Slashdot Mirror
KDE 4.4 Released Alongside Website Redesign
Cryophallion writes "KDE 4.4.0 has finally been released, along with a redesign of the KDE.org website. New features include tabbed windows, improved desktop search and social desktop features. 'Major new technologies have been introduced, including social networking and online collaboration features, a new netbook-oriented interface and infrastructural innovations such as the KAuth authentication framework. According to KDE's bug-tracking system, 7293 bugs have been fixed and 1433 new feature requests were implemented.' A feature guide is also available."
Looking forward to when this rolls out to Fedora 12.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I think 4.3 is pretty great. I'm running 4.3.5 on Fedora 12 and it's probably my favorite KDE yet. Sure they had to step back to move forward, but sometimes that is absolutely necessary if the current foundation is impossible to support the desired end state.
Fortunately Linux users have a lot of choices, and it will cost you nothing more than time and bandwidth to see if you want to return to KDE or stay on Gnome. Or don't put even that into it and keep using what works for you. Not sure why anyone has to "lay low" or anything like it.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Wow almost a meg for the front png file slide4.png ... easy to understand why site inst responding already....
I had a similar opinion, but ended up upgrading to KDE 4.x from 3.x when it hit 4.3. While things are different, I find it very useful. The only thing I miss at this point is Quanta has no love -- or replacement.
Wait until there is a live distro using 4.4 and give it a try. Remember, different is different, not necessarily worse or better.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The KDE team isn't responsible for what happened to Amarok, that is a seperate project.
I totally agree though, Amarok turned into complete and utter shit, I used to love Amarok but now I just use xmms2. KDE 4.x has been perfectly usable since 4.3 imho, though I've been using it since 4.1.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
KDE 4 (since 4.2) has been best desktop environment i have ever used. Kubuntu releases are not that good but they get the job done. I really did like KDE 3.5, but now i don't miss it at all. It seems that in every new KDE release, there are tons of new features that nobody really finds or notices, and still they are very important tiny things that make it faster and easier to use.
KDE started becoming good again roughly with KDE 4.3. Try 4.4, you will probably like it! I'm just wondering why kde doesn't manage to produce a proper looking default theme.... Also try xfce! its really great if you just want a clean and fast desktop environment with just the right set of features! I would prefer it over gnome any time!
I'm sure the project deeply misses your contributions....
I have not used KDE since 3.
The simple reason is that Ubuntu and Gnome feel more finished than KDE did to me.
Gnome really works well for what I need. I use it to launch programs and to manage files.
Where I think both Gnome and KDE are blowing it is complexity.
Take a look at the settings in both of them sometime. Way to complex.
The other place I feel they are falling down is supporting applications.
I love choice but there needs to be some good defaults.
Oh and I wish GTK had a better file dialog.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The API "documentation" is still completely unorganized and most of it is just Doxygen pages. While the Doxygen tagging is fairly good, this is not a "manual," it's a reference. And what about Plasma? I've wasted hours hacking applets without a real understanding of the APIs. The Plasma API front page is pretty much useless.
Although I suppose somebody will now yell at me for being too lazy to contribute to the docs... I'd be happy to, if I had some kind of handle I could grab to bootstrap myself and start delving into it. But seriously, no, you don't get good docs by people who are unfamiliar with the code just staring at it and trying to document their own misunderstandings. Somebody who actually designed and wrote this crap needs to step in. Please?
I'm not an expert on these things, but I'm fairly sure that is a complaint about Debian, not KDE. I'm not familar with how Debian does it, but if they handle things anywhere near the same as the Kubuntu people do, that would explain a lot...
Complaints from a GNOME user about ease of configuration are amusing though ;)
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
KDE 4 doesn't seem bad to me anymore. I tried 4.0 and it was a fairly miserable experience. UI issues I could forgive, but not coupled with the constant crashes. I still think the devs should be ashamed for labeling that a release version. 4.1. was slightly better. Lacking configuration options and a bunch of UI stuff, but generally more stable. KDE 4.2. was, finally, something usable and the dev team also said that it's an okay choice for "end users" and not just "enthusiasts". I've been happily using 4.3. since its release and that's a very nice desktop environment, though I do hate the changes to Amarok.
Kubuntu is a separate issue. The Ubuntu project has always been very Gnome-centric, which is one of the things I dislike about the approach to Ubuntu. The K versions have always felt like an afterthought, including the ones that predate KDE4. I wouldn't really say that Kubuntu sucks but it sure seems to implement KDE worse than numerous other distros do.
Are you looking at the same KDE that the rest of us are looking at?
My 11 and 15 year old daughters use it successfully, without crashes.
Dude, you're being out-linuxed by little girls!
"Lame" - Galaxar
Agreed. Over the years, long ago, the first thing anybody did was ditch Gnome and install KDE. Then at some time, when exactly I don't recall, it became apparent that KDE was a little confusing and the clean, easy old grandpa Gnome was easier to use. Or maybe I've just gotten older and don't want to fuss with the interface anymore, who knows. I've been using Gnome for a couple of years now but I think I'll give the new KDE a shot this time.
I know it's ironic complaining as a Gnome user about configuration, but that's why I am going to try 4.4. The default KDE configuration to me is riddled with excess and it feels like it's trying to show off instead of let me work. The complaint was not that I broke my dependencies; the entire reason for me trying KDE 4.3 was _because_ I broke my Gnome dependencies and fscked things up from a fault of my own.
No, I think he's saying he tried KDE because he broke Gnome, not the other way around.
And by the way, he's talking about Debian Sid, also known as Unstable. The "real" release is Debian Stable, the others are WIP.
Dilbert RSS feed
The question is, should we even bother to look at this release?
Yes, you should. Not only Plasma has become a viable replacement of the old desktop, it has improved to the point where I would miss it in a KDE3/Gnome desktop. The netbook plasmoid is interesting not only because it's better for netbooks, it's a proof of how flexible the whole infrastructure is. You even can switch your desktop to the netbook plasmoid in the desktop preferences (it's not only useful for netbooks, newbie users could use it aswell in workstations).
Amarok dropped the new ugly UI, and went back to a UI like the one they had in the 1.x series.
Nepomuk not only it is becoming a cool tool, it is also starting to allow to do today the same kind of things Gnome's zeitgeist will do
External projects like Koffice 2, K3B or Gwenview are stabilizing after the switch to KDE4....
I'm afraid that the KDE brand is ruined only in the head of people who haven't bothered to look at how cool KDE4 is...
I tried 4.0, decided to sit way back and switched with the Jaunty on 4.2.2 but upgraded via backports to 4.3 and since then I've had no real issues. The only issue I have is that my sound sometimes fails to initialize, but it seems to be a heisenbug with my chipset in ALSA that is hard to pin down as others report the same. What seems to me as the biggest problem right now is that several of the KDE projects are really struggling to keep up with the times like Konqueror or is never hitting release quality like KDevelop4 which expected their 4.0 release to be at end of March. Most of the releases are frameworks and APIs or some gee-wiz plasma widget but pretty soon I'm not running a single KDE app anymore and then there's little point in running KDE either.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Agree 100%. Amarok jumped the shark when it went to version 2.x. To the point where it was one of the best mp3 players to what the hell is this?
That said, KDE was almost unusable at 4.0 but is now quite nice (I used Gnome for a bit).
I am not a script!
OK, OK! Mercy! :)
Victory to the little girls. :)
Which version do you all use? If they like it, maybe it's worth another look.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Yes, you are right. I read that wrong.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Why, oh, why would they have removed such a basic desktop functionality. My eyes are above my nose, mot in my chin.
Gee, I was tooling around the kde.org website, seeing what they had done with the new layout, and all of a sudden I can't get to the site. I wonder what coulda happened all of a sudden...
I agree with what you said about amarok.
amarok 2.x is simply godamn awfull. makes even iTunes look good.
the interface is confusing, can't get rid of that ridiculous area in the middle
You can rearrange the panels (including removal of the middle panel) in Amarok 2.2.
or make any kind of meaningful, insightful comment when running down the work of others on the web I guess.
After the pathetic state of the last several Kubuntu releases...
I think that's half your problem right there.
Anybody want my mod points?
Honestly, give up on Kubuntu if you want to use KDE. In fact, even using Ubuntu + KDE which was more stable than Kubuntu in my experience, I still had to manually customize a heap of stuff and it felt flaky. Then I switched to OpenSuse 11.2. Bliss I tell you. It is KDE how KDE should be done. I didn't have to tweak anything - even Firefox fitted in from the get go. Give OpenSuse a try. Those guys know what KDE should feel like and it shows when you use their distro.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
This is the kind of informative post I was hoping to get. It seems like it's time to look again.
I hope I made clear exactly how and why the KDE team ruined their own brand. No one else is responsible.
I hope I also made it clear how glad I will be to see them find their feet again and if this is the release I can finally use, then I only have one last observation:
Maybe they should call it KDE5 or something else that would draw attention to a newly working release (as opposed to the "KDE4" splash that drew attention to an unusable mess). :)
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
It doesn't even matter if you are right or wrong anymore. Years down the line you're still bashing a bunch of nice and hard-working people. Enough already "Concern". This is really uncalled for.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
Oh I was hardly vague or speaking out of turn - that's now proven.
I have open patches on bugs KDE4, one for many months, and part of my frustration is watching how badly issues are treated on that project - even when they have a clean fix all prepared and ready to apply, at the end of an impeccably documented bug. But you know, that wasn't even worth mentioning, because your underlying point was so stupid.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Anyone have a link to the binary that actually works? Tried a bunch of the ones in mirrors and none seem to function.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I've been running Kubuntu for years now. Once I settled on it I didn't really want to change. For over a year I ran Amarok 1.4 on KDE 4.x (yes, that's no problem at all). However, ever since version 4.3 I've been using Amarok 2.x without too much of a problem. The difference is small enough now so I don't want to bother with the older version anymore. Anyway, Kubuntu isn't as bad as it once was. It always had its quircks but I think that a lot of issues were related to the growing pains of KDE, not the distribution as such.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
If someone has mod points, mod parent up.
As a huge Ubuntu fan (which to adopted while KDE was getting over the 4.0 fiasco) I looked to Kbuntu for the same quality as regular Ubuntu. Its just not there. If you want a "quality" KDE4 release, you really need to try OpenSUSE.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Anyone else on here notice the video of Plasma Desktop on the release page? It looks awfully similar to the proposed Gnome Shell for Gnome 3.0. I don't believe in that KDE vs GNOME fanboy nonsense, but I think it's more than fair to compare them from a technological standpoint. The primary feature pushing Gnome 3.0 was Gnome Shell, but KDE has almost completely duplicated its functionality 6 months before 3.0's release date - assuming it won't be as buggy as Plasma was when it started out.
I wonder how this will affect the future of KDE and Gnome.
I guess your frustration comes from the fact that there's nothing out there that even comes close to Amarok (either version) in terms of usability and functionality. And that most certainly includes iTunes.
Flame all you want, but that's the reality.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
OK, I'm running 4.4rc so I might be able to help.
For the first problem, the 'save settings' has been replaced by the profile system. When you modify the settings your actually changing the current profile, so that might explaine some things. Don't use profiles myself but there.
As for the terminal size, not to say but I can't see a use case for having a fixed size, and IIRC the 'save window size' thing is done outside the application, ie it's a standerd, probably window manager, thing.
HTH
David
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
It's somewhat better now. I got it to look like this, with no center pane. Actually, the center pane is a tab on the bottom of the left pane, which I sometimes find nice.
You do know that you can re-arrange your Amarok any way you want, don't you (yes you can even remove the central zone if that's your thing).
David
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
You're judging KDE from Kubuntu? You know that Kubuntu's KDE is one of the worst out of all the distro's right? Yes, KDE on one distro is a different experience from another. Personally, I had the best KDE experience running Archlinux. I also used Kubuntu and have thought their KDE was pretty bad.
The decision to seriously overhaul KDE was a great decisions in the long run though it was completely unusable for several releases after the switch. I must say, it is beautiful now. With this release, I think it's time for me to switch back.
I love the new features shown in the videos.
I had used KDE3 for about 1-2 years, when KDE4 appeared. No question, 4.0 was impossible to use, and 4.1 was painful (my experience is with kubuntu). However, the breakeven for me was with KDE 4.2, when I thought this was a product at least as good as KDE3. Yes, there were features in KDE3 that KDE4 was missing, but there were also loads of new features, concepts and functionality in 4.2 that 3.5 couldn't do. I also always found 3.5 quite ugly.
I totally disagree with your notion of "digging the hole deeper". As much as things got better from 4.0 to 4.1 to 4.2 (in my opinion), they just continued on that trajectory to making 4.3 way better than 3.5. Now, I have been using KDE 4.4 betas for at least a month (in a production environment -- call me stupid, but I am just amazed about KDE4), and I am still thrilled how much better and nicer it got! Hell, I am even using the "crappy" kubuntu distro everyone is yelling at. OK, call me a fanboy. But you should know that I also seriously tried GNOME, and LXDE, and Xfce, and even IceWM -- I all didn't like them and went back to KDE4.
