KDE 3.5 Alpha source tarballs are up on the FTP servers. This release is “really alpha quality”, so no big announcement is planned. To get this release, you can either use Konstruct, or download the Klax KDE 3.5 Alpha Live-CD. Update: Here’s a screenshot gallery of this release.
whats new in this release?
Try
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-3.5-features.html
Dood! It totally keeps crashing on me!
Signed,
Gned
Is the UI still cluttered beyond belief?
From the release manager’s blog:
“Two notes about bugs which ship: there is a nasty bug in the Alpha which can crash your whole KDE session when (re)starting the KDE media manager (for example k3b does it after burning CDs) – that’s supposed to be fixed in 3.5 branch. And it seems KDE doesn’t start up at all for a new user which doesn’t have a /var/tmp/kdecache-<userid> already.”
He is not the release manager. And yes, it’s more or less a random SVN snapshot without any stabilization phase before.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=407&slide=3
Is it any more user-friendly yet?
KDE is always user-friendly, and the new is even more.
> Is it any more user-friendly yet?
It is. It always was. You just seem to be to moronic to make use of it, and find your way in it, like morons fail to do with every even slightly advanced environment.
If KDE is too unfriendly for your user, your user is too dumb for KDE.
It would seem that, given his recent comments, Ettrich is too dumb to use KDE as well.
You must be an American: your comments are stupid and arrogant enough to betray you.
just looks like Windows, why not try and come up with something different
> just looks like Windows, why not try and come up with something different
1. Don’t be confused by the looks. KDE has technology that allows for very different workflows than on windows (e.g. drag-and-drop between remote hosts and protocols thanks to the IO slaves). And to me that’s what counts.
2. The looks can be customised.
3. Some metaphors and GUI elements common to KDE and Windows (and GNOME!) just work and are familiar to millions of people. It would be plain stupid to throw that away just to be “different”.
4. Why don’t you join the KDE team and come up with something that is different? If it’s also *better* it may be broadly accepted.
KDE is always user-friendly, and the new is even more.
Biggest lie ever.
Don’t spec to get a more clear and more user frienly KDE till 4.0
Biggest lie ever.
No, it is an opinion.
ummm….. KDE is a hell of a lot more userfriendly than GNOME and much more powerful, always has been
Not another KDE vs. Gnome flamewar. Please.
On topic, I’m going to try the Klax Live CD shortly. Should be fun. 🙂
ummm….. KDE is a hell of a lot more userfriendly than GNOME and much more powerful, always has been
Now this one is the biggest lie ever.
Could we all ignore the mexican three dots “…” troll?
that Kde is bloated.
heh…. and more people choose to use kde than any other desktop environments/window managers because it sucks then?
look…. i started out in the gnome realm and.. honestly after i used kde for a week… there isn’t a snowball’s chance i would go back, it’s just more powerful and i can make it do what i want it to do without jumping through hoops, if i want to change anything in gnome besides the fricken wallpaper i need to edit text files.. which is fine, but it’s a pain in the rear.
and one more thing….. i don’t jump into the gnome discussion and say how much i think gnome sucks (even though i think it does)…… stop flaming
When was the last time you used gnome?
Text files? The worst you have to do is open gconf-editor and graphically change things with a regedit-like UI.
Kluttered Desktop Environment.
the last time i used gnome for an extend period of time was about a year and a half ago, i have tried it at almost every major release since and have never found it to be suitible to my needs…. i just find kde more powerful and easier to make it fit my needs.
i understand that with all default settings kde can seem somewhat cluttered, however…. I spend 20 minutes configuring it the way i want it and i work far more efficiently then i do with other WM’s or DE’s
to me the difference between kde and gnome is that kde allows me to easily and quickly set up my desktop for maximum efficience, while to set up gnome the way i like it takes me forever and i have to jump through hoops galore.
gnome fanboys…. take a lesson from us kde fanboys and go check out all the comments about how gnome sucks…. or even gnome has (whatever) problems in the 2.12 beta 2 discussion
oh wait….. there aren’t any
why do you guys come in here to cause trouble.
