KDE 4.5 Released

An anonymous reader writes "KDE 4.5.0 has been released to the world. See the release announcement for details. Highlights include a Webkit browser rendering option for Konqueror, a new caching mechanism for a faster experience and a re-worked notification system. Another new feature is Perl bindings, in addition to Python, Ruby and JavaScript support. The Phonon multimedia library now integrates with PulseAudio. See this interview with KDE developer and spokesperson Sebastian Kugler on how KDE can continue to be innovative in the KDE4 age. Packages should be available for most Linux distributions in the coming days. More than 16000 bug fixes were committed since 4.4."

Comments

W00t

[bcmm]

Now we can have a thread with KDE haters AND PA haters in it!

Re:W00t

[bcmm]

Seriously though, phonon has pluggable backends, and this does not mean the PulseAudio is going to be compulsory for KDE users, any more than its DirectShow integration makes MS Windows compulsory for KDE users.

Re:W00t

[ultrabot]

Frankly, not supporting PA well has been the most ridiculous shortcoming in KDE (after networkmanager). It has been the "no audio desktop environment" lately, but this appears to be fixed now.

Re:W00t

[ultrabot]

Seriously though, phonon has pluggable backends, and this does not mean the PulseAudio is going to be compulsory for KDE users, any more than its DirectShow integration makes MS Windows compulsory for KDE users.

I really appreciate this feature. Instead of just hearing sound from speakers, I find it tremendously important to be able to "plug my own backend" to hear it, you know, somehow differently.

Re:W00t

[Anonymous Coward]

Or your distributor can plug in the best backend on your OS (yeah, they really might be different on Solaris, BSD, Linux, Windows and Mac) so that you can get sound from your speakers.

Of course if you're an obsessive tinkerer or your distributor ships you a broken version of a particular backend then you have the option to fix it yourself too.

Stu J (who can't be bothered to register and account)

Re:W00t

[Richard_at_work]

It does amaze me, as someone who tried the 'modern' Linux desktop several times over the past 15 years and always came away shaking my head, that audio support within Linux is still a topic that prompts regular discussion - when I am on Windows or OSX, I don't even know what the audio subsystem is called because its never been an issue, Ive never had to tinker with it. Hell, for the past 5 years I haven't even needed to install drivers and its still produced beautiful sound.

I can't comment on the rest of the Linux UI experience (my Linux knowledge is firmly positioned in the headless server region), but come on - audio is something that shouldn't even be on a users agenda for worrying about these days.

Re:W00t

[Tapewolf]

To be fair, I did have to do this once. Kubuntu shipped with one that was broken by default, at least on my system.

Re:W00t

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even know what the audio subsystem is called because its never been an issue, Ive never had to tinker with it. Hell, for the past 5 years I haven't even needed to install drivers and its still produced beautiful sound.

Yeah, that's been my experience with GNU/Linux as well.

Re:W00t

[zsitvaij]

I've been using KDE since 4.2 with PA, often using the ability to output to another PA instance on the network, reliably, on Gentoo and Ubuntu, mainly using Amarok. You are trolling hard and fast.

Re:W00t

[Tyler Eaves]

Wait until you need something like SP/DIF output to work, or want to actually make it run natively at 44.1KHz instead of the abomination that is 48Khz.

Re:W00t

[bcmm]

This is a rather flawed argument: it's in the "Computer Administration" section, which is obviously not for playing with randomly as one might with "Look & Feel". If you go there without knowing what you're doing and break things, you were going to break your computer anyway.

In general, I would rather that developers keep obscure options available, (with sane defaults, and under an "Advanced" tab or similar) than remove them in case idiots play with them. If you don't agree with me, you're welcome to use Gnome, which has a tendency towards removing potentially confusing things, or indeed to buy a Mac, but it's not really fair to criticise KDE for allowing power users to mess with stuff if that's what they want to do, since an awful lot of KDE users like the configurability, and the rest just avoid clicking "Advanced >>".

