KDE 4.3 Released

Jos Poortvliet writes "After another 6 months of hard work by over 700 people, after fixing over 10,000 bugs and granting 2,000 wishes, KDE 4.3, or 'Caizen,' is here (the release takes its nickname from the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement). The KDE Desktop Workspace introduces, besides the usual stability and speed improvements, new widgets, the ability to 'peek' in a folder with folderview, and activities tied to virtual desktops. The KDE Application Suites feature improvements in the utilities like a more formats supported in Ark and the return of the Linux Infrared Remote Control system. Instant messenger Kopete introduces an improved contact list and KOrganizer can sync with Google Calendar. Kmail supports inserting inline images into email and the Alarm notifier has gained export functionality, drag and drop, and has an improved configuration. The KDE Application Development platform has seen work on integrating the Social Desktop and the new system tray protocol from Freedesktop.org. You can watch a screencast of the Desktop Workspace here."

Comments

Re:Is this the KDE 4.0 we've all been waiting for?

[WaywardGeek]

I'm afraid I wont get personally excited about any KDE release until they get it working with the Orca screen reader, which works very well with Gnome.

I only read at 250 words per minute, but my listening speed is now at 460wpm for reading fiction, and over 500wpm for Orca reading web pages. I have a blind friend who listens to his computer at 860wpm. This is very cool stuff, so it's a shame KDE is late to the game.

Re:Caizen is actually spelt with a K

[Anonymous Coward]

"Spelled" and "Spelt" are used by entire countries. "Caizen" is a non-standard Romanization of a foreign language purportedly used by KDE developers. A bit different.

Re:making progress

[ammorais]

No. If you are referring to the looks it's a matter of taste.
If you are referring to Qt, I can tell you that the Qt toolkit is at this point nothing less than Windows Libraries. If you are referring to polishment you should talk about specific applications and not the whole toolkits. Take Smplayer for example. It's an app that is exactly he same on windows an Linux(and I actually like it better on Linux).
Qt 4 is relatively new, and it was from my point of view a necessary break from Qt3. The great modifications are at the programming level, and I find it one of the best toolkits I ever programed.

Re:making progress

[Draek]

is it just me or do QT4 and GTK applications just look ... bigger/clunky/unpolished when compared to Windows / KDE3.5 applications?

It's just you.

Also, if you honestly didn't want to troll you should've left out the "train wreck" comment from your post, it wouldn't have changed its meaning while being much less inflammatory.

Re:Caizen is actually spelt with a K

[ChunderDownunder]

Hmmm, I thought 'spelt' was a variety of wheat.

Re:Is this the KDE 4.0 we've all been waiting for?

[WaywardGeek]

Well, "words" are a bit fuzzy. Openoffice reports this text as 925 words. This is an mp3 of Orca reading it, which lasts 120 seconds. It's fun to listen to. I'm on my 7th novel in 4 weeks, which I play in the car, at the doctor's office, or anywhere else that's normally down time.

Re:making progress

[StormReaver]

It's a matter of opinion, as I see GTK and Windows looking ugly and clunky, and Qt/KDE looking beautiful and polished.

Re:making progress

[Enderandrew]

What gets me is that while there as some Plasma devs working on a Netbook containment for small screens, we haven't seen a widget theme/overall theme designed for small screens.

Between mobile phones, netbooks and smartbooks, you think Nokia/Qt would be all over this. If not, then perhaps the KDE devs themselves would come up with a good solution here.

Re:Karma burning for fun and profit

[moonbender]

And it sure seems like everytime I hear a complaint about KDE 4.x, it is from someone who had a bad experience trying KDE 4.x in *buntu land.

That could also be due to the fact that *buntu is the most popular distribution (I'd guess by a fair margin these days), particularly among newbies who tend to get stuck (and, sometimes, give up) easily.

Re:Per-desktop activities assignments

[PeterBrett]

Had plasma simply been a library and a method for displaying desktop widgets...

...then it would have been an entirely pointless exercise that completely failed to complete its objectives.

I still don't know what the hell plasma activities are supposed to do, except break things. They don't do anything that virtual desktops don't.

I see that ignorance is still bliss.

Re:Karma burning for fun and profit

[Kalinda]

The problem, as ever, is that Kubuntu gets the seriously short end of the stick. I used to use it (before I switched to Arch with KDEmod/Chakra) and it worked alright before KDE 4 came out. However, since KDE 4 it's been generally slow and the developers have taken longer than other distros to get new KDE releases or beta/RCs out. And then there was the idea of forcing KDE 4 on all their users in version 4.1 when it wasn't ready for regular use. I see they've since realized the error and are offering both KDE3 and 4, although KDE4 has is now pretty damn good.

I'd put this down to the vast majority of *buntu users using Ubuntu/Gnome. It also gets more press than the other variants.

That's not to say the developers haven't made good contributions to the KDE community. Like making OpenOffice 3 work with KDE file dialogues.