The first comment that mentioned Gnome was from you!
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=11531&comment_id=16718
Your the troll.
i must agree with you. i like the clean interface gnome has, but it is easy to clean up KDE – and they are cleaning it up themselves too. soon, the only thing gnome does better than KDE (clean interface) is gone – and i don’t see any other reason to use gnome. KDE is generally faster, more flexible, easier to configure, looking better and it can do more.
KDE 4 will only make it more clear: gnome is not needed anymore. QT is GPL, so the only problem gnome was created to solve is fixed.
i stand corrected…. i thought (…) directly mentioned gnome.. and even so
umm….. this is a kde discussion… I don’t go to the gnome discussions and start talking smack about gnome.
(despite (…) not directey mentioning gnome… it was very heavily implied.)
First, use the reply button. Next:
“i stand corrected…. i thought (…) directly mentioned gnome.. and even so “
this …… i…s not (..)a) proper.. sentance.(..).
My native language isn’t english but even I know how to type reasonably well.
“umm….. this is a kde discussion.”
Yes this is a KDE discussion so why did you start talking about Gnome?
“…directey mentioning gnome… it was very heavily implied.)”
How was Gnome “heavily implied”? How do you know they are not Window/OSX/Fluxbox/etc users. You don’t because your an idiot who wants to start a fight.
You and “superstoned”, who is now trolling in the Gnome thread, give KDE users everywhere a bad name.
I will say this, I have a very strong command of the English language and am well capable of speaking and typing it properly.
When I type “…….” it is because I damn well feel like it despite not being “proper grammar”.
now………. (I know you like the “……”) I may have inadvertantly and indirectly started this KDE vs. Gnome flame war and I thorughly appologize for that.
I must say one thing though, why attack my grammar?
Is this your feeble attempt to discredit me?
How about we stick to the Issues and leave the grammar corrections to aspiring English teachers.
This is my last post since I see your now apologizing for starting all this crap and then blaming the Gnome users.
“I must say one thing though, why attack my grammar?”
I mentioned it because there is an underlying etiquette when posting to threads, IM, chat, etc that we all try to respect. Your post was unbelievable redicoulous so it warrents a comment. This is about showing atleast some amount of professionalism(IE/ not acting like a 5 year old).
“Is this your feeble attempt to discredit me?”
Nope, I was right and you were wrong. You have already apologized. I already mentioned my motivation above.
Point taken, and I once again, I applogize for my behavior in some of my previous posts.
I typically do not flame, and I am done flaming now.
I can admit when I am wrong.
Drinks for everybody, it’s on me.
Zealots!
Like Albert said… it’s all relative.
I like KDE better then Gnome; others are the other way around. I personally find KDE easier to use the Gnome, but that’s just me.
Nuff said!
Sin cursed world
that last point was me re_re, I switched computers and it logged into that account by default.
Is kompmgr more stable? Can I leave dropshadows and fading on all the time? Can I finally enjoy the stable eye candy OSX people take for granted?
The drop shadows really have very little to do with KDE, that as an extension called composite that Xorg uses.
Xorg is the one who needs to improve Composite support.
Composite tends to be fairly stable unless you have EnableGLXWithComposite enabled in your xorg.conf. When you have this enabled it makes composite much faster, but also makes much more unstable.
I’ve been searching for EnableGLXWithComposite and I haven’t found nothing… could you point to some info?
Your info is wrong, it should be:
option “GLXWithComposite” “Enable”
my mistake, it is AllowGLXWithComposite, not Enable
anyway, under the device section where your graphic card details reside in your xorg.conf, type
Option “AllowGLXWithComposite” “true”
I hope the KDE team can come up with more inspiring defaults than on the screen-shots. They’re not reflective of the significant improvements to the GUI made throughout the last few point releases. KDE can be setup to be both pleasant on the eyes and very usable.
I agree that the default settings could modified to make kde a little less confusing for newbs.
