KDE 4.8 Released

jrepin writes "The KDE community has released version 4.8 of their Free and open source software bundle. The new version provides many new features, improved stability, and increased performance. Highlights for Plasma Workspaces include window manager optimizations, the redesign of power management, and integration with Activities. The first Qt Quick-based Plasma widgets have entered the default installation of Plasma Desktop, with more to follow in future releases. KDE applications released today include Dolphin file manager with its new display engine, ..., and KDE Telepathy reaching its first beta milestone. New features for Marble virtual globe keep arriving, among these are: Elevation Profile, satellite tracking, and Krunner integration. The KDE Platform provides the foundation for KDE software. KDE software is more stable than ever before. In addition to stability improvements and bugfixes, Platform 4.8 provides better tools for building fluid and touch-friendly user interfaces, integrates with other systems' password saving mechanisms and lays the base for more powerful interaction with other people using the new KDE Telepathy framework."

Comments

Re:LALALALALA

[justforgetme]

No, it doesn't. It actually rocks. I really have become bored of all that desktop environment hate going on
in semi knowledgeable circles (cough... /. cough....) . KDE has always been a powerhouse of a desktop
environment and a feature complete one at that. It definitely can become option heavy but this is exactly
what a user that needs a productive environment wants.

The only thing that I don't like about KDE is that whenever I touch an "out of the box" implementation of it
I feel like using an overpolished windows NT machine. But that is only the KDE aesthetics not being my
kind of soup. Software wise it still is a top notch environment.

So how's the Windows version coming along?

[hairyfeet]

Last time i tried it it piled on the dependencies and I couldn't uninstall it without restoring from disk image but if its gotten better i wouldn't mind giving it a go. i have a ton of off lease XP machines piling up and can't stand the XP Fisher price UI and I give the KDE guys credit for having a nice UI, so how's it coming along? Great, good, lousy? How easy is it to install and uninstall? How easy is it to switch back and forth?

Re:So how's the Windows version coming along?

[udoschuermann]

Fisher Price UI of XP

I always called it the Toys-R-Us UI, but it comes down to the same thing. I am not alone! :)

(I think I like Fisher Price UI better, actually).

Re:So how's the Windows version coming along?

[hairyfeet]

Yeah if its one i'm actually gonna keep i get Aston and put on it, its what I run on my XP nettop and is quite nice. of course i'm not gonna blow $30 a pop on some off lease boxes i'm selling but hate dealing with that Fisher price UI (And nooooo, switching to the fugly as fuck Win98 UI isn't an improvement, thanks ever so) so it looks like I'll be hacking MSStyles.dll and putting on a nicer theme. And no you're not alone, many of use can't fricking stand the Fisher price UI, I like the Win 7 UI, Vista Black was okay (too bad the OS attached to it blew chunks) and KDE had a nice silvery look, but that blue is just fucking horrible to look at for any length of time. Whomever picked that shit out must have been color blind!

Watch me get hate for saying this next part, but fuck if I care, i just wish the Linux community would get all on the same page, quit all this damned rivalry and 50 bazillion distro crap, and actually make an OS usable by the masses, is to too much to ask? I need a rock solid OS that is as easy to use as Win 7 or OSX and gives a minumum 7 years support without dealing with that apt-dist-upgrade clusterfuck as I've yet to see a machine actually upgrade without having drivers broken. I know you will never get a stable ABI as long as Torvalds has a pulse but can't you either make a REAL LTS or find a way not to shit all over the drivers during an upgrade? Hell there isn't even a 'find drivers" or "rollback drivers" button and Windows has had that for a decade!

