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KDE 4.6.3 Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the new-and-shiny dept.

jrepin writes "KDE has released a series of updates to the Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, the KDE Applications and the KDE Frameworks. This update is the second in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.6 series. 4.6.3 brings many bugfixes and translation updates."

105 comments

  1. Dedicated to: by Ancantus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It isn't mentioned in the summery, but:

    The 4.6.3 release is dedicated in memory of the young daughter of KDE developer Daniel Nicoletti who tragically passed away after a car crash last month. The KDE community wishes to express their deepest sympathy and support to Daniel and his family in this difficult time.

    Kinda nice, I am not to familiar with the KDE release cycles, do they dedicate every release?

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Isaac Asimov
    1. Re:Dedicated to: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they are doing a bug fix release every month. This must be a coincidence.

    2. Re:Dedicated to: by RPoet · · Score: 2

      It's happened before, but very rarely. Notably it happened for KDE 4.1.

      --
      "Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
    3. Re:Dedicated to: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jesus Christ asshole, a girl dies and you're all "lol, bug fix!". Go back under your bridge.

    4. Re:Dedicated to: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, no, but you can make it a regular by going and killing more daughters!
      *BADUM-TISH*
      <robotic-voice>AAAWWWKWAAAARRRDDDD!<robotic-voice>

    5. Re:Dedicated to: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On average 1.8 people die a second:
      http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/pcwe

      FWIW your usage of "Jesus Christ" in your remark is also offensive to many people.

      You're probably a worse asshole than average, so maybe YOU should go back under your bridge.

    6. Re:Dedicated to: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hises such as Daniel and Uwe tend not to be girls

  2. Boring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm tired of the 4.x user interface. It's so 2000's. When is KDE going to completely overhaul it's outdated legacy design and make the whole desktop work like my smartphone?? I want sliders and swoopy bars and stuff.

    1. Re:Boring by blair1q · · Score: 1

      This.

      Also, it's dishonest of UI demos to be festooned with pretty pictures that make them look a lot more sharp and slick than they are. I have to stare at them until the novelty of the background wears off, and I can get a sense for what the controls will look-and-feel like.

    2. Re:Boring by jadrian · · Score: 1

      That's part of the point of "activities". KDE should provide you different interfaces for different tasks. If you go to the cashew and select "activities" you have a few activity templates available, such as the "search & launch". So far nothing very interesting is available, but to be fair from what I understand the internals only recently became usable, so I'd expect the situation to slowly change.

    3. Re:Boring by clang_jangle · · Score: 1

      If you go to the cashew...

      As soon as I saw they had something everyone calls a "cashew" it was clear to me they haven't found their way yet. "Go to the cashew"? Cashew?

      What are those guys smoking?

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    4. Re:Boring by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 1

      Install plasma-netbook. Voila! You have a small-screen optimised desktop with flashy graphics, large icons, etc.

      Works quite nicely on 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions. But not so nice on 1920x1080. :)

      GNOME-Shell and Unity are only just now catching up to something that's been available in KDE for a few releases now. ;)

  3. KDE is really good now.. by kvvbassboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    KDE has improved *greatly* since its 4.4.x days. It is a lot snappier, less buggy and doesn't clutter up your desktop like it used to. With the rapid changes in various desktops, I tried working with the Gnome shell, Unity and KDE on my laptop, and found that KDE is the only one out of these which doesn't get in my way.

    It definitely will not run on older computers, but it runs great on my 3 year old laptop with intel built in graphics chipset and 4 GB ram. I highly recommend KDE to someone who wants to upgrade from gnome 2.32 but doesn't like gnome shell or unity.

    PS: I still run Gnome 2 on my desktop. IMO, it's the most efficient in terms of resources:features.

    1. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does kde 4 still have desktop folders enabled as default? or that unusable applications menu?

    2. Re:KDE is really good now.. by ustolemyname · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I threw an extra gig of ram (total: 1.5) into a 2005 compaq lappy, and was incredibly surprised by the snappiness of the platform.

    3. Re:KDE is really good now.. by kvvbassboy · · Score: 2

      Yea.. but the desktop folders is actually more usable now. For instance, you can copy-paste stuff onto it. (Pretty sure you couldn't do that in earlier versions).

      As for the applications menu, I reverted to the classic. So yea, the applications menu is not up to the mark yet. But, it's not worse off than alternatives in other DEs.

