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First look: KDE 4.1 alpha 1 very promising
arstechnica.com — KDE 4.1 alpha 1 was released yesterday. The adoption of Qt 4.4 will bring some significant new features to the Plasma desktop shell, but the bumpy transition has made this release very fragile. Ars looks at alpha 1 and the impressive feature set that is being developed for the final 4.1 release, scheduled for July.
KevinFederline- 639 diggs
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- michuk, on 05/01/2008, -5/+21And here is a preview of latest revision (which is more or less equal to the alfa1 one): http://digg.com/linux_unix/PolishLinux_KDE_4_1_Pre ...
Original story: http://polishlinux.org/kde/kde-4-rev-802150-work-i ...- dualscreenman, on 05/01/2008, -2/+9The Polish Linux article gives a more thorough look at the new features, in my opinion.
- LANjackal, on 05/01/2008, -20/+14Hopefully they fix the half-assed release that was KDE 4.0. The lower panel is a gigantic screen hog that can't be autohidden (WTF?). The network config dialog can fail to open. Anything that wasn't written specifically for KDE 4 (Firefox, for example) looks awful.
IMO, the sad truth is that Xfce is currently the most viable desktop environment for *nix.- dualscreenman, on 05/01/2008, -0/+17The latter two problems are distro-level problems that they need to deal with. The network config bug is Kubuntu specific, and ugly gtk apps are caused by the lack of a gtk-qt theming engine being installed by default. In Kubuntu, at least, ugly gtk apps can be remedied by installing gtk-qt-engine-kde4.
Oh, and the panel's been resizable since KDE 4.0.2., though you can hide the panel. (Not just yet, 4.1 will feature this according to the feature list.)
So in conclusion, two of these problems need to be addressed at the distribution level, and your other problem has been half-fixed. (For now, anyway.)- dualscreenman, on 05/01/2008, -0/+11s/can/can't hide the panel.
- trogdoor, on 05/01/2008, -0/+10"[firefox looking ugly] can be remedied by installing gtk-qt-engine-kde4."
I just think that it's great that you have XUL emulating a GTK theme which is itself just emulating your QT theme.- dualscreenman, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2It has several visual bugs that probably stem from this, but yes, that is cool.
- RobotBuddha, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2As far as I know, gtk-kde4 still has some pretty large problems with firefox and display of controls on forms. I still use it, but radio boxes in particular are pretty jarring.
- GrantTLC, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1What about KDE 3, or are you just dumping on KDE in general via the medium of it's latest incarnation?
- ninja0, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1I disagree with your opinion, but I respect it. I agree with some of the things you mentioned with apps looking awful... and that gigantic bar... it seems when yhou move the things on there somehow its impossible for a KDE noob to figure out how to move them back into place!
- dualscreenman, on 05/01/2008, -0/+17The latter two problems are distro-level problems that they need to deal with. The network config bug is Kubuntu specific, and ugly gtk apps are caused by the lack of a gtk-qt theming engine being installed by default. In Kubuntu, at least, ugly gtk apps can be remedied by installing gtk-qt-engine-kde4.
- grungegbunny, on 05/01/2008, -15/+8KDE is okay. I like Gnome tho.
- jimthenglishman, on 05/01/2008, -3/+9i find that deeply disturbing…
- synergye, on 05/01/2008, -2/+1what an insightful comment. at least you gave a lot of reasoning to tell me exactly what the benefits of Gnome are that you enjoy! /sarcasm
- schestowitz, on 05/01/2008, -7/+11Can't wait for the final!
- swern425, on 05/01/2008, -8/+2I have no idea what any of that description meant.
- jamesov89, on 05/01/2008, -1/+4Not so exclusive anymore!
- mfearby, on 05/01/2008, -5/+9My god! Those extreme fading/truncating taskbar entries are not encouraging. The mandatory fading taskbar entries in KDE 3.5x are irritating enough, but to have their text descriptions truncated to the extreme now? What the hell is that?
