Submitted by Earlier this year, the KDE team released the highly-anticipated 4th major revision of the KDE desktop. Instead of bringing evolutionary changes, KDE 4.0 effectively delivered a complete rewrite of KDE, and as a consequence the first release of the KDE 4 branch lacked a lot of features of KDE 3.x, while also being quite unstable and rough. Many even complained the KDE team shouldn’t have released KDE 4.0 as 4.0, but rather as a developer preview release or something similar. During this storm of criticism, the KDE team calmly pointed out that KDE 4.1 would fix many, many of the issues people had with KDE 4.0. Starting today, there’s no more pointing towards KDE 4.1: KDE 4.1 has been released today.
The release announcement opens with a list of the most important areas of improvement.
This release is the second feature release of the KDE 4 series, sporting new applications and newly developed features on top of the Pillars of KDE4. KDE 4.1 is the first KDE4 release to contain the Personal Information Management suite KDE-PIM with its E-Mail client KMail, the planner KOrganizer, Akregator, the RSS feed reader, KNode, the newsgroup reader and many more components integrated into the Kontact shell. Furthermore, the new desktop shell Plasma, introduced in KDE 4.0, has matured to the point where it can replace the KDE 3 shell for most casual users. Like with our previous release much time has been devoted to improving the framework and underlying libraries on which KDE is built.
The feature of KDE 4.0 that received the most criticism was Plasma. It was rather limited in its functionality, while also offering a rather new and unique way of handling your desktop. This led to many misunderstandings, which would be addressed in KDE 4.1, such as panel resizing and the lack of proper desktop icons. These, and more, have been addressed in KDE 4.1.
In my quick review of KDE 4.0.0 back in January, I wrote that “the potential is just oozing out of every pixel. Combine this with the various new and updated frameworks underneath it all, and it seems like the KDE project is building a very flexible and modern desktop environment, that will do a lot to bring the open source community to a higher level.” According to the various reviews of beta and release candidates of KDE 4.0 around the web, KDE 4.1 does indeed deliver on a lot of its promises.
On a final, but sad note, KDE 4.1 is a special release not just because the KDE developers have high anticipations for it. It is also an important release because it is dedicated to KDE developer Uwe Thiem, who died of a sudden kidney failure earlier this month. Thiem had been a long time contributer to the KDE project, with his areas or work ranging from programming to educating users in Africa about the merits of Free software. “With Uwe’s sudden death,” the release announcement reads, “KDE has lost an invaluable part of its community and a friend.”
Nice suggestion in one of the screenshoots:
http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.1/screenshots/plasma-kickoff.png
DON’T LOOK BACK. hehehhe
They handled this release way way better than the 4.0 one.
I think a lot of critics won`t be as vocal as they used to be.
The anoucement is very clear and to the point and even the stable download page on kde.org got a really nice facelift.
So congrats and thank you KDE contributors ( I only contributed the odd bug report and some advocacy ;( )
I think KDE has some really cool people and I really hope Aaron will start to blog again, cause his posts were very insightfull (IMHO).
Cheers!
The paradox is that without the KDE developers setting 4.0 in stone and working off from it, 4.1 would probably not have happened and certainly wouldn’t be as good as it has turned out to be.
Still some gaps to fill in and new functionality to be added, but you can really see where they’ve been heading with it now.
Sorry, what I really meant was all the communication around it was better.
I still think 4.0 was a very good developer release, which they should have told everyone in very big letters ( probably by naming it 4.0DR ).
That is silly. The only reason that would be the case is if the kde core developers have no communication at all with the developers working on the platform. Since all the mailing lists are open, we know that isn’t true. KDE4 was a milestone, not a release. The only reason they made it a release is because they were already late, and didn’t want to look bad by waiting another 7 months to do it right.
Releasing of open source software doesn’t work like that, it is NOT commercial software.
Perhaps some references might explain it a bit for you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar…
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/stories/2002/12/01/understandingTh…
“If you are an ex-commercial developer then you want desperately to reach a “1.0” stage or a “near functional”, “mostly baked” stage before going live. You wouldn’t want to release something piece meal, would you? After all — that’s the way it’s done.
Actually no. In the Open Source world, that’s not how it’s done.”
This is not a new concept for open source:
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22release+early+releas…
45,200 hits for the open source catchcry phrase that applies here … “release early, release often”.
I understand very, very well how it works. Anything even remotely close to a modern process works the same way in the commercial world, the goal is to have one month release cycles of small pieces of functionality, which lets you deliver business value immediately, tightens the user feedback cycle, and allows the user to drive the direction of development rather then wasting time on things they don’t want/need.