Most “newb friendly distros” that come with KDE tend to have a more organized and easier to use kde then the vanilla implimentations of Arch, Gentoo, Debian, and Slackware.
I fully agree with you. The screenshots show very little of the power of KDE or its user-friendliness.
I have also posted a similar comment on OSDir so that they may come up with more inspiring screenshots. Except for the wallpaper and the storage media control center option, nothing “appears” to have changed since 3.4, if you go by the screenshots alone!
> I have also posted a similar comment on OSDir so that they may come up with more inspiring screenshots.
That’s the usual screenshot rush of OSdir only showing desktop and panel menus, and control settings. They very seldom start an application other than the defaults ones oon the panel. And never read announcements/changelog to show off new features.
I read the changelog and Kopete is planned to have webcam support for both MSN and Yahoo,
Two of the major reasons Linux suffers is because of the lack of webcam support, and the lack of printer support, most other drivers have cought up.
I understand webcams have to do with the drivers more than the messenger software, but the software support can’t hurt….. it may encourage more hardware (driver) support.
aMSN CVS already have stable webcam support for quite some time.
Two of the major reasons Linux suffers is because of the lack of webcam support, and the lack of printer support, most other drivers have cought up.
Huh? I don’t know a single user using a web cam, so i doubt this is in any way a major reason, sure it might be one of the many minor things.
As for printers, finding linux compatible printers in all price segments is very easy, and even many using strange proprietary interfaces often work. (like my old HP 710C) If you mean you can’t just go out and buy a printer without doing any sort of research first, then you have a point, but i would never do that even if i buy a piece of hardware for a windows box.
If you want to find real major points, then try something like it not being preinstalled when you buy a PC, and for intermediate users, that the software they buy in shops wont run on it.
I understand this, but the point I was making is that people want all their little toys to just work with no hassle.
this is where linux needs work.
i must agree with you. i like the clean interface gnome has, but it is easy to clean up KDE – and they are cleaning it up themselves too. soon, the only thing gnome does better than KDE (clean interface) is gone – and i don’t see any other reason to use gnome. KDE is generally faster, more flexible, easier to configure, looking better and it can do more.
KDE 4 will only make it more clear: gnome is not needed anymore. QT is GPL, so the only problem gnome was created to solve is fixed.
Actually, cleaning up KDE would require reworking a large portion of the UI. This article explains it fairly well:
http://www.icefox.net/articles/kdeosx.php
Gnome’s UI still needs a lot of work, but KDE’s is generally worse. I’m glad to see that the KDE people are starting to think about usability, though; can’t wait to see what it looks like in a couple years when they clean it up.
This article in my mind is pure bullshit. He wants to make KDE take the same goals as GNOME. I do like KDE the way it is. I don’t care if KDE is newbee friendly, I do care if it is intermediate-user friendly. The author doesn’t get it. Why diversity if choices have the same goals ?
I was very used to the Windows explorer. When I used Linux for the first time, KDE was easier for me than Gnome. Reason: spatial browsing, lack of options. Power users like KDE, and guess what? Power users are the early adaptors. Getting them to use Linux is first priority IMHO.
“Actually, cleaning up KDE would require reworking a large portion of the UI. This article explains it fairly well:
http://www.icefox.net/articles/kdeosx.php ”
I remember that article. The KDevelop screenshot is just atrocious.
http://www.icefox.net/articles/kdeosx/kdevelop.png
Tabs on all four sides of the screen? o_o
Tabs on all four sides of the screen is why I like Kdevelop so much.
If you have a high res screen, at least 1400 wide then it really is very convenient. Everything is right there at your disposal.
lol… why, it is. Personally I complained numerous times about the use of “vertical” tabs with (vertical) text. And I’ll keep doing it.
Just try to read what tabs are open on the right and you’ll see what I mean. Be careful not to hurt your neck!
Just try to read what tabs are open on the right and you’ll see what I mean. Be careful not to hurt your neck!<p>
None of them are open I don’t have to read the text to see that.