Give me options to 1) turn off the fading and 2) disable that wacky truncating and I might consider it. This is almost as bad as the evil Pidgin auto-resizing text window!- dualscreenman, on 05/01/2008, -1/+3Obviously that truncation isn't supposed to be that extreme.
- shyboy2008, on 05/01/2008, -21/+7NO ONE GIVES A *****. more pro-obama, anti-hillary, diaherra in elevator videos please
- chapoec, on 05/01/2008, -19/+1Who cares about this? No one uses this ***** software. Unix come on. Who would use it when there are better OS on the market.
- srg13, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5Wow - I don't really think that you are able to judge what's a better operating system, if you can't even distinguish between an operating system and a desktop environment...
- chapoec, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0The same ***** they both suck
- bratterscain, on 05/01/2008, -3/+1Why would your girlfriend use you when there's better guys out there? That is, if you have one and not so picky you have to have the best girl in the world.
- srg13, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5Wow - I don't really think that you are able to judge what's a better operating system, if you can't even distinguish between an operating system and a desktop environment...
- ThinkDave, on 05/01/2008, -10/+6So.... much..... greyyyyy.... My god that is an awful theme I can't believe lost of people actually love it.
There really needs to be definition between the different parts of the frame or something.- Tsiolkovsky, on 05/01/2008, -2/+8Changing colors is one of the easiest things to do if you don't like the default ones.
- ThinkDave, on 05/01/2008, -2/+6Its not the colour so much as theres no definition between the different sections its juts one pane... I dunno its just not for me I guess.
- Tsiolkovsky, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5Ah so you choose a different widget style then, as easy as changing colors.
- Ademan, on 05/01/2008, -8/+3Qt doesn't have a single theme that doesn't look like ass... Earlier revisions of oxygen were the only time I thought Qt looked alright. Somehow even klearlooks looks like ass, when clearlooks is the undisputed king of widget themes.
- Ademan, on 05/01/2008, -3/+2I see I'm being dugg down, please, point me to a theme that doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spork. I'll shut up if you do, otherwise quit digging me down just because i disagree with you. (note qt was the spawning place for the super awesome theme g/keramik)
- Ademan, on 05/01/2008, -8/+3Qt doesn't have a single theme that doesn't look like ass... Earlier revisions of oxygen were the only time I thought Qt looked alright. Somehow even klearlooks looks like ass, when clearlooks is the undisputed king of widget themes.
- ThinkDave, on 05/01/2008, -5/+2True but this is the standard theme in KDE and whilst many people will change the theme a lot of people just make do with the standard. From my perspective it just doesn't look right.
- emehrkay, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2I was very excited for KDE 4. When I installed it, I was very let down with its visuals. It is boring, and you are right, there is no definition between the various sections in a window. This is an area that I feel OS X and Windows (XP, Vista) excel in. I just feel like there should be some better artists working on the visual side, it feels like some tech dudes came up with somehting that they thought looked cool and ran with that.
- Tsiolkovsky, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5Ah so you choose a different widget style then, as easy as changing colors.
- LZeppelinJ0, on 05/01/2008, -15/+7Ugh, KDE4.0 was a massive steaming Vista-sized fecal nuclear explosion of raw fail.
Won't see me moving away from Xfce ever again- Gavagai80, on 05/01/2008, -2/+11If you learned some reading comprehension, you wouldn't have upgraded to a 4.0 release which was widely stated by the developers to be lacking in features compared to 3.5. There's a reason why all distros still ship 3.5 by default.
- rodrigo74, on 05/01/2008, -8/+4They shouldn't have numbered it 4.0 then, that's quite misleading.
- WoundedTownsmen, on 05/01/2008, -4/+6No, it's not.