Re:making progress

[david_thornley]

You know, bigger margins and padding are why I ditched the Aero look on Vista, and selected an earlier, uglier, but denser style. Criticize my aesthetics if you will, but I like displays that give me more information in a given screen area.

(Reminds me of a woman I knew in college, taking a "Physics for Poets" class and complaining about the two-sheet limit on exam notes, which really didn't allow all that much with beautiful handwriting and large amounts of whitespace. I compared it to a 3"x5" card I'd been allowed for a serious science course.)

Too little, too late; I'm with Linus

[RogueSeven]

As a windows user for my entire life making the switch to Linux over the summer of 2007, I was nothing but thrilled with the looks, functionality, and personalization (through customization) KDE 3.5 had to offer. At the time, I wrote off Gnome as too different from what I was used to. After several months of falling completely in love with my OS/KDE, I began to strongly evangelize the use of Linux on the desktop, convincing a small handful of friends (doing my part for the whole "Year Of.." thing).

I went with the flow when KDE 4 took over. Although I was pretty disappointed with a lot of things (removal of a ton of Konqueror functionality that Dolphin sure as heck didn't replace/replace well, plasma crashing all the time, list could go on but I'm not trying to bash KDE or anything here), I kept patiently waiting for the promise of a stable, beautiful, better-than-3.5 desktop. When even 4.2 didn't fix a lot of the things wrong with my system, I finally decided to switch desktops until they got their act together.

KDE's problem is that my original plan has changed. I've gotten so acquainted to my new environment, that I can't see myself switching back to KDE anymore. It's not just inertial that's a factor here, I genuinely like my current setup. I used the word problem there not because I believe a single user matters to KDE, or any other F/OSS project for that matter, but because I wonder how many people are just like me: Hopped off the KDE bus, originally planning to get back on a few stops down the road, but have now opted for a different mode of transportation altogether (do I get points for bad car analogy here??). To boot, I am relatively young, and a sworn lifelong Linux user; there are many years of my life of Desktop Environment usage left.

At any rate, when Linus slammed KDE months ago, I was still on the fence. Now I'm pretty much in full agreement with him, minus the whole flamewar thing.

Here's the part where I'm pouring out champagne on my floor. "Thanks for the memories, KDE". I loved you, and I'll miss you.

Re:Too little, too late; I'm with Linus

[atomic-penguin]

I cannot believe the parent was modded troll. I have been a desktop Linux user, going on 12 years now. I've used many other window managers, Fvwm, twm, WindowMaker, Blackbox, Fluxbox, CDE, xfce, and even Gnome. So I have tried many different window managers, and have been able to easily adapt to different GUIs with relatively little pain. KDE has been my primary desktop for the last 5-6 years, that is until KDE 4.x came along.

I gave KDE 4 an honest test drive, that lasted less than a week. Much of the KDE 3 functionality you would expect to be included in KDE 4 is gone. A good example is the KDE regular expression editor which comes as a standard KDE utility in KDE 3. The desktop wasn't really a traditional desktop interface at all. The desktop somehow became this ill-behaved widget container. My right mouse button wouldn't do anything, at least not what I wanted it to do. The worst part was the customization which has been part of every window manager I have ever used; customization was gone. There was no way to make KDE 4 work in a way which I want to use. Those are a few examples off the top of my head. I used KDE 3.5 until April, it was still available in the main repository of Hardy, as well as having KDE 4 available as a choice from the same repository.

I upgraded to Ibex in April, and tried out KDE 4.1; it is still not what I expect. I switched to Gnome for maybe a day, and couldn't get it to handle multiple desktops with Xinerama the way I want. Finally, I switched to xfce. It works the way I want, I can change the behavior if I don't like it. I have been using xfce all summer. I will undoubtedly give KDE another try. I have to wonder how many hours of productivity has been lost on frustrated KDE users not able to adapt to the radical changes presented in KDE 4.

Why is it that the two most divisive window managers, KDE and Gnome, seem to be immune from forking especially when their most loyal users are dissatisfied? Why is it that the KDE developers insist on radical changes, even when critics and loyal users claim KDE 4 is on the wrong track? I, for one, would much rather have ugly 2-D widgets in a useful environment and fully functional interface. As opposed to 3-D compositing and widgets that are pretty, lack any practical use, and result in a half-working interface.

Re:Too little, too late; I'm with Linus

[10Ghz]

"KDE is coming together, albeit slowly but it is coming."

Slowly? Huh? 4.0 was crap. 6 months later we got 4.1 which was a lot better, but not there yet. 1 year after 4.0 we got 4.2 which was really good. And now we are getting 4.3.

KDE4 is only 18 months old. 18 months. During that 18 months KDE4 has changed A LOT. Compared to KDE3, KDE4 is progressing really, REALLY fast. In KDE3, 18 months got us from KDE 3.0 to KDE3.1.4.

Re:fixing 10,000 bugs

[JohnFluxx]

Many bugs, presumably, were fixed without having bug reports.

Re:Is this the KDE 4.0 we've all been waiting for?

[cheftw]

Wow, wasn't that enjoyable.