That is not an excuse for cowboy coding, it means the scope of every iteration needs to include time for unit testing, integration testing, regression testing, performance testing, and deployment stories. If that means that a feature doesn’t get done, it is more important to cut it from the release then to compromise on value by pushing it through.
A release means something is done. Something being done means that it has been fully tested. If it hasn’t been done, it shouldn’t be released. If all you can manage to put out in a release is a single feature, it is better to do that and have it be done rather then compromise on what done means, and release half a dozen features. That is how the commercial world works at any rate.
If indeed you did understand very, very well how open source code releases works, and you were being fair, then you would not have opined the following:
Rather, if you understood how it works, you would have understood that KDE 4.0 was ready for a .0 release …
KDE 4.0 was indeed missing a great deal of functionality, no doubt. It was not ready if it were a commercial program, but it was ready for release in the sense it was an open source project following a “release early, release often” cycle of development.
For open source development programs, .0 releases do indeed lack significant slices of the eventual functionality. That is the way they are done.
Edited 2008-07-31 06:53 UTC
Missing functionality is different then removing existing functionality, and very different then putting out half done functionality that hasn’t been tested and is full of bugs. This is what I was saying, kde 4.0 is the exact opposite of an iterative process, they basically disappeared for a year and came back with something completely different.
Disappeared for a year? We started porting KDE 3 to Qt4 in 2006. Since then we’ve released alpha and beta releases of KDE4 regularly. We’ve also released new version KDE3 regularly. In fact, another KDE3 release is around the corner. Calling that “disappearing” is not only at odds with us being accused of hype, but is, on the face of it, utterly ridiculous.
disappearing in terms of the end user. developer releases are not real releases that real users should use, and as such your user feedback cycle gets blown out way too far. From the user point of view, 3.5 was at the beginning of 2006, and 4.0 was at the beginning of 2008. That my friend, is waterfall, plain and simple.
Iterative development (release early, release often) means that features should have been put out one at a time every few months as real, full releases. What KDE did was waterfall, which is draw up specs, code like mad, and then release the full shebang when you are done. Only they didn’t release when they were done, they released when the pressure got too big from outside sources due to being so far behind schedule, and then turned around and claimed that everyone in the open source world labels beta products as real releases.
As for hype, I’m not accusing the team of that. Any hype that was unwarranted was generated by tech bloggers and the more rabid element of the user base. KDE4.1 is an impressive move forward, and shows alot of vision and technical skill from the project. As a developer who cares alot about process, I think the team should be re-examining theirs, rather then redefining what a release means and blaming everyone outside the team for unfair expectations.
This is a very significant statement. And one which I quite agree with. The effects of distributed responsibility for both credits and debits is something that the community needs to address. We all play our parts. And those parts are our responsibility.
It’s not a problem which can be dealt with in one fell swoop; We have already taken some steps in that direction. But they are insufficient as a complete solution.
Users need to recognize that advocacy needs to be good and honest advocacy. If the product is not ready, it is counterproductive to present it as being so.
I am likely known, around here, as a Gnome fan. But I have been a KDE fan in the past, and may very well be one again, some day. The work that the KDE team has done is quite notable.
But proper respect for the value of honesty and sincere PR (by all of us) should never be underestimated.
Edited 2008-07-31 17:17 UTC
.0 releases may lack functionality, but they’re usually meant to work.
Release early, release often *does not* mean tag a development release as a .0
Slight, I’d advice you to learn the difference between “development release” and “developers release”. The first is a release of software that’s under development — which means that all releases are “development releases”, the second is a release that brings something of special value to developers. In the case of KDE 4.0, the release brought a lot of value to developers of applications based on the KDE platform. You don’t have to understand that: I don’t expect that of you, you can just take my word for it. I am a developer of an application based on the KDE platform, and until the 4.0 release I had a hell of a time. Afterwards, it was relatively smooth sailing, as smooth as it comes when developing software.
you should learn the difference between milestone release and production release.
News at 11. Software works better in a release early and release often fashion. When you’ve achieved what you want to achieve in the run up to a release, release it and build off that. That is the certainly the way open source development works, and the way even commercial companies work.
I’m afraid you don’t get to decide the requirements for a release. The KDE developers do. If it doesn’t work for you then don’t use it, and distributors generally make that decision for you by deciding whether to ship it by default. That’s the way releasing open source software has always worked.
