KDE Software Compilation 4.6.0 Released

jrepin writes "KDE is delighted to announce its latest set of releases, providing major updates to the KDE Plasma workspaces, KDE Applications and KDE Platform. These releases, versioned 4.6, provide many new features in each of KDE's three product lines. The KDE Plasma Workspaces come with a new Activities system, which should make it easier to manage different tasks."

Comments

Thanks,

[Anonymous Coward]

but no, thanks!

My KDE 3.5.10 serves me well. No stupid Windows Vista-like menus, no bling bling. I'll wait for KDE5. Hopefully, they'll come to their senses.

Re:Thanks,

[Anonymous Coward]

3.5.10 was great, but the session feature of Kate 4 is so very useful; I can't do without it anymore.

Re:Thanks,

[siride]

You can turn all that off really easily.

Re:Thanks,

[wolf1oo]

I run KDE 3.5.10 as well, but my Kate does have sessions so....

Re:Thanks,

[Elektroschock]

If you really like 3.5.10 why don't you use Trinity?

For me KDE 4.6 serves all my needs, memory footprint could be better, but it's now the way it should be.

Re:Thanks,

[Anonymous Coward]

"For me KDE 4.6 serves all my needs"

Good for you. But since it still isn't there for a corporate desktop (kdepim and kiosk the main culprits, with Konqueror and Koffice seconding) it won't get a decent amount of focused man-hours. KDE is in the verge to become a hobby system that will go the way of, say, Enlightenment.

A pity: KDE 3.5 was truly a nice environment.

GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a long-time GNOME user, but now I'm proud to say that I use KDE. The GNOME project has basically died. GNOME 3 is looking less and less likely to be anything but a steaming pile of shit. Meanwhile, KDE keeps on getting better and better.

There's just no comparison these days. GNOME is irrelevant. The only real competition KDE has today is XFCE.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[baka_toroi]

I don't disagree, but could you elaborate on the *why*? It's been a lot of years (like 3) since I haven't tried KDE on my desktop and it was way too unstable for me.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Nerdfest]

I find KDE is awesome where you have a couple of 1900x1200 monitors or better but is complete overkill on a 1366x800 laptop screen. Because of this I find I tend to end up using Gnome more. I do tend to just end up running Eclipse, etc, full screen, so perhaps this is part of it as well. I just don't have the space to appreciate the pretty widgets, etc.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Disagree. Kde is awesome in its goals and has been very ambitious in the kde 4 redesign. I love where they are going and use it every day.

However ... Its not as polished under the hood. At by that I simply mean kwin is much more finicky than metacity. I can crash kwin at will sometimes. When it does work, the display is less likely to be as smooth with or without the compositing. I'm looking forward to trying 4.6 as they say kwin's been fixed up quite a bit.

Plus, I have no hate for Gnome 3. I think I like where they are going. Its fast and seems to just focus on workflow improvements. KDE I feel like it still isn't quite there. Its very flexible, sure. But I have yet to see that flexibility pay off in such a dramatic way as gnome 3 does by default.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you answer your own question, in the last 3 years, it have gotten more stable :P (and faster). As time go on, the KDE4 piler get integrated deeper into the app, so some of nepomuk promises start to appear, but they are still not as well integrated as they could be. I must admit, I use awesomeWM since many years as me WM/DE and KDE for apps. I am glad to see that KDE desktop got some good WM features since I left it like "aero snap" and activities/applications matching to manage your Window. Of course, Awesome is still better, it offer you an API and your free to do whatever you want with it without pain of recompilation. But it is nice to see a mainstream DE adopt some of the most widely used TilingWM features.

KDE apps are also more flexible. You can chop down the UI to your need, remove toolbar, menu and statusbar to keep only what matter. The consistancy of the shortcut/toolbar/config dialogs is also a big plus. It still have more power user oriented features than out of the box cool features, but if you invest the time to see what is available in the thrid level of tabs in a remote corner of the config dialog, it worth it.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[ustolemyname]

They did come out with a netbook shell for smaller screens.

And the new defaults seem much more space oriented - smaller taskbar size at the the bottom, thinner window decorations etc.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Nerdfest]

From what I've seen of Gnome Shell, it's even less flexible ... I hope they keep those of us with wide screens who like side panels in mind rather than restricting them to the top.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only real competition KDE has today is XFCE.

Pardon? Xfce gets released once every two years and then it's: "Well, you can edit our menu now but we couldn't get a menu editor done in those two years. Use GNOME's editor instead." (which is basically what's written in Xfce 4.8's release notes).

When Xfce 4.10 gets released in another two or so years, we'll have four SC releases in that time. Maybe Xfce has its menu editor till then but a competitive release schedule looks different.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Korin43]

The only real competition KDE has today is XFCE.

KDE has a lot of nice things, but some of us just want a taskbar, a start menu and a system tray. The fancy new desktop things in KDE don't interest me all since I don't even have a desktop turned on. Same with the fancy new graphics (I like Clearlooks) and programs (I used to like Amarok, but Banshee suddenly became more attractive with KDE 4). I think it really just comes down to what you want from from your DE.

Also, GNOME 3 doesn't look bad. Of course I'm a little worried that it'll suck (there are definitely historical reasons for not trusting the GNOME devs' ideas of what's usable), but from what I've seen it could actually be pretty cool. It looks like they took a lot of ideas from Gnome-Do (a Launchy-like program), and the "minimizing distractions" idea could definitely help me out. It's impossible to say until it actually comes out though.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Galactic Dominator]

However ... Its not as polished under the hood. At by that I simply mean kwin is much more finicky than metacity. I can crash kwin at will sometimes. When it does work, the display is less likely to be as smooth with or without the compositing. I'm looking forward to trying 4.6 as they say kwin's been fixed up quite a bit.

I think there's a decent chance you're citing problems with your OS's packages or some other external cause rather than a bonafide KDE4 problem. I've been running KDE4 build from FreeBSD ports for a couple years now, and 4.3+ has been exceptionally stable for me on issues like compositing/windowing and such. There are still a few quirks/bugs that I run into once in awhile, but they aren't anywhere near serious enough for me to consider switching DE's. I'd run KDE4 simply for konsole and it's notifications subsystem alone it's that useful to me.

I think a lot really depends on your platform and how/where/when you get the packages. Maybe year or so ago, I tried out KDE4 on a Debian Lenny install and it was an absolutely brutal experience. If I hadn't had a previous very solid experience with KDE4 on FreeBSD, I might have been tempted to assume it was a KDE4 issue. I've also seen some really awful versions of things like kubuntu which don't do anything to help KDE4 reputation.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[siride]

lol

GNOME is all about wasted space. Admittedly, KDE 4 is a little worse about this than KDE 3 (which was pretty compact, IMHO), but still better than GNOME. No matter which theme I choose, GNOME still looks ugly and takes up far more space than it ought to. It's like using Windows 95 all over again.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[quantumphaze]

I can crash kwin at will sometimes. When it does work, the display is less likely to be as smooth with or without the compositing. I'm looking forward to trying 4.6 as they say kwin's been fixed up quite a bit.

Prepare to be disappointed. While KWin crashes are rare since the bad old days pre 4.3, it's performance leaves much to be desired. 4.6 is still slower than other WMs like OpenBox. For example: If you play Minecraft and use F11 to toggle fullscreen it takes a few seconds for KWin to do it, but OpenBox does it instantly. This is with compositing off.

I still use KWin because it integrates better than Compiz.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I can crash kwin at will sometimes.

Then file a bug report! http://bugs.kde.org. If you have a repeatable set of actions that can make KWin crash "on command", then TELL THEM and they'll fix it.

M.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I have. It and several duplicates were already there. It will be fixed, as all of my issues I've found on have been. I have no doubt of that. However, I've never been able to reproducibly crash Gnome. I've found three such bugs with different causes in KDE since 4.3

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[eugene ts wong]

Can you record sound with your installation of KDE? I'm talking about you singing or playing an instrument, and using an internal microphone. What about recording video with an internal web cam?

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Never mind about that whole "gnome never crashes" bit. Just found a case that crashes nautilus :)

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[PeterBrett]

The only real competition KDE has today is XFCE.

KDE has a lot of nice things, but some of us just want a taskbar, a start menu and a system tray. The fancy new desktop things in KDE don't interest me all since I don't even have a desktop turned on. Same with the fancy new graphics (I like Clearlooks) and programs (I used to like Amarok, but Banshee suddenly became more attractive with KDE 4).

You do know that you don't have to use "fancy new desktop things" and "fancy new graphics" just because KDE provides them, right? You can, um, turn them off?

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[zach_the_lizard]

There's Kamoso, at least for recording from your webcam. Disclaimer: I've never used it before. As for sound, IIRC there's nothing built in. You can try Audacity.

