KDE 4.8 RC 1 Now Available

jrepin writes with this quote from an article at Phoronix: "Just in time for some holiday testing, the KDE SC 4.8 Release Candidate is now available. The final release of KDE 4.8 is about one month away, but now the release candidate is available to ensure it shapes up to be a solid release. Among the features of KDE Software Compilation 4.8 is support for Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces, quite visible improvements to the Dolphin file-manager, KSecretService is now available as a shared password storage pool, and there's many performance improvements. Lots of bug fixes (measured in hundreds) can also be found in KDE 4.8."

Comments

Serious Question

[CastrTroy]

Serious Question

Which major distributions still come with KDE as the default option. There used to be Mandrake/Mandriva, but that's pretty dead now. I guess Fedora and RedHat still use it, but RedHat is mostly for servers, so the desktop doesn't really matter that much, and I don't hear much about Fedora anymore. Seems like KDE is still very actively developed, but you have to go out of your way (Kubuntu) to even use it.

Re:Serious Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Slackware uses KDE as default

Re:Serious Question

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenSUSE uses it as the default desktop. That is probably your best bet as many KDE developers are using that distro.

I prefer the Fedora KDE spin as the nicest distro, but I am partial to yum.

Other notable distros using KDE by default: Pardus, Chakra, Slackware, PC-BSD.

Re:Serious Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Slackware uses KDE as default

Yep, Slackware threw out the window GNOME many years ago, all the while keeping those 3-4 GTK+ useful applications.
The best decision they ever took. A pity some major distros never followed suit.

Re:Serious Question

[icebike]

OpenSuse, Kubuntu, and several others not cloned off of Ubuntu come with KDE. Some have it as the first choice, but not all are so single minded as to not offer a choice like Ubuntu.

You don't have to go out of your way, you just have to expand your horizon beyond your little Ubuntu world.

Re:Serious Question

[Outtascope]

Kubuntu is hardly going "out of your way to use it".

Re:Serious Question

[tomstockmail]

Sabayon has a KDE version that's very good on updates and default configuration. Sabayon is based on Gentoo but doesn't do all of the compiling. Yes, that negates the advantage Gentoo had but you still get the rolling release and you can still use portage if needed.

Re:Serious Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because "nobody" knows about KUbuntu. People getting into Linux for the first time pick Ubuntu, because that's what they've heard about, and they have no idea that Kubuntu even exists, let alone what it means, what Unity is, what KDE is, what Gnome is, or anything else that you take for granted.

The end result is that people are getting an exposure to "Linux" thinking "Linux = Unity", and by implication, "Linux sucks - this is garbage". They could, instead, be getting exposed to KDE, which does not suck, but the Ubuntu maintainers are too proud to admit that they have made a mistake, even with overwhelming feedback from the community.

Don't take YOUR level of linux knowledge as representative of everyone's. Most people have no idea that unlike most OSs, you can pick different desktop environments like KDE or Gnome or XFCE. It isn't something they necessarily even want to understand. If it's more complex than "Push this single download button" on your distro's download page, then in a very real sense people DO have to go out of their way to get KDE. And they don't know that they can, by and large.

Re:Serious Question

[Kjella]

Some have it as the first choice, but not all are so single minded as to not offer a choice like Ubuntu.

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop and log in to KDE. All the *buntu variants actually point to the same repositories, you pick one during download but if you want more they're an apt-get away. I'd call it one less confusing step for a new user, how should he know how to answer? Give him the defaults of what he downloaded and trust that power users can use 30 seconds on Google to find out...

Re:Serious Question

[Jane Q. Public]

I agree with Kjella. Ubuntu does offer a choice, and it's called Kubuntu.

And if you install regular Ubuntu with Unity and don't like it (and most people don't, I think), then install KDE and you're good to go in a few short minutes.

Re:Serious Question

[icebike]

Some have it as the first choice, but not all are so single minded as to not offer a choice like Ubuntu.

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop and log in to KDE.

Reading comprehension 101:

Offering a choice means being given a selection of desktops to to install when you are installing.
Suse does it.
Slackware does it.
Fedora does it.

Ubuntu can't be bothered.

I find it condescending how you suggest offering "no choice" at install time is somehow protecting the new user.
The new user may be years away from doing an apt-get. But they can pick from a list, because they have all been to a Restaurant in the past.

Re:Serious Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by how Unity turned out, I think they felt that Gnome 3 wasn't crippled, frustrating, or slow enough.

Re:Serious Question

[Belial6]

You have the choice both before and after installation. If you know before you do the install, then you just use the Kubuntu install disk. If you decide after the install, you run the apt-get command. Having only two point that you make the choice instead of 3 doesn't mean there is not choice.