Also, the Phonon KCM provides useful features other than backend selection, such as specifying priority of audio devices ("use my USB headset if it's plugged in, otherwise use my sound card").

Re:W00t

[diegocg]

Linux sound works perfectly for me now that Pulseaudio is stabilized. And it is great, I no longer use the system volume like I did in the past, I have a pulseaudio plasmoid which shows a volume bar for every app streaming audio and I tweak the bars as I like. I still see many people who like to bash Pulseaudio, but most of them seem to talk about the Pulseaudio of one or two years ago. In the latest releases of Ubuntu and Fedora I did google for any review that would talk about pulseaudio or any kind of sound problems. It turns out I found several reviews talking about how the new release had fixed the audio problems they had in previous releases, and only one talking about new audio problems. So it seems to me that Linux audio has got fixed and greatly improved with PA, but I don't think the PA haters will admit it.

Re:W00t

[Elektroschock]

Well. audio support is no KDE4 issue. They did everything right with Phonon.

Re:W00t

[EsbenMoseHansen]

I think you will find that pulseaudio is able to quite a lot more than just play sounds. E.g, you can have one program play in your speakers and another in your usb headphones. The mainstay of the discussion is whether anyone needs this, and whether pulseaudio is bugfree enough for everyday use. The bit you mention has been solved by ALSA for a long time now.

Re:W00t

[marcosdumay]

It's KDE. Any change is a reasonable change for a user to do. That's why I use it.

Re:W00t

[walshy007]

Frankly, not supporting PA well has been the most ridiculous shortcoming in KDE (after networkmanager).

I am puzzled at what this networkmanager problem you state is/was? been using kde since 2002 and networkmanager has been around at least five years plus on my fedora system.

In regards to kde and PA, ever since PA graced it's ugly head some years ago (fedora users are always first for every new system, yay for bugs) it's been no more buggy than under other window managers.

Professionals use jack for their whole sound system anyway.

Re:W00t

[MrHanky]

If something completely screws up your system sound, it's the system sound's fault. No app should be able to do that, no matter how broken.

Re:W00t

[ultrabot]

I've been using KDE since 4.2 with PA, often using the ability to output to another PA instance on the network, reliably, on Gentoo and Ubuntu, mainly using Amarok. You are trolling hard and fast.

Nice that it worked for you.

With freshly installed Ubuntu, I could hear sound from Gnome, but not KDE. Well, KDE 4.4 works ok.

Clearly it was not the fault of KDE - perhaps I should have called a computer repairman?

Re:W00t

[0100010001010011]

Sorry State of Sound in Linux.

He wrote an update in 2009.

He pretty much hits the nail on the head with every single problem I've had with Linux audi.

Re:W00t

[ultrabot]

Windows Users don't have multiple workspaces, or window transparency (at least I haven't encountered it in Windows 7), or a package manager.

Which of these is relevant to audio?

Re:W00t

[qortra]

Linux sound works perfectly for me now that Pulseaudio is stabilized.

It has certainly gotten better, but there are still plenty of issues with audio in Linux, at least out of the box. Some of them are driver related, some are still PA related, and some are related to poor default Alsa configurations. I can give several current (Ubuntu 10.04) examples of audio issues in Linux.

• Some HDMI sinks tend to run at 48khz regardless of the source frequency (another poster here mentioned the 48khz madness). Moreover, Alsa doesn't seem to re-sample the audio properly by default in these cases, creating the chipmunk phenomenon. I'm fairly sure this is an Alsa-script fixable issue.
• In certain situations, applications seem to lock the sound device causing all kinds of consternation. This shouldn't happen (software mixing ought to always kick in). This is most likely because those applications don't use Pulseaudio (which isn't yet appropriate for all tasks, and probably never will be). As with above, I'm sure this can be fixed with Alsa magic, but it shouldn't have to be
• M-Audio 2496 internal audio card doesn't play well with Pulseaudio (to be fair, I last tried this with 9.10, never with 10.04). Apparently, it didn't have the kinds of Alsa controls that PA expected.
• When plugging external speakers into my laptop (a TimelineX), the sound on the internal speakers would turn off, the but the external speakers would not get the sound. Eventually fixed by upgrading to 10.10 alpha.
• As another poster mentioned, getting s/pdif to work properly is often non-trivial. Alsa is pretty good about offering raw access to the sound card controls, but it isn't always obvious what combination of control settings are compatible with digital audio out. In some cases, it is a single switch, but in other less fortunate cases, 3 or 4 controls need to be set properly before it will work. To make matters worse, there isn't a lot of documentation about what settings will work properly with a given audio interface. Usually, it's 15-20 minutes of forum reading before I can find some obscure reference to the information I need.