    4. Re:KDE is really good now.. by tyrione · · Score: 0

      Doesn't get in your way? How ironic. It's the reason I switched to GNOME 3 and the Gnome Shell. It's the minimalist look that isn't KDE with that abortion called Plasma I don't miss. Don't get me wrong, I still use the same KDE apps [Kate for instance] in Gnome 3 shell but now I'm not stuck dealing with all the resources used for Plasma. Gawd I can't stand that crap.

    5. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Timmmm · · Score: 2

      Does it still have the irremovable 'kidney bean' on the desktop?

    6. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got a 5 year old dell laptop with barely 1 GB of RAM (didn't come with that but upgraded it; 1 GB was the max for the mobo but it has crappy intel built-in graphics that robs some RAM).

      Despite being that old, Kubuntu 11.04 is FLYING on it. It looks snappy, responsive and beautiful. This is out of the box; I didn't tweak anything or turn off Nepomuk or whatever other crazy things some people try to get the footprint low as possible. I'm a big fan of a lot of KDE's software programs and really enjoy using them (kate is a great little editor for scripts, and working in math I'm actually fond of Kmplot to quickly make nice plots, as basic examples).

      I say, EVEN if its older computers, give it a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how far its come from its initial release, and it has an exciting future still ahead.

    7. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > KDE has improved *greatly* since its 4.4.x days. It is a lot snappier, less buggy and doesn't clutter up your desktop like it used to.

      I agree - it has come a long ways. 4.0 was an epic clusterfuck, but 4.6 is really pretty slick. There are a few problems yet of course, but it's overall quite nice.

      But what worries me is that KDE seems to be on the decline as far as how many people use it. Most distros have moved to gnome, with a few exceptions, and Linux novices have no idea it even exists. Given that it is, IMHO the best Linux integrated desktop environment at the moment, this is a real shame.

      It's also about the only remaining Linux DE with a lot of exposed customization. Everything is is on this trend of, "You'll take what we give you". KDE, I can tune to be what *I* want more easily than any other I have seen.

      So, from the 4.0 days that made me curse it after how nice 3.5 was, I have to say, they have me hooked again.

    8. Re:KDE is really good now.. by cababunga · · Score: 1

      I still run Gnome 2 on my desktop. IMO, it's the most efficient in terms of resources:features.

      You should definitely try Xfce and LXDE. They are both click-click configurable and much lighter then GNOME.

    9. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Hatta · · Score: 3, Informative

      I threw KDE 4.6.something on a spare C2D box on a fresh install of Arch. That lasted about 2 minutes, as there was appreciable lag (at least half a second) switching between the tabs at the bottom of the app menu.

      I would not call KDE 4.6 snappy by any stretch of the imagination. On the same machine, I can open as many windows as I want and still switch virtual desktops faster than it takes to redraw the screen. There's no excuse for any GUI element to take longer than a vblank interval to draw.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    10. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Hatta · · Score: 1

      It's also about the only remaining Linux DE with a lot of exposed customization.

      Don't forget about Awesome. It's nothing but exposed customization.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    11. Re:KDE is really good now.. by kvvbassboy · · Score: 1

      True. But, as far as lightweight desktops go, I am more of an openbox person. ;)

    12. Re:KDE is really good now.. by cababunga · · Score: 1

      That's what LXDE is using by default (at least on Fedora 15). I was happily surprised that same GTK themes are supported by both LXDE (icons and pointers) and Openbox (window decorations).

    13. Re:KDE is really good now.. by oakgrove · · Score: 3, Informative

      I personally think Kde4 is fantastic and I'd be thrilled to use it for more than the 5 minutes it always takes me before I scuttle off back to Gnome were it not for one thing. The kickoff menu is a complete disaster. Tabs lining the bottom and a complete click and delayed hoverfest to find anything. it's pure abomination. And the classic menu omits the one thing that makes the new menu useable: instant search. Lancelot is terrible too, imho. If there were just a good menu for the panel, I'd be using kde. until then, Gnome 2.32 for me.

      --
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    14. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe there's a plasmoid you can replace it with that's the old style menu.

      Anyway, it's really snappy for me on both my old (2003) laptop and a recent (2010) netbook.