Major version releases like 4.0 and 5.0 indicate big changes and are always assumed to be buggy. Point releases like 4.1 and 4.2 indicate the fixes for the bugs the big changes made. That doesn't go for just KDE either, thats practically all software.- rodrigo74, on 05/01/2008, -3/+3Call it Beta then
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#N ... - SteveMax, on 05/01/2008, -2/+4It's not beta, it's the first "stable" (as in "features/APIs won't change") milestone of the KDE4 development. It IS complete for regular usage, it just isn't in the same maturity level as the previous 3.5 for obvious reasons.
In Microsoft terms, KDE 4.0 is like a new release of Windows, without a service pack. You can use it if you really want to, but unless you really need the new features you're better off with the latest SP release of the previous OS.
- rodrigo74, on 05/01/2008, -3/+3Call it Beta then
- srg13, on 05/01/2008, -2/+4"That doesn't go for just KDE either, thats practically all software"
No, I think that most software would call that a beta, or at most a RC version...
- WoundedTownsmen, on 05/01/2008, -4/+6No, it's not.
- rodrigo74, on 05/01/2008, -8/+4They shouldn't have numbered it 4.0 then, that's quite misleading.
- Gavagai80, on 05/01/2008, -2/+11If you learned some reading comprehension, you wouldn't have upgraded to a 4.0 release which was widely stated by the developers to be lacking in features compared to 3.5. There's a reason why all distros still ship 3.5 by default.
- al11588, on 05/01/2008, -19/+1Epic Fail. Microsoft-FTW
- AppleMacStud, on 05/01/2008, -25/+3Once you go Mac you won't go back.
- slamtv7, on 05/01/2008, -2/+3Why is the bar at the bottom of the screen sooo large! Are you able to re size it? Sorry, I don't work with linux much.
- jernejovc, on 05/01/2008, -0/+9Yes, it is resizable.
- arcticblue, on 05/01/2008, -2/+7It's resizable, but nothing scales with it. The text on the clock will get cut off, bottoms of icons will get cut off, etc. So, yeah, go ahead and resize it, but it's still going to look like crap.
- jernejovc, on 05/01/2008, -0/+6Well this is Alpha 1 and Plasma has just been through a major rework, so yes there are bugs. I'm sure this will work just fine again in the final version.
- arcticblue, on 05/01/2008, -0/+7It's behaved like that since they introduced resizing though (4.0.3?). I am really looking forward to a solid, usable KDE 4 release, but if they don't get basic things such as resizing working right, I'll have to hang on to Gnome a little while longer (and I really, really want to move away from Gnome. They have innovation-phobia and they don't like to listen to users' suggestions).
- StealthTomato, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2Or use KDE 3.5 like I do. It handles dual-monitors much better than GNOME does, especially when you have to use NVidia's TwinView.
- arcticblue, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1I've had serious stability problems with KDE 3.5. I like it alot more than Gnome, but random applications crash far more often than in Gnome. I've tried Kubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 as well as the KDE version of LinuxMint. LinuxMint is the only one that didn't have random apps crash on the first boot up, but every time I scrolled in OpenOffice, the document would turn gray until I minimized and restored. I couldn't figure out how to fix it so I dumped it and now I'm running on Ubuntu 8.04.
But yeah, it handles dual-monitors (which I use at work) MUCH better than Gnome (I don't know what the Gnome devs problem is. Add some freaking usability options!). This is a big reason I want to ditch Gnome and go to something else. I just need to go to something else that is as stable. - StealthTomato, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1I feel your pain. GNOME stability + KDE features = the greatest DE ever.
Too bad it doesn't exist.
And before anyone says XFCE, I've had some dual-monitor issues there too, not to mention that it doesn't play that nicely with Compiz.
- arcticblue, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1I've had serious stability problems with KDE 3.5. I like it alot more than Gnome, but random applications crash far more often than in Gnome. I've tried Kubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 as well as the KDE version of LinuxMint. LinuxMint is the only one that didn't have random apps crash on the first boot up, but every time I scrolled in OpenOffice, the document would turn gray until I minimized and restored. I couldn't figure out how to fix it so I dumped it and now I'm running on Ubuntu 8.04.