Re:W00t

[icebraining]

In foobar2000 in Windows 7 you can choose Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI), DirectSound or ASIO/Kernel Streaming, and each has different advantages.

Re:W00t

[quantumphaze]

plug my own backend

I find that plugging the sound in my backend, the deep bass really helps me loosen up.

Re:W00t

[ebuck]

Back in KDE 3.x days, NetworkManager was just getting started, and Unbuntu shipped a very bad snapshot of it which prevented network connections.

At the time Unbuntu shipped this broken copy, the KDE NetworkManager group had already shifted dev work to the 4.x series, but Unbuntu didn't ship a 4.x KDE until much later. As a result, Unbuntu's poor QA and packing practices led most people to think that NetworkManager didn't work under KDE, rather than the correct conclusion, which is that Unbuntu didn't do proper QA with its packaging.

The end result for that Unbuntu release was that most KDE Unbuntu users either switched to Gnome, stayed on the previous release, or changed distros to see a working NetworkManager in KDE.

My experiences with this may be anecdotal; however, they are anecdotal as personally experienced at the Houston LUG with literally eight to ten people dragging in broken Kbuntu distros monthly over a period of four or five months.

Re:W00t

[pr0nbot]

He pretty much hits the nail on the head with every single problem I've had with Linux audi

Bloody latency, the 'o' still hasn't arrived.

Re:W00t

[chill]

You don't game much, do you?

Game sounds go thru speakers. VoIP (TeamSpeak or in-game) go thru headset. At night, when people are sleeping, both sets of sound go thru headset.

Re:why would you not just use dwm

[ultrabot]

if i wanted to get raped by a mouse i would just go to a pet store, buy one and shove it up my ass

So you have a pluggable backend too?

notifications

[Anonymous Coward]

i like the new notification system, but it still feels hacked together.
if you close tabs or subwindows in your notification it resizes in a jerky way.
doesnt feel really smooth and looks unprofessional.
it would be nice if you could make the notifications "transparent" in front of
certain windows (the way its done with the ubuntu notifications).
it annoys me to no end having notifications pop up, while you are gaming.
but i hope they will fix that in later releases.

Re:notifications

[SpooForBrains]

"but i hope they will fix that in later releases."

This is basically now the KDE mantra.

I remember when I used to be excited by new KDE releases. Now I just greet every new one with a sense of dread at what they've broken this time.

Re:hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck KDE. Seriously, who wants a desktop with a smelly foot on it?

smelly foot = Gnome

Bug fixed

[VincenzoRomano]

More than 16000 bug fixes were committed since 4.4

I'm not really sure whether this is a good thing or not.
At least for code quality.

Re:Bug fixed

[betterunixthanunix]

What I am left wondering is if we are going to see more of the same: 16000 bugs fixed, more than 16000 new bugs introduced.

Re:Bug fixed

[Elektroschock]

KDE Code quality is high and they have a KDE review board

Re:Bug fixed

[gbjbaanb]

review board isn't about code styles and formatting. Its about seeing what the changes were to the code. Sure, you can use reviewboard for style-based code reviews, but its trivial to also use it for potential code issues. Its really there for an experienced developer to cast his eyes over the changes, and to make sure it doesn't do anything he knows is wrong.