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Korin43]

Yeah but if you turn them off, it's just like using GNOME ;)

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Galactic Dominator]

I have no experience with that stuff, nor do I own some the components necessary to test. Were I to sing or preform musical compositions to my computer I believe it might cause some type of kernel panic or hardware failure. On the other hand, it would be hard for me to imagine that recording sound doesn't work. Audio support is generally very solid on FreeBSD for output at least. I know there are users doing things like skype and webcams. Webcams are a little trickier than recording audio though so I don't have a guess one way or the other on that one.

This is the most recent update on that end.

http://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2010-10-2010-12.html#Webcamd

Re:GNOME becomes more and more irrelevant.

[eugene ts wong]

Okay, I'll check out the link, another time, because I'm falling behind schedule right now, due to time mismanagement.

That being said, I agree that recording should be easy to do, because it is such an old concept. Somehow, Kubuntu doesn't do it. I can hear the mic picking up sound, but the software doesn't record. It's unbelievable.

You would think that we could keep it rock solid after all these years.

I'm afraid to look

[overshoot]

Every new release of KDE is like opening a box of chocolates.

And then finding a worm in the seventh one ...

Re:I'm afraid to look

[blind monkey 3]

Every new release of KDE is like opening a box of chocolates.

And then finding a worm in the seventh one ...

Mmmm... Chocolate coated worms!

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE? Fuck that shit, who wants a desktop with a smelly foot on it?

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we get desktop icons yet? Or do they know what I need still?

I mean, if I don't need icons, I'll go to Fluxbox.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[soloport]

"KDE? Fuck that shit, who wants a desktop with a smelly foot on it?"

Um... OK, I give up. You do?

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Hatta]

If you don't like the worms, I'll trade you a crunchy frog.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[xhunter]

It's been so long since they down-graded from deep dark fair traded eco organica cacao that I have not been able to by the full brand like I used to. MInd you, certain KDE apps I still find quite useful: konqueror, yakuake, kate, k3b, konversation etc. but I do miss the days when KDE rocked my desktop.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[MrEricSir]

I'm afraid you're mistaken; Gnome is the official desktop manager for foot fetishists.

KDE is for kool kids who don't kry about konstant krashes.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Lanteran]

but it's an actual picture of RMS's foot!

also that's gnome...

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Anonymous Coward]

we had that for a long time, I'd personally recommend using the widgets since they're a complete boon once you're used to them.

at any rate, you want to right click your desktop, click desktop settings and change the layout to folder view. You can configure it more directly after clicking apply.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Do we get desktop icons yet?

• 1) Right-click Desktop --> Folder View Settings
• 2) Activity (on the left)
• 3) (on the right) Type: Folder View
• 4) OK

Been there a couple years now. M.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Sam36]

Yes you could disable that desktop folder view thingy back in 4.0. I would tell you how I did it but I can't remember since it was like 2 years ago...

Re:I'm afraid to look

[blai]

You just made this link on-topic. Why not eat insects?

Re:I'm afraid to look

[msh104]

Yeah, but that kills all the other plasma functions on the desktop.
Not really the way to go now is it...

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Noughmad]

Well, the folder view is right on the desktop by default.

If you mean application icons, you can drag them right out of the K menu onto the desktop

Re:I'm afraid to look

[sqldr]

you can't have both. would the plasma functions go under or over the icons? what happens when you drag an icon onto a plasma widget? Why don't you just make a full-screen file browser widget?

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than to find half a worm . . .

Re:I'm afraid to look

[aquabats]

I agree. The basics just aren't there. Its like a beautiful land-rover....without shocks or proper tires. Digging through some boards i can safety say 50% of people dropping kubuntu and ksuse because they cant connect to a wireless network. The desktop is incredibly overwhelming to someone switching from gnome, xfce, windows, or mac. I think its always gorgeous but it just doesn't work intuitively.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[X0563511]

Erm...

I've had the calculator and weather widgets sitting on my folder-view desktop since Slackware 13 came out.

Am I doing something weird then?

Re:I'm afraid to look

[sqldr]

erm, probably not.. to be honest, I just use the folder view widget cause I prefer it to having icons everywhere :-) I'm pretty sure it used to be like that though.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Yeah, but that kills all the other plasma functions on the desktop.

How so / what do you mean?

I have CWP (Customizable Weather Plasmoid) and a picture frame sitting on my Folder View enabled Desktop. I have for most of KDE4.*, actually.

M.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[GnuAge]

I'm not afraid to look, but add me to the always-disappointed club. Yes, KDE is improving every release, but it is still very inferior to KDE 3.5x, at least for me.

For instance, even with Akonadi-Nepomuk-virtuoso-Strigi rat poison enabled KDE4's handling of basic meta-data in dolphin/konqueror is still crummy, especially if a file is not in your home directory (which is the only indexed folder by default). Remember how you could highlight a file in KDE 3 konqueror and get picture's dimensions or mp3's id3 tags? Instead in KDE 4 you get to add a personal tag to a file in the dolphin preview pane (does anyone use this?) I know some KDE developers are not happy about this state of affairs, but the rate of improvement is glacial.

I just hope that by the time Debian Lenny is no longer supported as "old stable" in a year KDE4 will be close to feature-parity with its predecessor 3 years ago.

Re:I'm afraid to look

[Arch_Android]

Granted, a worm is much better than a foot.

I'm so excited!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesssss! Printing parity with KDE 3.5! Finally! ...oh, wait. Damn. Maybe KDE 4.7 then.

Re:I'm so excited!

[mangu]

Yesssss! Printing parity with KDE 3.5! Finally!

I'm much more modest than that. I just wish they would bring the kde-classic icons back. It's so frustrating trying to distinguish among equally "slick" "modern" icons.

Also, bring back konqueror. A browser that works equally well on the net as on the local file system is awesome, if only it would work well with javascript. instead of fixing Konqueror javascript they came with that POS dolphin and tried to fix the javascript issue with rekonq.

Sorry, folks, although three lefts will make a right, two worngs don't.

 

Re:I'm so excited!

[Baseclass]

Yea, Dolphin sucks big time. I'm running KDE 4.0 and I still have Konqueror, it's just not the default file manager out of the box.

Re:I'm so excited!

[Stumbles]

What is the big deal with printing? Install CUPS, point a browser of your choice to localhost:631 and configure away and your done.

Re:I'm so excited!

[Stumbles]

I tend to agree. Even though I have been using KDE since their initial 4.0 release and in that time I have somewhat warmed up to Dolphin. I really really do miss the usefulness of the old konquerer; to date that is my biggest DISAPPOINTMENT with KDE.

Re:I'm so excited!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the big deal with printing? Install CUPS, point a browser of your choice to localhost:631 and configure away and your done.

That would get you more functionality than KDE4, sure, but it would hardly get you to KDE3 parity now would it?

Re:I'm so excited!

[mirix]

Konqueror is still there, doesn't take much to make it default if you'd like.

That said, I run KDE 4, and I use Thunar (from XFCE) as the file manager, most of the time. I like it's simplicity, I guess.

Re:I'm so excited!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have primarily used any file manager other than Konqueror with KDE 3.5, then you really aren't fit to add to the opinions about it. You either didn't understand its full potential or you didn't depend on those features daily, or both.

Pushing Konqueror into being primarily a web browser was a slap in the face for many of us. To the KDE devs that made this decision: burn in hell.

Re:I'm so excited!

[bcmm]

Though I greatly prefer Konqueror, I have to reluctantly agree with the present arrangement. New users get a simple, easy to use file manager, and those who know what they're doing can change the default easily.

This is actually one of the greatest things about KDE: defaults that are both sensible and not too surprising to newbies, and the ability for power-users to easily configure things pretty far from those defaults.

Re:I'm so excited!

[Waffle Iron]

What is the big deal with printing? Install CUPS, point a browser of your choice to localhost:631 and configure away and your done.

Can you get a print preview feature using that strategy?

With KDE3, I made a point of using KDE apps to print things because they all had great print preview functionality. With KDE4, that all went away as far as I can tell. Non-KDE apps have really spotty and/or inaccurate preview support, and now I end up wasting paper on messed up printouts.

Re:I'm so excited!

[Galactic Dominator]

Yes you can get a accurate print preview with KDE4 apps, eg okular while printing to a CUPS based printer. I started using KDE4 full-time with the 4.2.x branch and I don't recall print preview as an issue. Maybe you were using some apps that hadn't been ported to correctly?

Re:I'm so excited!

[Waffle Iron]

Hmm, it looks like okular does have a print preview... but that doesn't help me much because PDFs are just about the only thing that almost always print as expected anyway.

From a quick check, none of konqueror, kate or gwenview seem to have it. That seems to rule out print previewing most non-PDF files with the primary KDE apps. (My pet peeve is printing web pages; it seems that every browser developer is in some kind of conspiracy to print the last text line of any web page alone on its own sheet of paper, no matter how short the page looks.)