Maybe, it is just that you were so used to KDE3 and so good at it and so happy, that there was no way of matching your productivity with something as new and innovative as KDE4? I think KDE4 is going into a new, exciting direction, and that it will pay off that they did everything from scratch at some point. Similarly, Linux sucks for so many people who have been conditioned to using Windows, that they don't get anything accomplished in a different environment. Could that be some of the reason for your disappointment (along with your anger)?
The last time I used KDE was around the middle of 2000. 10 years on I'd like to try out 4.x and see what all the fuss is about. Can anyone recommend a distro that has a good KDE experience? I hear that some distros have screwed up KDE 4.x so I'd like to use one that will give me a decent experience.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
I couldn't care any less about how "cool" KDE4 is. I care about stability and functionality and being able to get my work done. What are your opinions on the functionality? Is it working well for you for day to day work? Any glaring bugs or issues? You also mentioned about external projects saying they "are stabilizing." Does that mean that they are not yet stable and have work to do to become stable?
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
Kubuntu consistently puts out the worst KDE packages. If you want a good KDE desktop, please try another distro like openSUSE, Fedora, Sabayon, Arch, PCLinux OS, Mandriva, etc.
If you want to blame someone for the "disaster", consider pointing a finger at your distro.
Usually when I make this statement, half the time I get modded troll. The other half of the time I get modded informative. Frankly, I don't care. But I am speaking the truth here. Anyone who follows KDE knows that 90% of the complaints seem to stem from people running terrible Kubuntu packages.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1 live disc is running a weekly snapshot build of the 4.4 trunk. It is about a month old, but it is a fairly good indicator of the final 4.4 release.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Was that thing finally rewritten, because knetworkmanager is kind of pathetic -- it doesn't even show type of encryption of available networks, and I know I could get that information from /sbin/iwlist, but the whole purpose of that program is to be convenient, and it fails at that. What happened to network manager plasmoid, where did it go in 4.2, is it coming back and why in gnome everything is working. (netbook-remix is sweet, BTW).
The problem is here is not mean, honest people on the internet - who are never going away by the way, even if I felt too bored to comment - the problem is ego. The giant ego on some people who want to claim their opus is finished when it's not, and they know it, but they just want to pretend.
And they know perfectly well it's not - the bug database tells them so. But they label it "finished" "v10" "stable" anyway. And that's just kind of shameful when you're KDE. It's even worse when people do it on filesystems, databases, mailservers, router firmwares, kernels, etc.
Your no-meanies-giving-criticism world would be a dangerous one. Be thankful you live in the real one instead.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
I use Kubuntu, but it's really Ubuntu minimal + KDE4 Repos. It does amazing things. I've been running the beta for a bit and it's solid (Kopete and plasma crashes though - nothing showstopper). I also have the latest Amarok and really like it. It's finally were it needs to be. Now, if they could actually come up with something similar to Amarok 1.4's Music brains tagger, then officially there's nothing left over 1.4
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
I'm also getting pissed at dolphin either. the old konqueror browser|file manager was pretty decent. dolphin OTOH plain sucks, from the way it displays stuff in detailed view, the impossibility of reordering the columns, how the tree view pane keeps moving the directory tree left and right by itself. again, any sugestions of a replacement that looks/feels more like the old konqueror will welcome.
Right click on a folder, go into properties, click on the wrench & screwdriver icon (settings?), and remove Dolphin from the list of apps to open folders with. Move Konqueror up to the top of the list. Click 'okay' and wait for the system to update the configuration. Done.
My only complaint with 4.4 is that I get an error message if I'm not running Nepomuk.
If I start it, it crashes most of the time. Even when it runs without crashing, it does nothing for me. I've noticed that every major distro has open bugs relating to Nepomuk crashes, and I'm not seeing fixes to be found anywhere.
If enough apps do a good job of making Nepomuk useful, then I might consider it in the future. But right now I have zero interest in it, and it isn't exactly optional in KDE 4.4.
It is the only ugly wart on an otherwise great release.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The simple reason is that Ubuntu and Gnome feel more finished than KDE did to me
That's not a problem with KDE, but a consequence of the fact that Ubuntu focuses far more on Gnome than on KDE. I still use Kubuntu at home, but from what I've read, other distributions that give more attention to KDE might work better.
I agree. When I first go into Linux (I think I first installed Debian around 1997, but it was really 2000 or so before I really got into it heavily) KDE was THE desktop environment to use for general use (I still used WindowMaker when programming back then, but for general use, it was KDE). By comparison Gnome looked like some cobbled together hack. I remember way back when when some organization (who I'm not even sure had much "authority" to make such a claim) proclaimed that Gnome was going to be the "official" desktop environment for Linux (at the time this was due to GPL issues with the QT toolkit), I was greatly saddened. To me they were choosing the inferior product because of petty licensing issues.
Somewhere along the road though, things changed. It's almost like the Gnome team focused on creating an actual slick and useable desktop environment. KDE by comparison almost feels like trying to use some proof of concept research project. Ideas batted around about what COULD be on desktops in years to come (and like all such ideas, only some small subset will ever be seen as useful additions/changes). In simple terms: Gnome started looking professional whilst KDE just keeps looking weirder. Now, don't get me wrong - anything that might attract more users to the platform in general is a good thing, but I just don't see myself seriously looking at KDE for actual usage.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 1 includes KDE 4.4 RC2 (a build from two weeks ago)
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.3-Milestone1/
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
So, does it now work with multiple independent X screens? I have 2 monitors and find Xinerama and Twinview to be annoying, but as much as I love KDE I just can't use it without having the 2nd monitor work.
I'm afraid that the KDE brand is ruined only in the head of people who haven't bothered to look at how cool KDE4 is...
I agree that KDE4 is "cooler" looking than KDE3. Unfortunately, for many of us that actually use Linux to get work done, KDE4 is much less productive than KDE3. I was a heavy user of many of the more advanced features of Konqueror for example. However the Konqueror in KDE4 is a pale imitation of its KDE3 self. You want a simple example? Just try editing your Konqueror bookmarks in KDE4. Nearly faster to edit the bookmarks.xml file--in fact you appear to have to do that to do an obvious thing like reorder the toplevel folders. Another problem is stability. My main machines still have KDE3 on them. They routinely go 2-3mos. without rebooting *and* without having to restart KDE3. I have yet to make it more than a couple of days without something serious enough happening to KDE4 that it has to be restarted.
I am hopeful things will improve with KDE4 so that I can use it productively, but my experience so far has been very disappointing. Particularly since posts pointing out missing/unworking features are usually met with responses about some kind of unwiedy multi-step partial workaround or posts about all the great new features that the other person loves but are not useful to me. Sorry, but I will take productive and stable over "cool" looking with my desktop.
First of all I really appreciate you sharing your perspective on this.
Who can be objective about these things? I loved KDE3, really did. I've really enjoyed may different fundamental UI frameworks, from Amiga's Workbench to nextstep to early gnome and xfce... Everyone's particular about different things. Who knows.
Obviously KDE4 was unstable for ages, but beyond that there seemed to be things that hinted at a bad underlying direction, too. Take the plasmid that showed folder contents on the desktop. Context menu items, keyboard shortcuts, and drop behaviors were broken and/or different from what konq or dolphin did. You know, I actually liked that they contained the "desktop" folder in a plasmid and let you control that. Great concept. But someone clearly was implementing file management a second time rather than generalizing what KDE already had. And that's just the first basic bit of functionality on the desktop that most everyone sees by default.
It's just one example. It was not only a bad user experience (when the DEL key deletes selected files, except on the desktop), but it betrayed a kind of architectural ineptitude.
BTW, I assuming they must have fixed that DEL key on the desktop at some point. But did they do it by laboriously getting the plasmid to copy the existing file browser code?
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
I specifically made that point about arguments over blame because I was aware of this issue. I know that KDE blamed Canonical for having "bad" KDE4 releases. And they may well indeed not be good at doing a KDE distro. When I try again it will not be with Kubuntu, this much is certain.
What makes this argument confusing, though, is that it started around 4.0 and 4.1, back when it was not possible to have good KDE releases. In the end, it's tough to make yourself care who blames who.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
For the first problem, the 'save settings' has been replaced by the profile system. When you modify the settings your actually changing the current profile
OK, so is there a way to make it *not* change the profile?
I can't see a use case for having a fixed size
Using multiple terminals, when I want to see what's going on in them at the same time. Also, some terminal apps are "optimised" for 80x24 or 80x25 (and some don't display properly when using the "wrong" size.)
IIRC the 'save window size' thing is done outside the application
It's not a window manager thing - the app requests a specific size when you open it (which is why in 3.5, you can save the settings from the menubar, and why "Width" and "Height" appear in the config file.)
I suppose I could force the windows to open at a specific size with the "Window-specific settings" control panel, but that seems like a huge hack.. I guess if I've got no choice I'll try it... thanks for the idea.
I heard that a lot, so when I went to try KDE 4.3, I've did that with OpenSUSE.
Guess what? I've had a crash within 5 minutes of using it, just by right-clicking something randomly in the file manager. Another crash 10 minutes later in Amarok.
That's called "stable" these days?
Meanwhile this loyal Gnome user dreads the time when "Gnome Shell" becomes mandatory and forces me to switch to something else, KDE or XFCE I'm still not sure.
What I hate about KDE4 right now is the Henry Ford mentality of, you can have your features any way you want them as long as you want it as a plasmoid. I HATE DESKTOP WIDGETS, desktop widgets are basically small applications that don't scale and use a different window manager, one which is less functional and harder to use than the default window manager... but ohhhh it supports rotating! WTF IS UP WITH THAT? WHO WANTS TO ROTATE A FUCKING WIDGET?
At least with Gnome every panel and panel applet is optional, how come Gnome is the most configurable desktop of the two now?
But... the future refused to change.
Menubar: View -> uncheck "Lock Layout" -> uncheck "Context".
Done.
Seriously, make an effort.
I'd tell a UDP joke, but you may not get it. I'd tell a TCP joke, but I'd have to keep repeating it until you got it.
More likely PEBCAK. Debian's KDE 4 is fine and a perfectly standard KDE. It's not Gnome, though, so if that's what you want, you're not going to get it.
And this is why I will never point anyone toward free software. On one hand, OSS people say you're a sucker for paying for a closed source OS (which, btw, most people don't give a fuck if they have the source or not). Then, when someone tries it and has a ligit complain, they're told, STFU, you get what you pay for.
I'd disagree with your premise though, and argue that users DO have every right to bitch and complain about something they got for free. The reason is simple; a project without users is a waste of time, no matter how much better it is in theory. If you don't want people to bitch about your free software, by all means, DON'T RELEASE IT.
I run weekly snapshot releases of KDE on openSUSE. I've been doing so for probably the past 2 years.
My wife has the stock KDE 4.3 packages that shipped on the openSUSE 11.2 DVD, and she hasn't complained once about a single crash, ever, except for Flash in Firefox. (She complains about that a great deal).
The only thing that seems to crash for me is Nepomuk for the most part. I do get an occassional Plasma crash, usually when I'm changing the panel on a new install. Once I'm done setting up my panel, I never seem to get crashes ever again. It runs pretty extremely stable for me.
I've done plenty of openSUSE installs for friends and family this year with Intel, Nvidia, and ATI graphics cards.
I'm curious what the differences are between what we're running, and what we're doing.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
... and still we have no real Mac support.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
For the same reason that you do not take a buggy, unfinished mess and call it "v4.0."
I don't think you quite "get" open source. The idea is to "release early and release often." This means releasing code even when it's buggy or not fit for human consumption. And a number is just a number. We won't run out of them. The v4.0 means exactly that.. New features, but not bug-free.
Apparently a lot of people don't "get" open source then, and I think that was his point exactly... If most people "got" it in they way you mean, there wouldn't have been all this moaning about KDE 4.x...
And public perceptions are one thing where truth is determined by a popularity vote.
You're right, of course. Everyone gets to talk, that's the bottom line. Funny after thousands of years we're still arguing over it.
I still say free software is the best way. There are lots of free projects miles better than their nearest commercial equivalents. Not always, but often.
If you're a business, and you get told to STFU when complain or ask for help for free, you can then buy that help with real American monopoly dollars. And instead of being stuck buying it from whoever made your software, you can buy it on an open market. Net result, better, cheaper support.
Hence Redhat, IBM, etc. and the enormous success of the free software support business model even in corporate America.
With a commercial project, if you complain, or ask for help, they may help. They can also laugh at you and hang up (metaphorically speaking), even if you just paid them a lot of money. Because they can. Because there's no market and no choice.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
!
I totally agree though, Amarok turned into complete and utter shit
Hard to believe, but this is an understatement. I cannot think of any application that turned into a huge steaming pile like Amarok. Maybe Kino after the 0.6.x changes.
I really wanted to reply to your post in a constructive way, but I'm simply to bored with this kind of marketing excuses.
Or open System Settings and select Default Applications. Choose file manager and select Konqueror, then press Apply.
Re: Kino: There was a time didn't suck?
How did you switch to Mono while mentioning about GNOME? What's the relationship of Mono with GNOME? I'm not against mono, nor I buy the MS hater's attack on it, but why do you hate GNOME and judge it with Mono? Only component in default GNOME desktop that uses Mono is Tomboy, which is far away from being a key tool. Moreover if you need similar functionality with Tomboy, there's GNote, that is C++ port of Tomboy. Mono is not a dependency of GNOME and not seen to be one in forseeable future.