If you're using reviewboard solely for style reviews, its because your development processes havn't yet been printed out, rolled up and shoved into your development manager.

Why do I need KDE?

[Viol8]

I think I'm the typical techy user. During the day I'll use xterm , open office, firefox and gxine. And maybe one or 2 other apps.
Can someone explain to me why I need a huge resource hungry window manager, sorry - desktop enviroment - like KDE running as my machine? This is a genuine question, not an anti KDE troll. I simply don't get it.

Re:Why do I need KDE?

[mystik]

Because for every one of you, there are 10 (or more) folks that are not techy's and appreciate the richer UI.

You can probably get by w/ e16/fvwm/fluxbox, and be extremely productive. Users who have used Win32 will appreciate a similar UI to help them ease into the power of a linux desktop.

KDE is more than just a desktop Environment, it's a whole programming library and philosophy that unifies a family of applications, so they can interoperate, exchange data, and work together as well as you do.

Re:Why do I need KDE?

[WankersRevenge]

In your case, it sounds like a solution in search of a problem. You seem quite able to do your own thing and having to do similar things in KDE's framework might prove to be a stumbling block for your workflow.

That said, for a lot of people who might not be so technical inclined, the KDE desktop *becomes* linux. Sure, in reality, it's just a desktop manager, but for those who choose to avoid digging deeper, KDE for all purposes becomes a metaphor for linux itself. For other people like me (mind you, I'm an OSX user), I don't shy from console work, but I do enjoy the benefits of working with a well designed user interface as it makes my life easier (kind of like using an IDE to write code instead of using vim or a barebones text editor).

The funny thing ... I used to love KDE back in the day. I rode the KDE wave from version 2 to 3.5 and I grew to love tools like Kate and Quanta. I loved all the different settings and figured once I got around to C++, I'd be making code contributions. A year ago, I tried a couple of live CDs and I found myself really liking GNOME over KDE (this was when KDE 4.1 was just released) which gave me a kick. In my absence, I realized I had grown tired of tinkering with a UI and wanted something that just got out of my way. While I have some issues with GNOME, I found it to be pleasant drive around the Linux block. Each to their own, I guess.

Re:Why do I need KDE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on your needs. If you are running on a notebook, for example, common things that you might need are:

• plug&play usb drives
• battery indication and automatic change of performance profile
• easy network management
• plug&play different with types of screens
• you'd like to have a notified notification system, with support for reviewing the recent history (for those times when you ask yourself "what was that thing that just appeared and disappeared before I could read?")
• you might like to have some useful small informational panes to see at a glance relevant information (network state, cpu/memory/disk load, climate forecast, calendar)
• you might want/need an indexing system
• you might want to be able to change between an overlapping window and a tiling window management system
• you might want some bling-bling on your desktop

All that and more, is provided with sane defaults with KDE4. You can also get that with other DM, or you can manage a small collection of small applications, following the Unix Way (tm), but sometimes it's just easier to have a cohesive and integrated package.

Me? I got tired of having to remake my scripts that did all those things whenever I made an update on my rolling release distro (Arch) breaks them. It didn't happen as often as it might sound from that sentence, but it happened often enough to bother me. KDE's defaults where always appealing to me, but could easily change them if I wanted to. Just by reading the KDE GUI Guidelines, and its focus on a clean interface I decided that that was what I was going to use going forward.

Re:Why do I need KDE?

[Urkki]

I think I'm the typical techy user. During the day I'll use xterm , open office, firefox and gxine. And maybe one or 2 other apps.
Can someone explain to me why I need a huge resource hungry window manager, sorry - desktop enviroment - like KDE running as my machine? This is a genuine question, not an anti KDE troll. I simply don't get it.

If you start integrating things like GUI file manager, GUI system configuration/control panel, and a desktop widget system (application launch menu, volume control, network/WLAN status&control, printer status&control, application notifications...), you quickly end up with something very much like Gnome or KDE.