Re:I'm so excited!

[aiht]

It's not exactly a print preview, but I just do my test prints to the virtual PDF printer. Quicker, uses less paper - and as you say, PDF's are fairly trustworthy with printing.

Re:I'm so excited!

[Galactic Dominator]

I don't print very much so I hadn't noticed the preview abilities absence in some of those apps. I imagine that would be an inconvenience if you are printing regularly from it. A couple other base KDE4 apps do have the ability and stuff like koffice does, and of course you can always print to a PDF/PS and open with okular and set it's format. Again, that would be an inconvenience but are you really trying to print from kate frequently? I use kate for many things, but not for printing. I can't even remember the last time I've printed code or a script on a piece of paper, but I'm sure it has to be a least several years. For documents that I do intend to print I use a word processor, and KDE4 based or not they seem to have a good print preview.

Looks like print preview is a relatively easy per-app setting in KDE4. I guess there hasn't been a lot of complaints, or it might have been fixed by now.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177542

Re:I'm so excited!

[rhyder128k]

They've fiddled with it so that it uses the same layout for files as Dolphin. Might as well use Dolphin.

Why I prefer GNOME.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome's idea is to get _out_ of your way and let you use your programs.

KDE's idea is to get _in_ your way and make you use _it_.

Plus, I can only take so many shiny blue icons. And it looks just like Windows!

Re:Why I prefer GNOME.

[Stumbles]

That's total baloney. I have yet to use any kde app that has "gotten in my way".

Utterly bored of gnome

[Pharago]

Dont get me wrong, I *love* gnome, those guys are doing a terrific job, but I'm going to install kubuntu-desktop, let's see what all the fuzz is all about. And also because I can, I've got a little time to spare, maybe I'll stick to KDE, who knows.

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[Beelzebud]

I do that about once every 3 months, and then I remember why I always went back to Gnome. Gnome isn't flashy, but everything works, and it gets the job done.

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[jhigh]

Same here. I try KDE every so often because there are things about it that I really like, but I always come back to Gnome because it works. The last few times I tried KDE, it was just too damn slow. Although I really like Kmail and the other native apps, for whatever reason they run like dog crap.

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[VenomousGecko]

I would recommend Arch Linux ( http://www.archlinux.org/ ) if you are comfortable with installing from a text interface and partitioning your HD yourself. I have found Kubuntu to be a bit rough around the edges when it comes to the KDE implementation where as Arch has been rock solid for me. Arch also is bleeding edge so you can enjoy 4.6 right now without PPA. Just a suggestion. Perhaps Arch will provide the best KDE experience since you are trying it again after being away for a while.

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[Cinder6]

Have to second this. Back when I ran Linux, I loved Arch. It seemed to provide for many of the benefits Gentoo claimed, with none of the drawbacks.

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[Pharago]

unistalled kubuntu-desktop 20 minutes after the installation, expent 6 hours trying to figure out how to recover my home folder from the massive screw up that kde caused inside it, call me again in 10 years and I might give it another try at kde, god I love gnome, and could the people from kde give me back those lost hours of my life please??

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[marsu_k]

Or Chakra, which being based on Arch offers many of the benefits (the same no-nonsense configuration files, pacman/ABS) while offering a bit more customized/desktop-like experience, and selected GTK apps in "bundles" to make them appear more native in KDE. Also comes with a graphical installer, although that is still a bit rough around the edges (for example, one can't shrink NTFS partitions, it has to be done beforehand).

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[SomeKDEUser]

Bullshit.

KDE does not create any folder other than the .kde[4]/ hierarchy, where it stores its settings. Gnome, on the other hand thought it good to have virtual folders that seem like they are folders -- but really reflect the UNIX filesystem in no way.

Basically, you screwed up your home with the help of GNOME, and KDE just showed you the mess you have really made.

As an aside, how anyone can live with the GTK file selector is beyond me.

Re:Utterly bored of gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, trying the worst KDE SC implementation out there will surely win you over....

You should either wait for openSUSE 11.4 or try Pardus 2011

Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Jahava]

This is a fantastic and welcome suite of upgrades, bugfixes, optimizations, and changes. Thank you KDE team!

For those who have forsworn KDE due to bad experiences with the 4.x line, let this be a formal request to reconsider your aversion. The initial KDE 4 releases were unusable, and this has greatly hurt their image and reputation. However, as of KDE SC 4.5, it is ready to replace other desktop environments. I promise you, to both GNOME users and KDE3.5 clingers: it is worth your time to try KDE SC 4.5 (or 4.6), and you will not be disappointed.

For a bit of history, even the KDE team understood that the early KDE4 releases were not suitable for most users. They urged those who wanted feature-complete desktops to avoid it. Much to their own disappointment, major distributions like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE rushed to adopt it and the result was ... well, mass disappointment. The first release recommended by the KDE team as a KDE3.5 replacement was 4.2, which was still generally lacking but worlds better than its predecessors. Every release contained more polish, and 4.5 was (in my opinion) the milestone of a release that fully eclipses KDE 3.5 and leaves no doubt about the vision of the KDE team.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they would fix the bugs quicker.
I filed a lot of bug reports for the earlier kde4.x (which is actually a lot of work) and I gave up using kde because the bugs were rarely fixed.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Beelzebud]

Every few months I try out the 4.x line, and I always walk away disappointed. It's got so much potential, and it looks really nice, but basic things still don't function like they should. Either the plasma widgets are broken or buggy, or it can't handle basic things like auto-mounting network samba shares in Dolphin, or when it does it won't stream video over a network without downloading the files first. Just too many rough edges for my taste. The last version I tried was 4.5, and literally just ditched it a few days ago and went back to Gnome. I plan on trying it again on the 4.7 release.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Psychotria]

I actually miss Linux in many ways. I used it daily from 1994 (Yggdrasil linux) until 2008 or early 2009 (various distros in between but during 2007-2009, Fedora). Then I got distracted with my photography and other tasks that basically _required_ me to use Windows (no, Photoshop under Wine did NOT work well at all, and GIMP doesn't cut it for lots of reasons). I changed my dual-boot to default to booting Windows XP and eventually the linux partition disappeared entirely. If I recall my last install of linux onto a partition was when KDE 4.something was released. I do not like Gnome at all and retrofitting the distros with KDE 3.5 was too much bother -- I had (and have) more important priorities these days. I also love KDevelop and... anyway... it's a long story. Nowadays I run Windows 7 and Ubuntu in a virtual machine and am happy with the set up. I do sometimes pine for the days when I used linux almost exclusively, but my current configuration "just works". Maybe I'll install fedora on a virtual machine and check out KDE4.6... maybe it's usable again

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Revisionist history at it's finest. At the release of 4.0, KDE had on their front page that it was ready to go. Then, after the big shitstorm, they say they never said this.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[DoofusOfDeath]

To me, KDE just looks so darn busy compared to Gnome. Until they change that overall aspect of design, I really don't see using KDE regularly.

I like a few KDE programs a lot, especially Kate. But the overall desktop just isn't doing it for me.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Baseclass]

I've since switched to GIMP but I did run Photoshop under wine perfectly for many years.
For Windows apps that you absolutely can't live without and aren't supported in wine, there are always VM apps.
I used to run Windows 2000 in qemu until I finally decided to cut the cord completely.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[TD-Linux]

Have you possibly tried changing a setting in KDE before?

Seriously, it's not that hard. My desktop is entirely bare, I have a vertical panel with just a task bar, tray, and clock. My plasma theme almost completely lacks gradients. Oxygen is probably least offensive in this regard - it looks great on my high dpi screen, and isn't ridiculously glassed like certain themes are.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, I can't use any desktop environment that thinks it knows how I use the computer so well that it takes away standard functions most people use.

Just because your graphically inclined mind cant handle the MERE THOUGHT of icons on the desktop, doesn't mean I shouldn't be allowed to have them. Instead you should use our newfangled graphical bloat and obfuscation, where you can't find anything you want to do(why I can never use 7 either)

I really don't care if they are finally in or not, it's the entire attitude around such a major decision.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[DoofusOfDeath]

Have you possibly tried changing a setting in KDE before?

Seriously, it's not that hard. My desktop is entirely bare, I have a vertical panel with just a task bar, tray, and clock. My plasma theme almost completely lacks gradients. Oxygen is probably least offensive in this regard - it looks great on my high dpi screen, and isn't ridiculously glassed like certain themes are.

It's not the theming so much as programs like Dophin. It seems like, for whatever reason, KDE programs have really cluttered toolbars and controls around the edges of various frames. It seems like with Gnome, there's more of a design ethos of hiding most details behind menus and configuration dialogs, whereas KDE apps seem to like putting them all in front of you on the main window. Maybe I'm over generalizing, but that's my impression anyway.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[lanner]

Let's start with the fact that if this was a KDE message board, and I was to thoughtfully complain in any way, my message would be quietly deleted. I don't bother posting any feedback, filing bugs, or doing anything for KDE any more. KDE doesn't give a fark about it's users. The developers are writing code for themselves and some strangely distorted user-effigy they built up, but who doesn't exist.

