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86 Comments
- Codename, on 11/03/2008, -1/+15All I can say is, KDE 4.1 is way better than KDE 4. Just install Kubuntu 8.04, use it for a bit, then use Kubuntu 8.10. You'll see what I mean.
- EclipseAgent, on 11/03/2008, -5/+15Until it can match 98% of KDE 3.5.10's features then.. I'm not making the move..
- kragil, on 11/02/2008, -1/+11Konqueror is just one config option away from being all the file management you see in KDE4.
- ChiaGod, on 11/03/2008, -1/+10It has to do with them wanting to break away from obsolete code. There were alot of "dirty" hacks in the 3 - 3.5 code that was getting harder and harder to maintain. So they made the decision to break from that and start afresh.
Sadly this means re-implementing a lot of features that were accrued over the many years of the KDE 3's lifetime. Not all these features have been implemented which of course makes users who depend on said features a bit grumpy (myself included).
I know it was a necessary thing to do, just wish they'd left KDE 3.5 as the default until KDE 4 was fully up to par (and just make it easy to switch between the two). - wontstoptalking, on 11/03/2008, -1/+9Hmm, it seems as though a lot of the commenters are not wanting to make the switch.
Tune in later to see how this develops! - gameforge, on 11/03/2008, -1/+9I'm using Kubuntu 8.10 (KDE 4.1.2), I own a GeForce 8600 GTS, am using the nVidia proprietary drivers, and everything works as expected including 3D acceleration. I have yet to even think about my Xorg.conf file.
I'm even using a dual head display, and KDE 4 is coping wonderfully well with it - the second (smaller) display is where I keep all of my widgets. The nVidia software made it very easy to configure it this way.
Instead of just announcing that they don't work well together, maybe you should be a little specific, and not assume that everyone else in the world is going to have your problem...? - mirunit, on 11/03/2008, -1/+9Imagine if people thought the same as you 20 years ago. Just because something 'works' does not mean it cannot be made better, change is not a bad thing as technology goes - alot of times it is really great. You having to learn something new should not be the standard we hold progression of technology. KDE 4 is interesting to use, but for technical reasons I cannot run it in a stable enviroment.
- ChiaGod, on 11/03/2008, -2/+10I'm in the same boat. I kinda bought the hype that KDE 4.1 was ready (and had all the features missing in 4.0). After all, they included it as the default desktop in a final release (with no disclaimers). To sum it up:
1. Can't auto-hide the panel
2. No desktop icons, hack is to use folder view (essentially have a window open at all times with your desktop folder open in it and all your icons huddled together for warmth).
3. Doesn't play well with xinerama (plasma desktop and therefore widgets and wallpaper would stick to my 2 monitors on the left but would not extend to my 3rd one).
4. Painfully slow >.<
5. Unintuitive to configure widgets. (and some of the panel widgets were huge)
I'm a longtime KDE fan, and I adored KDE 3.5.4. After this upgrade I had no choice but to switch to gnome to get a sane desktop experience. Resolved issues 2-4 (above), Issue 1 I have a workaround in gnome (gnome won't fully hide the panel, but you can minimize it to 1 pixel and use buttons to scroll up the panel to the left or right, reducing it to a small button ). Only issue left with gnome:
1. Metacity (gnome window manager) doesn't have a hide window border/decorations option.
If these things are important to you, consider sticking with Kubuntu 8.04 OR switching to Gnome. The solution on the forums for most of the problems I had with KDE 4.1 was "wait until KDE 4.2 comes out!".
Don't get me wrong, I applaud the work these guys are doing, and having to rewrite everything from scratch between the 3.5 and 4.0 series was surely a hard decision to make, but they seriously can't expect people to give up things that have been working well for years.
But this is my experience, YMMV. Oh and running on a Athlon 4800+ X2 w/ two Nvida 8600s and the 177.80 drivers - amoeba, on 11/03/2008, -1/+6KDE4.1 works perfectly for me.
loving it. - mirunit, on 11/03/2008, -0/+5He is seriously correct. I had issues getting KDE on a Nvidia based machine - had to end the end run 3.5. Gnome runs fine on SUSE, but imo it is a KDE platform. Fedora is where I would run Gnome.
- sloppychris, on 11/03/2008, -1/+6Part of the reason for KDE4 was to streamline old code that accumulated from incremental changes to the KDE 3.x development process.
- SSXDRN, on 11/03/2008, -1/+6Which OS...? KDE runs on a lot of OS's you know. Eventually even in Windows.
- abbathdoom, on 11/03/2008, -0/+5Dude, are you seriously asking this question? Do you have no freaking idea how open source works? You release the code early and people give you feedback and contribute and slowly but surely it gets better. This is why they have released code that isnt yet feature complete and has bugs.