- jernejovc, on 05/01/2008, -0/+6Well this is Alpha 1 and Plasma has just been through a major rework, so yes there are bugs. I'm sure this will work just fine again in the final version.
- aprice2704, on 05/01/2008, -8/+3I think the KDE folks still have a long way to go, judging by the screenshots. Sounds like they are still babbling about useless glitz when 4.1 appears to be a downgrade from 3.5.x in fundamental functions.
New PIM? Desktop apps that can be replaced by Firefox web apps are doomed imo.
Focus on making the basics behave as people expect please! Then on things that web apps cannot do well. Forget the rest, complex desktop software is going away forever.
Andy- mfearby, on 05/01/2008, -0/+6I agree that they should focus on the basics but desktop apps that can be replaced by web apps are not doomed. There's no way I'm going to trust my entire email and other information to something "in the internet cloud," so desktop apps are here to stay!
- ethana2, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5Default settings and themes are important. ....not that I use them-- I have my gnome set up /exactly/ how I want it, and when I can make KDE4 look and behave /exactly/ how this does, I'll switch.
- MrViklund, on 05/01/2008, -13/+12KDE > Gnome
- rotten777, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5Troll > valid, insightful, worthwhile comment. /s
- evilregis, on 05/01/2008, -3/+3Your opinion != Others' opinions
- funklor, on 05/01/2008, -4/+2Funny how merely mentioning you prefer GNOME gets you modded down while asserting KDE's superiority gets you +s -- not that I'm complaining, this is the natural order of things and how it should always remain. :)
- srg13, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5It's just because there are a lot of KDE fans reading these comments who are so excited that this version of KDE will be almost stable enough to use, they mod anything with KDE in it up...
- mfearby, on 05/01/2008, -1/+7Saying KDE is good in a GNOME story gets you dugg down. Same thing.
- tama00, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2I prefer GNOME
I LOVE KDE SOO MUCH
So by funklors logic i should see some exploding heads, 'should i digg him up or down?'- Buu700, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Down, because regardless of how much you like KDE, you are still a GNOMEite.
- dualscreenman, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Just keep him at one to blow *his* mind.
- freqk, on 05/01/2008, -8/+1Digg me down, but so was KDE4 (1.0).
- Buu700, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2...?
- blackgt93, on 05/01/2008, -3/+3Meh... none of the DE's for Linux seem particularly intriguing. KDE as many times as I've used it still feels clunky and things can be a pain in the ass to find (although this might be SUSE specific). I keep waiting for a DE for *nix to "wow" me and I have yet to see it, all I see are useless transparency effects and poor element layout.
- Buu700, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1GNOME?
- dtinth, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2KDE 4 looks really nice, has a lot of effects, and supports compositing, but I still think that KDE 3 is the most stable, and I prefer GNOME.
- nickert0n, on 05/01/2008, -3/+2That is ugly, whats with the dirt ass minimize/maximize/close buttons on the windows? Or the fact that everything is grey and contrasts like *****, or when black its just black with no features hardly ever, and if I want to remove a desktop icon I dont want to have to configure my ***** widgets to do so. They ***** up KDE so much now gnome is the winner imo, I was an avid KDE fan I really was, but now im a die hard gnome/ubuntu(hardy heron) user, I am happy as hell with it and ill never go back.
- momsshizzle, on 05/01/2008, -11/+2Very promising, but still a failure. Linsux baby!
- Groller, on 05/01/2008, -3/+2Why is it that I just can't seem to like KDE. I mean it looks fine functions great most of the time but seems like it just isn't for me. Its still has the MAC OS 9 feel to it might be part of it.
- shanesemler, on 05/03/2008, -3/+1KDE4 is a disaster, it's just that everyone is in denial. And what is with that stupid cashew thing in the corner? Admit it, it sucks. It needs another few years of development. Or better yet, just scrap it and stick with the 3.x.
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