When KDE 4.0 was first released, it was met with quite some criticism. Even though people saw the huge potential, the lack of functionality and stability, as well as quite a few bugs detracted from the experience. The KDE developers continued to work on implementing their relatively radical vision, and with the release of KDE 4.2 creeping ever closer, it seems they’re well on their way.
KDE 4.2 will be the first release of KDE 4 that will be ready for everyone, and not just for developers and enthusiasts. The amount of bug fixes and new features is nearly endless, and includes a lot of the things that made people stick with KDE 3.x. The panel has been improved greatly, adding, among other things, grouping and multiple row layout in the task bar and icon hiding in the system tray. In addition, you can have a traditional desktop layout by putting folderview in fullscreen mode. There are also a lot of new features, such as a completely new printing configuration system, as well as PowerDevil, a new power management infrastructure.
KDE developer Alexander Dymo took a critical look at KDE 4.2, and concludes that despite a number of shortcomings, it’s shaping up to be a great release. He might be a KDE developer, but he isn’t shy of criticising his own project. For instance, he’s unsatisfied with the default Oxygen style, which, according to him, suffers from some usability problems.
A new feature that won’t make it into KDE 4.2 is the new KDE NetworkManager, which has received a massive Plasma overhaul thanks to Sebastian Kügler. It also takes advantage of KDE 4’s Solid hardware abstraction layer. Even though the new plasmoid is far from ready (“at least three persons on this Planet have ever been able to connect to a wireless network using it”), but it’s already shaping up nicely in the looks department, and fits in with the rest of Plasma much better than any previous versions.
KDE 4.2 is expected to be released on January 27, 2009.
I haven’t been a fulltime KDE user before but i have played around with each 4.x release and sure enough it’s been getting better.
4.1 was a massive jump over the original release and hopefully 4.2 is a massive leap over that. While i still use GNOME on all my computers i’ll be keeping an install of KDE4 around on my desktop.
http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/kde4.html
The Debian KDE team have got backports for lenny but are not accepting bug reports.
It sure is. I’m currently tracking the KDE 4.2 development snapshots for Debian (unofficial but packaged by members of Debian Qt/KDE Maintainers team).
http://kde42.debian.net/
Can you set it up to give you the application and window list menus for a mouse-click in the root window (what you control in KDE3 by ControlCenter > Desktop > Behavior > Mouse Button Actions)?
I never was able to find any way of getting them in Mandriva’s edition of KDE 4.1.3, which for me is a show-stopper.
This is the first time I’ve not been able to get application menus by clicking in the root window since at least OL(V)WM on SPARC2’s back in the early Nineties. KDE3 had the best scheme I had found in more than fifteen years, and then they seem to be gone entirely in 4.1.
What gives?
Your desired feature doesn’t seem to be in the planning for KDE 4.2
http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.2_Feature_Plan
Since we are now at schedule point:
# 1.13 January 13th, 2009: Release KDE 4.2 RC 1
http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.2_Release_Schedule
it doesn’t appear as though your requirement is planned.
Did you submit a request for it to the KDE project at any point?
I am trying to use this repository (sid 386 here), but looks like I first have to set up some pinning from experimental, right?
Could you enlighten me how can I set up the pinning?
Yup. I followed the pinning instructions for KDE 4.1 in Debian. Here’s the link. Have fun.
http://pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org/experimental.html
Agreed!
I’ve just installed 4.2 RC1 and it feels rock-solid. The KDE team have made huge progress in
the last year, and they’ve *really* nailed it this
time!
In the “Network settings” dialog, shouldn’t the buttons order be “apply – OK- Cancel”?
KDE 4.x has been improving with each point release. I used to be a longtime KDE user and only switched to Gnome when I started using Ubuntu back in the day (circa 2005 or so) and have stuck with it ever since; switching back to my preferred Debian (by way of Parsix.) I’ve been watching the KDE 4 development with interest, however, because KDE was always the power user’s desktop compared to the more simplified Gnome and I ultimately prefer it. I firmly believe that KDE 4.3 will truly be something to reckon with. 🙂 The old adage “good things come to those who wait” comes to mind when considering the trials and tribulations of KDE 4 testers. Hang in there guys…the payoff will be worth it!