The problem is all about semantics of the name. The KDE guys called this KDE 4.0 which suggests some super new version that works out of the box and everyone expected it to be something they could switch to and be wowed by, not realising that it was essentially KDE4 0.1 Had that been what the developers called it then I dont think everyone would be having hissy fits over it. - oobuntu, on 11/03/2008, -1/+6I generally prefer KDE, and my work PC is setup really nicely with 3.5.x on 8.04 and will stay that way. However, my home PC just got an annual upgrade and for the first time in its life, it's running Gnome. I haven't rejected KDE forever, i just don't see an option until KDE4 gets more features.
I do believe KDE4 is necessary and is by no means linux' vista. Watch Aaron's kde4 keynote and discover why KDE4 will be great (wait at least 12 months). in the meantime i check the latest build of KDE4 on an opensuse partition every couple of months. - inactive, on 11/03/2008, -2/+6I actually enjoyed the couple weeks I spent messing around with KDE 4.1. It's not perfect by any means but it's getting there.
- regeya, on 11/03/2008, -0/+4Yeah; on technological and usability standpoints, KDE4 apps have improved greatly. And heck, the notion of using the same mechanism for desktop widgets and panel applets is a neat one. But Holy Christ, KDE 4.1 could stand a lot of improvement. Just the notion that I could no longer automount devices easily turned me off, and the notion that I couldn't easily replicate the same desktop layout I've had since KDE1 (actually, closer to the standard Ximian GNOME layout, since I threw the pager and trashcan applet on the bottom bar in KDE3.x)
I'm currently using GNOME + GNOME Do + Avant Window Navigator for my desktop, but my apps are a half-and-half mix of KDE-based apps and GTK+-based apps. I'll take usable and fast over ideology any day. - amoeba, on 11/03/2008, -0/+4I like KDE 4.1
It works perfectly for me.
kudos to the developers. - abbathdoom, on 11/03/2008, -0/+4The problem is all in the numbering and how everyone interoperates it. Really it is KDE4 0.1 but because it is written as one thing 4.0, 4.1 etc people assume it is this super stable release and get pissed when its not. As soon as you readjust your expectations with it being KDE4 0.1 then it matches those expectations just fine.
- gameforge, on 11/03/2008, -0/+4They made two 8.04 releases, one with KDE 3.5 and one with KDE 4.
- inactive, on 11/03/2008, -0/+3I love Konqueror's split-pane view and use of KIOSlaves. Hell, the only time I ever use any graphical file manager is when I'm ripping a CD. I split Konq's view, open the audiocd:/ KIOSlave in one pane, open a new directory in another pane, and drag the .ogg files in audiocd:/'s Ogg Vorbis directory into the new directory. That's pretty damn awesome.
The one nice thing I'll say about KDE4 is that Dolphin's column view looks pretty cool. However, I won't actually use it because I prefer managing my files on the command like. - regx, on 11/03/2008, -1/+4If you love the split-pane view in konqueror I assume you are aware of profiles. If not profiles allow saving any splits, tabs etc as a profile for instant recall later! One of the coolest features of any file manager IMHO. Having CVS and SVN views is sweet as well. As is user configurable protocols etc etc etc. Konqueror Rocks!
- inactive, on 11/03/2008, -1/+4I just submitted that to Digg. Thanks!
Digg it: http://digg.com/linux_unix/KDE_4_1_is_Broken_Just_ ... - inactive, on 11/03/2008, -1/+4If not all features have been implemented, it should not be released as anything above an Alpha, and it is technically still in Alpha despite the developers erroneously claiming that KDE4 has seen two final releases.
Alpha means the product is feature-incomplete.
Beta means the product is feature-complete but there are still showstopper bugs.
Final release means the product is feature-complete and none of the remaining bugs are showstoppers. - gameforge, on 11/03/2008, -0/+3KDE 4.0 did suck, and was basically announced as a sort-of beta release. It technically wasn't beta, but Kubuntu, for instance, made two versions of their 8.04 release, one based on KDE 4.0 and the other based on KDE 3.5. I stayed with 3.5, as it was much more rock solid and complete.
KDE 4.1 is a much different animal, and Kubuntu no longer has a KDE 3.5 release; they've been working on stabilizing KDE 4 for over a year now, and while it's not perfect, it's much, much more up to date with how a modern desktop environment should work.
I believe this actually traces back to Qt - when Qt 4 came out, it was not API compatible with Qt 3, and therefore KDE could have chosen to either chop up KDE 3 and port it to Qt 4, or do a rewrite using new paradigms and better ideas - they chose the latter, though much of the auxiliary software was simply ported.