You can’t have release candidates forever, otherwise if they’d waited nine months to release KDE 4.0 they would have had ten times the problems and everybody would have complained bitterly that it wasn’t good enough for them anyway.
For some people 4.1 will work great. For others 4.2 or 4.3 will only be good enough as more applications get ported to the platform. There is no black and white.
Release early, release often means that instead of trying to implement everything at the same time, they all should have focused on one or two things, and got it out in a month or two. a top to bottom overhaul is the exact opposite of release early, release often. You are pretty much arguing my point for me by quoting that.
They did. They focused on getting their APIs and libraries organised in the way that they wanted first and foremost, and built off that.
No, that just doesn’t mean what you want it to mean. A top to bottom overhaul is sometimes needed for you to get ‘over the wall’ and on to the next step. When undertaking a project the size of KDE 4 it becomes even more important to release early and release often. You can’t just say “We’re going to focus on one or two things”. That’s not what release early and release often means.
With 4.0 they got their APIs and library structure sorted, and that was the requirement for that release. In 4.1 it was to flesh out Plasma and the desktop functionality more. In 4.2 and 4.3 it will probably be the addition and porting of more applications to the new platform and Akonadi as a system wide PIM framework, in 4.4 it might be the introduction of Tenor contextual searching and in 4.5 it might be more widespread use of the Solid and Decibel frameworks.
We are arguing at cross purposes. I do not consider “getting your libraries sorted out” at all to be a thing worthy of release. You work bits of that as you need it, letting user stories drive the requirements.
You can see this on OSX releases, Core* overhauls have been spread out over about four releases, each release taking the one or two core libraries implemented in that release, and giving real world value to the users, and never pushing their release cycle over 6 months, or reducing existing functionality. What KDE did was basically a Vista on a smaller scale, bit off way more then they could chew, being forced to ship something that had drastic changes that noone will care about for awhile till everything else catches up.
In my team, we adhear pretty closely to the Scrum process. If we end a release cycle without anything of business value to show the share holders (our users), we consider that iteration to be a failure, and try to figure out where we went wrong. If we ever blew a deadline by four months and released something that was buggier and less functional, that would be considered a failure of epic proportions, and our project manager would probably lose his job.
No the design of KDE 4 was not driven by ‘letting user stories drive the requirements’ because we aren’t developing business applications. Amongst other things the KDE team is developing a framework that you could develop business applications with. But that is a very different process from developing the business applications themselves.
Apple has beta releases for developers 6 months or more before they have a corresponding release for end users. That is because the developers have to write applications before the users can use them. KDE doesn’t have the same system, but the KDE 4.0 release was intended as a release for developers to write applications against the new libraries. Whereas KDE 4.1 is more like a first user release in terms of Apple’s release strategy.
No that’s completely wrong, and you don’t appear to have understood how the KDE development process works in spite of some excellent efforts by Boudewijn Rempt, Segundum and others to explain it to you.
Your team sounds like a relatively small group developing business applications, and that is in no way comparable to the KDE project. KDE doesn’t have ‘deadlines’, ‘share holders’ or ‘project managers’ who may or may not lose their jobs. Any comparisons are pretty meaningless.
So essential KDE design is driven by developers, not users. I don’t think that makes sense when your goal is to create a product for users, but that is just me. It makes sense when you look at the way the team acts.
In the case of gnome or the kernel, even versions mean stable, odd mean release. That is not the case of KDE. Again, this only makes sense if developers are driving the design.
A team whose goal is to deliver high quality software to users will always have certain things in common. Replace deadline with goals, and project managers with “people who direct dev effort on the team”. Share holders or product owners is just another word for user, but words that keep you thinking of them as your boss rather then something you have to put up with.
Honestly, if the reason that KDE4 was what it was is that the KDE developers don’t see anyone but other developers as their end user, it would explain alot. That kind of is at odds with the linux evangelism effort though, which typically claims that open source software is just as good as commercial software for home users. It never will be if the development process is not engineered with that in mind, plain and simple.
The kernel dropped this versioning scheme (and development model) beginning with the 2.6 series. Each release (even and uneven) is considered stable. There has been talk about changing the versioning scheme altogether to reflect the fact that there never will be a 2.7 or 2.8 kernel.
Once again, you forget … open source code is not sold, it is not a product which is released for buyers to purchase.
Open source development is a development process which releases code early in the development cycle so that users can report back on it, with a view to evolving something useful as the process progresses.
With KDE 4, we have already see fantastic improvement in just the first two rounds. Already it rivals other contemporary desktops in every way, and it has far more promise and undeniably far more vitality and direction.