Re:Serious Question

[unixisc]

PC-BSD. Version 9 is the first that offers one a choice of GNOME, KDE, LXDE and XFCE as fully integrated DEs, while Awesome, Enlightenment, IceWM, ScrotWM and WindowMaker are available, but not fully integrated - one probably has to use the CUI to run the BSD utilities on them. But aside from that, those too will work.

Then there are all the other distros mentioned above. And typically, while Gnome may be the default, most distros, during installation, offer one the option of installing KDE instead.

Re:Serious Question

[Kjella]

The new user may be years away from doing an apt-get. But they can pick from a list, because they have all been to a Restaurant in the past.

It'll do about as much good as an untranslated Thai menu, people know what food is when they order. Okay, so you've decided that you should try this "Linux" thing. But, wait there's so many distros like OpenSuse, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Mint but okay most recommend Ubuntu. But wait, even if you've picked Ubuntu they're still going go give you a choice of GNOME, KDE, XFCE and maybe even some more obscure ones and I dare you to explain that as simply as you could a menu of beef, chicken and fish. Okay so it's not a big thing but too many applications decide to put the user at a crossroads, here I need you to take some apparently important decision before you can even begin using it. If you already know you'd like it to behave differently than the default it should be easy to find a settings or options menu, if you don't then making you take some kind of choice more or less on random isn't actually helping anyone. It's just intimidating to the user, like if you don't know the answers to these questions then maybe you shouldn't really be using this application. Oh, and it's available from GUI package management tools as well, you just have to know you want it....

Re:Serious Question

[DrXym]

I find it condescending how you suggest offering "no choice" at install time is somehow protecting the new user.

How the hell is a new user supposed to know or care why there are bunch of different desktops, all of which do more or less the same thing but in different ways? How the hell is a new user meant to pick apart the war of words that has been going on for over a decade over which desktop is supposed to be the best.

The sensible thing for any dist is to pick one desktop and be done with it. If someone is in any way informed on the matter they will choose a dist which matches their preference, or will know how to install an alternative post-install.

So yes it is protecting the new user since it relieves them a question that they don't know the answer to, and of downloading a larger iso file. Arguably it also protects the dist since they don't have to waste time & resources supporting multiple desktops with all the overheads in support and bug fixing entailed by that.

Serious Reply

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

OpenSuse.

Re:Serious Reply

[AliasMarlowe]

PCLinuxOS has KDE as its standard, although versions with LXDE, E17, etc. are also available.

Re:Serious Reply

[NotBorg]

Note that by "default" they mean that the OpenSuse installer has a radio button with KDE selected by default. If you just keep hitting "Next" you get KDE. You can install Gnome instead with one extra well placed mouse click.

However, the odds of clicking it at random are apparently low enough that the OpenSuse team doesn't consider it a bug. :O

Ohhhhh it's funny because it implies being able to pick Gnome is a bug!!!

Re:Dumb Question

[billgates]

aptosid, slackware, kubuntu, debian come to mind immediately. How is that out of your way?

Re:KSecretService

[Anonymous Coward]

What an ugly name. I'd much prefer the tagline: With KDE, KGB protects you.

Re:KSecretService

[qbast]

As usual, KDE has something working for years, then gnomies create something from scratch (with 100% more DBUS or whatever buzzword is popular that week), stick it on freedesktop and start screaming for KDE devs to switch, because this is now "standard".

Re:Release candidates.

[qbast]

Pass -DKDE4_BUILD_TESTS=TRUE to cmake while building and then run 'make test' . Better googling next time.

I *really like* KDE

[cadeon]

I like KDE. I don't hear that said often, though. So I figured I'd say it, and relate my excitement and thanks for all the hard work that's gone into this impending new release.

Thanks, devs.

Re:I *really like* KDE

[rwa2]

Same here... I really like playing with KDE in KNOPPIX, but it has never quite made it to my desktop for some reason. I suppose I just like the simplicity of gnome-terminal (once I hide the menubar and scrollbar), and am also more familiar with how to strip down gnome-panel to the bare essentials. I don't really use much else from the desktop environment outside of those and the window manager.

Haven't really played with KNOPPIX much lately, mostly because I like running 64-bit systems. Ooh, looks like KNOPPIX does support a 64-bit kernel now as a boot option, and has a 64-bit chroot system. Maybe it's time to take it for a spin again...

Any other good KDE LiveDVD distros?

Looking Good

[warrax_666]

Running RC1 on my Kubuntu and it seems that we've finally arrived at where 3.5 was... only kidding.

I realize that the 4.0-4.3 releases were "experimental" and should never have been pushed as defaults by distros, but...