I think only relation of Mono and GNOME is both projects were started by Miguel. Not to mention both projects are very successful F/OSS projects.
Now all that is left is a web site full of slogans which tells you how to "download" KDE, stupid rebranding, anglo-imperialism, consensus culture.
I want to know how development progresses, how many bugs were fixed last week, how the EBN scores improved, which translations are complete.
I want a website which displays the reported recent plasma crashes. KDEoops
I want a website that explains me a single working methods how to set up a built environment on a free machine.
I want an idea torrent set up for KDE.
I want to see the users get involved to discuss KDE in a open and honest way.
I don't want slogans and empty marketing gibberish. I want better code.
I don't want a code of conduct bullshit, I want management by geeks and hacker ethics.
I want to praise the artists which make KDE great.
Having said that KDE 4.4 is really ok now. It is just two years late. The KDE community was much better in 2000.
It's a goddamned music player, why should I have to "make an effort" at all? Not to mention, that is hardly the only thing wrong with it.
I was patient with Amarok 2 for a long time. Far too long. Eventually I got fed up and wrote my own fucking client for xmms2 so I could finally listen to music with something that wasn't a complete pain in the ass and could reliably scan my music collection without placing all of my Rush albums under random jazz artists.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Most importantly, you can uninstall Amarok 2.2 as well! Don't forget to delete it's huge database, too. Just like Amarok does, at random.
There's a default profile that you can save to, I haven't had a problem after doing that. I changed the font size and colors, saved, and it's been good to me since.
Agreed. I used Gentoo for years but I wanted something a little less time consuming. I tried Kubuntu and a few others, but OpenSuSE has been the best by far.
There's a default profile that you can save to
Could you tell me how? It's been a couple of months since I tried it, but I couldn't find any "save" button or menu item anywhere.
I changed the font size and colors, saved, and it's been good to me since.
Does it address my problem - namely that when I resize the window, it doesn't save that as the new default?
Well, everyone makes up their own mind. I'm against Mono. The problems with it are not "MS hate." They're a very practical response to Microsoft. If you follow the news (SCO, etc) it's unremarkable fact that they're trying to destroy Linux via intellectual property law. Tricks just like Mono fit right in line.
Microsoft and de Icaza have been trying for ages to tie Mono to Gnome's success, and in a small way, at least, they are succeeding. Canonical considers Mono to be a "core framework" in ubuntu and they include it by default. It's not just Tomboy but F-Spot and other applications now too - Canonical says over 40 at this point.
I don't promise it will blow up as badly as it could, but taking the risk just to have de Icaza's clone of MS's knock off of Java, when Java itself is GPLv3, is... to use Rush Limbaugh's phrase, Developmentally Challenged.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
> Context menu items, keyboard shortcuts, and drop behaviors were broken and/or different from what konq or dolphin did.
little of that was easily sharable when folderview was started. with each release, the people working on the file management components (konq, dolphin, file open/save, folderview) have been pulling this kind of code out into libkonq (in kdebase-apps) and libkfile (in kdelibs; this is actually where most of this stuff exists now).
the was pretty much the same for kdesktop in kde 3, as well. it reimplemented a lot of interaction and functionality itself, but had a number of years to get there. folderview is already more advanced at this point, which is promising.
between the modularization of these file management bits into more easily sharable libraries and the more component-centric model of plasma, i really hope we don't have to go through a similar process again for many, many years (i won't tempt fate and add "if at all" ;)
Kubuntu consistently puts out the worst KDE packages.
Tried using a KDE package and tried Kubuntu and K Mint (no doubt based on Kubuntu) and found out that this was the worst thing to ever try. Random crashing like it was still a very beta stage (but it was the final product). Personally I found the whole KDE GUI to be quite nice do handle (after I got over the difference-shock) but all the bugs in the end made it a no go. Might be worth trying it again but with a different KDE disto, hear a lot about Arch Linux for KDE. Any other suggestions?
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
Hi.
UltraTurbo++ Linux Newbie here.
After some random pokes at Gnome Ubuntu 6.06, and hearing the rumblings of the early KDE 4, I held off for a few years. Based on some NotCited reports on the web, I went exactly for OpenSuse 11.2 KDE (I think 4.3?). Apparently I Chose Wisely.
KDE 4.3 has a few odd feeling placements compared to WinXP, but I managed to stumble my way through some Nvidia drivers and a terminal svc client, and flash mostly works by this point.
Anyone know if the difference between 4.3 and 4.4 is dramatic, or should I "sit back and wait for 3 more releases" again?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Maybe just me, but (XP / Google chrome) when I highlight text on the new KDE site, it has a faint aura around the letters. Very cool
I think it's under the Settings menu, something about saving to default.
I'd be more specific but I don't have it in front of me here..
Here's some people with the same window size problem, and some possible solutions:
http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/430081-how-set-konsole-window-size.html
> desktop widgets are basically small applications that don't scale
they scale visually, and they scale to different device form factors. if you are looking for them to scale in functionality to, say, replace Digikam or Kdenlive, that won't happen. they are helpers and quick tools. they aren't supposed to replace applications on their own, just as an application like Digikam is never going to be something you'd put in a nice photo frame device to show some photo collection :)
> use a different window manager
they aren't windows in form or function. unless you consider the objects in inkscape, oo impress, etc. to be windows as well.
> WHO WANTS TO ROTATE A FUCKING WIDGET?
while many seem to enjoy positioning photos just as they'd like on their desktop (which is a fairly minimal reason for rotation), it's actually rather useful when you have a large flat surface that lays horizontally.
given that rotation is couple of lines of code and has resulted in ~zero maintenance overhead and does not impact your usage if you don't care about rotation, this seems like a molehill rather than a mountain.
> At least with Gnome every panel and panel applet is optional
it is the same with KDE Plasma Desktop.
in KDE 3 you were always stuck with a minimum of one panel, actually, and that is gone with Plasma Desktop where you can remove all the panels if you wish.
Yeh it is PEBKAC for the entire reason that I tried KDE 4.3. The rest is my opinion, and it took me hours to get it configured, so that gave me a headache. Granted I am used to Gnome, but I've tried KDE 4 before. I am going to give 4.4 a shot, I don't want it to be Gnome, I just want it to not make me want to bash my head against the wall. I'm not trying to put KDE down; otherwise I would post flamebait as AC to be modded down. Oh, here come the mods now... *ducks*
I have used OpenSuse as well which is the "main" KDE distro. It just isn't as usable IMHO as Ubuntu/GNOME.
I know that some people will freak over this but I think that part of the problem is almost all of them give you too many choices out of the box.
I would love to see a minimal clean KDE distro. It should have one mediaplayer, one editor, one browser, one IM client....
You get the picture. I can always add programs later if I don't like the defaults just as I do on Windows and frankly as I already do on Linux.
I always install JOE on every Linux box I use because I grew up using Wordstar commands in Borland's IDEs. Should every distro include JOE? Not really but you get the idea.
Ubuntu comes the closest to doing this with Gnome as any system I have seen but even then it should be a little more clean IMHO.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Kubuntu is a separate issue. The Ubuntu project has always been very Gnome-centric, which is one of the things I dislike about the approach to Ubuntu. The K versions have always felt like an afterthought, including the ones that predate KDE4. I wouldn't really say that Kubuntu sucks but it sure seems to implement KDE worse than numerous other distros do.
Mandriva has always had an excellent implementation of KDE as well as good admin and package management tools, but it just doesn't get as much love as it should, probably because of its un-hip, cartoonish theme graphics (better with the 2010 release, BTW, but the default user icons still suck).
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Then, when someone tries it and has a ligit complain, they're told, STFU, you get what you pay for.
I am trying really hard to remember reading a bug report that was answered with STFU. Maybe because complaints look more like offence (Concern look like doing a lot of that on this topic) in direction of /. (where maturity is not a prerequisite), then STFU answer is not surprising.
In your opinion, how should "OMG, KDE suxors, crashes all the time. And Amarok, gah!!!" be addressed? With "Thank you for valuable input, we will address these issues right away"?
> I want to know how development progresses,
we used to have that in the form of the commit digest. would be nice to see that revived by people with interest and the time.
> I want a website which displays the reported recent plasma crashes.
easily available with a query (which you can save, btw) on bugs.kde.org
> I want a website that explains me a single working methods how to set up a built environment on a free machine.
techbase.kde.org, which is linked to from kde.org
> I want an idea torrent set up for KDE.
brainstorm.forum.kde.org
> I want to see the users get involved to discuss KDE in a open and honest way.
i would, too. unfortunately that seems to require more time for research and patience for careful analysis than most computer users can manage. just because it's a GUI that you can see with your eyes and manipulate with your mouse doesn't make the topics of design immediately accessible.
> I don't want slogans and empty marketing gibberish. I want better code.
would you take both? or rather, ignore the former as they are evidently not for you and revel instead in the latter.
> I don't want a code of conduct bullshit,
i'm sorry to hear you think agreeing to treat others with reasonable levels of common-sense care is bullshit. those who spend their time working on KDE tend to feel differently about that.
> I want management by geeks and hacker ethics.
the two aren't mutually exclusive.
> I want to praise the artists which make KDE great.
kde-artists@kde.org
You are going to LOVE the new pink pony menu bar! And unicorns...UNICORNS!!!
Will not be happy until the unicorns fart snowflakes. Dammit! Why don't the devs ever listen to users?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Using KDE in Kubuntu 9.04 (just upgraded to 9.10 today so can't comment on anything newer than Jaunty) at work as a software developer. I have to say, I'm not really sure what all the bad press has been about. The only issues I've had are when I tried to upgrade to the first KDE4 development version and was well aware that it wasn't for general consumption. After that I've not had any real issues with KDE on a dual display system. On occasion I find some of the plasmoids a little rough around the edges, so to speak, but that's down to the individual plasmoid developers, not KDE. On second thoughts, I lie, there was one issue which led the task bar to freeze for a few seconds whenever I got an IM in kopete but that disappeared in Jaunty.
I wouldn't say there are any glaring bugs or issues for day to day work. Heck, I use it here at home now as well and wouldn't say I've got issues with it when playing either. I think most of the big criticism comes from people who are still trying to use it like KDE3, haven't used it or are just trying to do odd things with it.
I get my work done and KDE doesn't get in my way. There are some things I don't like about it (dolphin, I'm looking at you) but that's personal preference. I'd suggest ignoring the peanut gallery and trying it out yourself, it's really the only way you'll figure out if you like it. Just try not to knock it for not being KDE3.
Silly rabbit
for fucks sake. enough already, this is boring. KDE4.0 WAS labelled as a developers release for the applications developers to get their software ported to KDE4. If you couldn't read or comprehend that at the time then its YOUR fault. You should stay low.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
> it started around 4.0 and 4.1, back when it was not possible to have good KDE releases
KDE specifically stated that 4.0 should not be used in production, and yet that's what a number of distributions rushed to do: place it as the default their users got when installing an OS that was intended for production use. i understand why distributions did what they did, but those are reasons not justificatons. i think a lot has been sorted out on all sides since then, and things are improving in general (though we saw a repeat of the same with pulseaudio, sadly)
I'm afraid that the KDE brand is ruined only in the head of people who haven't bothered to look at how cool KDE4 is...
The real problem is that the poorly handled introduction of KDE4 sent a lot of long-time KDE users to another desktop. Now there is a significant amount of inertia to overcome to get any us back since we've gotten used to something else and our current choice has not pissed us off. KDE-technowhiz alone won't do it.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Honestly, give up on Kubuntu if you want to use KDE.
Try Mandriva for a good KDE experience.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Why do the KDE developers insist on using uber-bizarre names for user programs? Can you get even the slightest idea what these programs do from reading their names: Neopomuk, Dolphin, Gwenview, Blogilo, KGet, Kopete, Kstars, Parley, Marble, Cantor, Rocs, Nepomuk, Akonadi, Kauth, KNewStuff3?
This is incredibly bad design, and for what? To make sure that KDE is used only by the cognoscenti on the outside chance that application program improvements might appeal to the casual user? And isn't it about time for someone to post the biannual question, is Linux ready for the desktop?
(Please tag as flamebait since ./ers don't like these kinds of challenges.)
and maybe soon E17
You were trying to be funny!
KDE specifically stated that 4.0 should not be used in production,
Yes, I remember that canard. But they created that confusion by calling it v4.0 and making a big splash, hyping up what they had accomplished too much. All those distros didn't start up their KDE4 support on a lark - they were all fooled. Meanwhile people do development releases all the time without getting burned. It's not rocket science.
It's what happens when ego is at the wheel. Remember Reiser? That guy would argue his filesystem was production-ready till he was blue in the face. Meanwhile check his bugtracker and you can see out the other side of his mouth when you report that his his consistency checker is dumping core, he'll tell you "yes that's not finished yet" Oops.
If you think KDE playing the same games isn't as serious, you'd be right, although I'd also suspect you weren't watching the open issues for KMail. Or maybe you just don't mind losing email.
People need to get over their egos and just be honest about what they're releasing. Warning labels, conventional use of version numbering - no green stop signs - or what should they expect? And what's the harm in underpromising and overdelivering? Why is that so hard?