But nevermind KDE as a Window Manager itself. What you did to apps like Amarok is a crime. Fark you. I liked that app. I used it. Then you ripped out 75% of it's functionality and replaced it with a super-crappy dumbed-down UI that crashed when you moved the window. All in the name of "cleaning up the code."

This was the same for countless other K-apps. Rip it up, replace the code so it was neat and tidy, but remove most of the features and dismiss anyone who complains about it.

Screw you KDE community.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[siride]

Have you even used Dolphin? It has as many toolbar icons as Nautilus does. In fact, Dolphin is like a slightly better clone of Nautilus. If you pick a theme other than ugly-ass Oxygen, it actually looks pretty decent. I, myself, use QtCurve, which has the added benefit of providing a GTK version that uses the same settings as the Qt version, so your GTK and Qt apps look as similar as they ever will.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[siride]

Dude, what's wrong with the file containment? You get icons just the same except they have a square around them. Big whoop. Get over yourself.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[siride]

I whole-heartedly agree about Amarok. Used to be my favorite music app back when it was a clean, but featureful clone of iTunes. Now that it's panel-mania with no discernible UI goal, I can't stand it. I really hate apps that insist on you having a playlist before you can do anything. Maybe I just want to click on a song in my collection and play it? I don't want the wikipedia entry or lyrics to load. I don't want album art. I just want to play a damn song.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Psychotria]

I've since switched to GIMP but I did run Photoshop under wine perfectly for many years.
For Windows apps that you absolutely can't live without and aren't supported in wine, there are always VM apps.
I used to run Windows 2000 in qemu until I finally decided to cut the cord completely.

Last I tried Photoshop (CS4?) under Wine it didn't work perfectly, but it's quite possible I stuffed up the installation.

Yes, having Linux as my primary OS and using VM's to run those programs I cannot live without is a perfectly valid and reasonable option. It's just that 99% of my apps require Windows so I do it the other way around now (run linux in a VM, whereas in I used to run XP in a VM under linux and have a dualboot system as well). I don't do a lot of programming these days, but when I do I use the linux VM. Similarly my (quite extensive) mySQL databases I run and maintain from within the VM. Even though the databases are a significant part of my work they still don't justify (for me) having Linux as my primary OS. Of course this is a personal choice and everyone's particular situation and requirements will vary ;)

One day my priorities are likely to change again and Linux will once again take pride of place on my desktop. Just not today

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[DoofusOfDeath]

Interesting. I'll probably give 4.6 a try once it hits Ubuntu's repositories.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[someonestolecc]

Not sure about the community, but amarok 1 WAS the best player fullstop across all OSs even with the buggyness. Now it's just.. .. like all the rest which are missing the killer interface amarok 1 had - but unlike other stable players that are simple it's bugged out and looks complicated for the little features it has. Of course, I still use it.. but i'm sentimental :P

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Carnildo]

For those who have forsworn KDE due to bad experiences with the 4.x line, let this be a formal request to reconsider your aversion. The initial KDE 4 releases were unusable, and this has greatly hurt their image and reputation. However, as of KDE SC 4.5, it is ready to replace other desktop environments. I promise you, to both GNOME users and KDE3.5 clingers: it is worth your time to try KDE SC 4.5 (or 4.6), and you will not be disappointed.

They said this about KDE 4.2. They were wrong.

They said this about KDE 4.3. They were wrong.

I'm sorry, but you only get so many chances. KDE has used theirs up.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[yet-another-lobbyist]

Totally agree. I gave up on Amarok, too. It's crazy how it's bloated with all these UI features I never use. I am using bare VLC now. It's not pretty and quite barebones. The backend is a dream, plays everything. Of course, it's totally lacking DE integration, and for my taste it's a bit too barebones, but what can I do. Surprisingly, there are not too many decent linux audio players around :(

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[siride]

DE integration is overrated. Just look what it's done to Windows, where every program under the sun has shell integration and start up services that use as much of your RAM and CPU cycles as they possibly can while providing little to no added value.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[DrJimbo]

Sorry KDE, I've moved on. I suggest you do too. I'm glad the therapy and new meds are working out for you. I believe you when you say you're all better now and won't ever try to cut off my ballls with the kitchen knife again but there has just been too much water over the dam. I've found a new DE and we are in love. This one is better than you ever were even before you went a little crazy.

PS: I'm posting this under a friend's account just in case you're not quite all better yet.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[pxc]

With the release of KDE 4.6, KDE has also finally incorporated oxygen-molecule, which is a very complete Oxygen theme for GTK+.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad it is improving. KDE is going right direction trying to integrate desktop functions.
Still KDE is missing integration for FF, Chrome, OO.
I think OS community does not have enough resources to maintain different applications for several desktop, or maintain several desktops. That is, if they want common people to use them. Canonical made wise decision to bring QT to Ubuntu. I only can ask why so late...
Competition is good, but linux needs standards to make it easier for software and hardware manufactures to support it.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried 4.5 on a new distro (Sabayon) install and was very disappointed. Dolphin was frustrating to use, and most other things were too just too buggy and unstable.
The Gnome version just worked.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Undead Waffle]

Revisionist history at it's finest. At the release of 4.0, KDE had on their front page that it was ready to go. Then, after the big shitstorm, they say they never said this.

That's interesting because I remember trying 4.0 right after it came out. I remember the arguments over whether they should release it as a "finished" product and the KDE team responded by saying it's a X.0 release so you shouldn't expect it to be as polished or stable and if you need something stable stick with 3.5.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[xtracto]

I like Linux and have found Ubuntu to be the best "no frills" distribution, even though it has several rough edges. When I first started using Linux (around 1998) I preferred KDE, however KDevelop always felt crappy (crashed a lot and felt as if you had to fight against it to do stuff, compared to say Code::Blocks, DevCpp or Visual Studio).

However, KDE4 made it die a horrible death. Additionally, the lack of a good distribution that had KDE well integrated as a default (that used to be Mandrake IIRC.... and maybe SuSe). Nowadays, the abortion that is Kubuntu, the lack of focus of Mandriva and the general suckiness of RPM make me think twice before moving out of Ubuntu.

BTW talking about broken, does anyone else experience this same Slashdot bug: Click on the "Score:3 Interesting" at the right side of comment title to show the "Moderation Detail" window of the comment. Now close the window only to be taken back tot he top of the page. WTF is that?

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[horza]

Add me to the list. It is so heavy and slow, but losing working Shoucast station integration was the last straw for me. Before Amarok I was using Songbird, until that died, then I went to using Exaile under KDE. Excellent player. Clementine is supposed to be Amarok-lite (based on the KDE 3.5 version), but I now use Guayadeque which is snappy and has all the functionality I need.

Phillip.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[thsths]

They said this about KDE 4.2. They were wrong.

They said this about KDE 4.3. They were wrong.

I'm sorry, but you only get so many chances. KDE has used theirs up.

Even worse, they also said it about KDE 4.1. And KDE 4.1.3 really p*ssed me off by being a terrible incoherent and buggy scaffolding.

With KDE 4.2 things did indeed improve, and some early adopters (such as myself) were actually happy with it.

Although I still miss the good old days when KDE was neat and nimble, and you could run it on all your systems, even a 5 year old laptop. Nowadays even XFCE has gotten really fat, and my only resort for old hardware is LXDE. Which incidentally is a lot like KDE 1, one of my all time favourite pieces of software.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[lbbros]

Let's start with the fact that if this was a KDE message board, and I was to thoughtfully complain in any way, my message would be quietly deleted

Care to bring specific examples? I'm one of the administrators of the KDE Community Forums, and not once we have deleted a message we disagreed with. In fact all that's asked to users is to respect the Code of Conduct, their opinions can be freely expressed.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[PeterBrett]

Still KDE is missing integration for FF, Chrome, OO.

Um. Surely you mean, "Still FF, Chrome, OO is missing integration for KDE"? Last time I checked, it was unreasonable to expect KDE developers to go out and patch KDE integration into [insert your every favourite application here].

I think OS community does not have enough resources to maintain different applications for several desktop, or maintain several desktops.

As long as people are able to choose to do something different, there will be people who do choose to something different. As soon as you mandate the One True Desktop Environment (for example) you lose most of the power of Free software.

Competition is good, but linux needs standards to make it easier for software and hardware manufactures to support it.

What, you mean like POSIX, the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, and all of these other cross-DE specifications?

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[PeterBrett]

Tried 4.5 on a new distro (Sabayon) install and was very disappointed. Dolphin was frustrating to use, and most other things were too just too buggy and unstable.