Look, this is your chance geeks, for the first time in history all the stars are aligning, the XP dieoff is filling shops like mine with insanely overpowered laptops and desktops, Ballmer is gonna shoot MSFT in the head trying to turn Windows into WinTab, most people only care about online stuff now, you've never had a better shot, all you have to do is accept the fact the world isn't a bunch of damned programmers and get rid of the fiddly bullshit and CLI wanking off, that's all. you wanna keep the wank fest in server fine, all well and good, but you ain't never gonna sell that Bash crap to the masses. you gotta "think different' to steal a line, think iOS and Win 7, call it dumbing down if you like, just give us something simple, easy to use, and supported 7 years. Make it so my grandma could run it with ZERO help from me,lots of big icons and pretty pictures and wizards. Hell my 71 year old clueless dad installed his own Win 7 and everything ran OOTB with ZERO input from me, that is what you need to shoot for, an OS that even the clueless can run.

You've got most of the basic parts already, KDE is VERY pretty and consistent, you've got most of the guts and drivers written, you just need to put it in a friendly package and stop updates/upgrades from tearing the thing apart, that's all. you have until Apr 2014 but the sooner the better as all us shops are scrambling for Win 7 Start CALs simply because we can't find a Linux that fits the bill. give it to us and you'll have a support network that makes the Apple stores look like a bad joke. We WANT you to succeed, we really do. But with the mess you have now literally we'd go broke trying to support you. you could use the XP dieoff to take a HUGE bite out of MSFT's ass, you just gotta want it and be willing to change, are you?

Re:So how's the Windows version coming along?

[The Snowman]

I tried a few distributions before settling on Kubuntu 11.10. It just works and everything is easy. The menu has the same search feature that OSX and Win7 have. Type what you want to do, and crap just pops up on the list. Click it and go. All my devices just work. Pop in a flash drive? Automatically mounted and I can drag and drop files and take them with me. Click a picture? Viewer opens up. Not GIMP, which belongs in the "shit that sounds like it might earn me the 'sex offender' badge" bin. Just a regular old picture viewer. Same with music, videos, anything else that Grandma might want to do.

So many people are ready to write-off Ubuntu because of Unity and the batshit insane rambling of Canonical, but damn, Kubuntu gets it right. Take Ubuntu, rip out the stupid half. Put a stake in its heart, douse in holy water, and throw it in the garbage disposal. Then replace the crap with KDE, add in slick installation and setup wizards that are smart enough that they Just Work, other features that OSes for the masses possess, and release.

I may be tech-savvy, but I do not have time to fiddle with idiotic kernel settings or driver incompatibilities. I write software for a living, and I want to use computers to be productive. To use a car analogy, there are gearheads out there that want to restore old cars and spend hours tinkering to get them running like new. The rest of us want to drive to work, the grocery store, the liquor store, etc. Computers need to be like cars. 99% of the time they just need to work with us, not against us, but allow the 1% the ability to screw around with filesystem cluster sizes or whatever makes them happy.

Re:So how's the Windows version coming along?

[hairyfeet]

Try my "is it safe?" test and you'll see the problem. Download the version from 3 releases ago and then upgrade to current. you see I can't plan my sales around when the next LTS release is and frankly the LTS isn't really much of an LTS at all as you get barely 3 years and that is if you sell the machines on the day of release.

Sadly what you'll find is the same thing i found, both with LTS to LTS and regular to regular, which is a broken mess. I've even had Linux guys tell me I should always install clean, which is what they used to make fun of Windows for. Which would be fine if we were talking once a decade but every 6 months? you get 10 years on Windows but I'll happily settle for 7 even though that's a little short. lets face it a Pentium d that was sold in 06 will still do the web based jobs people have no problemo and most of the off lease machines i'm getting are either pentium Ds or Athlon duals along with some of the early core series laptops. People aren't gonna be happy to just chunk those in 6 months and i doubt they'll chunk them in 3 years either and since home consumers don't buy support contracts the cost of having me reinstall and tweak the damned thing every 6 months will cost more than a copy of Windows home VERY quickly.