The same thing happened with the KDE/Qt 2 - 3 migration, though it was not quite as big of a deal then because there were no KDE-centric distro's like Kubuntu, and also because KDE just wasn't as huge and mature then. That was a long time ago. - inactive, on 11/03/2008, -1/+4It's simple things missing, like extract here.
- regx, on 11/03/2008, -1/+4I was referring to the title of the article. How to fill the remaining cracks in your Linux desktop.
I have tried KDE4 several times. I still have it installed on one of my laptops, but prefer kde3.5 for too many reasons to list. Most notably I hate the new launcher, panel, desktop etc. Haven't tried kipi or kio plugins in KDE4 but I assume those wouldn't work either. Basically KDE3.5 is 100% functional for me and KDE4 is not. IMO KDE3.5 is the best desktop ever so I am a little biased when it comes to change. Hard to improve upon perfection.
The first thing I did was remove dolphin and use Konqueror, so I am aware of that option. Have been doing the same with 3.5 ever since Dolphin became the default. - inactive, on 11/03/2008, -0/+3KDE 4.x runs like ***** on my 8500GT.
KDE 3.5, by contrast, runs beautifully, and my 8500GT is plenty good enough to play games. KDE 4.x just blows. - secrity, on 11/03/2008, -0/+2Because many distros, including Kubuntu, are dropping 3.5 support.
- inactive, on 11/03/2008, -2/+4KDE 4.1.2 is very usable from my own testing. A lot depends on the distro one uses as some make more enhancements to the desktop managers than others. openSUSE 11 works very well with KDE 4.1.2 with only a few stability, widget management and minor compatibility issues to worry about. The cleaner, less cluttered look of KDE 4.x is certainly more functional than Gnome.
- bluechild, on 11/03/2008, -0/+2You know you can use as much as you want ...
- antiver, on 11/03/2008, -1/+3Can TechRadar be blacklisted from digg for splitting articles into [way too many] pages?
- funklor, on 11/03/2008, -3/+5Actually, you might want to take your own advice. Just because it works well for you doesn't mean it works well for everyone else.
It's a fairly widely known problem and has been commented on by KDE developers.
It can be mitigated though.
http://techbase.kde.org/User:Lemma/KDE4-NVIDIA - ch40sBr1ng3r, on 11/03/2008, -3/+5KDE 4.1 is very nice. But having Opensuse 11 and Nvidia drivers, it was still very buggy for me. Switched to gnome, and now, BAM, my opensuse is awsome.
- gameforge, on 11/03/2008, -2/+4Actually I didn't announce that all Nvidia cards worked great on KDE 4, and I was specific, so I did take my own advice, didn't I? Smartass.
- anonymousfred, on 11/03/2008, -1/+3Come on dude, why the heck you compare KDE 4.x which is not even 1 year old with Gnome 2.x which is more than 6 years old? Even for me Gnome 2.x was damn unstable during its early year (think of Gnome 2.0 to like Gnome 2.10). Only after like Gnome 2.10 it became quite stable.
- leamanc, on 11/03/2008, -5/+7After years of sticking up for KDE over Gnome, I've totally switched since Ubuntu 8.10 (and its lack of KDE 3.5.x). Besides the massive bugs that have plagued the KDE 4 releases, this article only confirms what I suspected all along: even with the bug fixes, I simply don't like where KDE is heading. I don't like the eye candy, the Plasmoids, the lack of a real desktop, the confusing task bar, etc. etc.
It's admirable for someone to try and break the mold of the traditional desktop interface, but this is all totally non-intuitive. That it took five pages for this article to get all its points across (and the five pages were justified; it would have been too much for one page) only drives home how non-intuitive this all is. And I hoped the article would be focused on how to get 3.5.x functionality back. But it wasn't, because you can't. KDE has changed, and it's not going back.
Meanwhile, Gnome on Ubuntu 8.10 with Desktop Effects enabled is looking mighty fine to me these days. It strikes the right balance between familiarity and eye candy, is fast and snappy, and most importantly, is intuitive. - iofthestorm, on 11/03/2008, -0/+2Well, I've noticed some slowness with my pitiful Geforce 6150 so those tips in the article funklor linked to might be useful for me. But I just disabled most of the desktop effects and it seems to work fine.
- Mogger, on 11/03/2008, -0/+2It's supported another year.
And the panel is themable. It follows your Plasma theme. - RobotBuddha, on 11/03/2008, -1/+3The desktop effects are really getting nice. I'm not sure if it's in 4.1, but the current nightlies have had a cube effect similar to the one in compiz. It's depressing how much I've missed that.