    15. Re:KDE is really good now.. by praxis · · Score: 1

      Xmonad has the best feature to resource ratio for my uses. Very customizable, very unobtrusive, very fast. I don't really need much else to manage my desktop.

    16. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 1

      KDE has improved *greatly* since its 4.4.x days. It is a lot snappier, less buggy and doesn't clutter up your desktop like it used to.

      Mostly true, however I made the mistake of upgrading to Unbuntu 11.04 day before yesterday and besides trashing my Catalyst driver unrecoverably I now have a really nasty new bug: mouse clicks stop working for all widgets except window decorations, usually once each day on resume.

      I have some less than polite comments about how Ubuntu version upgrades also force install the latest bleeding edge kernel without asking, but that only cost a couple of hours while this new KDE bug constantly forces me to restart the desktop. Sigh.

      And don't ask me why I'm posting my bug report to Slashdot ;-)

      Completely agree, KDE is the only desktop that just does its job and doesn't try to force me into some flavor of the month weirdo man machine interface experiment. All is forgiven.

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    17. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 1

      I completely ignore Plasma and that works fine for me. One day maybe I'll play with it and find out why it was worth taking such a PR hit over. Or not. In the mean time it doesn't get in my way and that is why I like KDE.

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      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
    18. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      yea ok I find just the opposite, see I have been on a Linux kick, trying to get away from the canned distros like ubuntu and mint, so I get a system built and use KDE and WTF

      you know when you have a broken desktop method when the user spends the first moments with a new system on google trying to figure out how to get a normal and functioning desktop, and I still cant move the bloody icons once there, yes, great, first time using KDE in a long time and I am on google hopelessly trying to figure out how to click and drag a fucking icon ...

      Older hardware seems to be at a whim, my test machine is a AMD64 @ 2.0 ghz, 2gig of ddr1 ram and a agp8x Geforce 7800GT, and while its mostly fine it really does not take but a couple of actions happening in a short time where you can start to watch it choke. Most trolls would tell me to turn off all the extra shit, but you know what? KDE without the bonus ui crap is just a wonky LXDE to me, and this same machine has windows 7 loaded up on it and runs like a oiled up stripper down a pole, whats the problem?

      I also find gnome to be getting in the way, and as of this point I am just keeping linux mint 10 with LXDE, and unless someone wants a cutting edge desktop with bling and widgets I would recommend it

    19. Re:KDE is really good now.. by johnsnails · · Score: 1

      Yep, My sis bought a refurbished craptop and had nothing but issues with it with windows, i didnt put kde on it (maybe I will) but same results with ubuntu 10.10, very snappy and everything worked amazing, wobbly windows, 3g modem, sound etc. She could not believe how much of a pleasure her laptop could be, also she gets less animal porn popups now

    20. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you could use xmonad with kde

    21. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

      Fun fact! KDE runs pretty great on my 7 year old laptop with Intel built in graphics and 1.5 GB RAM.

    22. Re:KDE is really good now.. by yuri+benjamin · · Score: 1

      > KDE has improved *greatly* since its 4.4.x days. It is a lot snappier, less buggy and doesn't clutter up your desktop like it used to.

      [snip]

      So, from the 4.0 days that made me curse it after how nice 3.5 was, I have to say, they have me hooked again.

      4.0 is what made me ditch KDE. Now running gnome-based LinuxMint and loving it. I might try KDE again in a few years, but I was badly burnt by moving from 3.5.x to 4.0 so there will have to be a compelling reason to go back.

      --
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    23. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alt+f2. You can search for anything and open it instantly. As an added bonus it does unit conversion, math and even algebra( =solve(x^2+2x+1=0,x) will give you the roots)

    24. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try alt-F2 and start typing the name of your app, then enter (either gnome or KDE) and you'll rarely have to deal with the desktop menus at all (and it's much quicker/easier).

    25. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      It definitely will not run on older computers

      I dunno man, I'm running 4.6 on a Pentium D with Intel graphics and 2 Gb of RAM, and I'm doing fine. Desktop effects and the whole shebang.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    26. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      As for the applications menu, I reverted to the classic.

      Have you tried Lancelot? I quite like it. Although really, I tend to access my programs and stuff mostly through Krunner these days.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    27. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      It's the minimalist look that isn't KDE

      Shut up, troll.

      that abortion called Plasma

      I don't even have a link, but you don't have an argument, so we're even. Shut up, troll.

      all the resources used for Plasma.