Do you put your dinner into a blender and then compress it into a tiny pellet and see how fast you can swallow it?

Watch speedruns instead of buying games?

Drive slowly?

It seems to me like you're doing it wrong, comprehension is not what I look for in a novel. Have you thought of stopping to smell the flowers and cogitate, savour?

  What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?â" WH Davies

Re:making progress

[Tubal-Cain]

So do I, but what I don't see KDE as is functional. The 'Start' menu is just downright painful to use.

Re:Kmail just sux

[westyvw]

WTF? Why the hell would you have HTML in EMAIL? I read and send email from various devices, and the last thing I want is images and HTML because I want to read it and get to the point. Mobile devices drive home the issue: no HTML in email.

Re:Caizen is actually spelt with a K

[Anonymous Coward]

Several developers of the KDE team have acknowledged this to be a deliberate, ironic move.

10,000 bugs?

[smash]

So, in 6 months, in going from the KDE 4.2 that was widely lauded as "the KDE4 for end users" or "what KDE4 should have been", they've squashed over 10,000 bugs?

Wait, what?

What actual advantages are there to KDE3.5 for "getting shit done"? Really, I want to know...

I've briefly checked out KDE4.0, 4.1 and 4.2, and immediately been turned off (as a long time KDE user since before 1.0). Its as if they got rid of all the developers who had a clue and replaced them with Javascript web flunkies.

It just feels "wrong", unfamiliar and awkward to use - for no good reason that I can discern (why the fuck do i need a "plasmoid" to store folders in, what the fuck is wrong with my desktop - just for starters?)... and thats coming from someone who loved KDE 2.0 through 3.5 and was looking forward to further development down the same path...

I speak Japanese, but thought "Caizen" = Chinese

[zooblethorpe]

I'm fluent in Japanese; I earn my bread and butter by translating Japanese documents into English. But this "Caizen" silliness had me scratching my head wondering what Chinese word it was supposed to be. "C" followed by a vowel is the usual romanization from Chinese for a "ts" sound plus a vowel. Meanwhile, unless someone's trying to get cute, the hard "K" sound in Japanese words is always romanized as a "K". Given too the KDE project's tendency to use "K"s in software titles, the deliberate non-"K"-ness of "Caizen" made me think they must be trying to spell something pronounced without a hard "K" sound.

Silly me; silly them.

Cheers,

Re:Is this the KDE 4.0 we've all been waiting for?

[Trogre]

I looked at your post for some time before deciding to reply, but I'm curious as to exactly what your point is.

Are you suggesting that the very act of picking up a book, smelling the paper, pausing at the turn of each page, and finishing each chapter with a brandy is the only way one can properly assimilate a literary work?

Some people might really want to read novels but might lack the time for dedicating a day and a half to staring at nothing but inky markings between meals and cigars. I'm all for taking time to smell the flowers, but prefer taking the time myself rather than having it forced upon me by artificial limitations.

Personally I have no problem with listening to audio-books, once I've gotten used to the voice as the OP mentioned. Then again I also don't mind listening to pre-recorded music *without* being in the presence of the original band, so what do I know?

 

Re:making progress

[bcmm]

This is actually true. A basically unpatched KDE; no fancy branding breaking things or integration of custom system configuration tools (systemsettings already does pretty much everything other distros might want to add as extra configuration tools). KDE doesn't really require a "KDE distro" which goes to lengths to integrate it (unless you desperately require a bootsplash theme which matches your login manager or something); give it hal, dbus and networkmanager* and it integrates itself very well indeed.

There are probably binary packages for people who don't like compiling. And there are sets and metapackages for installing all of kde, or just kdebase and kdepim, or just base and koffice, or whatever, without having to go down a long list of packages.

Also, while I haven't tried it other than using the rescue CD to install Gentoo, Sabayon looks interesting as an easy way to install a polished KDE distro based on Gentoo.

* That said, I don't actually use networkmanager because my computer doesn't move about and I like the network to come up before login.

Re:Is this the KDE 4.0 we've all been waiting for?

[GauteL]

Could someone mod this total asshole down instead of giving him +4 insightful?

The moderators that modded him up either did it without thinking, or lack the empathy to understand what it is like to be sight-impaired.

First; most people can read much faster than what it takes to read out loud. Just try it yourself. Read a paragraph silently and time yourself, then do the same thing while reading it out loud. Reading it out loud is going to take much longer.

This also means for many people, their natural reading speed is much faster than a typical audio book, meaning the typical speed of an audio book can get quite irritating after a while if you really want to know what is happening next, but your mind is left waiting for input as the reader progresses at his/her own speed.

Slowly speeding up audio and training your comprehension seems to me to be a very sensible way of getting the speed of an audio book up to your natural reading speed.

So fuck you very much, but I'm willing to bet that I (and the original poster) know perfectly well when to read and when to "savour" something.

In laptops, 1024x600 is low-end

[tepples]

Nowdays, 1280x1024 19" lcd is pretty much low end

In laptops, 1024x600 (9"/10") is low-end, and a few bargain-basement models have 800x480 (7").