Yes vertical text isn’t pretty but it’s better than no text at all and better than horizontal text. Also you don’t have to read a novel that’s cunningly distributed over the myriads of sidebar buttons in KDE, you’re just looking at a small number of words, most of them common to all applications.
Well but you have to read it if you actually want to figure out what they ARE again…
And no, vertical text is not better than horizontal text. Maybe NO text is even better than vertical text.
Well but you have to read it if you actually want to figure out what they ARE again…
But because there’s only a small selection of words that make sense in such cases you don’t have to “read” the words like you read a textbook you just look at the shape.
You may remember the study that it is surprisingly easy to read a word with the letters in the wrong order as long as the first and the last letter remain the same.
And no, vertical text is not better than horizontal text.
Yes it is. Otherwise the application would need to be twice as wide. If the sidebar’s been expanded then it can show horizontal text
Maybe NO text is even better than vertical text.
Then you’d be complaining that there are too many non-descript icons. Text helps. You’re not forced to read it if you don’t want to, you can wait for the tool tips as if there was no text.
Also while the original complaint is valid Kdevelop is perhaps the worst example imaginable. My 80yr old grandmother never needed my help because she tried to hack some kernel headers on her KDE box.
> My 80yr old grandmother never needed my help
> because she tried to hack some kernel headers on
> her KDE box.
So she can do that all on her own? Now that’s one helluva granny. 😉
You misunderstand the way the KDE handles UI level integration. Simply by changing the defaults, all of KDE’s UI elements can be affected; meaning that global UI changes are fairly simple things to do if KDE decides to change the direction of interface. For example, say the new KDE HIG decides that open, close, save, and save as… buttons will no longer appear on the toolbar by default. A single setting change for the next version of KDE will allow this change to occur across the entire KDE application suite. A single change to KDE global settups update utility would reconfigure this setting for all legacy applications and/or custom toolbar layouts.
Compare this to the way that the Gnome UI is implemented. Gnome uses three different rendering libraries to actually handle their toolbars (and a couple applications actually don’t use global Gnome libraries for toolbar rendering at all but instead choose to render the toolbars themselves.) But that is actually besides the point because EACH gnome application is responsible for rendering its own toolbar layout. As such each application would actually have to manually have their defaults changed to reflect any changes in the HIG.
Functionally Gnome’s HIG exists to encourage developers to do what their technology is in-capable of. icefox (a longtime KDE developer, X.org developer, and Trolltech employee) was discussing changes that he thinks should take place to the default user interface to improve user workflow. The changes he is talking about DO NOT require a major rework of ANY of the UI, but are instead part of the on-going discussion about how we want to present the default KDE installation on future versions of KDE.
Functionally speaking the majority of the changes that the article discussed are “wallpaper and icon” changes… not “C++ code and Qt lib” changes.
Bobby
Interesting, if not somewhat useless. Don’t underestimate proper UI design; it’s not something that takes well to automization. Specifically, cleaning up KDE would require going through each application and moving around, even removing, large chunks of the user interface–sometimes even breaking an application up into multiple, specialized pieces of software.
s/automization/automation/
> Specifically, cleaning up KDE would require going
> through each application and moving around, even
> removing, large chunks of the user interface–sometimes
> even breaking an application up into multiple,
> specialized pieces of software.
This is not really true. KDE apps can easily be inproved since most of its Toolbar elements and other elements are inherited objects, so changing the objects would also change the behavior in apps. But your explaination would be valid if we replace KDE with GNOME here. GNOME is the one that requires going through each application and fixing things to at least look similar – if ever possible.
a forlorn hope, but wouldn’t it be nice is 3.5 could make 10.0?
I would be nice, but it will not. SUSE 10.1 will ship KDE 3.5.
Personally I switch between both KDE and Gnome (generally when the new versions are posted as stable) as I like bits from both desktops but I’ve always found KDE to be that bit more logically layed out than Gnome.
I guess part of me still wishes they’d combine their efforts as I’m sure the result would be something special.
Still, it’s always nice to have the choice and both desktops are decent IMHO.