Interesting. I've been using KDE4 on Fedora as my main system since about Christmas 2008, and I haven't found it to be "buggy and unstable" since about mid-2009. What particular bugs have you encountered? Might be something to do with my hardware setup that's making it more stable for me...

The Gnome version just worked.

Do you mean, "I want KDE to act exactly like GNOME, but it doesn't, so it's clearly inferior"? Because I see that a lot. Last time I used GNOME it was exactly as buggy and unusable as KDE, just in different places. ;-)

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

ITs not oxygen-molecule, It is Oxygen-Gtk a complete rewrite of the Qt based flaship theme for gtk apps writen in Gtk-cairo.. its to the pixel the same as Oxygen. The only thing missing is "real shadows in depressions" and the animations in all transitions...

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Ginger Unicorn]

Fark me, if you want to say FUCK just say FUCK. Smurfing hell....

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Psychotria]

Code::Blocks was not around back then, and the last time I used it the debugger (well, the gdb interface) was horribly broken -- couldn't break out of an infinite loop, for example. DevCpp was pretty good, but as far as I can tell it's no longer maintained. I actually never had any problems with kdevelop. It's currently in (for me) an unusable state though because of the KDE 4 "upgrade". Visual Studio is quite nice, but it's WINDOWS ONLY so that only supports my reasoning for moving from Linux to Windows as my main DE. Eclipse is "ok". Only ok.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[cronius]

They urged those who wanted feature-complete desktops to avoid it. Much to their own disappointment, major distributions like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE rushed to adopt it and the result was ... well, mass disappointment.

I didn't follow that situation closely, but in my opinion they totally failed in communication. They said it was for "early adopters" but at the same time they labelled it 4.0 and stating something in the line of "we want as many early adopters as possible."

That's doublespeak and a total communication fail. Part of communication is *keep it simple* so that there's nothing to misinterpret and nothing to get "lost on the way".

They could have communicate this better much better. They could have called each version 4.0 Alpha 1, Beta 2 etc until what's now known as 4.2 (or 4.5 or whatever) finally became 4.0. They wanted it both ways (mass adoption with many testers, but no mainstream usage) and they blew it. Hopefully they (and others) will learn from their mistake.

(This might seem harsh, but it's just honest criticism.)

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Kjella]

The KDE team was doing an awful lot of doublespeak. Of course a x.0 release isn't as stable as a x.5 release that is the very last of a long series, but you still expect it to be as stable as is commonly accepted for x.0 releases. They pretend they gave a warning, but in reality they didn't because that's what everyone says even when there's just minor kinks to work out. It's exactly the same as moving from the last SP on one Windows release to the first release of the next Windows version, and that was never this bad. Even if you compare it to Vista pre-SP1 (Windows 6.0) it fell rather flat on its face. And I think most consider that launch a failure on Microsoft's part, a good launch would be competing with XP or Windows 7. Apple has been on the 10.x series now a long time but you could try imagining what would be acceptable for a 11.0 release. The only way you could possibly justify the 4.0 release is to make up a completely different standard than anything it's likely to be compared to.

I think it's sad because I'm very impressed with Qt as a toolkit and think it grew in leaps and bounds moving from Qt3 to Qt4. KDE 4.0 was a giant sign saying "go away" beating everyone who tried it in the head. It was bad. KDE 4.1 was bad. KDE 4.2 was bad. Somewhere in the KDE 4.3 cycle they fixed the nastiest issues I had, but it was more than a year of "it's not that bad" when it was.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[SomeKDEUser]

You realise that the functions you are asking for are OS functions, and not related to the GUI? If you want the beahviours you describe, then use FUSE -- perhaps through kio-fuse.

In dolphin, I have sftp remote locations which appear just like any other folder...

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[SomeKDEUser]

I use kdevelop day in and day out. And it is good. Navigation through the code, semantic highlighting, good autocompletion.

Now I don't use a debugger -- cout and valgrind are my tools of choice. So I can't comment on the integration of that.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[snookiex]

Funny. I was a KDE die-hard user until 2006. Then I switched to GNOME and learned to hate it, then XFCE, and now OpenBox + CrunchBang. I think this is the last time I change my DE or I'll end up by having a setup like RMS's

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should reconsider what falls within the bounds of "thoughtful complaint", and whether your posts on that forum classify as such. This post, in my opinion does not. When a post contains language whose purpose is to insult (e.g., "fark you", from the above), I believe it falls outside the bounds of thoughtful complaint. You might have more success in your attempts to communicate by merely changing your tone.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, would think KDE is better off without whiners with such huge sense of entitlement as you seem to have. I feel sorry for whatever project you're harassing now though.

Not related really but I find it amazing the amount of other projects, such as Gnome2 and OSX seem to get which were even worse, for far longer in their beginnings, and yet never received half as much vitriol. I guess there's quite no such thing as bigotry, eh?

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Beelzebud]

Yeah I realize that. That's why I prefer Gnome over KDE. It just handles that stuff without any hassle.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[myrdos2]

The start menu had horizontal scrolling. Is that still the case?

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope that everybody that thinks that way do it also with the politicians, the tv news, the newspapers, ....

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Risen888]

Seriously?! In three years, they've kicked out six point releases, and you wish they would fix bugs quicker?!

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Risen888]

I tried all the things you named just now. They work.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Risen888]

Piss and moan. Drag a fucking icon onto the desktop. It works. Oh that's right. You don't care, because you just want to piss and moan. STFU.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Risen888]

no mod points just now, but i lol'd.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[Risen888]

Funny, it did replace my other desktop environment at 4.2. If you don't like it, whatever I guess.

Re:Wonderful - everyone should try this!

[SomeKDEUser]

Because linux users are known to be change-adverse technophobes. They cannot comprehend phrases beyond soundbites.

Actually, the KDE4 thing showed me that some linux users are indeed change-adverse technophobes. I guess they are the ones who went to linux from the olden UNIX days. They though it was because of the superior tech, but in fact it was because it allowed them to not change their habits. Some -- through some process that is not entirely clear -- came to KDE3[1]. And KDE3 was not very integrated compared to SC4. basically you used the applications and the shell was sort of hacked-together, did not do anything very clever. Now SC4 is really clever. And your old apps got rewritten, or changed. And the look changed. And actual integration (in terms of sharing information) is attempted. Akonadi, Nepomuk, this is what they are about. You want your MP3 tags known to the desktop search. You want a given file to be identified as coming from some attachment from some person whose name/contact information are known. If you tag a picture with a person you want your mailer to know this person exists when a contact is created.

This is all very hard to do right.

Also the shell cannot be assumed to be only for a desktop. maybe you have a tablet, or a convertible hybrid like the T91MT. And that means your desktop shell must be very adaptable. Is it perfect? No. But it is damn good, and wayyy better than KDE3. Except for those who only wanted a glorified application launcher/windowmanager. But is is only an accident they liked KDE3 in the first place (I expect the apps were too good to pass over).

[1] KDE 1 was a bunch of rewritten X apps. They looked and worked marginally better. KDE2 added some integration, DCOP notably. And the apps looked yet a bit better and KIO was great. KDE3 same thing. In fact, it was a simple port to start with. KDE4 is a completely different beast.

I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[m50d]

So KDE is now a "software compilation"? What was wrong with "desktop environment"?

Re:I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[jrepin]

Well the problem was that KDE wasn't only the desktop anymore. The desktop was only one small part of software the hardworking contributers produced. So in the end KDE became the name of the people working on the software and if you only wan't to refer to the desktop part, now you say KDE Plasma desktop.

Re:I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE has been a "Software Compilation" for over a year, and 2 releases now, and is the only time they've "rebranded" in the 15 year history of the project.
But I know all those changes can be hard to keep up with...

Re:I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[Anonymous Coward]

because "desktop environment" is less than 10% of the project, so it is not a representative name for KDE as a whole anymore. KDE is kind of a Mozilla now (with less budget), it parent a lot of project, but is not a single product.

Re:I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[Anonymous Coward]

What was wrong with "desktop environment"?

Plasma Desktop is a desktop environment. Plasma Netbook is a netbook environment, not a desktop environment. Plasma Mobile is a smartphone environment, not a desktop environment.
The Software Compilation is a compilation of applications and different work environments.

Re:I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically instead of having a simple term to refer to it you have these needlessly verbose phrases instead.

Re:I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[bcmm]

The idea that KDE was just a desktop environment was causing more and more confusion. Observe the way Slashdot responded to every story about a KDElibs application running on a mobile with snarky comments about how a KDE session would bog down a phone, or the newbies asking "does it work in Gnome?" when recommended a KDE application. And how does KDE for Windows fit in to the picture?

Re:I do wish they'd quit rebranding

[Risen888]

Six syllables in both. Stupid git.