That said, I'm glad it seems to be finally coming under control. The world needs a real alternative to de Icaza's brainchild.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
"Also try xfce! its really great if you just want a clean and fast desktop environment with just the right set of features! "
Amen! I have been using KDE since the 1.x days (~'98 if memory serves). I have broken KDE in more ways than you can imagine and xfce is my "rescue" DE (ie. enough to run firefox/opera and a few terminals). I simply cannot use Gnome -- I know many folks like/love it, but to me it is torture.
Is debian alright ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Don't get your hopes up (as I was starting to). If you go to the website you see that the 2.x series still looks like garbage and has screwed up arrangement and functionality. I used to cite Amarok as a killer app for kde, and now it's just total junk. How or why they would do this to a project/application that was already wildly popular is puzzling.
It works for me and I wouldn't go back to KDE3. I'm on OpenSuSE, though. I'm on 11.2 now and it just works. I don't understand all this criticism. Maybe a bad distro or resistance to new concepts, I don't know. Still, I have a few problems: Kaffeine does not handle well DVB TV (the KDE3 version was perfect) and I haven't found a use for Nepomuk. I hope 4.4 fix these minor problems.
I had the same experience in the KDE 3 -> 4 era. I tried lots of different window managers before finally deciding to try out Gnome for a while. I found I really didn't need all the configuration hassles that KDE provided me.
Are you talking about GNOME or GNOME Applications? Miguel never tried to embrace GNOME with Mono. You can't show me any mail/blog post regarding with that. Of course he would be happy if Mono was a core dependency of GNOME, but some other people have concerns about necessity of this move. That decision was not based on Microsoft and patents, every single app in GNOME would infringe one or more patent in today's broken USA patent system, decision was based on merits of platform, and Mono couldn't contribute to GNOME desktop. Tomboy was just an application which was test of this. And I believe Gnote showed that there's nothing Mono gives from development productivity point to GNOME at all.
What I'm trying to say is that GNOME has nothing to do with Mono. Neither Canonical's decision about Mono. Canonical produces a distro and they can get benefit from Mono much more than GNOME at all. And indeed why GNOME does not have Mono as a dependency is partly for that. Distributors can add frameworks as their wishes. GNOME does not push them to include any framework, apart from its own. Lastly I want to assure that if Gnote was written in C it would have already replaced Tomboy, which is the only application that needs mono in GNOME.
Oh trust me, there's plenty of people who think KDE's reputation is just fine. What does that mean ayway? If you fail at first, you can always try harder a second time. And a third time and a fourth time, until you get it right.
You sound like Ricky Bobby in Talladega nights: "If you ain't first you're last!". Well at least in the movie I knew it was meant to be funny.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
I'm afraid that the KDE brand is ruined only in the head of people who haven't bothered to look at how cool KDE4 is...
I am afraid that a lot of people who bothered a lot about KDE at the time KDE 4.0 came out won't bother to look at it again. People have a finite amount of time, a finite amount of interest, and patience.
The KDE devs really burned a lot of good will with the first KDE 4.X, and their attitude against the backlash. Most users (who left KDE) have by now moved on, and are confortable enough not to care anymore.
This is fair criticism, but I think KDE realised they dropped the ball, and they fixed it over the course of last year. For me, 4.3.3 felt right again and was "that release," and as others suggest here, 4.4 needs to be at least that quality before you can stop calling it 4.3.99. Please?
There are still some things missing which CDE had 15 years ago, but the major one is down to underlying X and not KDE - no panning. Such a missed opportunity for netbooks.
New website a massive improvement, by the way.
Do we have a decent Twitter client with list support yet?
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
It's OK with me that you don't like it. It's still a fairly well designed desktop (with some faults remaining), but it's a bit different from the others, so it's not to everyone's liking, and I don't expect everyone to get why things are the way they are. For the most part, it's set up to work pretty well by default, so if you really need to configure everything, you're probably in that group.
I'm sure in the real world you wouldn't be man enough to say all those horrible things in person.
Me being a happy KDE 4.3.5 user and looking at the speed of development of KDE in general, I would say your comments are seriously off the mark. Enough said.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
And yet they didn't have any problems using this same approach on previous major releases like 2.0 and 3.0. Even Gnome had a terrible and very buggy 2.0 release, yet you don't hear anyone crying about it.
Either people have short memories, or there are a bunch of new users that have just started using open source systems recently and bring with them the expectations from the proprietary world. I personally think it's a bit of both.
Mada mada dane.
You'd be wrong. And I think I made my point pretty well about why you shouldn't feel so bad not to live in a world where positive opinions are the only ones allowed.
I'm glad you said what version you like. It's good to know.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
All the distros did the same thing. Nice big warnings not to use this except to get a preview of what was coming down the pike.
Just because someone agrees with you doesn't mean the people who disagreed somehow changed their mind. Perhaps they just didn't read you comment, or didn't bother replying...
As for Amarok 2, I personally don't see what's wrong with it. It does what I want it to do (organize and play music) and stays out of the way.
Mada mada dane.
I agree on Amarok. I found Gmusicbrowser, and it's quite good.
Not a sentence!
Then start with a netinstall of Debian and install the KDE minimal metapackage. You can add your one mediaplayer, one editor, one browser and so forth as you wish. I seriously don't understand why people complain about too many choices. Do your wives lay out your clothes every morning for you too?
Wow. I was going to post *exactly the same thing*, more or less. But you saved me the bother. I feel pretty much the same way, except that I switched to Gnome while holding my nose. I still don't like it much, but it's better than the last several buggy release of KDE. And I do bend my neck and check out every new KDE release.... only to be disappointed again. Ack!
The problem with Kubuntu and Suse is that the two have backported from trunk instead of sticking with the source releases. In more than one occasion, this has caused instability or unexpected behavior.
The entire aim of Amarok is to provide contextual information about your library (and all other music sources you play) to help you rediscover your music.
There are simple players like Juk.
If you want a really simple client, then Amarok is not for you. If you liked Amarok 1.4, but don't like the defaults in Amarok 2, it takes less than a minute to configure it how you want.
I'm not seeing any reasonable explanation for someone being upset that Amarok 2 being MORE FLEXIBLE than Amarok 1.4 when it comes to making it look and operate how you want.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The real problem is that the poorly handled introduction of KDE4 sent a lot of long-time KDE users to another desktop. Now there is a significant amount of inertia to overcome to get any us back since we've gotten used to something else and our current choice has not pissed us off. KDE-technowhiz alone won't do it.
Honestly the stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me. The 4.0 release had big, huge, honking warning labels telling everyone that this was the first release in the 4.x series and that the API was stable — and that you should avoid it at any costs if you were a regular user. Seriously, the only way the KDE people could have made the message even more clear, would involve replacing the zero in 4.0 with the goatse guy.
And there's a tip for everyone working on Gnome 3.0...
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
My forays into the KDE 4.x release series were unpleasant too, although not necessarily for stability problems.
Look, it's obviously a labor of love, but sometimes the eyes of love are a bit blind to faults. The hardest thing to do in any creative endeavor is to set aside some idea you really love. But you have to do it, otherwise you end up with an exuberant but irritating mess. KDE 4 had a kind of an Andy Hardy "hey kids, let's revolutionize desktop technology!" feel to it. Or maybe like an art show for young UI designer's desktop concepts. It doesn't have a natural feel to it, by which I mean that after a few minutes with it you forget you're using some arbitrary set of conventions. It's an attention grabbing user interface, and I don't want my attention grabbed. I have my own uses for my attention.
The things I value in a user interface are consistency, responsiveness, and deference. I want the interface to stay out of my way, not to educate me on somebody's philosophy of user interface design. I regard my computer a my slave. When I give it an order, I want to be able to that quickly and have the result be absolutely predictable in how long it takes and how it ends up. I am not interested in any shuck-and-jive that the user interface designers want to throw into the process.
The whole program of revolutionizing the desktop is out of date anyway.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Is debian alright ?
No. Currently, a few nagging bugs in 4.3.4 supposedly fixed in 4.3.5 is crashing the connection to kdeinit
/usr/lib/kde4/libexec/drkonqi /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/drkonqi
tyrione@horus:~$ kate
kbuildsycoca4 running...
KCrash: Application 'kbuildsycoca4' crashing...
sock_file=/home/tyrione/.kde/socket-horus/kdeinit4__0
kdeinit4: preparing to launch
ERROR: Running KSycoca failed.
KCrash: Application 'kate' crashing...
sock_file=/home/tyrione/.kde/socket-horus/kdeinit4__0
kdeinit4: preparing to launch
[1]+ Stopped kate
tyrione@horus:~$
Having purged KDE 4.3.4 [including config files] and reinstalling KDE4.3.4 on Debian Sid hasn't improved it at all. Luckily I keep a fresh GNOME installed as well.
I'm curious about your client... care to offer anymore details, or possibly a download url? :)
To each their own. I won't use Gnome because Gnome doesn't give me enough options to run the desktop I want. I want configuration options.
That being said, almost every single app in KDE 4 land was redesigned to clean up the interface and make every menu and dialog look simpler. In most cases, they accomplished this without losing functionality. In many cases, they expanded functionality.
LinuxToday.com had some articles recently breaking down the system settings for KDE 4.3. If you haven't used KDE since 3, you should at least give it a look.
http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2010020300135OSKE
http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2010020800735OSKE
http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2010020802435OSHLKE
I don't keep the defaults with the KDE desktop. With a fresh install I change my desktop containment/activity to Folder View, and then move on to customizing the panel. I could scream about the defaults, but I'm content having the freedom to customize it exactly how I want it. I assume other users prefer different settings. Why force them into the defaults I want?
The fact that KDE allows for different containments/activities for your desktop shell is in and of itself pretty amazing.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
> desktop widgets are basically small applications that don't scale
they scale visually, and they scale to different device form factors. if you are looking for them to scale in functionality to, say, replace Digikam or Kdenlive, that won't happen. they are helpers and quick tools. they aren't supposed to replace applications on their own, just as an application like Digikam is never going to be something you'd put in a nice photo frame device to show some photo collection :)
> use a different window manager
they aren't windows in form or function. unless you consider the objects in inkscape, oo impress, etc. to be windows as well.
> WHO WANTS TO ROTATE A FUCKING WIDGET?
while many seem to enjoy positioning photos just as they'd like on their desktop (which is a fairly minimal reason for rotation), it's actually rather useful when you have a large flat surface that lays horizontally.
given that rotation is couple of lines of code and has resulted in ~zero maintenance overhead and does not impact your usage if you don't care about rotation, this seems like a molehill rather than a mountain.
> At least with Gnome every panel and panel applet is optional
it is the same with KDE Plasma Desktop.
in KDE 3 you were always stuck with a minimum of one panel, actually, and that is gone with Plasma Desktop where you can remove all the panels if you wish.
Everybody raise their hands if they have a table top display. I didn't think so. Rotation should be disabled, by default. Translation and constrained aspect ratio scaling enabled, of course.
You are mostly stating the obvious but missing my point.
> desktop widgets are basically small applications that don't scale
they scale visually, and they scale to different device form factors. if you are looking for them to scale in functionality to, say, replace Digikam or Kdenlive, that won't happen. they are helpers and quick tools. they aren't supposed to replace applications on their own, just as an application like Digikam is never going to be something you'd put in a nice photo frame device to show some photo collection :)
Yes I know that, but why would I want to put a photo frame in my desktop when I can put any image AS my desktop? And why would I chose to show a photo collection in a small frame when I can use a nice regular application?
Is not that I'm resisting change, I've been trying desktop widgets since windows 98 when true transparency wasn't available and they simulated it by copying the desktop picture behind.
I have really tried to like widgets but the truth is that they aren't functional, they are virtual ornaments, but so is the desktop picture and widgets obscure it.
The longest I have managed to keep widgets are a network activity indicator (rainlendar) back in 2005 and a battery indicator for my netbook last year (yahoo widgets) but that clashed with my use of fullscreen firefox.
I have also tried avant desktop, samurize... you name it. They just aren't useful and there's always an app that does the job right, I find desktop widgets to be extremely gimmicky.
Look, an analog clock! Yeah, I bet you read the time from the clock in the panel.
Look, a whether widget. Do you really use that information? I bet you don't know the current temperature right now without taking a look. Nor you care.
Look, an rss client! Sure, if you only keep track of one or two feeds. But ironically rss widgets aren't good for neither urgent news that you have to catch right-away (because you aren't always looking at the desktop) nor for reading your accumulated news at the end of the day.
I want you to understand that this is not a knee-jerk reaction, I have looked at the subject deeply and calmly, I even made custom widgets for rainlendar. I also used litestep, geoshell, blackbox for windows, and other combinations including only y'zdock and launchy or just powerpro, etc. I like trying new interfaces.
Widgets just aren't any good for me.
> use a different window manager
they aren't windows in form or function. unless you consider the objects in inkscape, oo impress, etc. to be windows as well.
Plasmoids have rather obvious window decorations, for all the effort the team have put into them you should at least recognize that they practically reinvented window managing from scratch for plasmoids.