With the economy in the toilet there are a hell of a lot of working poor out there that appreciate $100 desktops and $150 laptops but until they come up with a Linux that don't crap on its own drivers i'm in a bit of a jam here. I can probably get away with leaving windows on them and shoving them out the door for the rest of 2012 but XP will be headed for that great OS bin in the sky and frankly i can't find a source for Win 7 Starter so that leaves Linux. And honestly while the initial install goes fine unless i want to disable all updates and just let the machines become zombies nobody has figured out yet how to do in place upgrades without them taking a big shit on the drivers. personally i blame Torvalds refusal to accept a driver ABI but then here come the fanbois having a fit, like every other OS is wrong and Linus fricking Torvalds is right, but since as long as he has a pulse Linux won't have one it don't matter anyway. But until the driver situation is fixed me and every other shop is in a catch 22, we'd like to offer your OS but the customer base simply don't have the skills to keep the damned thing running and giving away free support would break us. NOW do you see the problem?

Re:So how's the Windows version coming along?

[hairyfeet]

And then it costs MORE than Windows so is completely pointless, see the problem? I can't sell a $150 laptop with a $99 a year OS on it, that just won't cut it, and Windows home is $89 or if i want to cheat like many of my competitors i can buy family packs for $129 for 3 CALs. of course many of the smaller shops are getting frustrated by both MSFT and Linux and are just installing "wink wink" copies of Windows which i don't care for but hopefully now you see my problem. Linux says its ready for the masses but its only real selling point, price, simply doesn't exist. Sure if you're a programmer or a geek and don't mind spending a lot of time under the hood like a 74 Nova you can keep it running, but that just removed 99.95% of my customers. Geeks don't buy retail, they DIY.

So in the end i'm back to square one. I have right now 5 off lease machines, anywhere from 2.2Ghz P4s to early Pentium Ds and i'm gonna have to shove them out the door with XP simply because the community refuses to step up to the plate. its a damned shame as the great XP dieoff could FINALLY give us a "Year of the Linux desktop" but the community won't quit messing with their bash scripts to wake up and smell the opportunity. if they would only give us a usable product we small shop owners would give them a support network that makes the Apple stores look like a bad joke, you'd literally have a Linux store in every town and city in the nation, but we simply can't support you with the situation as it is. I tried selling linux in the past and ended up taking a bath simply because it was too fiddly, updates broke drivers, and you couldn't even buy a printer without playing hardware roulette because the hardware lists were so bad out of date.

Oh and I'm so damned sick of the bullshit argument "OEMs would give us blobs herp derp" against an ABI. NEWS FLASH THEY ALREADY DO! What do yoiu think you get from Nvidia, broadcom, hell the majority of wireless? blobs, the only difference is now you're screwed because the blob works on kernel X and you have kernel Y. If a company is gonna be open to FOSS the ABI isn't gonna change their minds one way or another. sadly dogma will ensure Linux stays just where it is now, dead last. I mean when shops would rather risk jail time selling hot Windows than take your free product, doesn't that give everyone a clue?

New in konsole

[vlm]

I'm guessing konsole will get a lot more use with this crowd, that, say, Marble. I'm not sure this feature list is worth the effort of upgrading, but here it is:

http://konsole.kde.org/changelog.php

Noteworthy:

        Before any window is opened, make sure pty device has right size before starting the terminal process.
        Allow an image to be set as the background in the terminal window.
        Close session reliably when the session process doesn't die with SIGHUP.
        Don't show the default profile in menu New Tab list when no others are listed.
        Add "Select All" action for selecting the whole history of this session.
        Add popup menu for drag-n-drop operations using KonqOperations::doDrop.
        Bidirectional text support is on by default.
        Left-To-Right direction will always be used in the terminal area even when the language is Right-To-Left.
        Add support for Unicode decomposed characters and in general better unicode displaying.

Re:New in konsole

[danomac]

Hey, I actually like that idea. I can have ssh sessions open for up to five different machines... I'd definitely find it useful to attach different backgrounds to each one so I immediately know which machine I'm currently using. It would prevent me from entering commands in the wrong session, which I've done multiple times before with somewhat disastrous results...

Re:New in konsole

[Stachybotris]

Hmmm... I like not showing the 'default' tab when there is only one session type. It always whigged me out that it wanted me to select the only option that I have configured.

