDE4 as a pre-release until 4.2's release would have been a LONG development cycle - but it cost them (the devs) a lot of reputation. Personally, I don't really care about their rep, but then, I don't write KDE, I just use it. What really bothers me is that it cost KDE, as a desktop environment, a lot of its reputation too. KDE 4.0 / 4.1 made Vista look snappy and bug-free by comparison, and now KDE has to win back a lot of its old users. A shame, really.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Sorry KDE Guys.
After 3 try (4.0. 4.1 4.2) I still not be able to work with dual monitors.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
Um, no, they said it'd be usable on 4.1. They only started saying this about 4.2 when it became obvious how much 4.1 sucks.
And would it have been so hard to just label it 4.0 beta?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You're right, 4.0 was the tech preview -- the alpha.
4.1 was maybe beta quality
4.2 might count as a release candidate, but with no WPA, it sure as hell wasn't a release.
4.3 looks promising. But so did 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2.
These people really need to grow up and start calling them betas -- or take a clue from Linux, establish an obvious convention (odd numbers are unstable; don't use 2.5 until we release it as 2.6), stick to it, and clearly label it a Developer Preview.
I'm really starting to wonder if they'll make it to the level of functionality 3.5 had by the time they hit 4.5.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
KDE 4.2 is perfectly usable.
You seem to have a different definition of usable than I do.
Except for number 3, this all works fine in KDE 3.5. It all works fine in Gnome (same machine).
I like KDE4.2, it has a lot of really promising concepts. I am a big fan of the plasma widget desktop. I use it whenever possible, which is why I can actually tell you some of the bugs. But interesting concepts are not enough. For a lot of my work, I simply have to log out and log into KDE 3.5 or Gnome. I am using KDE on two machines, one is debian and the other is kubuntu, so the problem might be in debian's packages.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
If you're running Deb stable, and want to use your computer rather than mess with it, that's exactly the right thing to do. Kinda why Debian stable was invented really.
I think KDE nailed it with their 4.0 release, but let's explore the other options:
Chaning the major version number at the same time as the major change in architecture was absolutely the sensible and mature thing to do, it was never going to stay 4.0 long anyway (see above again again). So it was buggy as hell but you still had the choice of using 3.x stable, it still had "new development architecture it's buggy as hell" plastered all over it, it's not like civilization started to crumble because some "point zero" piece of software somewhere wasnt perfect. People need to chill out, man.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
What is release quality depends on what you are using.
If you are a free software dev, then to know what your users are using, you _need_ to release.
And not betas, because don't attract nearly as much users.
That way, there is pain in the beginning, but in the end, it works much, much better.
but 4.2 still has a long list of problems, it's a second beta release and I'll hold off until 4.3 or later, thanks much. In the meantime, sticking with the GNOME after ditching that 4.1 shit, KDE went from polished to unstable crap
What is release quality depends on what you are using.
Assume I'm using all the features that were in KDE3, and everything that is currently in KDE4. There really isn't an excuse to have a feature missing from KDE4 that was in KDE3, or to have a feature available-but-broken in KDE4.
If you are a free software dev, then to know what your users are using, you _need_ to release.
Or, y'know, ask them.
not betas, because don't attract nearly as much users.
See, I've heard this before, and it really pisses me off every time I see it.
You guys are trying to have your cake and eat it. You're trying to fool users into thinking the release is ready, to get them to beta-test for you, when they don't want to beta-test, they want a solid product.
And then you're scolding those exact same users for reading the fine print: "Not ready for users."
The 4.0 release, I can't believe even KDE developers used it. Kdevelop on KDE4 was only released, what, yesterday? Eat your own dogfood, assholes.
Once you can't break it anymore, and you show it to your family, and they can't break it anymore, and you've released a dozen betas and a half dozen release candidates, and no one who wants those can break them anymore...
Then you get to release.
To do otherwise is just irresponsible, and if this is really the official position of KDE, I'll make a note never to touch anything with a K in it again. I need my stuff to work -- I do not need to be tricked into being a beta tester.
That way, there is pain in the beginning, but in the end, it works much, much better.
Yes, for the users that ditch KDE and go back to Windows. Vista's release was bad, but not nearly as bad as KDE4.
In fact, the Linux Kernel did a hell of a lot better than both of them with the 2.6.0 release. So did distros, for that matter -- and everything was backported to 2.4 for long enough to resolve any issues anyone had with upgrading.
So it's not an issue with being a free software dev, it's an issue with being a dishonest fuck.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
as part of Kubuntu Jaunty running on my 900MHz netbook right now. No serious issues. I'm looking forward to running it on my Debian desktop machine.
The problem versions of KDE4 are pre-KDE4.2. 4.2+ is ready for prime-time.
No it's not. Minix is a micro kernel system. Linux is much more of a general Unix clone.
I pray that one day, the GNOME developers will realize that incremental change is extremely boring. I use GNOME, but seriously, I don't remember feeling much different about it two years ago. Two years ago KDE still had its plastic look, and now it's all glass and shiny stuff, what looks to the end user like they scrapped the entire code base and admitted "Ok that sucked, let's do something actually appealing this time". And it worked. And GNOME released another version, 2.2whatever, and nobody cared beyond the developers because nobody noticed a thing.
Actually, saying Lunix makes you sound childish and speaks more about your personality than anything else in your post.
were there many new features to 4.2?