      My five year old Pentium D desktop and I say "citation needed." Also, "Shut up, troll."

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    28. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      Awesome is not a desktop environment.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    29. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      Well, since 4.0 the KDE team has given you 6.3 compelling reasons. Pick one. Stop hurting yourself with Gnome.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    30. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      What the hell are your specs? I'm running KDE 4.6 on Arch (and on a beater box at that), and it is much more than acceptably fast over here.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    31. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      As others have noted, Krunner is great. Also, if you really need the menu replacement, try Lancelot.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    32. Re:KDE is really good now.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is a widget you can install to hide it. obviously it's a bit of an ugly work around, but the desired result is the same.

  4. Re:Is it as good... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes and no. It's got at least a few features that I'd say are improvements, but for the most part they're not as fleshed out as they were in 3.5. It sounds like you won't like 4.x unless they literally turn it back into 3.x so you might want to look for another environment all together. As I use gentoo I've been stuck on 4.4 forever, but in briefly using newer versions, I didn't see any compelling changes. I still miss Kasbar and .. well Amorok is a disaster (still not sold on Clementine).

  5. Not very interesting by horza · · Score: 1

    The list of changes look pretty minimal. Not really interesting unless you use Kopete. Much as I enjoy KDE 4, Unity looks interesting. Give it another couple of months for KDE to release their next version, and for Unity to shake out some of the kinks, and it could be worth upgrading to Natty.

    Phillip.

    --
    Property for sale in Nice, France
    1. Re:Not very interesting by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      Not really interesting unless you use Kopete.

      Oof.. Their naming drives me nuts. It just looks like they misspelled Kaopectate

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    2. Re:Not very interesting by W1sdOm_tOOth · · Score: 1

      ...or kaputt....

      --
      If you're not confused, you're not paying attention
    3. Re:Not very interesting by MonsterTrimble · · Score: 2

      Seriously, KDE developers needs to throw some time into the plugin selection or just say 'Screw it - we're porting Empathy'. Kopete still has a lot to offer over Pidgin & Empathy including video, mutliple identities and a clean, nice looking interface! The issue I see (beyond the Akonadi / Nepomuk fiasco) is that there are only a few plugins for Kopete when there are literally hundreds of plugins for Pidgin. Plugins like Bot Sentry and the ability to sort contact by the chat log size. These are indispensible and the only way Kopete has a hope in hell of surviving.

      --
      I call it 'The Aristocrats'
  6. Of course they did... by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

    Of course they just released a new version of KDE. Ubuntu shipped last month.

    1. Re:Of course they did... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Of course they just released a new version of KDE. Ubuntu shipped last month.

      How dare they not rush it out the door months earlier to give the Ubuntu guys extra time to screw it up.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:Of course they did... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the point being made was that Ubuntu tends to always ship the month prior to releases of gnome and kde while everybody else waits for the new release. It's not a slam against KDE, it's a slam against Ubuntu.

    3. Re:Of course they did... by dangDungDong · · Score: 1

      It's just a bugfix release. KDE has monthly scheduled maintainance releases since last year.

  7. Netbooks, too. by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

    It also works quite well on netbooks with 1gb or ram, using the KDE netbook interface.

  8. Not news by diegocg · · Score: 2

    This is a minor release...

    1. Re:Not news by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      The Seventh Law Of Slashdot: Whether the topic is a KDE bugfix release or the death of Osama bin Laden, some asshole will say "this is not news."

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
  9. I wonder. by Beelzebud · · Score: 1

    I wonder if Dolphin can auto-mount samba shares yet. Even Thunar does that these days.

    1. Re:I wonder. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      y u no use fstab?

    2. Re:I wonder. by gnud · · Score: 2

      Well, you can browse the local SMB network with ease - and all KDE programs can read/write to SMB shares automagically.

    3. Re:I wonder. by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Use SMB4K.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    4. Re:I wonder. by d6 · · Score: 1

      I wonder if Dolphin runs any better than explorer.exe yet. I've been fed up enough to change my installs back to Konq...

    5. Re:I wonder. by Damnshock · · Score: 1

      And surprisingly konqueror uses a dolphin kpart for file management...