Gnome/KDE/Compiz/Emerald

[Securityemo]

I basically use a setup where I use many GUI apps from both KDE4 and Gnome, Emerald as the WM and avant-window-navigator as a panel. I use gnome-terminal over the KDE one (Terminal). I've tried KDE4, but my machine is too slow to run it properly, and I think Gnome just has a cleaner design - but I'm a command line sort of guy, and only fire up Nautilus to access SMB shares, so it's probable that I've missed many of KDE4's usability details. Strangely enough, I can use Compiz with effects like transparency and blur just fine.

Re:Gnome/KDE/Compiz/Emerald

[fnj]

I'm tempted to call bullshit when you say your machine is too slow to run KDE4 "properly." Can you give an example of some action that is too slow? What are your system specs?

I too use a mix of Gnome and KDE apps under Gnome. It's very nice that they mix and match so well. I do this not because KDE is too slow, but just because it is so weird, and because certain key panel applet functionality is missing. These are both completely subjective reasons. When I try running the two desktops alternately in the same system, I can't detect any noticeable difference in responsiveness.

One small point. I found gnome terminal far too primitive compared to konsole. Why did you prefer it?

Re:Gnome/KDE/Compiz/Emerald

[Securityemo]

I'm running on an intel pentium 4/1024 mb ram/Raedon 6600 setup. It's pretty old, yeah, but I can't really afford anything else at the moment. I'm perfectly sure KDE4 lags, mostly through animations being jerky, which bothers me to no end for some reason. As for gnome-terminal over Konsole, I just noticed there was an option to NOT smooth out the fonts, a feature which made the Terminus font look like hell at 8-12 points. Now, they look mostly exactly the same.

Re:Gnome/KDE/Compiz/Emerald

[Risen888]

I have a Pentium D/2GB RAM/i950, so we're pretty comparable. I have Nepomuk and desktop effects turned off on KDE 4.6, and it's...acceptable, considering my hardware. Log in does drag, but otherwise it's...yeah, acceptable. I could surely run something lighter, but I really like KDE 4, and the application suite is too awesome to not use. I also have StumpWM for when I just need to get in and do something and get out.

Re:Linux becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a long-time Linux user, but now I'm proud to say that I use OS X. Linux on the desktop has basically died. Linux is looking less and less likely to be anything but a steaming pile of shit. Meanwhile, OS X keeps on getting better and better.

There's just no comparison these days. Linux on the desktop is irrelevant. The only real competition OS X has today is Windows.

Blargh

[Anonymous Coward]

I really want to love KDE 4, but it has felt so choppy for me. I'm running fairly beefy hardware, a quad core processor, mid-high end video card, plenty o' RAM, etc. I've been using 4 off-and-on since the first beta releases, and maybe I'm tainted by that, but compared side-by-side with 3.5 it's just meh.

The animated menu feels really sluggish, I usually revert to the classic menu style to feel like I can actually get to the applications I want to use.

Stop complaining and put them on the menu bar, you say? Fine. Wait -- Why the did my Menu button sitting to the left of the bar on my other monitor now? Really KDE? Really?

Where are my desktop icons? Ah, right, I'm just a Windows user. I don't get the "vision". Actually, I'll just keep my files on the desktop, thanks. You know, like GNOME, Winblowz, and OS X do. If I didn't want them there, I'd use a Tiling Window Manager.

And I am SICK OF THE GOD DAMN CASHEW! Widgets are worthless unless you have a hard-on for staring at a desktop with no applications open.

Ah, so that's why the desktop icons are gone -- more room for the useless widgets! Woohoo, a spinning globe on my desktop!

The printer manager put me in tears. It was easier just to add the damn thing from the CUPS web interface. And while I'm on the topic, the network manager blows too. I like the graph, guys, but how about making it easier to configure a wireless network? Seems like I have to do some voodoo to actually get available wireless networks to pop up. Also, a lock icon to show me the security of a wireless network is way better than the Windows-esque "Stop-light shield". Stop making me feel bad with your red shield with an X through it whenever I want to steal my neighbour's wireless connection.

Don't get me wrong, I think KDE 4 is great if you're more interested in playing with compositing and widgets than doing anything productive.

But KDE 4.6, I'll give you another chance. Please don't break my heart again

Re:Blargh

[mirix]

From what I remember, click on the 'cashew', select 'remove this workspace' or some such, and bingo, plain-ass desktop. Seems easier than typing all that complaint up ;-)

Re:Blargh

[Anonymous Coward]

u mad bro?

Re:Blargh

[Baseclass]

I installed the "I hate the cashew" plasmoid from kde-look to remove that useless little nut.

Re:Blargh

[quantumphaze]

Sounds like you have an Nvidia card. The 2D and Xrender performance is really poor and I find that PowerMizer makes the sliding menu choppy only when it's at the lowest speed. It's the price you pay for working 3D.

Re:Blargh

[webheaded]

Everyone keeps complaining about icons on the desktop and you specifically mention keeping files there...you DO know that you can turn the desktop into a view of a folder on your PC or use the folder widget, right? I haven't been in Linux much lately, but I specifically remember this could be done and was happy.

Re:Blargh

[pxc]

You know, like GNOME, Winblowz, and OS X do. If I didn't want them there, I'd use a Tiling Window Manager.

Incidentally, KDE 4.5 introduced tiling support for kwin. So KDE's WM *is* a (basic) tiling window manager.

Re:Blargh

[TheCycoONE]

I hate to be another naysayer in this pick on KDE board so I will mention that it is my primary DE/WM on my primary computer, and that I think Solid is great.

That aside KDE 4.5's tiling window support was not usable.
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=246153 means it breaks whenever you close all but one of your windows and then try to open more

Also on my system kwin would crash when tiling was turned off.

Those bugs are still open so I don't think it's gotten much attention for 4.6 but I will try this weekend.

Is it just me

[rsilvergun]

or are there a lot of comments that KDE & Gnome are dead? What are Penguins suppose to use?

Re:Is it just me

[korgitser]

First it was that KDE basically made it's ui a mix of vista and macos to have a selling point and rushed out of the door limping. Then adding to that some architecture astronout hogwash about semantic and an unified data store, which currently has more unstable backends than the desktop has apps. Choose one and make it work, people! I will not buy that stuff before I see kmail2, which honestly believes it can build on this (q/k)uicksand. But kmail2 is loong overdue. I bet they spend most of their time trying to straighten out, if not actually create the backends.
These days i'm a KDE user just because gnome apps fit in kde better than kde apps in gnome.

Now Gnome is all like 'we want our own plasma shell just because'. When will the linux desktop grow balls to have it's own face and identity, rather than trying to copy others? A copycat has the chance to make it number #1 only if it has the $ of microsoft. Other than that, you're just number #2 like bono.

For what I gather, the desktop metaphor is pretty much finalized, and the resulting idle hands will leave no good design standing if they can replace it with something opaque. If this trend continues we will all be using XFCE in 2013.

Re:Is it just me

[diegocg]

Well, they are not dead, but they seem to be becoming irrelevant. Consumers really like touch phones and pads and app stores, and only android seem to work well in these devices.

Re:Is it just me

[PeterBrett]

First it was that KDE basically made it's ui a mix of vista and macos to have a selling point and rushed out of the door limping.

Having used Vista and OS X, and as a KDE user, I feel very comfortable in saying that KDE "basically" did nothing of the sort, and you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Now Gnome is all like 'we want our own plasma shell just because'.

It's interesting how GNOME are always playing catch-up, isn't it?

Re:Is it just me

[fnj]

For the most part I think the set of users who don't like either Gnome or KDE is using Xfce. It's too primitive for me, but it is fast and reliable.

Re:Linux becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious troll is obvious.

32-bit went fine, 64-bit was a bit of a pain...

[pointbeing]

Don't know anyone else who's had this problem but on the 64-bit upgrade X started throwing errors about a missing session - then you clicked "okay" and KDE started normally.

Solution was in this thread - all I had to do was select KDE as a session once.

http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=91936

Also, my panel lost transparency although compositing was enabled. Changing the panel theme and then changing it back solved that.

On the 32-bit netbook which has just about all unnecessary stuff turned off including akonadi KDE's memory footprint went from ~180mb to ~170mb at idle. I use compiz instead of kwin on both machines, though.

Re:32-bit went fine, 64-bit was a bit of a pain...

[Anonymous Coward]

I use 64 bit arch and I had no problems.
I rebooted after installation and KDM told me that KDE was no longer an available session.
I just selected "KDE Plasma Desktop" (or some such) from the session list and logged in.
Apart from that I had no warnings/errors/problems

Re:Linux becomes more and more irrelevant.

[Korin43]

Whoosh?

Thoughts on KDE

[TopSpin]

With KDE 4.4/5 the basic desktop (window manager, taskbar thinge, desktop, etc) became worthy (stable, mostly feature complete, etc.) Memory use is entirely reasonable. The file manager (konqureror) even survived. Yay KDE.