> WHO WANTS TO ROTATE A FUCKING WIDGET?
while many seem to enjoy positioning photos just as they'd like on their desktop (which is a fairly minimal reason for rotation), it's actually rather useful when you have a large flat surface that lays horizontally.
given that rotation is couple of lines of code and has resulted in ~zero maintenance overhead and does not impact your usage if you don't care about rotation, this seems like a molehill rather than a mountain.
Thanks to plasmoids' magically appearing-disappearing window decorations I have indeed rotated them accidentally, it doesn't help that these decorations do their best to rearrange themselves to always be nearby to help you, that means, right in your face.
Really, it's so cute, I almost feel like patting them on the head. But your desktop shouldn't make you feel like a babysitter for specially-abled children.
You call it a molehill, I call it friction, and constant friction makes KDE4 feel like an uphill battle.
> At least with Gnome every panel and panel applet is optional
it is the same with KDE Plasma Des
But... the future refused to change.
Let's say I need to edit a picture. Should I fire up Gimp, Krita, Picasa, Digikam, Inkscape, F-Spot, Hughin, Kolorpaint, etc?
The answer is, it depends. What kind of picture am I opening up? What do I want to do with it?
Your thinking seems to be that less choice and less functionality is an automatic improvement on usability. However, by limiting the tools at my disposal, it somewhat forces me to use what is likely an inferior tool for many use cases.
Someone who has never used any of these apps might be frightened by seeing a choice of apps. Should we cater to the lowest common denominator, or should be make a powerful distro that enables power users?
Your "start menu" entries not only list program names, but DESCRIPTIONS. The solution is already present. Allow for multiple apps for different tasks, but then provide clear descriptions for which app provides which functionality.
It certainly doesn't make sense to included say Pidgin and Koepete, which overlap almost entirely on functionality, but media players, and various editors are often designed for very different tasks. One size does not fit all.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Are they running this by chance?
http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
You know, they told everyone DO NOT RUN THIS UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED TO LOSE ALL YOUR DATA. If people are too retarded to take the hint, that's their problem. Or when Windows 95 came out, did you say you'll wait for the Windows 1.0 release?
There was NO confusion over who their audience was. They explained that the 4 was to indicate that it was a new fork, and the zero was because you can't get lower than a zero. BTW, in the old days, there was no such thing as alpha, beta, and rc1, rc2, whatever. It was "here's branch # such and such" This whole whining about numbers and naming game is BS, and you know it.
Anyone who downloaded this got the warning before they downloaded. Anyone who got it with a distro got the warning before they installed it. Anyone who complains now is a f*cking retard who should just stick their tongue in a light bulb socket and end it.
Simple Debian isn't as easy to use or last time I looked as up to date as Ubuntu.
Yes I can and pretty much have installed a number of Linux distros over the years.
Ubuntu is a good compromise between ease of use, up to date, and a lack of clutter.
What I tried to say is I have no problem with options but there just isn't any need to install three text editors, two browsers, and three media players by default.
Start off with one of each and then let people install from the synaptic.
Same with GIMP. It is a great program and I always install it but there is no need for it in the base install. As it is you are going to run an updater after the install and odds are really good GIMP will be one of the packages that gets updated.
So the key here is not that choice is bad. Clutter is bad. I don't want to have to uninstall a bunch of stuff because the Distro thinks they should include everything and the dog in the install.
Frankly that was one of my big issues with OpenSuse.
Debian if fine as a geeks distro or a server but for a mainstream desktop Ubuntu is better IMHO.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The entire aim of Amarok is to provide contextual information about your library (and all other music sources you play) to help you rediscover your music.
There are simple players like Juk.
If you want a really simple client, then Amarok is not for you. If you liked Amarok 1.4, but don't like the defaults in Amarok 2, it takes less than a minute to configure it how you want.
I'm not seeing any reasonable explanation for someone being upset that Amarok 2 being MORE FLEXIBLE than Amarok 1.4 when it comes to making it look and operate how you want.
I already know the music I own and it's accompanying context. Hell I follow the bands I like, buy their CDs, even rip them to flac/mp3/ogg/whatever when I'm at my workstation to have background music [assuming I'm not doing heavy compiles and then I turn to the standard home system]. I have the liner notes, know what gear they used, etc. Amarok is still a POS design and those fat buttons at the top look like a 12 year old designed them. The interface looks like a bad version of Kopete's contact list, mixed with a center piece for the Artwork and other stuff with the right column being a narcissistic opportunity to rate my own music. I bought it. I already like it.
... except that they went out of their way to tell everyone that 4.0 was alpha state code.
All the distros did the same thing.
all the distros... except Kubuntu and Fedora. And they "justified" their choice by KDE's decision to no longer support KDE3.
Folks, it's not enough to call the new version early alpha, you also have to keep supporting the old version for a while, or else some distributions will jump on the "early alpha" anyways.
It's just fucking horrible, up to and including 4.3
Well, you have to admit, even though KDE 4.3 still sucks (Amarok, Konsole, ...), it no longer sucks quite as badly as KDE 4.0. So there is some improvement. However, I dread the day when they'll release 5.0. Hopefully, that day, the distros will be smarter, and wait for at least 5.5...
I find in interesting that you put it that way.
Why not just install one paint program. Maybe KolorPaint or Krita under KDE.
Have I limited choice? Not at all. If I need GIMP I just install it for Synaptic or what every installer comes with the system.
What I am fighting is clutter. Way too much clutter on many distros. I spend a large amount of time removing software that I don't want or need from every system.
I hate Solitaire I just don't play it on any system. Why do I have it on a default install?
Text editors? everybody needs at least one but people that really use text editors each have their favorite. There is no real reason to have emacs and vim on a system. My favorite for light editing is JOE because I grew up using the Borland IDE and it is so small, light, and really works well over ssh. Should every distro include JOE? Not really since I would bet not that many people use it.
Why is not putting a program in the default install thought of as reducing choice? Maybe if you live with dial up internet it is but most of use have high speed and I would much rather install what I want as I need it than have the default load me up with a bunch of apps I don't need and then have to wait while the updater updates downloads updates to those apps I don't need. And then I spend time removing the apps I don't need.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I know it is the default in openSUSE.
At the very least it is preesented as an option in Arch, Sabayon, PCLinuxOS, Fedora, Mandriva, etc. I don't know off hand what any of those use for defaults as I haven't installed any of those in the past year.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Just because someone agrees with you doesn't mean the people who disagreed somehow changed their mind. Perhaps they just didn't read you comment, or didn't bother replying... As for Amarok 2, I personally don't see what's wrong with it. It does what I want it to do (organize and play music) and stays out of the way.
If that's what you classify as, ``stays out of the way,'' I'd hate to see what you consider in your face.
You couldn't download it from them without seeing the warnings. You couldn't install it from a distro without seeing the same warnings. They made it clear it wasn't even "alpha" quality, it was just a snapshot to show the new direction they were taking, because people were asking to see it.
I stuck it on my machine, found it worked exactly as promised (totally, totally useless - but I had been warned before installing it), logged out and logged back in to 3x. Later on, 4.1 was rough around the edges (and not just around the edges), 4.2 was VERY usable, 4.3 works pretty much without a hitch (just remove mono-base), and I expect 4.4 to be even better.
They make a good product, but people still choose to complain about how they "got bitten" by 4.0. I don't believe it for a second. NOBODY could have installed it and expected it to be usable after all the warnings.
It might not be your cup of tea, but please don't fault the devs when stupid people don't listen to every warning that was thrown in front of them, and don't believe people who never actually tried installing it, but find that perpetrating the lies furthers their particular agenda.
I do believe most distros allow you to pick groups/patterns of packages during install.
The last time I did an Ubuntu install however, I couldn't pick packages at the initial install. I got what they were going to give me, and that was it.
So with openSUSE, Fedora, etc. during the initial install, I could remove all Games, and add say Web Server packages with a single click.
You insist Ubuntu is the best example of usability here. With openSUSE I have the simplicity of accepting defaults if I want, but also the freedom to get exactly what I want.
KDE 3 certainly had issues with poorly displaying then ten million choices you had to configure a specific app, but more often than not, I believe choice leads to better usability. You just need to present those choices well.
As far as dial-up goes, I'm assuming you wouldn't be doing a network based install with dial-up. If you can't download an install CD over dial-up, you can have a CD or DVD mailed to you. In the case of dial-up, a DVD with more packages on the disc is preferable, reducing the chance you may need to download something.
I don't know of many distros that don't have a CD install option, even though many provide DVDs with more packages.
With openSUSE (my distro of choice), I only get a few games, one music player, one video player, one IM program, and then a few graphics programs out of the box. I do get two browsers, and two file managers, but only one is the default out of the box. I really would never see the other unless I went out of my way to use it.
With the default install, I think I only get Gwenview, Digikam and Kolorpaint out of the box. One is a pure viewer. One is photo management. One is a paint app. I don't think that is unreasonable.
I usually install Picasa precisely because I then have one app that can handle most tasks I need in an effort to simplify, but I don't feel like I'm being overwhelmed by choice.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Regardless.. If recent linux kernel development has proven anything, the mantra should be:
Release often and never split anything out into a development tree.
Liberty.
If you want a very basic player, then Amarok is not the app for that use case. That means it is terrible on the whole?
The very reason that others love Amarok is how much functionality it provides, such as easy access to lyrics, wiki entries, album art, etc. etc.
If you don't want those features, then don't use it. It really is that simple.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I did try OpenSuse but not for long since resuming from suspend-to-RAM crashed every time and I'm unwilling to use a distro without working suspend/resume. What's better about KDE in OpenSuse (or Arch, Chakra or Mandriva, for that matter) than in Kubuntu? Everyone's harping on Kubuntu but I rarely see reasons given; not that I couldn't think of things to complain about in Kubuntu (Akonadi, Nepomuk, Virtuoso... sigh)
Let me guess. Most of KDE 4 nay sayers using Debian or debian based (kubuntu etc) distro... Right ?
So here my story...
After Kubuntu 8 my KDE pains was begin. No real ATI support (for dual desktop). Sucked performance, Weird Firefox problems. Some extensions never work because of that, this . I re fresh install every Kubuntu relases. Problems are same. Somewhere between 8.10 and 9.00 I try to use Debian desktop same results. And I use that desktop for my work. My anger grows and grows. Day by day I feel like I'm using Windows 95...
One day, After one maybe more years of sucking KDE 4 experience, I was nearly switching WIndows after more than 10 years of Linux Desktop usage, at that time, I search something, on a forum, somebody suggest that Sabayon Linux (gentoo based binary thingy) for some better video peformance or someting. I decide to give a try..
After first setup probably 4 months pass.
Results are interesting.
No ATI problem. Dual desktop (which I could not run ever under Kubuntu/Debian) run like snap. Decent desktop performance. It was very nice feeling to using Linux Desktop again.
Still have problem with Pulse audio and Flash videos and some times Skype gone mad.
Other than than it was fine and working...
And this bad KDE4 experience on Debian smells to bad...
No one can tell me they can't fix that sucking Video Card problem more than a year. At that time, I curse KDE guys, I curse ATI guys and I curse my self to coose ATI. I never think it was a distro problem.
So ?
Me thinks Debianistas does not like KDE.... Because of favor for GNOME or some other stupid obsession to pure GNU in their twisted mind.
Yeah, I like Debian too and use my servers all time. And I like (k)ubuntu too.
And now
I say.
Both of them SUCK ON KDE4
If you are Debian or Debian derivated distro user and have problems with KDE4 just try something else.
Results may interesting...
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
I've actually been happy with 4.3 as a desktop but Amarok is a major fail for me these days. It isn't the speed or the interface which didn't take much digging to look the way I wanted it. Where it DOES fail is assuming the network is the canonical source for metadata. I've put considerable effort into tagging my music with lyrics, artwork, and other accurate information. My music collection is self-describing. Though I had to use a few add-ons to do it, Amarok 1.4 referred to the id3 tags first and network sources secondarily. Even with add-ons, Amarok 2.x insists on internet look-ups for artwork and lyrics and often getting them wrong in the bargain. I further understand that the devs are basically allergic to fully using the tags because they're afraid of Amarok being blocked from the various look-up services. It should at least support reading the tags since I use other apps for writing them anyway.
I was able to get Songbird behaving the way I expect in only a few minutes. If either Amarok proper or Amarok with plugins come to fully support artwork and lyrics in the tags before dropping to the network for that then I'll check it out again.
If you right-click the right spot on the GUI, you can unlock the layout and then drag the panes around. You can also combine several panes into a tabbed single pane.
It's an interesting point. Mainline has begun to work more like that; there doesn't seem to be any 2.7 on the horizon.
That said, no one uses mainline anymore either. Almost all Linux users use a distro fork. You could argue mainline is the development tree.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
KDE fan here, still hanging on to Kubuntu 8.04 KDE3 for dear life until they can get a LTS Kubuntu out (coming up with 10.04). I think KDE 4.4 should be par with KDE3 now, although it will still have been too freshly hatched for my taste at the time Kubuntu 10.04 comes out --I'm going to wait a couple of months for the patches to come out first.