LOL that’s what people were saying about 4.0. Then when 4.0 came out, everyone was saying how 4.1 was going to be the *real* release. Then when 4.1 came out, everyone was like, no, 4.2 is going to be the one to get! So now 4.3 is the shizna, and 4.2 is just pales in comparison? Haha. History is repeating itself yet again!
As much as I love KDE, it like so many open source projects are never done. This is a good thing and in some ways, a bad thing. Yeah I know, it will always improve! I know. But it doesn’t stabilize for long. (incidently, kde 3 is mostly stabilized… nice)
I’m a full time KDE4 user and I happen to think KDE4 is already mostly stabilized.
In fact there’s only one bug I experience (Switching folder views on a mounted CIFS directory causes dolphin to crash – however that might be as much down to the CIFS connection / server as it is down to dolphin)
I think most people aren’t complaining about bugs with KDE4 anymore, it’s mostly about features and apps.
I use it fulltime and there are still some desktop things that aren’t fully there yet. I guess this really shouldn’t be too surprising because it was KDE 3.3 or 3.4 that really started to have the polish for that major release.
What things aren’t there?
Remember that you can run KDE4 applications, KDE3 applications, QT applications (such as VLC and SMPlayer), GTK+ applications (such as OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird), LSB-compliant desktop applets and in addition plasmoids, Mac OSX widgets and Google desktop widgets out of the box in an integrated manner.
Edited 2009-01-13 22:13 UTC
By comparison…the latest gnome is ALSO the one to get. The difference here is that kde currently progresses far more between releases than gnome.
While that is true, the real “secret” is that KE4 is the only desktop for Linux that utilises the GPU to render the desktop. As long as the system has a GPU and driver for Linux that is working, KDE4 is far and away the fastest desktop available for Linux, beating out even the “lightweight” desktops for speed.
KDE4 is not only innovating much faster than GNOME, and already is more powerful than GNOME, it has also opened up a considerable performance gap over GNOME on the same hardware.
Edited 2009-01-13 10:24 UTC
Wow, lemur2 and I agree. I need to lay down on the caffeine.
KDE 4 is where the innovation lies when it comes to Free software desktops. They’re the ones doing new things, being radical, and getting slammed for it, recovering, and improving themselves. I might not like all the design decisions in KDE 4, but my god, I’m so happy that they at least have the guts to be different and try something new.
GNOME could learn a great deal from them.
I don’t know. I think it could be taken both ways. KDE is going new directions and trying out different ideas. That’s good, but like you said, the result won’t be to everyone’s liking. So perhaps it is better that Gnome does not learn much from KDE, and continues on their path.
Then KDE is truly different from Gnome, and people can make a choice. Personally I choose KDE, but I don’t think that Gnome should abandon their way because of any changes in KDE.
Wrong…Seeing as gtk uses cairo and cairo uses xrender then it also uses the gpu to “render” the desktop.
By contrast in the upcoming Qt (4.5) the recommended backend is the raster (not native X11/xrender) because it is slower (fastest is opengl, but it has accuracy issues).
This isn’t a question of speed, but more of features and stability and innovation. Whilst I love kde 4 I will NEVER claim it is the fastest, at least not yet.
Everything else is pretty much true
Edited 2009-01-13 11:35 UTC
You are right about gtk+ and cairo, and the fact that cairo claims to use hardware acceleration when available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_(graphics)#Notable_usage
However, I don’t see GNOME itself listed as one of the notable applications using cairo. (This doesn’t however mean that the GNOME desktop isn’t accelerated by the GPU via gtk+ via cairo … I just can’t see any direct claim that it does improve from the situation in 2004
http://people.redhat.com/otaylor/guadec5/
specifically by employing the GPU. Are any of Pango, GNOMECanvas and GDK still in use?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#Releases
What I can see is that some Mono-dependent applications, such as Tomboy notes, is listed as being part of GNOME releases since 2006.
Perhaps the inclusion and reliance on Mono is what makes GNOME slower then?
the widgets are drawn using cairo, so they are accelerated if a particular cairo function is supported by xrender. In case you don’t know most xrender functions use the 3d engine of a gpu to draw.