Software QA processes have their place, particularly when there is a monetary transaction involved and customers who will bay for blood if they are recipients of shoddy, unfinished work.
Open source software development is an entirely different scenario, and there is a very different relationship between the creators of the software and the users … a relationship, by the way, that is not based on contracts or liability or exchange of money or on onerous restrictions on use and disclosure.
Clearly, you don’t understand this … or more likely you don’t want to understand it.
Yay!
Great work… I’ve been using this since the last beta for 4.1 and that was better than 4.0.x. Now give me Amarok, k3b, Didgikam, and Koffice and I’ll be really happy.
Anyone know if there are Debian packages for KDE 4.1?
Yes, in experimental – http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/kde4.html
As freeze is more or less going on it won’t reach into standard Lenny tree (i.e. the next stable release).
Asssuming you’re familiar with dpkg and the metapackages for debian kde debs just go ahead and install from the aforementioned page and install them all.
I’ve got them in Sid and they work well. I’ve got certain applications (Kile leaps to mind, KMyMoney, et.al) that require kdelibs from the 3.x branch but they work within as well.
Multimedia apps for KDE are 99% still KDE3.x based.
Koffice is in alpha9 but I installed it anyways along-side OpenOffice and various LaTeX tools, not to mention AbiWord and other apps so if you want to see the direction of the KOffice 2.0 suite, it’s there as well.
All these listed under: http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/experimental.html
install but need some massaging [order of dependence] figured out to get them installed. Once done it’s nice to boot up into kdm.
You want to install kdm for KDE 4 so it sets it up to run KDE 4.1 and have the entire environment look n’ feel.
Most of Kdewebdev 4.1 is there already for i386 and I suspect shortly for amd64–Quanta is the only one missing and I’m sure it will be once it’s ready.
I think they’re starting to move into Experimental right now. At least today I saw in incoming.debian.org that there was the systemsettings 4.1 going into experimental.
I’d give it a week or two and it’ll probably be in unstable (who knows if it’ll make Lenny or not though, I think the freeze is in a couple of weeks)
when debian lenny will become stable, kde4 will replace kde3 in unstable
It’s lovely to see that osnews is continuing it’s wonderful record of low standards of impartial journalism and reporting. I guess that since you didn’t report this until after slashdot you did need a way to keep your ad revenue. Truly the level of quality you can see here is tending towards zero.
So, you’ve not bothered to even mention what’s changed. From the look of things you’ve not even bothered to read the release announcement. Why not just post a link to the slashdot story and spare us the flamebait?
Repeat after me:
All your base…
I for one welcome…
….
Profit!
Slashdot is calling you back. Do not resist!
Maybe, except that unlike you I actually develop this stuff. It’s pretty poor quality for a site that is so happy to slag things off to be so utterly lazy.
“So, you’ve not bothered to even mention what’s changed. From the look of things you’ve not even bothered to read the release announcement. Why not just post a link to the slashdot story and spare us the flamebait?”
Of course, linking to the release announcement and expecting people to read it is flambait….
Apparently you sir have not even bothered to check out what was posted before flapping your gums. Carry on.
Actually, it is. I would expect a summary of the announcement (possibly slanted given the site). NEws in reputable publications is generally separated from editorial content.
You are really doing a disservice to KDE. You say you are a KDE developer, but your pointless inflammatory comments about a perfectly fine news item here on OSNews – a news item with a very sad and important last paragraph, I might add – tells me you either really don’t care about the work you do for KDE, or you’re just a stupid troll claiming to be a KDE developer.
Show some respect for the person this release has been dedicated to, please. I’m sure your fellow KDE developers would like that (assuming you are one).
Actually Thom is right – I’d only read the summary and then clicked through to the comments. Reading the full text is actuallly a lot more balanced than the impression I got from the summary, so I appologise if I’ve caused any offence.
What standards? I visit about eight tech sites like this one a day and most of them post the same stories within hours (rarely within days) of each other. Big deal. Furthermore, money talks. These guys, like all of them, are going to do the minimum amount of work to maximize their profits. You realize, it takes a couple more clicks of the mouse and ten minutes of actual reading (READING!! can you imagine the horror?) in order to get the full story and put it into context.
What do you mean the flamebait?
I actually wish OSNews would disable comment capabilities all together for the site if that’s what you mean about comments going back and forth. I do agree OSNews sometimes has pretty pointless articles, but even when there is a useful or informative story from a practical perspective, 90% of the comments on here are garbage, it seems filled by people who think who think it’s cool to be “techie”, cool have Linux installed.