I like KDE ,I like KDE alot but I use gnome instead. I “personally” find the clean interface makes a difference. KDE has a hackorish feel to it,gnome has a user feel to it.
KDE is powerful , I grant you that but the cleaness of the interface counts for a lot. For example I use to switch to the shell a lot ( until gnome/kde improved )
because i found the shell to be a clean interface even though it was CLI.
A clean interface counts for a lot.
People don’t like to admit it but Gnome/KDE4 are converging… their feature seats don’t really vary that much,and we shouldn’t really expect them too, their Desktop Environments ,there is only so much they can really and in only so many different ways.
I can’t wait until KDE4 (and the new Gnome ) … a lot of these issues would be addressed by then, then we will see how KDE/Gnome fair against each other…
I can not confirm the so called “clean look” of GNOME. It’s a marketing thing from the GNOME crowd and repeated many times to manifest it in the minds of people.
If you look close enough to GNOME applications (specially the ones that comes shipped with GNOME) then you figure out huge inconsistencies in the so called “clean look”.
Toolbars looking differently (I don’t refer to the elements posted) I refer to the padding, size, behavior such as ‘icons only, text only, text below icons, text besides icons’. If you compare the Toolbars from AbiWord or Gnumeric for example then the Toolbar from AbiWord is higher than the one found in Gnumeric. Dozen of applications not behaving to the global toolbars and menu settings (so the Toolbar can not be changed). These problems has been filled towards Bugzilla and some of the bugs has been closed as NOT A BUG due to intransparent explainations from the maintainers. As a proof there look at:
#311349 and then the followup bug #311655
The same continues with other elements such as Button paddings in dialogs, window, wrong offset and other issues.
There are of course some issues in KDE too but it’s still more clean and more consistent through the entire desktop.
> I can not confirm the so called “clean look” of GNOME.
> It’s a marketing thing from the GNOME crowd […]
Yeah, sure. Let’s start with the menus, shall we?
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=234&slide=5
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=286&slide=2…
(this is not a flamebait, it’s taken from PlanetKDE)
No offence, but the gnome look you’re trying to show, looks a bit outdated (to me). When I often look at gnome stuff IIII get the feeling i’m on a computer of ages ago. It’s not that I like the standard look and feel that much, I’ve customized it quite hard, and I’m sure I could customize it as much as kde. But still, some things in ubuntu were nice to see, it’s soft and so on, but it still looks old.
So this looks old to you?
http://24.15.37.191/~bytecoder/screenshots/8-11-05.png
Took me about 5 minutes to do, after I accidentally wiped all my settings.
-bytecoder
Mr Meyer’s comments are interesting, but as with so many of these commentaries I really find myself wondering if he actually uses the software.
“kget shouldn’t be listed as an application, but just something that shows up from within Konqueror.”
He’s obviously never received a URL in kopete, and dragged it over to kget to download. Or heaven forbid a user would want to use another browser, like Firefox or Opera. Meyer would want the user to have to open up Konqueror to get to kget? Kget’s usefulness is not tied to a browser, and more to the point is not tied to one single browser.
Maybe next he could suggest to have the address book accessible only from within kmail, cause, you know, I would never want to look at someone’s contact information in any context other than a (specific) email program, just like I would never want to download anything unless I was using a browser (one specific browser).
The clean-ness of gnome menus results from their goal of clearly not having multiple choices for a single task. Which may of course provide a clean interface, but for me it’s just useless. Also I very much prefer seeing the applications’ names and eventually some description than some foobar text saying something like instant messenger or web browser or notepad and I just could go on (if I don’t remember these well, please forgive me, my first step in gnome is to re-edit the menus by hand).
I use many apps, some of them having similar goals, and yes, I only use apps I know, so seeing their names in the menus is not trouble, on the opposite, it’s helping.
Of course I may be alone with this point of view, still, making the menus to look like I want is still much easier to do in kde, as has always been.