KDE and Gnome are also a set of application libraries. It saves memory and simplifies updates when all the applications use the same libraries, not to mention unified look&feel of applications.

Desktop environment is also a set of default applications that somebody else has tested and made sure the whole more or less works. That's great if you don't want to spend time finding the application for your need, and tracking each application for updates if you want to stay "current".

Desktop environment is something, where somebody else has done all the hard things for you. If you want to use a WLAN or check printer status, click on the icon in notification area that is there by default. If you want to launch an application, just find it in the menu. If you want to change some system setting or just desktop option (like title bar style and color), just open whatever "control panel" the desktop environment has.

If you don't want or need these things, then you can easily get by with slightly "configured" (by which I mean, change the source and recompile) tinywm.

Re:Why do I need KDE?

[bcmm]

Can someone explain to me why I need a huge resource hungry window manager, sorry - desktop enviroment - like KDE running as my machine?

First of all, if you really aren't trolling, you should know the difference between a window manager and a DE. It's about as irritating as saying "Ubuntu is a terrible window manager, sorry - distribution".

As to why you need a DE? You don't. Some people like using them, others don't. A few examples of things I use KDE for:

• most importantly, a well-integrated suite of applications with a consistent look at feel (and not just in terms of appearance: for example, the dialogue for configuring keyboard shortcuts is always in the same place in the menu structure in a KDE application). This includes an office suite, web browser, basic utilities and so on. Example of integration: dragging a link from a web page to a directory (both open in konqueror) saves the file there rather than creating a shortcut or something.
• if you don't care about disk space and do a full KDE SC install, you have a matching set of utilities such as a calculator, basic text editor, magnifier, volume control, clipboard manager (very useful), etc.
• you get some integration between the WM and the rest of the system: applications will not have keyboard shortcuts that conflict with your WM, for example.
• various user daemons: reminders of calendar events, graphical display of messages sent with wall(1), etc.
• an easy way to mount and unmount removable media

KDE also has some very nice features for application developers, such as the kparts system, which further improves consistency. For example, kate (an advanced text editor), kwrite (a notepad-style editor), Kile (a LaTeX IDE) and kdevelop (a software development IDE) all use katepart for text editing, which gives their text editing widgets the same appearance, keyboard shortcuts, indenting options and so on.

I've only scratched the surface here, but it's still perfectly reasonable to use a simple WM with some kind of launcher instead, or to switch between them.

Re:Why do I need KDE?

[mystik]

That philosophy is flawed. It prioritizes eye candy instead of guarantying desktop usability

While that may be debatable, I'm alluding to (IMHO) brilliant technical achievements of kio-slaves, kparts, dcop (which worked really well before dbus was widely adopted), and so on. The component architecture of KDE, when fully embraced, is a great modern interpretation of the old unix philosophy "Each tool should one thing, and do it well"

If they've lost sight of that, then I too would be saddened.

KDE is great

[Elektroschock]

I really like KDE and I believe that it needs to be supported better by distributions. Kubuntu is a mess.

The investments of KDE in code quality and design will pay off. Unfortunately runtime quality was lacking, esp. reg. Plasma crashes in earlier versions. KDE is now in a state where it maturates. Here the SC split in three components really makes a whole lot of sense.

Re:KDE is great

[nOw2]

I agree Kubuntu is a mess, I installed it recently to try KDE 4.4 and was completely turned off it. Mandriva seem to get KDE right. But I'm still not coming back, not just yet.
I really liked KDE 3.5. KDE 4 turned me off Linux desktops completely - I'm now a Mac user. It'll be years before KDE regains the users lost due to early KDE 4 versions.

Re:KDE is great

[tokul]

Kubuntu is a mess.

KDE was always a mess on Debian.

Re:KDE is great

[MrHanky]

Funny you should say that, since OS X 10.0 was barely beta quality as well.

Coolest feature yet...