Meanwhile, though, I don't think either KDE3 or KDE4 Kubuntu are stable enough for the family bigscreen computer, so I will put GNOME back. The only thing that drove me to switch from Ubuntu GNOME to Kubuntu KDE was the inability to specify a networked computer for a file name. Say I want to play a video on SMplayer, but the video's sitting on my laptop computer. I want to be able to specify that the filename is "fish://MyLaptop.MySOHOnet/videos/myvideo.avi" and then the desktop will reach into the laptop and grab the file.
Right now on Ubuntu, I have to go transfer the file from MyLaptop.MySOHOnet/videos/myvideo.avi, and then play it from the local drive temporary copy. Is there any way for GNOME to do what KDE has been doing for ages?
Any help would be appreciated. I figured with your experience of KDE-to-GNOME, you'd be the one to ask.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I'm not sure why everybody seems to think Kubuntu is the place to go for a KDE system. It's really rough around the edges, and Ubuntu doesn't stand behind it at all. That said, it works okay these days.
But if you want a KDE distro that seriously cares about getting KDE to work well, pick a KDE DISTRO. Mandriva is the best IMHO. SUSE is supposed to be 'the best', but SUSE has always thrown too much at their system. Just seems bloated. Mandriva is a really nice newbie system that happens to work really well for experienced users too. And it's had KDE4 working pretty well since 4.1. My only complaint with Mandriva is that they try to steer you to Fluendo, so unless you know about easyurpmi.org, you'll have trouble getting all your multimedia set up. But once you visit easurpmi.org, the Mandriva repos are great. And the Mandriva pagkaging gui is easier to use than Ubuntu's.
It's a shame Mandriva seems to have fallen off of the radar. It's a really nice distro. Maybe they had some shaky ones in the past (I left them for PCLinuxOS for a while, which is also really nice), but they're really on their game these days.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Thank you - very interesting and good to know!
I wonder why the folks involved didn't unify the code up front rather than have redundant code and then refactor? Why waste so much effort doing it the wrong way first?
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
That right there is the actual problem with KDE4 IMO. It's perfectly acceptable to release alpha quality software for free. Nobody can really complain there. What was not acceptable, as far as I'm concerned, is taking away the one that works (KDE 3.5) and substituting the known faulty version. This is more accurately blamed on (K)Ubuntu and Fedora (and OpenSUSE IIRC) (you know, the most popular ones!) rather than the KDE team.
I, for one, have enough experience to install and maintain a popular Linux distro, but not enough to be my own package maintainer. I recall using a third party repo on Ubuntu to install Amarok 1.4.9 But it broke other things; all in all a sub-par experience.
Bottom line: If I were the KDE team I'd either be pissed that the distros removed the best version of KDE, or I'd be kicking myself for misrepresenting the state of the desktop environment.
A fool and his lamb are worth two in the bush.
Seriously. Provide a damn option to get rid of the cashew. I realize suse has put this option in, but it's a little annoying that the KDE team refuses to add that option in (at least as far as 4.3) given the overwhelming negative feedback they've received. The only person in the world who likes that stupid cashew is Aaron Seigo.
You couldn't download it from them without seeing the warnings. You couldn't install it from a distro without seeing the same warnings. They made it clear it wasn't even "alpha" quality, it was just a snapshot to show the new direction they were taking, because people were asking to see it.
I don't believe that is correct. Here is the KDE4.0 release announcement:
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/
Not a thing about being a testing or development version. And I believe you could have downloaded and compiled it without any warnings. Certainly there were no warnings when I added the extra software repository in ubuntu and installed it that way.
People have a finite amount of time, a finite amount of interest, and patience.
We are talking of Linux here. Nerds have a lot of free time, they will try KDE4 again.
This is true, but when Amarok moved to the KDE4 base, I believe a lot of the KDE hooks they used to access simply weren't there. Hideous new UI issues aside, ever since 2.0 they've been trying to re-write the previous functionality into the new framework, which is apparently a lot harder than expected.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Given (unfortunately) that Ubuntu is becoming a synonym for Linux in the minds of many, can we get some help over there to get the Kubuntu packages up to scratch?
"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
Could you recommend any other Debian style distribution with KDE? Is Debian Sidux an option for me?
I use KDE 4.3 on my fancy new desktop computer, though only since 1-2 months now. I have already been content with 4.2, but xfce just offers all the features i need and has better response times. I switched (back) to kde because i wanted to play a round a bit and see what was new, and some stuff is really cool :). I don't use my desktop for productive stuff, i have my (significantly weaker) laptop for that (which runs xfce).
My main problem at the moment is that - probably since i mix apps from different DE - hotkeys are very different from application to application (why the heck doesn't dolphin create new folders with ctrl+n ? all other file managers i know do)
Amarok took several steps backwards... and then veered off into the woods somewhere.
There was a time when Amarok was a favorite music player on Gnome desktops. There are a lot of good alternatives out there now, who are all growing organically without the horrible design mistakes that Amarok went through.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
You try it, it doesn't feel right to you, you go back to the version that worked for you. Later on in your life you may try again and switch. What's the big deal?
I only upgrade my software for two reasons: missing features or curiosity. If the system is open to the world, I may upgrade due to security reasons when I see fit (that is, follow the important bugs, patches, etc). In any case I don't see a big deal with a version of the software sucking. If it's not open software, then you're locked in, you pretty much have to upgrade things when the author thinks you should; now, for open software, if a newer release suck, I'm sure the old one will still be maintained by other people, perhaps even myself. BTW, KDE probably wouldn't be installed in a server anyway.
Another popular distribution, debian, did things right and its stable version, lenny, has kde 3.5. I recommend debian, I've been using it for years and I find it the best one out there. Unless you're one of those guys that absolutely must have the newest software available for whatever reason.
I use Gnome but the window manager drives me nuts sometimes. Lets say my mailer takes up half the screen. I maximize it so that by restoring it I can later return it to its original state, I shut down and later start again. The mailer is restored to the original geometry but if it was maxmimised before the shutdown it is now unmaximised but filling the screen. The option to unmaximise the mailer is now lost.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
After install Ubuntu on my brother's laptop, I realized that they ( people who completely have no-ideal about Linux/Windows ) use it successful and found less bugs than us.
Of course only normal use, browsing, music, video, email, but who cares about other use ?
I take it you haven't given a chance to the latest KDevelop4 releases. It used to be that, while it showed some promise, it was too unstable (and unfeatured, if that's a word) to work with. The situation has changed in the last weeks though. I gave it another try and was completely surprised to see how well it worked. Stable and a way smarter than the KDE3 version ever hoped to be. It has definitely regained it place as my default IDE for developing C++ code (which it had temporarily lost to QtCreator).
Yes, yes; as with early KDE4 releases, early Amarok 2 releases were pretty bad. But as with KDE, the vast majority of the problems/gripes have now been fixed, and it is now a great music player once more. IMO, it's better than 1.4. How long is everyone planning on holding these ridiculous grudges?
Fedora didn't ship with KDE 4.0, but with 4.0.3, which was a big improvement on the road to 4.1, which came 3-1/2 months later.
As for Kubuntu, I wouldn't know - every machine I've ever had to fix that was contaminated with *buntu ended up getting wiped. I've never understood what people see in Ubuntu/Kubuntu.
It couldn't impact their pre-existing user base. Their user base already had 3.5 installed ... and would mostly try out something on a spare computer before killing their main machine (or at least installing on a different drive or partition) All that happened was that some distros that didn't include both 3.5 and 4.0 side-by-side lost some of THEIR potential user base to other distros.
I've gotta say, the KDE team has really taken far strides since 4.1. When 4.1 first came out, I thought it was pretty interesting, but I just hated using it. But this seems like they are making it more streamlined and adding many very functional and productive features to it!
That being said, I still stick with my KDE 3.5 :D Always my favorite
The distros where fooled into thinking KDE4.0 was ready for production... pleeese. I guess they don't do much test then, because it was obvious to anyone that had actually tried to use it that it wasn't ready. To think this gets modded insightful makes my head hurts... it is literally unbelievable. For those unable to grasp how ridicule that sounds, I'll suggest them to simply refer to the sources instead of constantly trying to reinvent history. I've followed PlanetKDE (http://planetkde.org) and The Dot (http://dot.kde.org/) since I discovered them years ago. It was never suggested that KDE4.0 was meant to be massively dropped on users. Unfortunate the Planet's concept of "old" articles extends no further than last week, otherwise I'd just point you to the time where that DIDN'T happen. You'll have to digg the individual blogs yourself to verify it with your own eyes (here's one blog to get you started though: http://aseigo.blogspot.com/, you can see all posts down to 2004). That's plainly a lie, probably based on a greatly exaggerated 4.0 release note that didn't warned all those coming to www.kde.org hell was about to break loose... But hey, I'm sure that omission caused those 5 people compiling KDE4.0 from sources (everybody else got it from their distro) to be caught off guard... It's easy to say in retrospective that labeling a developers and EARLY ENTHUSIASTS release '4.0' was a mistake. I used to agree with that, then read about the why it was needed (like the need to provide a stable (and believable, as in "the project is committed to it") platform to signal third parties to start porting applications). Bottom line, if your not going to make an effort to grasp the situation and provide us with an informed opinion, maybe you should simple refrain from providing one altogether. BTW, simply pointing out bugs in KMail does not add any weight to your argument either (no matter how severe they are) unless you provide some proof of this deceit scheme you speak of. It does not follow from the mere existence of bugs a conscious decision to lie about the state of the software. Have you actually read about the state of KMail or the any of the other PIM apps anywhere? I guess not, otherwise you'd known they are in the process of being ported to Akonadi and hence not deemed stable by their developers.
http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~jlg95/bnxc/
I can't say it's ready for general consumption, but more or less it works for my day to day needs.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I'm not complaining about the complexity of Amarok 2. I'm asserting that, at least while I was putting up with it (for more than about a year since it was released. I tried to like it, I really did.), it was a broken piece of crap that was completely unable to correctly scan a folder and create a database of my music. It crashed constantly, the collection scanner would completely fail utterly numerous times in numerous different ways, and it chewed up memory and cpu like no media player should.
The icing on the shit cake is that Amarok 2 was ugly as hell while sucking this hard.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I still use KDE 3.5 with the old Amarok. Luckily, this is possible with Gentoo. Just add the kde-sunset overlay, and ln /usr/local/portage/layman/kde-sunset/Documentation/package.unmask/kde-3.5 to your /etc/package.unmask directory.
Then you might have to mask certain apps which have no separate slot and whose new versions are kde4-only (notably compiz & friends), and you’re good. Still works like a charm.
But I’ll look into downgrading (as it is deliberately made for dumber people) to KDE4.4 or 4.5, when it’s out.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The problem I have with Gnome, is that they deliberately take away your freedom, and even openly admit it. Because they think they know better how we should use it, and what features we need. (I could find you the mails with the quotes, but I’m too lazy right now.)
The other problem, is that KDE, with version 4, has started to do the same.
I don’t get it. both Gnome and KDE are so very anti-free and anti-unix. Trying more to emulate other closed-sources competitors standing by their strengths. (Although I applaud the general idea of the semantic desktop. And although I thing, on the library level, KDE4/QT is really great.)
I’m seriously pondering creating my own desktop environment. From a minimalist set of basic paradigms, with maximum emergent freedom and functionality. (Like piping on the CLI.)
So I would not take long to code it, and it would beat anything else right from the start.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I don’t think that’s that special. Teens are really freaking smart, and frightening fast learners. And the difference between men and women is not really that big, to game-changing, as long as those girls have a real incentive to learn it. :)
Hell, I know a girl who learned rudimentary C, so she could change the behavior of her weapon in a online game. ^^
(After first customizing it with a pretty texture set made in gimp, and learning gimp to be able to pull it off.)
Never underestimate a girl’s love for looking pretty. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Hey, that sounds actually promising. :)
Thank you for your comment!
I always loved the semantic desktop idea.
But I really loathe the idea of making everything “simpler”, even if it actually hurts your efficiency. (Which is the case with Windows, Gnome, OS X, and partially KDE4.)
So if they now start to make sense, and add the options and freedom we need, I might actually look into it.
I just hope they don’t still insult me with their file dialog and file manager, which seem to require a certain maximum IQ.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I tried KDE 4.3.5 for a few months, but had to revert back because KMail/Kontact crashed constantly. If I can't use Kontact in KDE, then I've lost half the benefit of using KDE. I wonder if these problems were included in the 7000+ bugs they claimed to have fixed in 4.4.0. Now I'm back to my ol' tiling window manager - Awesome (which also crashes from time to time :/ )... Maybe I'll give xmonad a try.
As one of the KDE Forums administrators, I strongly disagree. A working code of conduct is what helped us keep a constructive and non-insulting discussion (there are heated debates still, but with no name calling).
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
Your armpit smells like my nose.
Sounds like they belong together.
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi
What's a good alternative KDE music player that integrates well with KDE?
Juk is a very simple KDE-based player.
Songbird is an interesting alternative. It isn't KDE based. Rather, it is actually built on Mozilla. Like Firefox, it has a plugin framework to customize how you want it.
http://www.getsongbird.com/
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Well, I haven't seen anyone else get that and I haven't personally either. I've used Dolphin for all manner of file management operations. It's the easiest thing in the world to say 'it crashes', which is why I just roll my eyes at anyone who cannot say how, what, where and why and how to do it again.
This is what's called 'interesting' these days?