    6. Re:I wonder. by d6 · · Score: 1

      Reagrdless of any shared code, one behaves much better than the other

      - Konq saw a network share that I have to manually mount with dolphin (no big deal really)
      - Konq hasn't crashed once since I changed back. Dolphin locked up regularly. (this was the big deal)

    7. Re:I wonder. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try qtfm, closest thing to a 'explorer like' filemanager I've found, and its tiny and fast!

    8. Re:I wonder. by Beelzebud · · Score: 1

      And what if I want to use superior programs than the KDE programs? It should be about choice, not what the KDE team feels I should be using. gvfs is open source, I'm not sure why they don't just use it.

  10. Still got some bugs/"features" by xiando · · Score: 1

    ..yay, let's have a global proxy setting for everything and force that on everything. KDE & Gnome developers both seem to thing that's brilliant. Except.. configure konqueror to use say privoxy and poff, kopete doesn't work anymore. this has been an open bug for several years and I guess pr. proxy app support will be added.. never. great. the panel auto-hide feature actually hides the panel since 4.6.2, so some things are improving. I don't like plasma much, switched to xfce due to that, but the KDE apps I use are mostly nice and stable. except the whole kdepim mess, who got the great idea to release that on a different schedule?

    --
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  11. Compared to v3.5.10? by antdude · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it a lot better than v3.5.10?

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    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    1. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd say it has approximate feature parity, and is "slicker" in a lot of ways. I was sceptical when 4.0 appeared, and it took a while, but 4.6 is the first one where I can honestly say I don't miss much from 3.5.

      Now, there are some things you have to tweak. For example Dolphin is nowhere near what Konquerer was as a file system explorer GUI, especially with the Filelight plugin to Konq. But you can get that back easily enough just by changing some stuff in the settings. As long as they don't force Dolphin down my throat, it's all good.

      Give it a shot, I'd say, if you're still back on 3.5.x.
       

    2. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it a lot better than v3.5.10?

      No. It is a dog in terms of speed on pretty much any Intel Graphics chip. I am relegated to using Xfce on my laptops.

      KDE 4.6 is great on my FreeBSD box with the binary blog nVidia driver. Probably the most responsive thing outside of Windows.

    3. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's gotta be an issue with your gfx drivers though. Its quite snappy on my ancient (~2003) lappy with ATI gfx and the ATI binary blob. I believe what you say, I just wouldn't blame it on KDE.

    4. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try qtfm, so much better than dolphin, just does the stuff you want out of a file browser.

    5. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

      Quaff the fucking manual? (Yeah, yeah, I know, but that really was the first thing that popped into my head.)

    6. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your mileage may vary, but to me it surpassed 3.5.x over a year ago...

    7. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by RichiH · · Score: 1

      Actually, ever since 4.5, things have been OK. 4.6 is really stable and has reached feature parity. Or will have once they fix the bug that makes you unable to use the classic mouse pointers without resetting them every time you log in.

      Why, KDE 4 even has quadkonsole now (not in mainline, yet), something that has been missing since 3.2!

      I used to be a _strong_ proponent of sticking to KDE 3, I even stuck my work computer to Debian stable instead of sid to keep 3.5.10. But really, you can switch now. It's OK.

      All that being said, KDE 4 uses an incredible amount of resources when compared to KDE 3. You want LXDE, Fluxbox or similar on an older Laptop. Point in case, I upgraded my Thinkpad X31 from KDE 4.4 to LXDE. Pity, really.

    8. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Noughmad · · Score: 1

      I run it on my laptop with Intel graphics, and it's quite responsive even with all sorts of 3D-stuff (like desktop cube) enabled.

      My problem with KDE is not speed, but startup time, it seems to take forever from when the splash screen disappears to a usable desktop.

      --
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    9. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by A12m0v · · Score: 1

      You can still use Konqueror.

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    10. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      I think Dolphin's fine. But mostly I use Krusader.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    11. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      You are absolutely doing it wrong. I'm running a Pentium D with Intel graphics and 2 gigs of ram, and I run 4.6 fine, desktop effects on, the whole shebang. What distribution are you using?

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    12. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 1

      Uhm, "quadkonsole" has been available since the first tabbed interface was added to Konsole. Just split the view horizontally, then split each of those vertically. Voila! 4 shells in one window, with only 1 menu bar and title bar. Save that as the default profile and your normal Konsole is now "quadkonsole". No fancy add-ons, extras, whatever required.

      And, if you are crazy, you can keep on splitting the view to get as many mini-shells onscreen at once as you want.