[orzetto]

I use the Marble globe with satellite images as a background for my KDE desktop. After upgrading to 4.5 yesterday, I noticed clouds were added to it. "How pretty", I though. It turns out that clouds are not placed randomly for scenic effect, they are actually downloaded images of the current state of clouds all over the planet. Yes I checked yesterday, and today the image is slightly different and still consistent with satellite imagery from weather websites.

Call me easy to impress, but that blew me away.

Re:Coolest feature yet...

[tackat]

Maybe you're even more impressed if I tell you that the stars in the background aren't random stars. They show the positions of the real stars. So if you look above the earth's north pole you can spot the big dipper and polaris.

Does it still require you to install a RDBMS?

[Nighttime]

I hopped off the KDE4 train at 4.2 when Akonadi required MySQL as a dependency. IIRC, it can now use PostgreSQL as well, but the point stands: Why do I need a RDBMS to run a desktop?

Re:Does it still require you to install a RDBMS?

[Nighttime]

http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/PIM/Akonadi#Where_does_Akonadi_store_my_data.3F

    Where does Akonadi store my data?

Akonadi merely acts as a cache for your data, the actual content stays where it has always been, .ics/.vcf/MBOX files, local maildirs, IMAP- and groupware servers. There is only a limited amount of data stored exclusively in Akonadi:

        * Data not supported by the corresponding backends, such as email flags in case of maildir/mbox. This is comparable to KMail's binary index files stored alongside these files in pre-Akonadi times.
        * Internal meta-data used by application or resources, such as information about the last synchronization with a backend or translated folder names.
        * Data that has been changed while the corresponding backend has been offline and has not yet been uploaded.

Re:Does it still require you to install a RDBMS?

[12357bd]

Insane. And it looks like the KDE devs are not even considering making the whole Akonadi and associated daemons mess optional. What happened to good old Kmail?

INSANE.

Re:Does it still require you to install a RDBMS?

[gbjbaanb]

I disagree about the 'waah, it uses too many resources' as there's plenty of times code is written as cheaply as possible (for the developer, that is) leaving the users to pick up the tab. The cost-basis of coding *should* be the other way round, but I guess that's just my ideal.

However, in this case it looks like Akonadi has used a DB to store its cache instead of a simpler, internal, construct. Or a sqlite DB, which is very suited for this task. Whether the developer didn't know about serialising a key-value collection, didn't know about sqlite, needs something in MySQL that no other app provides, or just didn't care remains to be determined. Either way, MySQL is probably an inefficient use of resources that could be better dealt with. Let me put it another way, the developer could have mandated Oracle instead of MySQL, you wouldn't be happy then!

The problem with 'you have so many resources, so who cares' gives you the Windows syndrome - fine, your 1 app works (once its loaded all its bulk into memory), but once you start doing more than one thing, possibly at the same time, you start to realise why you want each of those fat apps to be a bit leaner and efficient.

The goal of more efficient use of resources, rather than whatever happens to be easiest, is something that needs to be kept at the forefront of developer's minds. It won't always be used, won;t always be appropriate, but we need to keep reminding ourselves to try harder.

Notification System?

[yet-another-lobbyist]

OK, I didn't check this rigorously (Why should I? This is slashdot!), but it seems to me that every single one of the past five releases of KDE/Kubuntu and Ubuntu featured a significantly improved/totally reworked notification system. Each time I was expecting some breakthrough experience, and it just always looks like a more or less OK notification system. And this is one of the top 5 highlighted features? Was it so broken to begin with? Did it really get so much better? Am I missing something here?
I definitely appreciate very much the developers fixing bugs and making the system more stable and polished. Thanks! However, if some trivial things get sold in an exaggerating way, this may actually not help the image of KDE (GNOME, Linux, etc.). After all, one of the reasons I am using FOSS is because I am really tired of stupid bullshit advertising crap.

Re:Notification System?

[SomeKDEUser]

the notification system is hard: applications like to embed little applets in the tray, for one thing, and interaction with these in a clean, consistent way is not easy. Notifications are also hard to get right: you want all the information, you want it non-obtrusive, you want to know what is happening, you want to be able to respond to them in a timely manner.