I used to be a big OpenSuse fan and still think that SAX is the best Xwindows tool I have ever used.
What we have here is personal preference. Maybe it is because I have used so many different systems that I feel most GUI options are not worth the effort. What I want to do is set my mouse speed to fast and change my background. Compwiz has made me want to tweak the hot keys for some of the features as well. But other than that it is mostly just noise to me.
The problem with the Suse was that I felt their packages put in too much stuff so they where semi useless to me. That and the program that you used to add and remove software and do configuration was too slow.
Yep right now I like Ubuntu the best for ease of install and ease of adding software. It sure isn't perfect but it is IMHO good.
To me it is better to add what I need when I need it and not throw in the kitchen sink.
But the thing is that I say. I feel and I think. It is okay for you to like Opensuse more than Ubuntu. Frankly for servers I think CentOS is great and way too often overlooked. I think it is dumb to use Fedora for a server at all when you can use CentOS, Ubuntu Server, or Debian.
Having a simple quick install that you can then add too is a different way to work but it does not limit your choice.
However making everybody wade through hundreds of options in KDE to find the one you need is a pain.
A good UI will make common tasks really easy and then allow you to drill down for fine tweaking.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I really don't see how it could possibly take anyone hours to configure KDE. Firing up System Settings, choosing/creating a colorscheme, window decorations, focus style, window behavior, keyboard settings, etc should all take no more then a few minutes. All you need to do is click your mouse. From there you can create whatever panels you want and add whatever plasmoids you want in each, again all with just clicking your mouse a few times. If I were to completely wipe out my ~/.kde/ directory right now, it would probably take me no more than 10 minutes to get my settings back where I wanted them. That includes more obscure settings like making xterm instead of konsole my default terminal emulator, and changing my default webbrowser to a non-standard one.
Even if it takes you an entire half an hour to do, which strikes me as quite unlikely, the important thing to remember is you really only need to do this once...
Really the only way I can see it taking hours to do is if you decided to edit all of the configuration files by hand, in which case I'd argue that you really don't understand the point of KDE and are a lost cause.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
It wasn't literal hours of just configuration. It was hours of reading docs and trying to figure out how to tweak things without losing functionality and minimizing clutter. Some of that was just learning a new environment. It wasn't terribly hard but it was not intuitive. Like getting rid of sounds for instance. Anyways you post is pretty condescending. I am just posting an opinion, it's not a manifesto and it doesn't need to concern you too much.
... Dolphin being faster? Last time i checked it was slow like hell. Especially deleting files and resizing it's window. And does Okular(?) now have an implementation of annotations which isn't braindead and actually usable? Is it comparable to PdfXChangeViewer?
Oh trust me, there's plenty of people who think KDE's reputation is just fine.
Plenty for what purpose? They lost considerable userbase with the 4.x series.
What does that mean ayway?
It means that if your reputation suffers, you will suffer in all ways. Reputation is why United Fruit renamed themselves Chiquita, and it's why they've re-renamed themselves Bonita, although the signs haven't changed down here in Panama and Costa Rica, probably because they employ so many people here. Kind of like "this family depends on timber money"... yeah, well, clear-cutters are still shaking hands with the devil. And it'll be a cold day in hell before most people install another x.0 version of KDE.
You sound like Ricky Bobby in Talladega nights: "If you ain't first you're last!". Well at least in the movie I knew it was meant to be funny.
If you can't have a conversation without making vapid pop culture references, you're only half a person at best.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I find the defaults rather spartan, really. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Well then, have you considered the possibility that your opinion may be wrong?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
That's all loverly for you. If you just want a play button and a progress bar, that's great. Use Juk and STFU.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Here's some people with the same window size problem, and some possible solutions:
http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/430081-how-set-konsole-window-size.html
Nope - completely fucking useless.
The "workaround" is the same one I came up with, except it doesn't fucking work in 4.x. I tested it in 3.5, and it works, but I guess 4.x Konsole windows are "immune" from overriding size (how nice of them!).
Fuck KDE4 - it's just fucking useless.
Canonical's Kubuntu pushed the dist upgrade through their (extremely user friendly) UI; that took you from 3 to 4 "way too early." I guess you're saying Canonical was the exception. How many distros made it easy to have "side-by-side" 3-4 setups? Or didn't go to KDE4 until say 4.3?
I would have thought, with what most KDE distros did (push to 4 "early") as well as the high-profile folks whose comments I merely echo, that it would be too plain crazy to claim the KDE made a v4.0 developer release covered in warning labels.. But apparently I would be wrong.
It's only on account of my incredulity about the flexibility of history that I didn't simply pull up archive.org to begin with.
I did a quick CTRL-F for "DO NOT RUN THIS UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED TO LOSE ALL YOUR DATA." LOL. But in seriousness, can you point out where on this page there is a single hint that there is any "developer-only" aspect to this release?
You know what I see on there?
"KDE 4.0 is the innovative Free Software desktop containing lots of applications for every day use as well as for specific purposes."
You know, and I know, they sold this for all the world as if it were the fully baked successor to KDE3. They did it from day one. They let their ego take the wheel. And then later, when it blew up in their face, they started backtracking. But the damage was done. Had they simply been more humble, and honest, I would have been all -1 Troll from the beginning, and I would have no links, no quotes. Instead. I spent most of this article's life with high scores, and I got about 75% "I agree" comments, regardless of the fact that late moderation has laid waste to my karma - after years here, a first, and an interesting experience.
But it looks like we still haven't all gotten the message. I don't mind getting shot - that's one of the risks of being the messenger. But I hate to see good projects keep getting hurt by this kind of thinking.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
You tap danced your way around not linking directly to much of anything.
I counter with archive.org records indicating exactly what the KDE said about their project as it was released.
You are either a liar or a fool. Or both.
Try harder next time.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Yes, software patents are broken. Yes, Linux has lots of patent vulnerabilities. Beyond that, I can't really understand your point.
Legal issues are all about perception, and in this case, "Linux Hackers" and distros cloning a Microsoft technology with well-publicized patents creates an entirely different perception in the wild-west of the patent-law courtroom than a troll like SCO popping up and trying shake down IBM.
This is the entire point of Microsoft paying de Icaza for his work on Mono and Gnome. Novell's crooked patent deal with Microsoft ties in to the same strategy.
It's quite simple really. By the way, a lot of the supposed credulity about these issues on slashdot is a paid service. :)
Now, regarding "Miguel never tried to embrace GNOME with Mono. You can't show me any mail/blog post regarding with that." This sounds so obviously and totally untrue that I think this must just be a misunderstanding.
"We hope that the tools that we will provide will be adopted by free software programmers including the GNOME Foundation members and the GNOME project generally."
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
I loved KDE3 so much
So why don't you keep using it??
I run 3(.5) for my laptop and workboxes.
So much is different with 4 that I need learning time before I use it as a work desktop. But for my non-work desktop it seems much lighter that 3.5 - a lot less productive too!(lots of distracting shiny shiny things to play with).
I look forward to moving all my desktop to 4, the semantic desktop, strigi, and plasma are IMHO 'the way to go'. Mostly what is holding up the move is my lack of knowledge and testing of requirements, rather than bugs in 4. Amarok is much nicer in 4 - or will be over the next year. Took me a little while to figure out how to use new aspects of 4 (and Amarok interface) - but then, I didn't bother reading the man....
You make it sound like there is no choice between using 3.5 or 4.
I held out with Kubuntu 8.04 (one of the most polished distro releases I've ever seen) for a very long time. But eventually there wasn't a choice, for me at least. Modern equipment doesn't work with old distros and their aging kernels. And I, like most, have to pick my battles. Going against the grain to try to use KDE3 with something more recent wasn't going to be one of them.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
When you say "New! Improved! Awesome! v4.0!!!"
Who said that? Someone on the bus?
and then it fucking sucks,
If you are such an expert perhaps you'd like to show the developers how its done - instead of flinging dung and pissing in corners
you are committing the only real sin in free software/open source:
OK - I'll grant you that one illusion.
tricking people.
People? I suspect you are the "people" - trying to legitimise the shame you feel for getting cut on - the bleeding edge. So much emotional investment, so much fantasy and misplaced anger.
KDE4 was a development branch. It should have been labeled as such, instead of "KDE4."
Perhaps you should undertake a 5-minute research project and learn how version numbering works. I'm sure it's not your intention to come across as a pathetic whiner - but that's how you read.
However, I dread the day when they'll release 5.0
You misunderstand the versioning system. 5 will be completely different in core features - as 4 is from 3.
Nobody "made" you move from 3.x to 4.x - you elected to. People like you need governments to pass laws against bad weather an d furniture with sharp corners.
Hopefully, that day, the distros will be smarter, ....
You clearly mistake the meaning of "smart" - and show little understanding of how guis, indeed software, works. If the distros get any smarter they'll need to be watered daily. Ditto some of the aptly named "users".
Get off my lawn!
Good Open Source projects require users that don't bitch and whine. Nothing useful requires bitching and whining. Period. Constructive criticism, feature requests, bug reports, and suggestions are what is required. The ability and desire to learn would serve you well - harping on about your "right" to get what you want - as if the right exists, and that all developers instinctively know WTF it is that you want, will get you nowhere but Coventry.
How do I add one more song into an existing playlist
There's at least three ways. Try dragging the song from the left-hand panel to the playlist in the right-hand panel...
How can I prevent amarok from hiding my playlists near the bottom whenever I start it up?
Do you mean down the bottom of the left-hand side? What distro are you using?
And is there a way to enable it to share the audio device with other apps (mplayer, firefox, ...).
I don't understand why you'd want to use Amarok to share the audio device... What "audio device" - the sound card?? Your mp3 player?? What sound system are you using - ALSA, JACK, OSS??
Try Debian stable - boot with "desktop=kde" and you'll have the KDE that you want - I'm certain others will point out ways to do the same with Ubuntu/Kubuntu - probably make Ubuntu minimal (base packages only then "apt-get xorg kde-core kdm (or slim)". Most, if not all, of your newer hardware will be supported. I run the latest trunk build kernel on my KDE3.5 boxes so I don't know where your get the "aging kernels/old distros" crap.
At first I thought you were just another newby with poor social skills who doesn't understand that you catch more flies with honey. Then I thought you were just another "the world owes me respect" troll - now I realize that you are an unrepentant arseclown.
Who said that? Someone on the bus?
I know that the KDE team is well loved here. But can you please explain to me the strange desire to rewrite history regarding this release?
Look, if you're one of those people who can read what the KDE team said at the time and tell me KDE4 was promoted as a developer-only release, or that they did a good job warning people about its problems, that's fine, but I think our conversation is at an end.
The fact is, they let their ego take the wheel, and not only did they fool individuals, but they had a bunch of mainstream distros like Fedora's and Canonical's push KDE4 downstream. By the way, another big reason for this: KDE's decision to no longer support KDE3.
And then they got an opportunity to learn why you shouldn't try to trick people about the state of your project.
It's not clear anyone took that opportunity, but they got it. It's still there for the taking.
If you are such an expert perhaps you'd like to show the developers how its done
And this is exactly my point - so I will make it again.
Can no one say whether music is bad but a good musician?
Can no one talk about football, unless they can walk on the NFL field?
Can no one say, "hey this release is a steaming pile of shit" unless they can write a better one?
I should hope not - what a dangerous, ugly, self-deluded world some people seem to want. But I guess to those people it may be preferable than a threat to the ego. Cest la vie.
Would you make that comment to Linus Torvlads's criticism of KDE4, just because he hasn't written a desktop GUI?
OK - I'll grant you that one illusion.
Nothing illusory about it.
Mail clients alone... ego has eaten more mail than the postal service will deliver today.
Lost job opportunities, missed connections with old friends, that email back from that girl you met at the party last week... poof. All because ego was at the wheel, and someone wanted to call their email client release "stable" when it had confirmed, open critical data loss bugs. And if you think that is hypothetical, the evidence of having done this exact thing in the past is in the bug trackers for both evolution or kmail (just for a start).
If you're prepared to do that archaeology, you can even read the outraged victims words as they appeared. You can read as the developers said "you get what you pay for dude." And the victims said "fine but would it kill you to put a tiny warning label on your little emailovore so that the next poor victims will know better than to use your free software?"
And with this, they are met with silence, because there is no argument against properly warning people against using your own code... except that you can't admit to yourself or the world what state your project is in.
People? I suspect you are the "people"
I thought the Torvlads quote would help show the depth of the backlash against KDE, and therefore address this particular kind of childish response, and actually, until you posted, it did.
As I said elsewhere, I believe the KDE team knows what their mistakes have done to the size of their user base.
The point here is if the KDE team had simply said, instead of
"On 11th January 2008, the KDE Community released the fourth major version of the K Desktop Environment. This release marks the beginning of the KDE 4 era..."
but rather:
"Today's developer release is out. This is bleeding edge; we're still a year or two away from something usable, but this is stabilized to the point where we'd like more developers and power users to come give it a try with their 2nd machines." - which by
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
LOL. You are better with insults than facts, that's for sure.
You don't know what hardware I run. That's 1.
I ran Debian for years. There's a reason everyone uses Canonical. That's 2.