And yes It can be slower, but I haven’t really noticed unless trying to resize a composited window
Edited 2009-01-13 13:17 UTC
In KDE4 rendering is fast enough so that, when trying to resize a Window, for the first time ever on Linux that I have noticed the entire Window is continuously redrawn at various sizes, and not just the outline of the Window at the new sizes.
but this is due to Qt4, gtk has issues because it tries to redraw the windows too many times. The Qt dudes fixed it so it doesn’t happen.
The blank square is only there as a workaround in compiz (metacity too?).
Sorry, but GNOME also uses GPU acceleration. (It doesn’t always come switched though, and the difference in speed is amazing). You can replace the no-thrills Metacity WM with another much flashier one like Compiz, which really shows off just what hardware acceleration can do.
Interestingly, the FSF are pushing for 100% free distributions and demand the removal of GLX, which would result in GNU/Linux being perceived as notably slower, a move which could only hurt its adoption. Still, Stallman knows best.
That is very subjective. While GNOME certainly needs some work, it is nowhere near as badly written as KDE supporters always seem to claim, and there is a lot of functionality present. Also it doesn’t hurt my eyes when I try to use it
This issue is all fixed now, surely?
http://www.osnews.com/story/20740/FSF_SGI_Cooperated_to_Resolve_Lic…
http://www.fsf.org/news/thank-you-sgi
Yes, I may have been somewhat hasty in that reply. It appears that the FSF have given their approval, and the proof is that gNewSense will be adding GLX back in (although they haven’t removed it from their FAQ yet).
I should correct both you and lemur2.
Using (opengl) compositing DOES NOT make things faster. It only makes things prettier and smoother making it appear faster.
I’m not sure you’re referring to the same thing I am.
Turn acceleration off, load up Fluxbox (a minimal yet highly configurable window manager), and start Firefox with a number of tabs. Switch between desktops and watch as Fluxbox lags as you go past Firefox (which is trying to render everything). Try dragging round an xterm (this is an extremely basic window), and you’ll see it judder as it draws.
Now try the same again, only with acceleration on. This time, there is no lag as you switch past Firefox, and windows move smoothly.
The exact same thing applies to GNOME, you can still get the speed boost from allowing the graphics card to draw your windows. Compositing only gives you some flashy extras, which a recent graphics card should handle easily.
I think I am. It only appears faster. When you use a compositing manager you are merely dragging an opengl texture around. Without compositing you’re actually dragging the x pixmap.
hence “glx_texture_from_pixmap”. Before they get turned into textures they are x pixmaps which have to be drawn (raster,xrender etc). Considering this, the widgets inside the texture will only be as fast as it would be without compositing. SLow/laggy draws without compositing can be attributed to the fact that it isn’t buffering the image offscreen and showing it all at once.
If it is laggy when there is no compositing manager is either due to visual trickery, or because something isn’t right.
Edited 2009-01-13 15:59 UTC
That’s correct. Lubos Lunak, the primary developer of Kwin (which does the window management and desktop effects on KDE) says that desktop effects make everything slower. Seems smoother, but is really slower.
The desktop effects do make everything slower … so turn them off (especially on a slower system). You will then be using the GPU acceleration to render the widgets, fonts and images and do anti-aliasing exclusively. This is far faster than using software libraries for the same purposes, and so it speeds up the desktop.
I run KDE4 with desktop effects turned off on my little netbook machine. It runs about the same speed (or perhaps a little faster) than a lightweight desktop such as LXDE.
The Xrender acceleration is not about the desktop effects … it is all about rendering of graphics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xrender
Benchmarks show this renders graphics several times faster than doing it in software (unless you were using the previous releases of the nvidia binary driver where it was several times slower).
Edited 2009-01-13 22:10 UTC
Gnome may have more “usability” effort poured into it, but I beg to differ on the “badly written” part. It’s not that Gnome developers as such are doing bad work (they aren’t – Gnome apps have that “professional” touch KDE apps often lack) – but it’s the fact that they actually *voluntarily* stick to C and GObject (through using raw C binding for Gtk+) that worries me. Surely, the code base will become resistant to change, and will drive non-paid developers away, leading to general decay of the whole project. Not to mention general unstability and bloat of the programs themselves.