Basically, it is a very small part of your desktop which can cause immense amounts of grief: a lot of the bad rap vista got was from the popups from there...

Re:Konqueror and Webkit?

[xrayspx]

KDE + Konqueror gave us KHTML. Apple took KHTML and extended it and gave us WebKit, which ended up being hugely popular, powering Chrome, Palm's WebOS browser, and now Flock as well is switching.

Strangely, WebKit integration back in Konqueror has never been particularly "robust".

Re:Konqueror and Webkit?

[SpooForBrains]

It's not KHTML by another name, it is a fork of KHTML.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KHTML

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit

Webkit has had Apple developing for it in the 8 or 9 years since they created it. It also has a much larger userbase than KHTML since it is used as the basis for Safari, Chrome and many mobile browsers (notably those on Symbian and Android, and of course iOS).

KDE is like Ford!

[yet-another-lobbyist]

Yep, that's right! I am still not buying Fords since their disaster model Pinto in the early 1970s. And it'll take them many more decades to regain my trust!
I am not stubborn or anything, but if KDE made a mistake once, they can never be trusted again! Ever! Especially in the software business, where hardly anybody takes any wrong decisions these days.

A Gnome user that wants to give this a try...

[MMC Monster]

I've been using Gnome on Ubuntu for about 5 years.

I know that Kubuntu is not as polished as Ubuntu. What would be a good KDE distribution to give a try, to see the desktop environment for all it is?

Re:A Gnome user that wants to give this a try...

[Anonymous Coward]

openSUSE

Re:A Gnome user that wants to give this a try...

[pxc]

Ubuntu gives a lot of love and care to its Gnome configuration, as well as adding their own addons. Kubuntu ships something closer to vanilla KDE, and there have been a few releases which have been a bit broken in the past. That said, I'm using Kubuntu currently, and I rather like it.

So, to GP: Why don't you just "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" on your current Ubuntu installation, switch GDM to log you into KDE, and explore a bit? You should be able to remove kubuntu-desktop and the unwanted KDE packages afterward. If that doesn't satisfy, then go ahead and play with a more KDE-focused distro.

Re:A Gnome user that wants to give this a try...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandriva, openSuSE, ArchLinux, PC-BSD

Mandriva and openSuSE are both examples of what can be done with a little bit of integration work. Arch's is a great example of how great KDE is by itself, they don't tinker with the packages, you are getting (for the most part) the exact KDE that the KDE team released. PC-BSD is just awesome.

Kubuntu feels like a secret Gnome plot to make everyone think KDE sucks, it's just a pathetic turd of a clone.

Re:This is odd

[SomeKDEUser]

How do you measure RAM usage? not with top, I hope... Because most of the plasma memory is in fact the pixmaps which are counted thrice (once for the app, once for the xserver, and an extra time in the videocard for the double-buffering)

See, plasma runs on phones, so clearly it is not that heavy (not that phones are not pretty powerful these days, but still)...

Re:Konqueror and Webkit?

[SomeKDEUser]

Integration is not simply about having an extra widget (which has been there for some time). Integration is about saving sessions, integrating with kwallet.

It is also about providing the API which is used by other applications for purposes other than displaying web pages. All these things, KHTML does, and does well (as well as displaying the web pages), but the webkit kpart needed much development.

Which backend works for your hardware?

[tepples]

I'd rather have just the working backend; not as a default, but as the only option.

How is the distributor supposed to know, in advance, which backend is the best working backend for your particular hardware? The options are there in case automatic detection fails, so that you can at least have sound for the six months between when you install a distribution and when the distributor releases the next version that may or may not correct the defect in automatic detection of your particular hardware.

Re:KDE vs GNOME

[Viski]

The most popular option is never the highest quality.

Dunno, Ubuntu is pretty popular.

Exactly. So is Windows.

Perl Bindings

[acid06]

It's very nice the Perl bindings were updated and are now included in KDE.
It makes me itch to start playing with KDE again. :)