Re:New in konsole

[sqldr]

actually, having the terminal open with a random subtly different background colour kind helps when you're a sysadmin with about 30 windows open and you can't remember which one you're typing in to. If you use several terminals at once, try it for a few hours. Mental association and all that. Ah yes, I was upgrading the kernel in the PINK window.

Re:LALALALALA

[ByOhTek]

Just because someone doesn't like KDE 4.x doesn't mean they haven't tried it.

Mind you, I've tried, IIRC, 4.1, 4.2 or 4.3 and 4.4 or 4.5 and haven't liked it in any of those, over 3.5

Different people have different tastes.

Re:Pause after click fixed?

[mx b]

Probably. I am running KDE 4.7 (actually just updated to 4.8 today, so haven't much experience with the updates yet), and it goes swimmingly on my old dell laptop (about 7 years old, maxxed out the RAM at 1 GB). No real hang ups or delays. Runs just fine. I think a lot of the hangups were the older versions of Nepomuk/Akonadi and friends, but the last few releases have really dramatically improved performance and integration, to the point where you don't even notice they exist (as far as resource usage; I'm growing to appreciate the semantic tags on files more and more as time goes on).

Re:LALALALALA

[danomac]

For me, I initially hated 4.x. However, I did grow to like some things about it.

I actually had to use 3.x last week on one of my old machines I'd forgotten to update, and everything just felt so damn backwards.

Re:LALALALALA

[Enderandrew]

Opinions are subjective?

That being said, I think it stands head and shoulder above the competition. It is the most feature-rich desktop on the planet. And if you don't like how something looks or operates, you can customize it to look and operate exactly how you want.

And honestly, given the choices of a Windows 8 (Metro) desktop, Gnome Shell, Unity, Lion, and KDE 4.8 as modern desktops, only Lion and KDE are particularly appealing to me. And sadly Lion seems to be slowly morphing OS X into iOS. I'm beginning to think that perhaps only the KDE devs understand it is about having the right interface for the right hardware.

With KDE the same stack can easily switch between a Netbook interface, a traditional desktop shell, a more modern desktop shell, and a tablet interface. They don't force one interface for every situation.

Re:LALALALALA

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I've tried Gnome but have stuck with KDE for the last 10 years because it comes with everything I need. No need to hunting for DVD burning software, a music player or anything else that Gnome doesn't bother shipping with.

And the Regressions?

[TheNinjaroach]

I love KDE and have used it exclusively since the 3.2 days, but damn am I getting tired of the regressions. Things that used to work beautifully are suddenly bugged beyond use. I expect that to happen with early revisions of major releases, but the trend that started in 4.1 continues through a clean install of 4.7.2 that shipped with my distro.

In any case, thanks for the best desktop environment I've ever used. KIOSlaves (if they are still called that) are awesome, and we should all be thankful for KHTML, which laid the foundation for Webkit-based browsers everywhere.

Re:kmail ?

[i.r.id10t]

IIRC they are "just" mbox files. Set up thunderbird, let it create a simple mbox file for like 1 throw-away message, exit thunderbird, copy over your mbox files.

Re:LALALALALA

[ifiwereasculptor]

I'm someone who likes it and I can tell you what changed. Stuff works properly now. That's a pretty good summary. For example, 4.4 still had Dolphin launching four instances of your media player if you launched four video files, instead of simply queueing them for play in a single window. That sorf of jerky behaviour is now gone and bugs are quite rare.

Re:LALALALALA

[TitusC3v5]

The hate isn't completely unfounded. I really enjoy the look of 4.x, but every single version I've tried (4.1-4.7) has had stability problems. On three different machines, all of which have didn't have nearly as many issues with KDE 3.x, Gnome 2.x/3.x, XFCE, etc.

I'll gladly make it my preferred DE once it's safe to use on a primary machine, but until then, I'll stick with the feature-lacking Gnome 3.x.