Yeah, I know there are C++ bindings – but if they were any good, surely people would not be churning C code, right? I won’t go into Python (and other VHLL) bindings here, since they are comparable to the ones of Qt… but really, if you are looking this from C/C++ side, Gnome has very little going for it (apart from the license, a matter that I also follow with keen interest – if Nokia is considering easing the GPL stranglehold on S60 Qt, there could be changes for X11 Qt as well, to bolster Maemo Qt development).
KDE is set to eat Gnome’s lunch some time during 4.x cycle, but that time obviously isn’t here yet. But once 4.x goes stable, it’s at a much better position than Gnome will be at that time.
Two things.
Firstly, I’m not sure that this “eating their lunch” attitude is particularly constructive or good for open source.
Secondly, “that time” is not likely ever to come, because KDE is pushing in a completely different direction, and trying to appeal to different users, than is Gnome. If I go 100km east and you go 200km south, are you ahead of me? You said it yourself. QT already has the technical advantages over GTK+ and has for some time. But it is Gnome that has “that professional touch”, as you put it. And Gnome has paid all the attention to detail, benefited from the formal real world usability testing, and made all the tough decisions in order to excel in usability. KDE has paid the requisite lip service to usability which is required as part of good PR… but that’s about as far as it’s gone. Which is, of course, perfectly fine with its current user base, who would be very upset if KDE started caring about usability. The new bells and whistles in QT4/KDE4 are not likely to change that situation.
I’m happy for current KDE users that KDE4 is stabilizing. But it’s silly to think that KDE4 is going to change the fundamental dynamic.
Edited 2009-01-13 21:18 UTC
Excuse me? You really think the default GNOME file open/save dialog box is useable?
Oh my.
Why so touchy? I’m not sure that the (over)sensitivity exhibited by some KDE advocates helps KDE much. I would likely have a more positive feeling about KDE if some of its users didn’t go out of their way to be so annoying. As with all advocacy bases, however, I’m sure that the majority of KDE users are more reasonable and less vocal, and prefer to talk about KDE’s strengths than to disparage other DEs.
I am by no means as rabid a fanboy as lemur2 and others and despite loving kde4 gnome works fine for me.
However, I would say that whilst gnome is tweaked, stable and sensible and all sorts of other words along those lines, technologically it is starting to show it’s age. It also isn’t trying any grand ideas on the desktop level (on the app level I would say it matches kde), this is sensible (esp considering the enterprise) but it is also extremely boring and one of the aspects that turned me towards kde.
What I also don’t like is the fisher price attitude of simple= good usability. What I like about kde currently is that people are considering usability an important factor as a function of the features provided and not as a mutually exclusive requirement.
If lemur2 annoys you, you should see the critics within kde. Many of the “kde3 using” kde4 critics are annoying little rats that seeming have nothing better to do. The gnome devs are a harder bunch that “don’t take the crap from fools” which has seemingly weeded out the mosquitoes.
p.s. I too have to say I seemingly curse the world whenever I have to use the gnome file dialog. What gets to me is why it is still there…one of the great mysteries of the universe I guess.
If this was really your preference, then why did you make unsupported and unsupportable claims that GNOME usability was well ahead of KDE’s, and hence disparage KDE.
For example … the last six various GNOME distributions (or GTK-based desktops in general for that matter) that I have tried lacked a clipboard manager by default. Talk about lack of usability of the desktop …
So why exactly do you disparage KDE, then make up BS complaints about “oversensitivity” when others point out GNOME’s comparable usability deficiencies right back at you?
Edited 2009-01-14 07:29 UTC
Duly noted.
I recall a while back when Havok Pennington, Miguel, Nate & others were having debates about the future of Gnome. Does stuff like this still get discussed?
Thank you.
Yes. There are plans for a GTK+ 3.0 and Gnome 3.0 at some point in the future. You might look for discussions relating to those. (I don’t follow this closely, so I have no links handy.) Such a thing must be done very carefully, for obvious reasons. But there are potential long term advantages. I think of this a lot like I think of Python 3.0.
An interesting development on the license front with Qt …
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090114-nokia-qt-lgpl-switch-…
Interesting.
If Nokia follows through with this plan, then any program can link to the Qt libraries without being a GPL licensed program itself … even closed source programs could do so without requiring a Qt developer license.
GNOME would no longer have even a theoretical “license advantage”.