I confirm, and agree, that gnome’s look CAN BE cleaner, although a kde dekstop can be made as clean and simple looking as you would wish. The reason that I prefer kde is that I like my desktop without clutter, the menus tailored to my needs, and nearly everything is customized to my own preferences, and to achieve that, kde provides me with an easier way of chaning and setting things.
Also I very much prefer seeing the applications’ names and eventually some description than some foobar text saying something like instant messenger or web browser or notepad and I just could go on
Which is an other nice bit about configurability in KDE, you can choose how apps are displayed in the menu, with three choices, “Name only”, “Name (Description)”, and “Description (Name)”.
> I use many apps, some of them having similar goals, and
> yes, I only use apps I know, so seeing their names in
> the menus is not trouble, on the opposite, it’s helping.
But for someone new to KDE it’s unneeded information,
that causes clutter on the menus. Maybe it sholud be
configurable, but it’s wrong to show that much info
by default.
> I confirm, and agree, that gnome’s look CAN BE
> cleaner, although a kde dekstop can be made as clean
> and simple looking as you would wish.
I don’t discuus with that, because _everything_ can be
made cleaner (is extreme you could write your own patch
or fork KDE). Default KDE menu and configuration
options are cluttered. At the same time Gnome is
simplified, so some power users find it featureless,
but for casual user yes, Gnome has a cleaner look.
GNOME is the one that requires going through each application and fixing things to at least look similar – if ever possible.
GNOME don’t need to fix it anyway because is not cluttered.
> GNOME don’t need to fix it anyway because is not cluttered.
They do need to fix a lot there but you don’t understand what, because you lack the clue in this area. No offense but I clearly know what I am talking here. I get pretty much disgusted if one Toolbar looks differently than the other one. One that is bigger than the other, One that has a draghandle and others not, the one that I can control through the “Menus&Toolbars” capplet, the other not.
KDE has one Toolbar object, if I change the object I change the behavior in all applications. And the resulting behavior would be always the same in all apps. In GNOME I need to wade through all programs and change whatever code being used into GTK+ GtkUiManager stuff and removing BonoboUI and GnomeUI stuff. And that’s just the pit of the whole iceberg.
I get pretty much disgusted if one Toolbar looks differently than the other one. One that is bigger than the other, One that has a draghandle and others not, the one that I can control through the “Menus&Toolbars” capplet, the other not.
That’s because your perspective is from a developer, I as a user don’t give a damn the infrastucture and kparts or bonobo or whatever, to me the look of GNOME is better and more user friendly and KDE is a cluttered mess, to me the API, objects or whatever comes to second instance in my perspective.
so if you critize GNOME for bonobo or whatever its ok, I don’t care is not my area but as a user an can really beat up KDE for the lack of sense they have in the UI.
> I don’t care is not my area but as a user an can really
> beat up KDE for the lack of sense they have in the UI.
The users will start to care as soon as people start complaining why GNOME runs a) slow, b) requires so much memory, c) widgets react seconds later, d) why stuff not work correctly, e) lack of real applications, f) the requirements of stuff like python, c, c++, mono, java only to get a handful applications that aren’t really the bringer. I don’t want to make GNOME look bad or something since I do use GNOME myself but yes as a developer I do know about proper software development and a good framework and a coherent system guarantees that future development will continue easily. Look at the conversation in the GNOME thread here on OSN and you see what real life people like you complain about.
a) slow, b) requires so much memory, c) widgets react seconds later, d) why stuff not work correctly, e) lack of real applications, f) the requirements of stuff like python, c, c++, mono, java only to get a handful applications that aren’t really the bringer.
You are soooo wron:
1.- Users doesn’t know what RAM is, ony people with certain knowledge of computers will know.
2.- Slow and Redraw? I don’t think so, you need to try GNOME more often or find a better distro or mayge get a new hardware.
3.- lack of real applications? this one is the funnies of all GNOME/GTK apps > any KDE/Qt app. everybody knows that. pure trolls words.
4.- Like if users would know what java or python is, man, you are so blind.
Obviously you have no clue.