    13. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by RichiH · · Score: 1

      Obviously, you did not actually try splitting in Konsole and merely saw that the option exists.

      It's totally and utterly broken.

    14. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 1

      Broken how? It's worked perfectly fine for me the few times I've used it. Usually only split the screen once (horizontally or vertically), but I split it into 4 before posting.

      So, how exactly is it broken?

    15. Re:Compared to v3.5.10? by RichiH · · Score: 1

      Split any way you want, start typing.

      You will type in all splits at once. Not quite useful.

  12. And OpenSUSE 11.4 is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...fantastic!

    I have absolutely no idea why Ubunti gets the paudits when there is the KDE-bases OpenSUSE to be had.

    1. Re:And OpenSUSE 11.4 is... by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 1

      Ubuntu bunnies breed faster.

      Seriously, I should revisit Suse considering my preference for KDE. Especially now that they are out from under the thumb of certain Novell VPs whose names I will not mention because it makes me spit.

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
  13. WTF? by xtracto · · Score: 0

    N sryybj obhtug n arj pne, n Avffna, naq jnf dhvgr unccl jvgu uvf chepunfr. Ur jnf fbzrguvat bs na navzvfg, ubjrire, naq sryg gung gur pne ernyyl bhtug gb unir n anzr. Guvf cerfragrq n ceboyrz, nf ur jnf abg fher vs gur anzr fubhyq or znfphyvar be srzvavar. Nsgre pbafvqrenoyr gubhtug, ur frggyrq ba na anzvat gur pne rvgure Orypunmne be Ornhznqvar, ohg erznvarq va n dhnaqel nobhg gur svany pubvpr. "Vf n Avffna znyr be srznyr?" ur ortna nfxvat uvf sevraqf. Zbfg bs gurz ybbxrq ng uvz crphyneyl, zhzoyrq guvatf nobhg hetrag nccbvagzragf, naq jrag ba gurve jnl engure dhvpxyl. Ur svanyyl oebnpurq gur dhrfgvba gb n ynql ur xarj jub uryq n oynpx oryg va whqb. Fur gubhtug sbe n zbzrag naq nafjrerq "Srzvavar." Gur fjvsgarff bs ure erfcbafr chmmyrq uvz. "Lbh'er fher bs gung?" ur nfxrq. "Pregnvayl," fur ercyvrq. "Gurl jbhyqa'g fryy irel jryy vs gurl jrer znfphyvar." "Hauuu... Jryy, jul abg?" "Orpnhfr crbcyr jnag n pne jvgu n erchgngvba sbe tbvat jura lbh jnag vg gb. Naq, vs Avffna'f ner srznyr, vg'f yvxr gurl fnl... `Rnpu Avffna, fur tb!'" [Ab, jr JBA'G rkcynva vg; tb nfx fbzrbar jub cenpgvprf na bevragny znegvny neg. (Gnv Puv Puhna cebonoyl qbrfa'g pbhag.) Rq.] % Nyvdhvq zryvhf dhnz crffvzhz bcgvzhz aba rfg. % Qre Ubevmbag ivryre Zrafpura vfg rva Xervf zvg Enqvhf Ahyy -- haq qnf araara fvr vuera Fgnaqchaxg. % Rtb fhz raf bzavcbgraf. % Sbefna rg unrp byvz zrzvavffr whinovg. % Ubqvr anghf rfg enqvpv sengre. % Ubav fbvg yn inpur dhv evg. % Xyngh onenqn avxgb. % Zvrhk inhg gneq dhr wnznvf! % Divq zr nakvif fiz? % Enssvavreg vfg qre Ureetbgg nore obfunsg vfg re avpug. -- Nyoreg Rvafgrva % Ertanag cbchyv. % frzcre ra rkperghf % FRZCRE HOV FHO HOV!!!! % fvyyrzn fvyyrzn avxn fh % Fhnivgre va zbqb, sbegvgre va er. Fr aba r ireb, r ora gebingb. % Fhz dhbq revf. % Gbhg pubfrf fbag qvgrf qrwn, znvf pbzzr crefbaar a'rpbhgr, vy snhg gbhwbhef erpbzzrapre. -- N. Tvqr % Ireon ibynag, fpevcgn znarag! %

    --
    Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    1. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's ROT13 encoded:

      "A fellow bought a new car, a Nissan, and was quite happy with his purchase. He was something of an animist, however, and felt that the car really ought to have a name. This presented a problem, as he was not sure if the name should be masculine or feminine. After considerable thought, he settled on an naming the car either Belchazar or Beaumadine, but remained in a quandry about the final choice. "Is a Nissan male or female?" he began asking his friends. Most of them looked at him pecularly, mumbled things about urgent appointments, and went on their way rather quickly. He finally broached the question to a lady he knew who held a black belt in judo. She thought for a moment and answered "Feminine." The swiftness of her response puzzled him. "You're sure of that?" he asked. "Certainly," she replied. "They wouldn't sell very well if they were masculine." "Unhhh... Well, why not?" "Because people want a car with a reputation for going when you want it to. And, if Nissan's are female, it's like they say... `Each Nissan, she go!'" [No, we WON'T explain it; go ask someone who practices an oriental martial art. (Tai Chi Chuan probably doesn't count.) Ed.] % Aliquid melius quam pessimum optimum non est. % Der Horizont vieler Menschen ist ein Kreis mit Radius Null -- und das nennen sie ihren Standpunkt. % Ego sum ens omnipotens. % Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. % Hodie natus est radici frater. % Honi soit la vache qui rit. % Klatu barada nikto. % Mieux vaut tard que jamais! % Qvid me anxivs svm? % Raffiniert ist der Herrgott aber boshaft ist er nicht. -- Albert Einstein % Regnant populi. % semper en excretus % SEMPER UBI SUB UBI!!!! % sillema sillema nika su % Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. Se non e vero, e ben trovato. % Sum quod eris. % Tout choses sont dites deja, mais comme personne n'ecoute, il faut toujours recommencer. -- A. Gide % Verba volant, scripta manent! %"

      Why is it there at the bottom of the page? That, I don't know.

    2. Re:WTF? by Filip22012005 · · Score: 1

      Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit
      This is from Dante's Inferno.

      --
      When the policeman of the tie, rule you violate, hello punishment of the kitty?
  14. Re:Is it as good... by FeepingCreature · · Score: 1

    You can configure Amarok2 to look almost like Amarok1 by switching off the context pane, enabling the Slim toolbar (and moving it to the bottom) and disabling album grouping under playlist->playlist layouts.

  15. Fix cmd line geometry to apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Being able to pass geometry to apps such as konsole from the cmd line has been broken for many releases. There are lots of bugs posted and lots of comments about "this should be fixed". And yet release after release it isn't fixed. From the comments on various sites this feature is greatly missed.

    I've started digging into it before but it crosses through a lot of code where it is unclear to me what the "right" way to do it is. I'm more of a kernel guy -- I haven't worked in the bowels of X for 10+ years.

  16. Not phonon... by Junta · · Score: 1

    So playing video back from SMB shares won't work by clicking in dolphin. A *lot* of KDE tries to induce a copy to local disk before *starting* to open, which is useless when the file is many gigs. Of course, if you want to use a non-KDE app because it's better or the only one, the KDE developers *should* consider that problem (even though I've seen them express the rather foolish sentiment that it's not their problem).

    kioslaves *were* great, then gvfs came along and went the extra mmile of FUSE integration and suddenly kioslaves were far from the sensible approach.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  17. Is this an alpha/beta release or a real one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm just curious, because the kde team has taught us that version numbers mean nothing.

    1. Re:Is this an alpha/beta release or a real one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Minor bug fix. Though, ideally it should really be 4.1 stable.

  18. Frankly... who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After the utter mess of early KDE4 releases, I'm scarred forever. To the point where I've been running Windows 7 on my everyday machine for months. 21 days uptime on an everyday-use box, and no issues whatsoever - as much as I hate to say it.

    Of course, it's not just down to KDE. Sure we all know the earlier releases weren't really releases, but sadly the majori distributions jumped on them too quickly. I had to abandon KDE3.5 after using Linux on the desktop every day since 2002 or so, because bugs weren't being fixed and distributions were too quick to jump.

    Plus - and this is the big one - Amarok was utter pants when it switched to version 2.

    So, congratulations to KDE and pickyerdistrowiththelatestnumbers - you managed to turn a pretty keen fan into a Windows convert. I don't care if things are better now - the entire thing was borked for far too long. The year of Linux on the desktop is near... indeed.