NVIDIA 180.22 x86/x86_64 Linux Driver Released
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Njk3OA
This version of the Nvidia binary driver for Linux has the infamous Xrender bug fixed. This will mean that KDE 4.2, when it is released in Linux distributions this year, will finally work as well on nvidia 8000 and 9000 series graphics systems as well as KDE4 has on other systems up to this point.
This driver (since it impacts a good number of systems), along with the considerable improvements in KDE 4.2 itself, will finally reveal to many critics the full (and impressive) power and innovation that KDE4 brings to the desktop.
Edited 2009-01-13 05:02 UTC
Running my system with the 8600 GTS
Option “BackingStore” “true”
# Option “AllowSHMPixmaps” “true”
Enabling AllowSHMPixmaps with KDE 4.1.96 [Debian Experimental] crashes X when one select SystemSettings.
It’s noted in the release notes.
BackingStore is still disabled, at the driver, but enabling the option won’t crash X. It just gets ignored.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Initialized GPU GART.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode “1600x1200_75+0+0”
(II) Loading extension NV-GLX
(II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA 3D Acceleration Architecture Initialized
(==) NVIDIA(0): Disabling shared memory pixmaps
(II) NVIDIA(0): Using the NVIDIA 2D acceleration architecture
(==) NVIDIA(0): Backing store disabled
(==) NVIDIA(0): Silken mouse enabled
(**) Option “dpms”
(**) NVIDIA(0): DPMS enabled
(II) Loading extension NV-CONTROL
(II) Loading extension XINERAMA
(==) RandR enabled
——–
Loadable Modules:
Section “Module”
Load “i2c”
# Load “extmod”
# Load “freetype”
# Load “glx”
# Load “dbe”
# Load “dri”
EndSection
The driver loads most of the modules by default:
(II) “extmod” will be loaded by default.
(II) “dbe” will be loaded by default.
(II) “glx” will be loaded by default.
(II) “freetype” will be loaded by default.
(II) “record” will be loaded by default.
(II) “dri” will be loaded by default.
The KDE 4.2 packages are being moved from KDE4/UNSTABLE to KDE4/Factory. At this point, KDE 4.2 packages will remain in that respository, from current testing through release and updates.
UNSTABLE will now contain 4.3 development packages, which at this point are likely fraught with danger. Still, for those on the bleeding edge…
FWIW, I’ve been using the 4.2 developmental packages for a few weeks now, works a charm.
If you have been using 4.2 packages from UNSTABLE, change your repos ASAP. If you’re not using 4.2, you’re missing out.
4.2 will be a solid release, but I’m already getting envious of the work going into 4.3…
I just switched from Gnome to KDE 4.1. I’m not sure where the howls of “It’s not ready!” are coming from, because KDE 4 is pretty nice already. There are a handful of incongruities (no disc burning from the desktop, no drag and drop between tabs in Dolphin) but otherwise it’s very stable, very usable, and very beautiful. I can’t wait for 4.2.
Welcome to linux
For lots of people (myself included) – every release of their favourite distro is keenly downloaded and installed and then once they get used to the new features, eagerly look forward to the next release and what it will bring. Some of us have been running kde 4.2 for months now, and welcoming the increases in features and most importantly stability.
Some may think this is a bad thing (always looking forward to the next big release), and maybe it is – but ask yourself how long ago it was that people did the same with windows. I used to be excited about win98, then win2k, then curious about xp, and now its just boring. windows releases dont seem to feature the same ground-breaking core improvements that linux releases do. Maybe its because linux isn’t quite ready for the masses yet? i dunno – it works for me
the wallpaper is amazing btw
The only thing annoyed me in kick-off menu is the way how the “Application” tab is explored. I have to click to explore the sub-menu, and if I could not find what I want, I have to move mouse to leftmost and click again, go back to top menu and click another sub-menu. This is a worse experience than traditional k-menu.
[QUOTE]This is a worse experience than traditional k-menu.[/QUOTE]
True, but in true KDE spirit you can change it if you do not like it. If you ask me, Lancelot ( http://lancelot.fomentgroup.org/main ) should be the default KDE4 start menu. The current is just.. well.. not so good IMHO.
If Lancelot is not available as a desktop widget by default, it is normally available from the repositories.
Open the package manager, search for keyword “Lancelot”, and install it. Next time you restart KDE, you can then choose to replace Kickoff with Lancelot. This is a great improvement, and very easy to do.