Interestingly while checking googling I did spot something interesting that I hadn't seen before, that you could have suggested but didn't:
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Kde3/Karmic
Sentiment on this latest KDE4 was positive in the crowd. But if it's still crap, this might be the next step.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
There's at least three ways. Try dragging the song from the left-hand panel to the playlist in the right-hand panel...
Last time I tried that, the change was lost after playing a different list...
How can I prevent amarok from hiding my playlists near the bottom whenever I start it up?
Do you mean down the bottom of the left-hand side?
Yes, indeed, that's what I mean.
What distro are you using?
Kubuntu
And is there a way to enable it to share the audio device with other apps (mplayer, firefox, ...).
I don't understand why you'd want to use Amarok to share the audio device... What "audio device" - the sound card?? Your mp3 player??
Yes, the soundard. Or my USB speakers
What sound system are you using - ALSA, JACK, OSS??
Alsa, I think... (hard to doublecheck though, as I didn't found the place where this is set in GUI)
I got fed up with Kubuntu's crashiness during the KDE 4.2 cycle, and jumped ship to Arch. I was amazed - amazed - at the difference in speed and stability. For instance, Nepomuk, which I never once got working on Kubuntu, Just Worked (tm) on Arch, no setup required. KOffice stopped randomly exploding on me, the Plasma desktop was ten times as stable, instantly. And faster! My god, faster!
There was a while early on when the YASP-Scripted plasmoid would crash the desktop under a particular condition, but that wasn't a KDE issue, and the plasmoid developer cleared that up pretty quick. Also, when I upgraded to 4.4 last week my desktop crashed, as a result of the KDE team mainlining one of the plasmoids that I had previously had to manually install (dueling configs made baby Jesus cry). Removing my copy of the plasmoid solved the problem. So there's two crashes in my memory, both directly related to third-party code. Other than that, zero. None. Nada. No crashy. (Full disclosure: I've got to say that the new Nepomuk backend in 4.4 is a hellish resource hog and will intermittently hang the desktop if you let it run wild. That is the only complaint I have at this time.)
It's important to note here that Arch is pretty well-known for putting out the most vanilla packages possible. The KDE packages are pretty much the upstream code wrapped up in a tarball and that's it. So yes, the distro makes the difference.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
There's at least three ways. Try dragging the song from the left-hand panel to the playlist in the right-hand panel...
Last time I tried that, the change was lost after playing a different list...
After changing the playlist by adding a song it becomes a "new" playlist. By saving it (sic) you save the changes (as the same playlist). Did you save it??
How can I prevent amarok from hiding my playlists near the bottom whenever I start it up?
Do you mean down the bottom of the left-hand side?
Yes, indeed, that's what I mean.
From the menu bar -> View -> unselect "Lock layout". Top of the left-hand pane - double-click on the Home icon - double-click on Playlists - make your choice (dynamic, saved etc). From the menu bar -> View -> select "Lock layout".
And is there a way to enable it to share the audio device with other apps (mplayer, firefox, ...).
I don't understand why you'd want to use Amarok to share the audio device... What "audio device" - the sound card?? Your mp3 player??
Yes, the soundard. Or my USB speakers
What sound system are you using - ALSA, JACK, OSS??
Alsa, I think... (hard to doublecheck though, as I didn't found the place where this is set in GUI)
Damn remote desktop through mobile phone!
And is there a way to enable it to share the audio device with other apps (mplayer, firefox, ...).
Menu bar -> Configure Amarok -> Playback -> right-hand pane under Sound System Configuration -> hit the Config button - when you're done hit "Apply".
as I didn't found the place where this is set in GUI
Start Menu -> System (or Settings(?) - working from memory as my KDE4.3 machine is at home) -> Settings -> System Settings -> from the left-hand pane -> Computer Administration -> Multimedia
For more helpful Amarok information Read The Fine Manual at amarok.kde.org/wiki/Main_Page.
Yawn.
Perhaps you should preface your posts with a rant tag.
Go back under your bridge where you belong. Please.
LMAO. No counterarguments I see. Thank you for both conceding and showing what an utter douchebag you are.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
After changing the playlist by adding a song it becomes a "new" playlist. By saving it (sic) you save the changes (as the same playlist). Did you save it??
A new list. Indeed. So there is indeed no way to edit an existing list (which was still possible with the old version, where you could drag songs directly to a saved list).
From the menu bar -> View -> unselect "Lock layout". Top of the left-hand pane - double-click on the Home icon - double-click on Playlists - make your choice (dynamic, saved etc). From the menu bar -> View -> select "Lock layout".
Unfortunately, I don't have a "view" item in my menu bar (neither at its root, nor elsewhere)
Menu bar -> Configure Amarok -> Playback -> right-hand pane under Sound System Configuration -> hit the Config button - when you're done hit "Apply".
I don't have Configure Amarok as a top-level menu bar item. There is however a Configure Amarok under Settings, and from there I do indeed find Playback->Sound System Configuration->Config. But once I am there, how do exactly I enable sharing with other apps?
Start Menu -> System (or Settings(?) - working from memory as my KDE4.3 machine is at home) -> Settings -> System Settings -> from the left-hand pane -> Computer Administration -> Multimedia
Yes, that brings me to the same page as above.
A new list. Indeed. So there is indeed no way to edit an existing list (which was still possible with the old version, where you could drag songs directly to a saved list).
No. you can still do that. However you (still) need to save the changes. If you save the (modified) playlist with the same name (in the same location) - then you will have edited an existing list
Unfortunately, I don't have a "view" item in my menu bar (neither at its root, nor elsewhere)
No I'm truly lost... From left to right on the default Amarok menubar: Amarok, View, Playlist, Tools, Setting, Help.(letter in bold is the hotkey)
I haven't used Kubuntu so I don't know if they have modified the default Amarok toolbar.
No offense (I'm happy to help) but the Kubuntu forums are a better place for your questions. The moderators will (rightly) mod our posts as "Off-track".
Was the Amarok wiki link not useful?
Cheers
I don't have Configure Amarok as a top-level menu bar item. There is however a Configure Amarok under Settings, and from there I do indeed find Playback->Sound System Configuration->Config. But once I am there, how do exactly I enable sharing with other apps?
My bad memory. You are right the option is under "Settings".
I'm still unclear as to what you mean by "share with other apps". If you mean allow other apps to use the sound bus at the same time - ALSA will allow that, subject to it's "release" settings. If you mean "pipe" eg. play a song in Amarok and pipe the sound into Audacity, process it somehow, then pipe the sound out your speakers, then you will need to employ the JACK sound system. Sound is definitely not my area - this may help, and you should probably check the requirements (as root/sudo "dpkg --get-selections | grep the_package_you_are_checking_for")
Yes, that brings me to the same page as above.
And shows you which settings you are currently using... re: my question "What sound system are you using"
As has been stated earlier - KDE4 is still in development, Kubuntu (and other distros) have attempted to make it stable and useable - unfortunately that is not possible due to it's rapid development. I like the new features and I look forward to their stabilization. But IMHO they belong (rightfully) in Testing/Unstable.
Note: Testing/Unstable = Cutting/Bleeding Edge. The view might be nice, but the effort required is half the satisfaction gained. Which is the reason I don't run Testing/Unstable on my production machines. I understand the reasons the Ubuntu/Kubuntu et al are based on Testing/Unstable - but it's always seemed contradictory to me - "for new users and they want the latest" (but the latest has the least testing, the most bugs, and the least user-friendly documentation.
I should also point out that the major difference between free OSs and commercial OSs is with the free ones - the testing is done by the users. The commercial ones do all their testing before the end-users get to try it. On the plus side, the free OS users don't have to wait 2+years for the latest.
No. you can still do that. However you (still) need to save the changes. If you save the (modified) playlist with the same name (in the same location) - then you will have edited an existing list
When I try to do it here, it creates a new list with a new name (the current date and time).
No I'm truly lost... From left to right on the default Amarok menubar: Amarok, View, Playlist, Tools, Setting, Help.(letter in bold is the hotkey)
I only have Amarok, Playlist, Tools, Settings, Help. No View :-(
No offense (I'm happy to help) but the Kubuntu forums are a better place for your questions.
Tried that already. Most of the time I get "this is the wrong place for reporting 'pet peeve' type bugs. We have no choice, they dropped support for KDE 3 upstream, so we had to go along and have no choice in this"
I'm still unclear as to what you mean by "share with other apps". If you mean allow other apps to use the sound bus at the same time
Yes, that's what I mean
- ALSA will allow that, subject to it's "release" settings.
Great!... but where do I set this?
And shows you which settings you are currently using... re: my question "What sound system are you using"
Yes, it is indeed Alsa. However, none of the other choices (PulseAudio, Esound) work, unfortunately.
Note: Testing/Unstable = Cutting/Bleeding Edge.
As far as distributions go, I'm very conservative. I've got 9.04 now (although betas of 10.04 are out now). In 8.04, I opted for KDE 3 (back then, there was still choice between KDE3 and KDE4). I skipped 8.10 (the first one which made KDE 4 mandatory...) after seeing what a catastrophe it was after briefly testing it on my laptop. Then I went straight to 9.04 more than half a hear after it was released.
I should also point out that the major difference between free OSs and commercial OSs is with the free ones - the testing is done by the users.
Yes, but until KDE4 was released, this still worked pretty well. But after KDE4, all we have is a huge mess, where KDE developers are claiming "but we did warn the distros that it is not production grade software", but distributions are claiming "but we had no choice, they dropped support for 3". And the users are caught in the middle.
When I try to do it here, it creates a new list with a new name (the current date and time)
I can only presume that Kubuntu uses a much modified version of Amarok - I don't even know if it uses the same mysql backend as Debian. I can understand your frustation with the Kubuntu forum. Web page in squintovision(tm), many of the posters badly post their problem description - then re-post shortly afterwards to say that they will use something else... Posts with problems appear in "Help the new guy" and "Software support" which doesn't help locating an answer to a problem.
When
it creates a new list with a new name
can you change the name to the original playlist name? I did find one useful link there (though I only searched for about 10 minutes).
No I'm truly lost... From left to right on the default Amarok menubar: Amarok, View, Playlist, Tools, Setting, Help.(letter in bold is the hotkey)
I only have Amarok, Playlist, Tools, Settings, Help. No View :-(
Correction: I meant "Now I'm truly lost
Tried that already. Most of the time I get "this is the wrong place for reporting 'pet peeve' type bugs.
How sad/pathetic (of them). I tried searching for "pet peeves" flamebait - those posts must of been deleted - perhaps if I check cached copies...
We have no choice, they dropped support for KDE 3 upstream, so we had to go along and have no choice in this"
Another lame (Kubuntu) response... It's fairly simple to replace Amarok2 with Amarok. Kubuntu is repackaged Ubuntu - I've recently replaced Amarok2 with Amarok on a clients Ubuntu laptop.
I'm not sure how I can assist you further. I don't use Kubuntu (or Ubuntu). As a business I don't support Kubuntu either (we are currently debating dropping support for Ubuntu) 'cause supporting SLAs for unstable is like nailing snot to the wall.
This link gives the developers reasons for Amarok2 (an restates the "we warned you KDE4 wasn't for production" line).
As a final suggestion - have you tried juk, minirok, kaffeine or songbird? Cheers
Yes, that's what I mean
Using the sound configuration make sure Amarok and the other apps are using ALSA.
ALSA will allow that, subject to it's "release" settings.
Great!... but where do I set this?
I have no idea - short of downloading and installing Kubuntu and looking... I "assume" the default setting will work - make sure the other apps are using the same (ALSA). Disclaimer: Phonon is still largely a mystery to me.
Yes, it is indeed Alsa. However, none of the other choices (PulseAudio, Esound) work, unfortunately.
Are they (sic) installed? (dpkg --get-selections | grep thing_you_want_to_know_is_installed)
As far as distributions go, I'm very conservative. I've got 9.04 now (although betas of 10.04 are out now). In 8.04, I opted for KDE 3 (back then, there was still choice between KDE3 and KDE4). I skipped 8.10 (the first one which made KDE 4 mandatory...) after seeing what a catastrophe it was after briefly testing it on my laptop. Then I went straight to 9.04 more than half a hear after it was released.
Gentle correction - *you* might be conservative, your choice of distribution, however, is not.
Yes, but until KDE4 was released, this still worked pretty well. But after KDE4, all we have is a huge mess, where KDE developers are claiming "but we did warn the distros that it is not production grade software", but distributions are claiming "but we had no choice, they dropped support for 3". And the users are caught in the middle.
Your last sentence is particularly true.
Any developer who says that "they have no choice" and/or ""they" dropped support for 3" is both a liar and a fool. See the last link in my response to your other post
Using the sound configuration make sure Amarok and the other apps are using ALSA.
Well, according to ~/.mplayer/config, my mplayer already uses alsa. Yet, mplayer won't play any audio while amarok is running (even if stopped).
Are they (sic) installed? (dpkg --get-selections | grep thing_you_want_to_know_is_installed)
I've got alsa, esound, phonon, but not pulseaudio as far as I can see.
Gentle correction - *you* might be conservative, your choice of distribution, however, is not.
Before the KDE4 SNAFU, I was quite satisfied with Kubuntu. Much more satisfied than with SuSE, which I used before.