I did run into some 'social' subsystem (akonadi or some such) that actually launches a MySQL instance with a 50MiB (and growing) seed database to track one thing or another (or something; I haven't the faintest idea what it's trying to do.) Fortunately it can be removed with few consequences; think I've seen one program that spewed some console errors because the dbus services were missing. Now the only goofy thing left is the 'kde wallet' nag that jumps up once in a while for software you wouldn't suspect of being integrated with KDE by default (that one may actually belong in the distro's lap.)

(This isn't an appeal to have these things explained; I'm not interested and won't be developing an interest.)

Thanks for the great work on the basic desktop stuff KDE. Please consider that some folks would prefer a less integrated experience; KDE is found in places where unloading your life into various 'social' databases or configuring your personal info into single-sign-on 'helper' stuff is very inappropriate. A 'just works without all the personal info/high touch integration and corresponding configuration nags' option would be ideal. Overlooking this is entirely understandable; enthusiastic developers often have tunnel vision and fail to consider the simpler use cases while building their visions. Without those people nothing would be built at all.

Also, KDE needs a built-in (meaning no extra stuff to install, lightweight, no glitches, no elaborate tray pop-ups) no-mouse-required, minimal-keyboard-gymnastics way of entering all Unicode characters into everything that accepts text.

Thanks again.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent correct AND reasonable. And then ban him from Slashdot for being "Off-tone."

No, seriously though, great job here - as someone who looks back mistily on the 3.x days, this would be ideal.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, KDE needs a built-in (meaning no extra stuff to install, lightweight, no glitches, no elaborate tray pop-ups) no-mouse-required, minimal-keyboard-gymnastics way of entering all Unicode characters into everything that accepts text.

I'm relatively certain KDE defaults to utf-8 for everything everywhere.
If you want something like windows' alt+# for entering special characters; you may find something in the advanced area of the keyboard configuration. (system settings --> input devices; I never looked mind you).
If you intend to actually type using other character sets/languages; I would seriously recommend getting something like ibus/scim installed.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[TheABomb]

I have the keyboard-switching applet in my systray that cycles through American English, Spanish, German, and Esperanto (those four give me all the diacriticals I need). I do recall at one point ALT-CTRL-K or something similar was a global shortcut to cycle it, instead of having to click. Yeah, that was so annoyingly convenient, I can see why they had to pull the functionality.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[webheaded]

No kidding, holy shit. There's a person on Slashdot that kind of doesn't like something and is reasonable about it. What the hell are you doing here? :p

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[lbbros]

There is a keyboard layout applet for the panel with multiple configurable keybindings.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[PeterBrett]

I did run into some 'social' subsystem (akonadi or some such) that actually launches a MySQL instance with a 50MiB (and growing) seed database to track one thing or another (or something; I haven't the faintest idea what it's trying to do.)

Akonadi is basically an abstraction layer for all PIM data (e-mail, contact info, calendar, to-do list, etc). As long as you're not using KDE's PIM programs, you won't miss it.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, KDE needs a built-in (meaning no extra stuff to install, lightweight, no glitches, no elaborate tray pop-ups) no-mouse-required, minimal-keyboard-gymnastics way of entering all Unicode characters into everything that accepts text.

XCompose exists since 15 years or so, works in any desktop environment because it's a fundamental feature of X. You as an old fart should know this, but if not, look at and https://github.com/kragen/xcompose.

To enable, go to System Settings -> Hardware -> Input devices -> Keyboard -> Advanced -> Position of Compose key and pick a useless one, like Caps Lock. From the command line setxkbmap and xkbcomp are involved, here's my keymap for comparison, the important part is compose(caps).

xkb_keymap {
                xkb_keycodes { include "evdev+aliases(qwertz)" };
                xkb_types { include "complete" };
                xkb_compat { include "complete" };
                xkb_symbols { include "pc+de(nodeadkeys)+ru(phonetic):2+inet(evdev)+terminate(ctrl_alt_bksp)+compose(caps)+nbsp(level4n)" };
                xkb_geometry { include "pc(pc105)" };
};

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting to see that you first admit that you have *no* clue what akonadi does, only to proceed to dismiss it as somehow a threat to your privacy since it apparently - in your mind - has something to do with "social databases". I'd suggest a quick read-up on the topic to get rid of your misconceptions.

Finally, if you don't want kwallet, you don't need to enable it in the first place, and if your distribution did it for you, just start kwalletmanager and disable it again. Everything will work just fine.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[KugelKurt]

Mod parent correct AND reasonable.

No, he's not as someone explained here: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1969946&cid=35030186

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[m50d]

I did run into some 'social' subsystem (akonadi or some such) that actually launches a MySQL instance with a 50MiB (and growing) seed database to track one thing or another (or something; I haven't the faintest idea what it's trying to do.) Fortunately it can be removed with few consequence

If you really mean akonadi, does kmail still work? I've never been able to manage that, which is really irritating because akonadi breaks all the fricking time and it would be nice to be able to read my emails. But I suspect you mean nepomuk?

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[Risen888]

I've got Akonadi and Nepomuk disabled because I'm running KDE on older hardware, and I can tell you that I have never once had a problem with Kmail. YMMV.

Re:Thoughts on KDE

[Jason O'Neil]

Also, KDE needs a built-in (meaning no extra stuff to install, lightweight, no glitches, no elaborate tray pop-ups) no-mouse-required, minimal-keyboard-gymnastics way of entering all Unicode characters into everything that accepts text.

It might not cover all Unicode characters, but you can get a lot of useful characters using the Compose key. I first heard about it from this blog post, which explains it well.

You can set it up in KDE -> System Settings -> Input Devices -> Keyboard -> Advanced -> Compose Key.

Of course, that's just a few handy characters, not support for all of unicode. So your point still stands.

For those still waiting...

[JoeCommodore]

For those still waiting for KDE to port things from KDE3, there's Trinity - http://trinity.pearsoncomputing.net/ Not perfect, but a great alternative.

It is nice to have OCR and Quanta fully functional again.

Re:For those still waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it... the default KDE 3.5.12 in the kubuntu Trinity remix (after a few minimal configurations in the terminal) its the perfect desktop for programmers, its installed in every developer workstation in the office.

Re:For those still waiting...

[fnj]

Interesting. Assuming it's included, just having kuickshow back would be a big plus. Too bad there's no Fedora or RHEL6 version [yet?].

Re:For those still waiting...

[Zarhan]

Huh? There's KDE 4 version of kuickshow, and has been on quite some time. At least Gentoo provides a package for it...

VM all the way

[zooblethorpe]

I've been running Windows in a window since around 2001, and haven't booted MS software on the bare metal since. This way I get all the usability and admin goodness of whatever Linux flavor I want, while still getting to use any Windows-only software that work requires of me. And having the ability to take snapshots of the machine is quite nice -- if an install hoses something in the virtual Windows box, I just roll back to the last snapshot. Plus the VMs are portable, since they're basically files, so I can just copy the whole VM over to my laptop when I'm traveling.

Cheers,

Re:VM all the way

[Psychotria]

I've been running Windows in a window since around 2001, and haven't booted MS software on the bare metal since. This way I get all the usability and admin goodness of whatever Linux flavor I want, while still getting to use any Windows-only software that work requires of me. And having the ability to take snapshots of the machine is quite nice -- if an install hoses something in the virtual Windows box, I just roll back to the last snapshot. Plus the VMs are portable, since they're basically files, so I can just copy the whole VM over to my laptop when I'm traveling.

Cheers,

Yes, you've listed several distinct advantages of the VM approach. I should have included in my initial post that I still do have Linux machines (my fileserver for example) I just don't use it as my primary desktop OS.

Re:VM all the way

[zooblethorpe]

If you only need Windows for one or two apps, you might give VMware or Parallels a spin -- both work on hosts running Lin/Win/Mac, and with Unity mode in VMware or Coherence mode in Parallels, the integration with the host desktop environment is much smoother. In fact, as I write this in FF in Mac, I've got some of my Windows-only work software each appearing as their own window just under the browser window via Parallels, and iTunes in the background keeping my ears happy. When I'm at my desktop, I use a similar approach, only the host system is Ubuntu and the VM is VMware.

Cheers,

I just wish

[TheABomb]

they'd put Ksirtet back in kdegames. At one point, I was 81st in the world on its worldwide high scores board, and that was my life's peak.

Re:I just wish

[Anonymous Coward]

you must be french: that bitter/sweet feeling only comes from funny/sad comments... as if materialized from my own fears.

Re:I just wish

[Anonymous Coward]

ABSOLUTLY! It took me about two days to install the kde 3.5 libraries at the same time with the 4.x ones and now i got ksirtet back. if you look at the high score list ( http://ksirtet.sourceforge.net/highscores.php?level=normal&order=best_score_date ) you can see that other people are still active there too. i think the worst thing about the kde 4 tetris clone (kblocks?) is that you cannot jump pieces to the left or right wall...