For me the k-menu in KDE 4.2 is almost perfect, and would be 100% if the sub-menus didn’t require a mouse click to access. This should at least be a configurable option – infact it might already be, but I’ve not seen it
i tried lancelot in kde 4.2 beta…. and i found it so so…
too much information is displayed…
If your preference is minimalist … then use KickOff in the “KDE classic menu style” mode. It then behaves like the KDE 3 menus.
for 4.2.1
When 4.0 came out, the hype was “this is the release”. When it was completely unusable, people started saying… “just wait for 4.1, it will be the one”… 4.2 is coming, and I already get this feeling that someone at KDE just made sure to complicate more the “K Menu” adding 3 different searches engines or inserting this time an artificial intelligent auto-completion form. Each release the same old story.
There’s a saying “If there are two heads, then it’s a monster”. It reflects well how projects coordinated by many people are. It feels like every developer wants his useless great idea inside the UI, killing all the UI consistency. That’s been KDE 4 storyline since day 1.
Oxygen is one of the worst UI’s around. I sincerely wanted it to be replaced, but KDE-dev is a parliament – not an enterprise pushing for market share.
And no, I won’t even try 4.2.
Perhaps things will change when the majority of distros just drop KDE off as their default desktop.
keep trolling…
YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO USE OXYGEN.
there are number of different styles available…
as far as I aware the only official search in kde 4 is nepomuk and strigi…don’t know where you got the idea from.
There are currently 3 menues available classic,default and lancelot…3 levels for different tastes.
what “autocompletion” form?
what is incosistent about the ui? examples?
the fact that you won’t even try 4.2 says a lot about your desire or ability to provide even accurate opinions
You’ll keep saying that as each point release is made and you’ll end up gradually looking more foolish as people weigh up the alternatives. Keep going.
Where are these three search engines? Oh, and saying that certain things are unnecessary isn’t going to halt the march of new features being added to software. If you’re happy with your CDE equivalent then that’s great. The rest of the world has already voted.
No, it isn’t. KDE is an open source project that tries to improve with each release until most people decide that it is good enough. Every open source project is like that.
Great. So you’re eminently qualified to comment on it then?
I feel terribly sorry for you, because that isn’t going to happen and it won’t even if some distros want it to. Many people have been trying to predict that for the last eight years. No dice.
There are those of us out there who do not want open source desktops, and desktops in the Unix world in general, to go the way CDE did against Windows 95 and the Mac by forming committees, decreeing that certain things aren’t necessary and mandating immature and inadequate software as ‘standards’ and ‘defaults’. The tide won’t go back I’m afraid.
No it wasn’t. Even before it came out all the KDE guys were careful to explain that 4.0 would not be ready for prime time. All the news stories about the 4.0 release went on and on about this fact. You couldn’t possibly have heard about KDE 4.0 without knowing about this.
The trouble was, Ubuntu had raised the bar for OSS projects being “ready”. The user base for KDE 3.0 was largely hackers. The potential user base for 4.0 included many a clueless noob brought to Linux by Ubuntu. And so, everyone got their underwear in a twist because the major release of KDE still required testing, as if this were an entirely new phenomenon in open source.
Man, I couldn’t have said it any better…
Really, my only complaint is the lack of KControl. I really don’t like the “System Settings”. I just don’t find it as convenient.
I don’t much care for the Oxygen style, but that is easily changed. I also miss Knemo.
Other than that, it is shaping up nicely.
Agree with most of what you Said. True though it’s the nature of Free software, and what could keep the developers interest if that can’t pursue their own idea’s.
I tried 4.1.3 till start menu shelving thing gave me a headache. I read back a few comments there’s an alternative– good for that.
With all that supposed polish , You couldn’t even hid the task bar , until was it Fedora 10 release modified it. I’m with LXDE for now. As a Blender user I’m not running and compiz effects.
Some things you should know here, for one Fedora didn’t add it, they backported it from 4.2 and a few other features.
it takes time to learn new API’s and tech, autohide may seem simple to a user and some panel features but it’s not that simple.
There are no “3 different search engines”. It is just a way to say of how cluttered and stupid KDE4 menu has grown to be, I would much prefer the simple menu of KDE3.