I may still give up on KDE (weren't expecting that, were you?). Personally, I think tiling window managers are way more efficient once you get past the initial learning curve. Most of the KDE programs are great (Kate, Okteta, Gwenview, etc), but the whole desktop...? Not sold.

Re:Looking Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Window Behavior -> Advanced -> Enable Tiling

Re:Looking Good

[Windwraith]

You don't like KDE's tiling support, or you don't know about it?

Re:Looking Good

[noahm]

I use awesome with KDE in quite a few places and find it to be a generally excellent combination. The procedure for doing so is documented on the awesome wiki.

noah

Re:Printing

[armanox]

I wouldn't know - I don't print anything from my Linux systems, and rarely print anything on other systems. People still print regularly?

Re:KSecretService

[smash]

Exactly. As i mentioned yesterday, bicycle-shedding....

Re:Printing

[smash]

People who do actual work often need to print, yes.

4.7 KMail == Total Fail

[nonmaskable]

I've been a KDE fan since 1.x, but one of the worst pieces of OSS I've ever used was in KDE 4.7 -- KMail 2. I thought it might just be me, but a little research showed that every distro shipping it has had many angry users. For me on OpenSUSE it's been an endless source of lost incoming and outgoing mail, performance problems, and generally horrible bugs. Totally broken development process -- the problems were widely reported during at beta, but ignored since KDE leadership insists on pushing the buggy/leaky Akonadi-Nepomuk stuff regardless of what it means to end users. I'll give KMail in 4.8 another chance, but I don't hold out much hope -- it's been years since Akonadi was introduced and everything associated with it has been a disaster.

The rest of KDE 4.7 is absolutely terrific though.

Re:4.7 KMail == Total Fail

[claus.wilke]

I just switched to KMail 2 in 4.7.4, and so far it's working out nicely---definitely better than the old KMail. I was quite apprehensive, because I have a complex setup, with multiple IMAP accounts, local mail storage, several identities, and so on, and I had read all the issues people have. But it's working like a charm, and even mail folders with several thousand mails are snappy.

I think there has been a lot of progress since the first official release of KMail2 in 4.7, so I'd definitely give it another try.

Some of the most annoying bugs, like KMail IMAP not surviving a sleep-wake cycle or a brief network outage, are finally gone.

Re:Printing

[rec9140]

Hmmm.. Works GREAT!

Sharp MX4501N

Sharp AR620M

HP C7280's
HP 4500W
HP 7500A

All via network...

And HP makes it stupid wintard easy to print, scan and fax with their HP printers or AIO's.

sudo apt-get install hplip-gui

DONE! Print, scan, fax.

XSANE works great to scan via the network.

What was your point?

Oh still trying to use non PCL or PS printers in Linux, good luck.

Hell, even my beloved Kodaks have been set free, free at last with c2esp, scan and fax is still not supported, but you can at least print!

Re:Printing

[koxkoxkox]

I think he is talking about this bug : http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=180051

There is no way to have default printer settings, which means setting again the options you need every time. This is the fourth most hated bug in KDE.

KDE Works Great For Me

[naubrey]

I really don't understand all the complaints I have read about KDE. So many complain about requiring a massive system to run KDE but I just don't see it. I have a Thinkpad with the Intel graphics chips and an IdeaPad 10-2 with the Intel graphics chipset and both machines run the latest KDE great. My Thinkpad has a modest set of desktop effects enabled and while running my laptop display of 1680x1050 and my 20" LCD display with 1600x900 my laptop doesn't skip a beat. My wife's IdeaPad only has 1 GB of ram and I can enable all the desktop effects and it works just fine! She doesn't care for the eye candy so I have desktop effects enabled but all manually turned off in the control panel and general usability is very responsive. I think people have Firefox open with 10 tabs or more using up all their ram and they are blaiming it on KDE instead Firefox. I also use VirtualBox quite often with KDE and I completely turn off desktop effects (if they even turn on automatically which they do not always do if I have not installed the vbox tools) and KDE runs great in my vm's with 512 to 768MB of ram. I love KDE. It's fast, it's functional and has not given me trouble since release 4.3

tinge_of_nostaliga()

[aussersterne]

It was KDE4 that started my migration away from Linux after fifteen years of hardcore Linux use, advocacy, development, etc. (The pending arrival of GNOME 3 sealed the deal, but it was KDE4 that happened first.)

I still miss Linux, sometimes—the ethic, the openness.

Too bad things didn't work out and Linux didn't ever "arrive" at the same UI quality level as Mac OS or even Windows. But I still have a very soft spot in my heart for Linux and I am continually tempted to install the latest Fedora release in a VM just to have it around. No particular need though—don't actually know what I'd run in it—so I haven't yet.