  19. Debian stale.. by ThePhish · · Score: 1

    ...and Debian won't see this in sta(b)le until 2013.

  20. Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi by KWTm · · Score: 1

    Speaking of Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi, I'm going to jump in with a not-very-on-topic question about the KDE system that's going to display my ignorance:

    What the heck is Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi, and how does it affect me as a user? Every explanation I've found has been too abstract to relate to.

    As far as I can tell, "Akonadi" = "You must have MySQL installed or else KDE is completely unusable. Oops, sorry if you already had a running MySQL system set up --we're going to take it over now."

    "Strigi" = "If you pre-label all your 'family heirloom-related' files as 'family heirloom-related', then KDE will be able to identify them as 'family heirloom-related' even if the file name is a mundane-seeming 'test.txt'. Impressive, huh? Unfortunately, if you don't pre-label your files, then this feature is completely useless. Go use grep instead if you're looking for info within the files."

    "Nepomuk" = "No bloody idea. What the heck is this, anyway?"

    I'm being facetious, of course, but can someone please explain how these buzzword-loaded features make KDE easier to use for me? Thanks.

    --
    404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
    [GPG key in journal]
    1. Re:Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi by gardyloo · · Score: 1

      Facetious or not, you seem to be spot-on with each of those points. That junk has given me fits each time I've installed KDE on a computer. It's not getting in my way quite as much now, but it sure isn't doing me any favors.

    2. Re:Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > "Nepomuk" = "No bloody idea. What the heck is this, anyway?"

      What, you mean you can't tell what it is from the name??

    3. Re:Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi by Ralphus+Maximus · · Score: 1

      As far as I can tell, "Akonadi" = "You must have MySQL installed or else KDE is completely unusable. Oops, sorry if you already had a running MySQL system set up --we're going to take it over now."

      Akonadi also has the excellent feature of refusing to run just after you import all your contacts into KAddressBook. Usually, the only fix is to completely nuke Akonadi and Kontact, reinstall, and start all over.

      Fun times. :)

      Cheers,
      RM

      --
      Nobody's as dumb, as I appear to be
    4. Re:Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure if this will ever be read but:

      Akonadi is a back-end service for PIM data and metadata. It's used for fetching and sending data instead of applications, who in their turn can retrieve the specific data they need from Akonadi. The application itself is made up of viewers and editors which display data to the users and let them bang in their stuff. Metadata created by applications are also supported, so you don't have to create all of it in person.

      Strigi can not only help you find your files based on content rather than filename, but also help you find duplicated based on sha1 hashes. It's also used to populate the Akonadi/Nepomuk database automatically, something which would be extremely tedious otherwise...

      Nepomuk is a project to annotate and link various kinds of information without being impeded by differences in file formats, applications and so on, as well as building a search database containing your data/metadata that Akonadi in turn draws from. As such Nepomuk not only indexes the stuff, but also tracks how exactly all these pieces of information relates to each other, and thus is an essential part of tying together internal data and the "Activities", as their context changes.

      For a good example of how all this ties together see the media player "Bangarang", which also happens to use another of the "pillars of kde", phonon.

      Personally I think nepomuk should probably never have gotten as much airtime as it has; it's ill-named, and WAY too abstract for most people to grasp, so it tends to automatically fall into the "I don't understand it and because of that I'll hate it, since at least I won't feel stupid if I'm angry instead" category.

      Disclaimer; I'm not a KDE developer, but a long time user, and what's above is what I've gathered while trying to figure out how things work. Hopefully I didn't get too much wrong.

    5. Re:Nepomuk / Akonadi / Strigi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I noob-rage-quit Kubuntu completely because I couldn't figure out how to remove/deactivate all of the weirdly-named 'Semantic Desktop' filth that is smeared all over KDE.

      I ran to Kubuntu in the first place to get away from Unity.

      I am now using Linux Mint, but it's too Irish.

      The quest continues..

  21. KDE3.5 isn't dead... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://en.opensuse.org/KDE3 - Yes, you can install KDE3 on openSUSE 11.2+.

    http://www.trinitydesktop.org/ - Attempting to take up where KDE 3.5.10 left off. Only supporting Debian/Ubuntu and Slack, so far, but it's a start.

  22. Re:Is it as good... by RichiH · · Score: 1

    Key word: almost.

  23. It’s always particularly good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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