I am sure the lovers of cwm/fvwm know what I am talking about. Just want the barebones to get the work done and any more than that, just cut all the graphics and menus out of it. We don’t like all the bla bla bla talk, so “shut up and hack”.
If you know of a better site than say so. Daemonnews is alright but a little slow, so if you know of something else, or maybe we need an open source news site that is more inclined towards IT experts and is not interested in home users.
I think he didn’t see the “read more” which is listed in BRIGHT ORANGE.
We’re all just people.
The Read More is very easy to overlook. I wouldn’t blame him just because he didn’t see it. I haven’t seen it myself until now.
Consider making some CSS retouches to that.
Looks really cool; hopefully by 4.2 all the applications will be moved to the new Qt 4.x widget kit. The only thing I do find disappointing is the fact that KDE still uses khtml instead of throwing out in favour of webkit. They should have moved to webkit months ago, and taken advantage of the work which Apple is contributing to it.
The thing I’ve always loved about KDE is the gradual moving forward. I don’t want to turn this into a debate over which desktop is the best, but at the same time however, OpenOffice.org has been embraced – but at what cost? I’ve see KOffice, although limited in features, when features are added, they’re integrated well, the office suite is integrated heavily into the desktop.
With that being said, it is going to be interesting to see what is going to happen to Xorg in the future – because ultimately the KDE developers could write the most beautiful code on the planet, but if it is constrained by the fact that Xorg don’t address long standing show stopper bugs – KDE is going to end up looking bad because of it.
Currently the version of webkit included with Qt is not really up to snuff for full scale browsing.
e.g. it doesn’t support netscape plugins so no embedded video and no flash either. Webkit atm is pretty much for simple applications that want to mix Qt widgets with web layouts…in KDE’s case plasma.
According to the Qt devs 4.5 will allow full browsing with all of the holes in functionality filled. Having said that there is a webkit kpart somewhere…
Mandriva 2009 beta 1 has just been released. It features KDE 4.1 final release. Get the .iso from here http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2009.0_Beta_1
In the past, Mandriva betas have been VERY, VERY unstable. I am talking cooker versions.
However, I have a spare machine here, I cannot resist the temptation of Mandriva…
I’ve been using KDE for years but stayed away of Linux a while during the last month because I didn’t had enough place on my laptop. As I start to get depressive because of Vista, I decided to scrap my system restoration partition to install Ubuntu. I installed Gnome for the first time in my life. Not that I don’t like KDE, but I just can’t feel Kubuntu in its for anymore. Every time I used it, it needed tens of hours to setup it the way I liked. I liked Compiz too but in KDE it was a real hell to use. So I installed gnome, when to gnome look, download a file and everything went sexy. Kubuntu simply feel too borked. I lack the finish and the integration of Ubuntu. I used to run KDE-centric distributions. Where a they now? I really hope KDE 4.1 change this.
Ever tried PCLinuxOS?
PCLinuxOS is probably the best getting-work-done distribution. (which is remarkable for a small understaffed distro. Compare that to the Ubuntu hype train, whose newest vexing version completely fails to do anything. No system, no error message, no nothing and the CD is fine. Bloody buggers =)
But the reason I’m back to OpenSuSE instead of PCLinuxOS is the very same KDE 4.1 we’re currently talking about. As I said, PCLinuxOS is about getting-work-done and from what I’ve read it won’t switch to KDE4 any time soon.
Mandriva 2009.0 (now at beta release stage).
http://www.osnews.com/story/20126/Mandriva_Linux_2009_Beta_1_Releas…
Mandriva is PCLinuxOS but without Synaptic, so the package management is a bit clumsier. Other than that the usability is the same … but Mandriva has just release a preview of 2009.0 that includes KDE 4.1 final.
In fact, PCLinuxOS was just a one-man offshoot of Mandrake in the first place.
Mandriva is Mandrake + Connectiva. Recent releases of Mandriva have taken the mantle back from PCLinuxOS.
Current stable release of Mandriva is 2008.1 … which is a great release but it uses KDE 3.5.9.
Does it come with a compiler and build system?
I *thought* I’d use OpenSuSE but my LAN chip’s not supported (Atheros L1e). Now that’s not a problem per se, as Asus provides a driver. But the OpenSuSE CD apparently decided to skip all those unsexy tools necessary to get their sh*t working for more Web2.0-ready multimedia-somethings.