I know Oxygen is not the only one theme/style, but stupidity chose it as default. Shouldn’t be default. Also, I don’t think the styles bundled with KDE4 are of any good… CDE? Redmond? Give me a break. I will stick with Ubuntu’s “Human” that is much better, visually et all.
KDE used to be RedHat’s default desktop. GNOME has been adopted by quite a few distros that used to have KDE as default. The only distro I know that dropped off GNOME was Slackware (with valid reasons I agree), but still they’re shipping KDE 3.x series.
Developers need to understand that the user needs tools to get the thing done, not to stand in the users way.
For one thing I know, Windows 7 is coming to take over, while the linux major desktops are daydreaming with ideas to make userlife more complicated.
If you prefer a KDE 3.x style menu in KDE 4.x, then _use_ it. It’s been available for you for ages now. All ready to be used instead of the default menu. Your complaint is way out of date.
I know it’s there… But it’s not default… and it’s simply plain stupid. How about developers leaving the classic standard stuff as default and adding an option for users to switch… there I see innovation… but not the contrary, trying to make users get used to cluttered confusing multi-task menu as default is plainly stupid. Oh wait, did KDE guys want to emulate Windows Vista Start Menu? I wonder why just because Uncle Bill creates a feature, everybody in the OSS community starts to emulate it as well. *Things you don’t need*
You might not like it, but Novell (the original author back in the kde3 days) did a usability study and found most users preferred kickoff to k-menu. People are always carping on how kde has bad usability.
If you’re so for usability, then perhaps listen to what the usability experts say on this one, right?
I would listen to you and the design experts if KDE had a userbase of 5%, worldwide. Not even that. Seems like people want to stick with XP, Server and Vista menus (both classic and reformed). Even Vista default menu is easier than KDE’s.
making it usable is part of the plan to get to those 5%.
Basically here you have a double standard. You want usability from oxygen, but not from the program launcher?
You are losing all credibility with regards to your previous usability arguments (not that you had much to begin with).
You seem to belong to the sect of people that cry “this isn’t usable” when you don’t like the way something has been done, but completely ignore usability when it suits you.
Double standard? Neither Oxygen or KickOff are really usable. That’s what I have been saying. It’s such a shame GNOME didn’t already eat KDE’s lunch… because it has been definitely in position to do it for the past 3 years.
I liked the lunch idea, thanks to original sayer.
Well, IMHO GNOME ate KDE’s lunch long time ago =), the next round will be GNOME 3 vs KDE 4. It will be a pretty much different scenario.
So you know better than usability experts? Did you commission a study to see what kind of menu people OTHER than yourself prefer?
You have yet to justify your opinions as to why either fail at usability, beyond the fact that you do not like them.
There are far too many backseat usability expert claiming their preferences as usability. You just happen to be one of them….
What is funny about this is that, myself I don’t particularly like kickoff, but I’m not making a fuss especially when it is so trivial to get it changed. Same can be said for visual styles.
Either way why do you care…you’re not going to use it, you said it yourself
Edited 2009-01-14 01:54 UTC
I have to agree here. I personally change the KickOff menu to Lancelot, then I install Klearlooks theme for KDE4 and select that, and also set GTK+ applications to use the Clearlooks theme at the same time.
Such a pity that the better options available for KDE are not shipped by default in most distributions.
Perhaps Mandriva’s “Ia Ora” default window manager theme is the best default theme for KDE4 that I have seen amongst the distributions.
Edited 2009-01-14 07:26 UTC
AAAAARGH!
Why do people insist something has bad usability, when they don’t like something?
Do you speak for every user? are you a usability expert?
It is alright to say that you don’t like it, or that it does not work for you. Just don’t hide behind usability.
Usability is about making it usable for the majority. Some won’t like it, which is why there are alternatives (contrary to gnome or osx).
I find it difficult to use the KickOff menu. It is more than a matter of just not liking it … it is very awkward to use (for me at least).
Similarly with the default KDE4 Oxygen theme … the scroll bars and Window resize “handle” in the lower left corner of Windows are hard to use (as well as visually jarring).
Hard to use == poor usability (or so I thought, anyway).
Fortunately, both of these are very easy to overcome in KDE4, simply by selecting an alternative option in each case instead of the default.