KDE doesn't look professional enough

[garphik]

Gnome looks a bit more professional with the menu structures, icons and nautilus. With KDE it feels as though you have to do a lot more to get the same operations done. Couple of things I find annoying are the space utilization on the windows, they should try to maximize the window area and not shrink it with big icons and fonts, next... the file browser is not as good as nautilus.

Bluetooth

[EEPROMS]

Wonder if they have bluetooth audio fixed, I find KDE 3.5.* allows me to pair a BT headset (I have three models all work fine with Android) but KDE keeps trying to treat the headset as a data transfer device instead as an audio out device.

Re:Bluetooth

[EEPROMS]

Sorry I meant KDE 4.5.* (although KDE 3.5.* has the same issue).

Re:Bluetooth

[lbbros]

You'll need the pulseaudio module for bluetooth, enable the pulseaudio support in Phonon and then use the newly-released "bluedevil" (new version of the BT stack for KDE) to pair your headset.

This is AFAIK.

Re:Bluetooth

[spinctrl]

Have you tried KDE's BlueDevil? I use a BT headset and stereo headphones without issue on KDE 4.6. The sometimes I have to restart pulseaudio if X is restarted, but that's an easy fix. Otherwise fine.

Re:Bluetooth

[Anonymous Coward]

I managed to get this sort of working on my Arch Linux box with KDE 4.5.*, but I couldn't get it to ouput using A2DP, it always output with headset prfile which sounds awful, and this was even with a headset that allows me to pair the headset and A2DP to different devices (I just couldn't get any output when I tried pairing the A2DP). But I suppose there is the possibility I haven't set my box up properly.

Xmonad

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Xmonad. Start what ever apps you want from an xterm or menu/dock. It is very fast and light weight. I really don't miss the 'desktop' thing.

Try Clementine

[DrJimbo]

Clementine was inspired by amarok 1.4 but it uses QT4 instead of QT3. I started using it around 0.3 and was sold then. It is up to 0.6 and it is hands down the best music player out there IMHO.

Re:Try Clementine

[m50d]

It doesn't have anywhere near the features of amarok 1.4. It calls itself a "port", but as far as I can tell that's a lie; it neither looks like amarok 1.4 nor plays the same.

I switched to freebsd so I could keep using amarok 1.4; I plan on doing an actual port of amarok 1.4 to qt4 when I've time.

Really, really, really...

[Lord Kano]

I just don't care. The team fucked up KDE4.x so bad at the beginning, I started using Trinity KDE and have no interest at all in what they're doing. I suppose that eventually I won't have a choice about a new Desktop Environment and when that day comes, it'll probably be GNOME or xfce.

LK

Turning stuff off

[drx]

People, it is an illusion that you just can turn stuff off everywhere. You can turn off things up to the level of how the system was designed. And KDE is now designed for over-componentisation, over-information and over-configuration. It needs a consistent narrative. Maybe it will develop one. This is needs something that would be good to turn on, not off. :)

Re:Turning stuff off

[siride]

Compared to 3.x, the configuration is simpler and more straightforward. In fact, it probably has more configuration options than GNOME. But unlike GNOME, it allows you to configure pretty much everything from the GUI. I think this is where people get tripped up. The new configuration dialogs for most things are actually rather simple. The Dolphin settings dialog is comparable to the Nautilus one.

The original complain was about the menu and the bling. The thing is, they have to pick some default. And whichever default they pick, somebody will be pissed off. But unlike GNOME, if you don't like the default menu, you can install another one. Desktop effects are so easy to turn on and off that I can't believe you or the OP are raising a stink about them.

Re:Turning stuff off

[X0563511]

And KDE is now designed for over-componentisation, over-information and over-configuration.

This is the very reason some of us prefer it over Fischer-Price interfaces like Gnome.

Re:Turning stuff off

[drx]

Yes, and that is fine, but it is definitely not possible to turn it off!

Re:Turning stuff off

[gauauu]

Crap, I have nothing to say other than I accidentally somehow clicked on the moderation for "troll" and Slashdot's fancy ajax UI will now not let me change it. So hopefully me posting this will undo my moderation....

Re:Turning stuff off

[Risen888]

And KDE is now designed for over-componentisation, over-information and over-configuration.

You haven't used KDE since 3.5, have you?

4.6 Great, but...

[olahaye74]

It still lack a few but major components.

- akonadi_mapi_resource (exchange real native mapi connector not using https or webdave or imap or any other MS options that are always turned off in a big company. openXchange is NOT that one, openchange one is ok but seems dead)
- akonadi_iphone_calendar_resource
- akonadi_iphone_contact_resource
- akonadi_iphone_notes_resource
- akonadi_iphone_bookmark_reource
- ...

The mapi connection is a MUST have and is a big missing... Instread of that KDE choose to create an existing wheel: dolphin. WTF....
Before kde4 I was able to split my konqueror view in 4 panels: one html, one ftp, one local file, one phpmyadmin...
Now, this functionality is still present in konqueror, but no bug fix... all development goes to Dolphin.... can't understand why tyhey choose to split the data browser in 2 browser: one for network content and one for local content... Why diferenciate? What is the value added? why ignoring browsing profiles?

Anyway, KDE is progressing... but it's SLOOOOWWWWW .waiting for MAPI since ages. Most of my collegues moved to Windows7 jsut and only because of this lack.
If only I had time and C++ knowledge.
I had a look at the akonady dev tutorial it's great. really, unfortunately, my C++ is far far to weak to be able to produce something :-(

Re:4.6 Great, but...

[gomek-ramek]

Looking at their subversion repository, I don't think OpenChange is dead. They just don't seem to give news updates very often. http://websvn.openchange.org/log.php?repname=OpenChange&path=/trunk/&isdir=1&

Turn off all the crap, make it EZ to vanillafy KDE

[Anomalyst]

There needs to be an install question asking if you want a plain jane, low impact, do nothing till I click, you might even say "restricted" GUI experience. No transparency, no bouncing cursor, no animation: absolutely NONE, no raise/lower (just paint it please), no grow/shrink, dump the gradients, it's not the 90s anymore, no wallpaper, definitely no animated wallpaper. No automatic submenu display, or if you must, institute an X millisecond delay, similarly for the button focus highlighting. look for the mouse pointer to come to rest. If the mouse is in motion DONT DO FOREGROUND DRAWING!!!!, better yet interrupt any drawing currently in progress because more likely than not, it is no longer of interest, if it ever was in the first place. Wanna test how painful the default settings are? connect to a server via XRDP and interact with a KDE virtual machine through the console. Yes I have searched out half of the eleventy seven different tweaks to try and get a usable desktop, including the low power graphics & low power cpu (its not, but I don't need to be choking the connection with redraws for display gimcrackery). I really don't give a rats petuti about the latest thematic innovation with swirling/twirling facebook monioring. Now if they can do it in a 16 color palette, it would really make my day. I want/like most of the KDE applications, there is just way too much frosting on the cake and too many kids on the lawn.

No good apps

[gomek-ramek]

I used to use KDE, but I switched away when I realized that none of the apps I use are Qt-based. Let me know when I can use a Qt-based Chrome or Firefox, a Qt-based Vim, and when SWT/Qt is stable (with a Qt-based Eclipse release). Until then, I'll continue using Gnome. Plus they are really pushing Akonadi hard, and I don't want to run it. And so many bugs I have voted on the KDE bugtracker that never get fixed... It's really too bad. I love Qt as a toolkit.

No idea where this negative outlook on KDE is from

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been watching /. for replies on KDE since 4.0 came out.

No idea what distribution most of you are using and what it does to the vanilla KDE but here with Archlinux, it runs fine.

Yakuake, Okular, Dolphin and Amarok are my most used applications, can't live without them anymore.

They've made many strides in applications like Kate, which implements a subset of vi inputs ( does not implement all of them) and lately has added support for GDB via a plugin and for SQL. Similarly KDevelop is an awesome IDE for C/C++ development. /. it seems will keep thrashing KDE no matter what they do, the few like me notice the incremental changes made and are very thankful for all the efforts of the KDE developers.

KDE Hate

[IrquiM]

I am seeing a lot of hate here, and I am starting to think it's the distros that are the problem, and not KDE itself. I've never had any issues with KDE at all, and I've been using it since it was released for Slackware a good while back. No problems what so ever!

Loved KDE, but had to leave

[faster]

I'll check this out, but I'm betting the bloat is still there. Nepomuk and its family are probably still required. I don't want or need it but it insists on running a MySQL server and piles of other daemons.

I used KDE from about 2000 to the end of 2010, then tried Awesome (too minimal for me, but interesting and FAST) and LXDE (no sessions?) before settling on Gnome. I don't love Gnome (and probably never will), but it works and I have reasonably fine-grained control over its bloatedness.