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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."
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.
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.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
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.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
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.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
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.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
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.