Re:Is it any better?

[antdude]

It's not the bugs. It's the usability, design, etc. in v4.3. Did KDE v4.8 get much better in those areas?

Sadly...

[Pausanias]

I want something with the power and configurability of KDE but the non-crazy, makes me feel claustrophobic window layout of GNOME.... Sadly after many years as a Linux users I find that that environment is called Windows 7 + VMWare.

Re:LALALALALA

[Anonymous Coward]

To one fellow I know there is one little thing missing from KDE4 that he became very used to in KDE3 that's keeping him from "moving on", as it were, kpager.

A little app that puts a thumbnailed view of each desktop or workspace so that, at a glance, he can see which desktop has what on it. This isn't like the pager in KDE4 that only puts a frame and an application icon to represent the apps that are running and their size and position. kpager actually creates a thumbnail version of each desktop, background, contents of windows, everything.

If there were such a thing in KDE4, I've looked on behalf for him, I could get him to move on from Kubuntu 8.04 to something newer.

Can anyone point out an equivalent to kpager from KDE3.5 for KDE4? It would make life a lot easier dealing with my friend.
     

Re:Application Geometry settings

[lbbros]

System Settings > Window Behavior > Window specific overrides.

That's exactly what you're looking for, and oh, it's been there for several releases.

Dump akonadi

[blackpaw]

Its a fucking disaster. I used to blame kmail2 but came to realise its a decent frontend, its the back end that drags it down.

4.8 RC2 Gmail imap account, working fine for weeks. Nothing changed, then I get that perpetual rotating wait icon, followed by the
"Unable to fetch job" error when trying to access sub folders. Reboots don't make any difference.

I know the deal - the only reliable way to fix it is to delete the virtuoso/nepomuk databases and all kmail configs and recreate the account from scratch, but you know what? I just can't be bothered any more. Tired out and fed up. I've been a good boy, I given up hoping for a search that works, I don't attempt to integrate with google calendar or contacts any more, I don't expect address expansion to work reliably. Theres bug entries ate bugs.kde.org related to this months old with no dev attention, not even to confirm or reject then.

Its just easier to use my webmail or Thunderbird. At least it always works, even if its not as integrated with the kde desktop.

So one less reason to use KDE at all.

Re:Dump akonadi

[qbast]

And let's not forget about mysql + virtuoso + maildir akonadi resource + kmail2 taking over 1GB of resident memory whenever they feel like it. When KDE 4.7 came out, I switched to Thunderbird. Later when buying a new laptop I noticed that almost all applications I run are multiplatform anyway. So now I run Windows 7 as my main OS. It needs some getting used to after using Linux/KDE for last 10 years.

Re:LALALALALA

[Kjella]

Someone was posting the other day (or even today?), it seems almost pathological that people seem to need the "latest" and "most modern". Do the extra features actually add much? I don't feel much gain from them.

Well, there's two significant reasons why I'd pick Win7 over WinXP.

1) SSD alignment, both for performance and lifetime, you can hack it into working on WinXP too but it's not good at it.
2) 64-bit so I can have 16GB of RAM. Now if you say PAE or XP 64-bit, I say try it.

When it comes to UI, I really can't say I care... everything since win2k is good enough for me, yes I've tried Linux and Macs but there's nothing about the ability to organize applications that gets me excited. I can do it with virtual desktops or exposé (too fancy for slashdot) or a plain old win2k style taskbar and alt-tab. It works, if you're annoyed about it you're not spending nearly enough time in the apps themselves.

Re:LALALALALA

[monkeyhybrid]

I couldn't agree more. KDE 4 is solid, full featured and for me at least, very quick. It's also very pretty if you're into that sort of thing.

I understand people having their own preferences but if your view of KDE 4.x was jaded by the first few releases, please look again and give it some serious playtime. I don't miss KDE 3.x any more and Gnome feels very basic in comparison. It's great!

Re:Telepathy

[sqldr]

it works in telepathy, so I'm assuming that kopete now supports it.