- mrsteveman1, on 11/03/2008, -0/+1In reality these desktop environments really have become the entire upper layers of an OS and not just a few menus and a "look". They include their own highly sophisticated apps, very complete high level APIs, etc. The only thing KDE doesn't do is the low level stuff.
- inactive, on 11/03/2008, -5/+6KDE 4.1 still doesn't have all the customizability and features of KDE 3.5. And oh god KDE 4's menu is *****-awful...it's even worse than the Windows XP menu, and I didn't think that was possible. And the Plasma-based panel...oh god, why the ***** did they make it non-themable when the rest of the desktop is themable? And KDE 4.1 still runs slower on my system than 3.5 does...
If I were to ever switch to a different desktop than KDE 3.5, I'd use E17 as my desktop but keep using KDE 3.5's apps. But I'm happy with KDE 3.5, so I won't switch (though I do use Entrance as my login manager because it's pretty). - gameforge, on 11/03/2008, -0/+1Which proprietary Nvidia drivers are you using? The new ones or the legacy ones? I've got an 8600GTS, I'm running Kubuntu 8.10 (KDE 4.1.2) and I've got dual headed 3D acceleration that works flawlessly. As I mentioned in another comment, the Nvidia software was able to set up the dual head config the way I want it, and easily I might add.
It might help to use a distro that's actually based on KDE, like Kubuntu. There are others of course, but I've been with Kubuntu for five releases now and just don't care what else is out there; years ago I used Suse, and before that even I used RedHat going back to RH4.1 (kernel 2.0.26 - w00t!). Kubuntu is the most solid distro I've ever used.
I'd have a heart attack if KDE stopped working with Nvidia cards. - ch40sBr1ng3r, on 11/03/2008, -0/+1What happened was that i also have compiz fusion, i have 2x 7900 GS in sli on my computer. With opensuse 11 and kde 4.1 latest build. And because of compiz fusion it was buggy as hell. But on gnome everything runs flawlessly. i used to be an advocate of KDE and still am, but for now, im using Gnome.
Also, i was using the latest ( beta ) drivers from NVIDIA. onlyones that would make it run fine. - inactive, on 11/03/2008, -2/+3That's because KDE4 is still a buggy, feature-incomplete Alpha product (despite the developers lying that 4.0 and 4.1 are final releases).
- PatrickBrown, on 11/03/2008, -2/+3I appreciate KDE 4.x and their progress, but KDE 4.x is more of a beta at the moment than anything. Some programs/features are still missing while the ones that are there seem to be lacking in content. The nvidia issues do not help matters (YES, I have applied the techniques nvidia recommends, but they cause slowdowns elsewhere).
It is a usable and nice-looking (out of the box) desktop, but I find others to be more productive. - Jareth86, on 11/03/2008, -2/+3In KDE 4, desktop effects refused to install, the panel would glitch constantly, windows would black out after fifteen minutes of use, and my desktop was taken away from me and replaced with widgets.
In 3, everything worked seamlessly. I will switch to gnome before I "upgrade" to this glitchy piece of garbage. Gnome was always a bit buggy for me, but it wasn't "KDE 4 buggy". - SpeedSteamBoat, on 11/03/2008, -2/+3If you feature goals for a release version have been met and all showstopper bugs have been eliminated then how is it not a final release?
There's nothing wrong with having extended version goals. By your standard WINE should never have been released to anyone ever since it's likely that software will never be "feature complete" in terms of it's ultimate goal, and it will always be buggy.
If you don't like the release, and it doesn't include the features you want then don't use it. It's as simple as that. It doesn't make it any less of a final release. - inactive, on 11/04/2008, -0/+1Well if the numbering is what you say. Than what happened to the stable release....4.0? When you move to a major version number it's suppose to be stable and feature complete. They should of named it KDE 3.9pre1 or something like that.
- SpeedSteamBoat, on 11/03/2008, -1/+2@singularityv: That's extremely short cited. I'm glad you aren't in charge of these sort of decisions. With that sort of logic KDE would be dying a slow, painful, obsolete death.
- inactive, on 11/11/2008, -0/+1I wonder how many of you KDE4 supporters actually do real work on your desktop. That's what a computer is for and it's only after days of real use that a desktop either shines or fails. KDE4 fails miserably compared to GNOME when it comes to doing actual work versus KDE3.5 or GNOME 2.2. I'm sorry but any kid's opinion of a desktop when the most user intensive thing he does is plug in an ipod or download a movie off the internet is worthless.
Half you people "like" KDE4 for no better reason that change itself. -
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