In GNOME, it is relatively easy to overcome the lack of a clipboard manager in the default setup by simply installing an applet called glipper.
http://glipper.sourceforge.net/
Unfortunately, in GNOME, it is not so easy to get around the difficult-to-use file selection dialog boxes.
Edited 2009-01-14 10:49 UTC
I wont argue on oxygen. But, as I’ve said before I dislike kickoff myself.
However I am not disguising my dislike by saying it has poor usability.
I am not the sum total of the users in kde or the world.
What annoys me is that everyone feels that their own personal preferences should suddenly be counted as a usability argument.
Also “hard to use” does not automatically mean bad usability (however in this context it is true).
What annoys you is perhaps you feel a little bit over passionate over a myth. It’s OK if KickOff is based on studies by PhD people (which is for me, one of the stupidiest and lame excuses that were ever written), but the fact that the PhD’s done it, despise me more: How come these alien brainstorming heads didn’t come up with something you can actually use? My feeling is that the whole thing was designed with Windows Vista in mind. Suddenly KDE taskbar goes black… hmmm… strange that I’ve *SEEN* another black taskbar quite earlier and it was not KDE4. See what I mean?
Perhaps my “own personal preference” would also explain why Patrick Volkerding still ships KDE3.x as the default desktop in Slackware!? Like you said, I would have been a mere mortal to also affect these other people’s decisions?
I insist that there was nothing wrong with KDE3 and the whole KDE4 should have taken the path of evolution, and not this generalized mess KDE4 became to be. Gosh, it even emulates the Vista fiasco itself! Daunting coincidence!
Contrary to popular belief, Patrick Volkerding is rather fond of KDE4 (and was so early on, even prior to KDE 4.1):
Source:
http://slackblogs.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
Currently, KDE4 resides in testing, which is exactly the place it should go in conservative distributions, at least prior to 4.2 (this is consistent with the message from the KDE4 devs, btw., at least if we neglect the first and overly enthusiastic KDE 4.0 press release note which has been discussed and beaten to death now).
KDE4 will likely AFAIK replace KDE3 when Slackware 13.0 arrives (causes for this delay were given in the changelog for 12.2, mainly the desire not to introduce fundamental architectural changes like a new major version of the X server or KDE4 in a minor release), which will probably – given current intervals between releases of Slackware – happen somewhen between KDE 4.3 and 4.4 .
So much garbage in so few words. Congrats.
Pretty much everything you said there to justify your opinions, completely nullifies any worth to your points.
This is it I’m done, I’ve done my shift feeding the trolls at the zoo for this week.
Thank you for letting me eat. You were one of the nicest givers around.
First of, KickOff was used because it was ready when KDE 4.0 was launched (contrary to Tasty, Raptor and Lancelot. IIRC, Raptor was long considered to be the top candidate for the default menu plasmoid, but has not reached maturity as of this writing, so … ) and because people tended to complain about the “cluttered” and “bloated” nature of the KDE3 menu. As far as I know, lancelot or one of the alternatives may end up being the default in future releases, as nothing is set in stone.
Truth to be told, I was no fan of the KickOff menu when SuSE introduced it in their 10.x series for KDE3 (once, I accidentally shut down the file server of our department because my muscle memory was incompatible with this menu layout, talk about embarrasment) and while I appreciate the fact that this menu is the result of usability studies, I reserve my right to like something else better.
Which, incidentially, is one of the big strengths of plasma: Mere mortal people (even one-man-developer teams) can write and maintain their own version of a menu if they want to do it, without forking the code base and without reinventing the wheel low-level style over and over again, without being constrained by what is already there and established, even without using C++ (which seems to be an important point for many people). The treshold to do something along the lines of what SuSE did back then (undertake a study, find something that is considered to be an improvement, implement it, ship it, distinguish itself from the other distributors) has been lowered considerably, thanks to the flexibility introduced by plasma.
I wonder how long it will take distributors to realise that they can stand out from the crowd of other distributors if they put more effort in the presentation of the desktop (as in more-than-a-shiny-wallpaper-and-a-different-color-scheme).
BTW: The KDE folks made a choice and shipped KickOff as default, for the reasons stated above. Why does your distributor ship it as default?
Mine does, because it is a distribution with a change-as-little-as-possible-from upstream policy.