If you are looking for intergation of KDE, go to Opensuse – the 4.1 is a one click installation, too. I am running it in a VM, but if I finally get my neighbours old laptop, I will put XUbuntu on it. I just like the slim XFCE these days.
I though Suse was going Gnome? Anyway… I promised myself to stay far from any RPM-based distro a long while ago.
I wonder if Gentoo will provide the packages for KDE-4.1 soon.
KDE-4.0.x has been HARD MASKED.
I doubt it’ll hit x86 or even ~x86 in the main branch anytime soon. GNOME 2.22 still isn’t marked as stable, and it took a couple of weeks before it got ~x86. KDE 4.1 is available in a overlay though, AFAIK.
When exactly did Gentoo stop being bleeding edge?
Archlinux have packages released already. :]
Infact, KDE3.x isn’t even provided officially anymore.
Yeah, and that’s been met with, um, shall I say “mixed enthusiasm.” Luckily, the KDEmod guys are planning on supporting kde3 for a while, so those folks who aren’t interested in upgrading right away don’t have to.
Well done to all of the KDE devs, testers, documenters and all others involved!
Why the fs-ck the support Windows/Mac. Syllable is open source and needs their attention. Moreover QNX is becoming open source and is also a possible target. BSDs can be free from the burden of porting if a native port is made available. Windows does not want open source and Apple boasts about Carbon. I cannot understand them. The new release seems beautiful.
BSDs can be free from the burden of porting if a native port is made available.
—
What do the BSDs have to port? The code is largely *nix agnostic AFAIK. nothing special to hack up.
AFAIK, somethings are not true *IX agnostic:
I installed KDE on top of NetBSD, I installed ksysguard and… voilà , some counters are always returning 0.
/proc is not a native NetBSD virtual filesystem (though it can run through Linux emulation, provided in pkgsrc) and ksysguard depends on it to get several counters.
So, ksysguard has implementing thinking on Linux primarily; I suppose several KDE apps have similar issues.
Hi,
I’m the ksysguard maintainer.
I personally run Linux and rely on others to add the support for the other operating systems. Switching from KDE3 to KDE4 meant that the (very small number of) bsd developers were extremely busy, hence the lack of proper freebsd support. There are many areas of ksysguard that need some serious modernization, and it’s just been a race against time to fix the more serious problems
I plan to try to install a virtual machine to install the dozen (!) or so different operating systems that ksysguard 3 supported. This should allow me to produce a more consistent result across any OS.
Btw, comments and suggestions for ksysguard are always welcome.
Does Syllable really want KDE? Last time I checked, Syllable did not want to become “yet another unix-like OS” with software that can be found everywhere but limited driver support.
Windows? If you mean Microsoft: That’s not true. Microsoft wants as much software to run on Windows as possible. Even tough MS prefers it if the people use MS software on Windows but non-MS software on Windows is better for them than -non-MS software on Linux.
If by Windows you mean the Windows users: That’s not true either. Most users Firefox and OpenOffice have are on Windows. Among these many users are certainly a few developers that want to help out. KDE wants them.
What has this to do with KDE? KDE is written in Qt, not Carbon. Qt/Mac currently wraps around Carbon but by Qt 4.5 Cocoa will be used.
The Mac OS and Windows support is basically a side effect – KDE is intended to be portable to all Unix-like systems. As of KDE 4, they’re also maintaining a port to Mac OS X, and Windows, since the GPL-licensed version of Qt 4 supports them.
Porting to Windows (or Mac OS X) builds on the Qt library, which handles much of the platform-specific stuff already. The idea is to have a core of KDE that’s portable, to the extent that applications can be written for KDE as a platform, and then run on any Unix-like system, on Windows, or on Mac OS X.
The problem with porting to Syllable (or SkyOS, or BeOS, or anything else that doesn’t use X11) is that Qt would have to be ported as well. That’s a hell of a lot of work.
I want to have my amarok, krusader, kopete and konqueror running on every platform I use (Linux and NetBSD at home and Windows at work); so, a port for those proprietary platforms will always be welcomed.
FreeBSD had an issue with konsole not displaying anything. Turns out there is a bug in either kde or tty code. The /proc filesystem is different and there is no /sys. I’m sure there are other issues as I’m new to FreeBSD.
Combine this allready nice GUI with the power of self healing and ZFS in OpenSolaris, add in some nice powerful admin stuff like the freeIPA, things from Red Hat and add some additional polish to make all of this work well together without glitches, and we will end up with an extremely powerful computing platform that will be very hard to beat even for Microsoft and Apple, no matter how good Windows 7 or, whatever sabbertooth tiger Apple might come up with in a year or two, will be.
