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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."
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?
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)
You can use KDE 4.4 with F12 right now using the Redhat KDE testing repos: http://kde-redhat.sourceforge.net/
I haven't bothered checking, but I believe that generally Fedora will wait for the next release to upgrade KDE 4.x numbers, so you may have to wait for F13 to actually get it from Fedora.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
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?
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
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.
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...
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!
1.3MB for the "footer1.png" file! Linus is gonna be pissed when he sees the bill for data on his Google phone.
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.
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.
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
There's no such thing as a taskbar. There are Plasma panels, and these can be located pretty much anywhere you want. Just add a new panel to the top of the screen and put whatever widgets in there that you want.
I tried, and yes, F12 seems to work great in KDE 4.4, but my keyboard doesn't have an F13 key so I'm kinda stuck.
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.
try shift-f1 (or possibly shift-f3).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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)?
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.
My completely non-technical gf uses Kde4.3 daily for browsing, email, music, pictures (digikam), watching tv (myth) and finds it okay to use. The only real problem she ran into was with kmail, as one of its bugs started eating all her email before she could read them. (I'm banned from using kmail at work for the same reason). She doesn't change settings much but she knows how to go look for them if she wants something. To her its just another computer like those at her work (Windows XP). Last year I used KDE, OS-X (Snow Leopard) and XP. I find them all quite capable and usable. Each one has its irks, quirks and annoyances but overall I'm leaning towards KDE. I'm faster (less mouse travel) with KDE on multiple monitors than on OS-X. Its all good however, keep up the good work.
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.
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!
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?
KDE hasn't duplicated the feature; it was being worked on long before Gnome Shell was even conceived.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
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.
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.
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.
Or open System Settings and select Default Applications. Choose file manager and select Konqueror, then press Apply.
Actually, it looks like 4.4 is still in the kde-unstable repo (4.4.0-1). I'm surprised it's not in -testing yet, I'm used to running -testing and hearing about releases here a few weeks after I've been updated.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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)
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"?
it wasn't talled "the taskbar" in KDE 2 or KDE 3 either. :) in fact, Plasma calls them exactly what they were called in KDE 2 and 3: panels. the "taskbar" has always referred to the windows picker/manager. personally, i wish we'd always called it something like "windows" that was a bit more obvious.
but yes, in this case it's actually completely consistent with what's always been there.
sorry to burst your bubble.
Bad luck mate.
I'm lucky. This keyboard goes to F13!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I didn't mean that they copied it. I'm well aware of Plasma, and even SuperKaramba before it. I meant that they were able to produce the one selling point for Gnome 3.0, and they did it 6 months before Gnome's scheduled release.
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.
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.
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.
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?
You're right. You'd never catch reputable software distributors carrying on with such shenanigans. Like Adobe Flash, Apple iPods, Microsoft Excel, or Mozilla Firefox. I mean, where do these KDE guys get off?
(Please tag as flamebait since ./ers don't like these kinds of challenges.)
Nah, I'll see it and raise.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
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.
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.
While Debian is the source of many *buntu packages, Kubuntu have their own KDE packages, they are completely separate from Debian's KDE packages. So don't badmouth Debian KDE just because Kubuntu suck. Debian's is one of the most vanilla and well working KDE versions.