Open source is really improving these days, in that they now adress areas they didn’t used to such as GUI, and enterprice readiness in the form of ease of management for very large deployments, and good data security and managability. What’s even more important is that they now tries to embrace and extend competing platforms like MacOS and windows by develooping cross platform frameworks like KDE.
Can they PLEASE hire a freaking font expert. The fonts still look like ass. Nevermind that the rendering sucks, because I know some people like it. But the choice of fonts is terrible and most of them look out of place. They didn’t even get the sizes right either.
No, Sappyvcv, we cannot hire a freaking font expert. Mainly because KDE, as a project of volunteers, does not hire anyone.
If you happen to be a freaking font expert, you’re of course very welcome to start your copy of fontforge and create an excellent font. In the meantime, console yourself with the knowledge that everyone on the Linux desktop uses the same fonts and the same font rendering technology.
Ok well then, KDE will always be a sub-standard product.
I guess no one at KDE has ever heard of raising funds to pay for things important to a project.
The beauty of open source is sharing. Once someone has a solution, there is no need to squander resources and/or money developing or acquiring it (as the case may be) all over again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DejaVu_fonts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitstream_Vera
http://openfontlibrary.org/media/view/media/fonts
Plenty of fine fonts to choose from. This is not a problem.
Why don’t you try harder to find some other utter nonsense to whinge about Linux that might be a little harder to debunk?
Whooosh. You need to learn to read. It’s not about availability of fonts WHAT SO EVER.
Woosh yourself.
This was the original (and bogus) complaint: “Go to the same site using Linux and you’re faced with font that don’t match, size that are (most of the time) too small. I’m no Font expert, but it’s a HUGE problem with Linux and one that put me off of using it.”
The solution to this is: install the Liberation fonts, set your browser to render using Liberation fonts, and ensure that the system’s dpi setting is correct.
Why Liberations fonts?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
Two reasons (both are quotes from the link I gave):
(1) “These fonts are metric-compatible with Monotype Corporation’s Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New respectively. “
(2) “They are available under the GNU General Public License with a font embedding exception, which states that documents embedding these fonts do not automatically fall under the GNU GPL.”
The fonts are metric equivalents of common webfonts. They will therefore render correctly, at the correct size on screen (provided that the system’s dpi setting for the display screen is correct).
Therefore, on a Linux system, installing and using Liberation fonts is exactly and precisely a sloution for the “problem” that the OP complained about.
It turns out that the solution IS largely all about the availability of appropriate fonts under an appropriate license for use on a Linux system (ie, the font’s license must allow for re-distribution to downstream recipients).
Don’t sprout about things that you don’t understand would be my advice.
The post you are quoting was not made by me. Try again smart guy.
And if you go up the reply tree here, you’ll see that post isn’t there.
Edited 2008-07-31 01:39 UTC
OK, fair enough. I was going only by the RE[2]: Fonts headers of messages, and I must have replied to the wrong post.
It happens. As long as you were able to admit it, it’s no big deal.
Browse most website using Windows or Mac OSX and the presentation is the same, font size and look are similar.
Go to the same site using Linux and you’re faced with font that don’t match, size that are (most of the time) too small.
I’m no Font expert, but it’s a HUGE problem with Linux and one that put me off of using it.
Why ? the fonts are fully interchangeable.
In fact most distros have a MSfonts package that has all the standard Windows fonts, so it can look EXACTLY the same under Linux.
Liberation fonts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
Install them from your distribution’s repository (search in your package manager for the keyword “liberation”), and once installed, set firefox to use these fonts as the default serif and san serif fonts.
The other thing you must check is your monitor’s resolution setting in “dpi”. Check it by typing “dpyinfo”. If it is not correct, xorg configuration has erred, so you should force it to a reasonable value. For many monitors, 96 dpi is the correct setting. You can set this in both KDE and GNOME from GUI configuration applets.
Once you have done these things then website fonts render just fine.
Not a HUGE problem at all. In fact, it has been well and truly solved for quite some time now.
Unfortunately KDE has no responsibility whatsoever for fonts. That is a much wider Linux system and distribution question.
You mean KDE doesn’t choose which font faces and sizes they use? Wow, how odd.
No, is the very simple answer. Fonts are handled separately, and when you see a screenshot it is generally a default base font that is used because you can’t depend on what fonts might be installed. However, distributions might very well change the fonts available, the default and the rendering and things will then look better, so it’s all rather mute.
I know it’s incredibly fashionable at the moment for lots of people to wade in and pick out what they think to be usability and look issues in KDE 4.1 for reasons best known to them ;-). I saw one guy somewhere complain about not being able to see the columns in Dolphin, when the window had merely been resized to enable you to see the rest of the desktop!
Ok, so why can’t they choose better BASE fonts then?
Because they have to rely on the absolute lowest common denominator available.
Hint: Better fonts and settings will generally be configured in a distribution so you don’t have to worry about it.
Obviously not, because all the distributions choose pretty crappy, and interestingly, seemingly all the same, settings.
Odd how that seems to work to KDEs disadvantage huh. Just shift the blame.
Que?
http://www.efytimes.com/efytimes/fcreative.asp?edid=27844
http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=824
http://vizzzion.org/images/blog/4.1-theming/4.1-whiteish.png
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mandriva-2009-Beta-1-Brings-KDE-4-1-…
http://news.softpedia.com/images/extra/LINUX/large/mandriva2009beta…
http://news.softpedia.com/images/extra/LINUX/large/mandriva2009beta…
Excuse me? You were saying?
No blame shifting going on, because that’s the way you get to see a new desktop – configured in a distribution. It’s like getting to look at the first version of some Windows desktop components produced internally, and then bitching at Microsoft because it hasn’t been integrated nicely into Windows with all the new font work that’s been going on elsewhere.
Ergo, you just have no clue how this works.
Looking forward to updated my Ubuntu 8.04 installation with KDE 4.1 on my laptop.
A review of the new 4.1 release of KDE4 form Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080729-kde-4-1-delivers-a-ne…
says this about it in summary:
“Although the weaknesses of the flawed 4.0 release provoked widespread criticism from users, version 4.1 is so polished that it feels like a completely different piece of software. This version truly delivers on KDE’s promise of a next-generation Linux desktop environment, and it completes the foundation for a strong 4.x series.
The initial doubts and skepticism I experienced when using 4.0 are completely gone. This is, frankly, what 4.0 should have been. The question now is whether users who were burned by the inadequacies of the 4.0 release will give KDE 4 a second chance. I certainly hope so, because there looks to be a whole lot of room for innovation.”
I think that is a pretty fair summary.
Hey guys, let’s make our terrible desktop environment look exactly like vista! Sounds good!
I think Microsoft is running the kubuntu (KDE 3.5) side at Canonical. The batas work better then the release. And KDE 4.1 is not any better, they dont even use kwin and about 2 plasmoids work. What is the best distro to use for KDE-4.1? I use Debian for servers, so i’m open to that.
Edited 2008-08-01 14:23 UTC
I’ve just used Suse for KDE, as they have a very nice installation mechanism for getting KDE 4 up and running.
My beef with Ubuntu goes far beyond the support, or lack of, for Kubuntu. I’ve had silly EVMS issues with Ubuntu, and I am probably less confident about doing any form of update on it than any other distribution. The problems Kubuntu has are just symptomatic of wider issues in the base platform.
I myself find Ubuntu the best operating system out there today. Having said that, I would be more likely to listen to your gripe if it made any sense.
You attack a product with no details. This sounds more like a political ad than a comment. What are the issues. Why do you find it difficult? What has better and more stable features?
I don’t, considering that it does nothing that other Linux distributions aren’t doing, and even Linux distros have their shortcomings.
It does make sense. You just sound offended that somebody came out and said that Ubuntu isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
A political ad?! No I know you’re really upset that someone has said something negative against Ubuntu.
EVMS is running when it isn’t even being used, thankfully they’ve now dropped it (and with no way of even configuring the thing in the end either!), caused a ton of problems when trying to update various versions, package conflicts mostly related to mail, and in terms of getting KDE 4 up and running, not too much in the way of help. NetworkManager issues I don’t see elsewhere, and I’ve hit most of this:
http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?194-hardy-is-a-hard-time
For the purposes of what the poster above wants? OpenSuse. Which is what I wrote.
Edited 2008-08-03 15:46 UTC
I have to agree with segedunum. openSUSE IMHO offers the best KDE experience out there.
Get the install DVD from http://software.opensuse.org/
Then after you installed openSUSE 11.0, get the KDE 4.1 packages via 1-Click Install: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Deskt…
This will replace all KDE 4.0 packages with 4.1 ones.
After you installed 4.1, remove the desktop icons that are left from 4.0 and use the FolderView Plasmoid instead.
Additional Plasmoids (IIRC not installed by default) are part of the kde4-plasma-addons package.