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KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Alessandro17

By Alessandro17,
in Linux - *nix

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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I am on kde 3 right now but 4 is awesome and I am switching to it completely when OS 11.1 comes out this year :D

 

By Aaron Seigo own admission, some basic features won't be available before 4.2.

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xandiztxu
xandiztxu
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KDE4 is great, trully functional now KDE4.1 is going backwards in most part because noobs can't leave behind old features and start learning new thing, that's why linux is great, it always changing.

 

Noobs like these need to get back to windows.

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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KDE4 is great, trully functional now KDE4.1 is going backwards in most part because noobs can't leave behind old features and start learning new thing, that's why linux is great, it always changing.

 

Noobs like these need to get back to windows.

 

Things are a lot more complicated than that. By KDE developers' own admission, 4.0 wasn't ready for the users, it was only a preview and distros shouldn't have shipped with 4.0 as the only KDE (only Fedora did that, AFAIK).

Also, by Aaron Seigo own admission, some basic features won't be available before 4.2.

So what do you call software which is still missing basic features?

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xandiztxu
xandiztxu
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Take a read about that and think twice before talking what you know of kde4

 

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080710131440951

 

They said when releasing it, its ready for public and use, the new features and innovations is there. Tecnology grows fast, and changes need to appear.

 

The system isn't buggy, people don't know how to compile it, and most of distros don't know how to compile stuffs. Thats the true.

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Alessandro17
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most of distros don't know how to compile stuffs. Thats the true.

 

What a lot of BS. So the openSUSE developers don't know how to compile KDE? :)

I respected Groklaw when they helped fight Sco. Of late they talk only nonsense. Besides, they are not a technical site.

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Alessandro17
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KDE is getting so bloated and ponderous it's starting to make visduh aero look like openbox.

 

I have never openly said it here, but I feel that way too.

Why did they have to change everything to a DE which worked beautifully, was much loved by so many people...

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

They (the KDE developers) say that 3.5 had so much broken code that it wasn't worth fixing.

But other people gave another explanation: KDE 3.5 could have, maybe, 10% broken code or less. Trouble is that fixing broken code isn't funny,developing something totally new is (funny).

I am beginning to believe that people who want a fork of KDE are right.

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vaporATX
vaporATX
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I have never openly said it here, but I feel that way too.

Why did they have to change everything to a DE which worked beautifully, was much loved by so many people...

If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

They (the KDE developers) say that 3.5 had so much broken code that it wasn't worth fixing.

But other people gave another explanation: KDE 3.5 could have, maybe, 10% broken code or less. Trouble is that fixing broken code isn't funny,developing something totally new is (funny).

I am beginning to believe that people who want a fork of KDE are right.

 

I never did like KDE. I like a more minimalist approach. KDE has too much fluff and not enough speed for my tastes. If I have to use a mainstream DE I'd have to go with Gnome after beating it into submission, but I hate big bloated DEs. For me it's a toss up between Openbox and Flux. I find myself using Open most of the time lately. If the wife and I are on the road and using the same laptop I usually boot into a heavily customized, stripped, and optimized Gnome desktop that emulates OS X so she feels at home.

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DarkCarnival
DarkCarnival
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Alessandro17:

 

Meh. One thing is broken and bloated code. On that note, if the devs claim it's there I think we should either get into the project or at least trust their judgement, after all, it's their work, they should know best ;)

 

Secondly, the major shift which started this rewrite was that QT changed from 3.X to 4.X and with that came a lot of architectural changes that requires a lot of work to the KDE codebase.

 

See, the KDE team relies heavily on QT and they simply don't have the people to maintain the 3.X line indefinitely so the switch is bound to happen. In that light, I think it's wise of them to throw in almost all of their development power on getting KDE QT4 ready.

While doing that, they reviewed QT4 and looked at what they could do with these new features as well as trying different approaches to the solutions used for KDE3 which might be kind of dated.

 

Suffice it to say, KDE4 is the result of a rewrite which HAD to happen sooner or later. The road might be a little bumpy, but not everything can be handled incrementally.

 

Other examples include: 2.4 => 2.6, GTK1=>GTK2, OSS=>Alsa, ESD/ARTS => PulseAudio and so on.

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Alessandro17
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Meh. One thing is broken and bloated code. On that note, if the devs claim it's there I think we should either get into the project or at least trust their judgement, after all, it's their work, they should know best :)

 

I never said it wasn't true. However, what is better, fixing some buggy code or spending years to write something entirely new? It is a matter of opinion.

 

Secondly, the major shift which started this rewrite was that QT changed from 3.X to 4.X and with that came a lot of architectural changes that requires a lot of work to the KDE codebase.

 

See, the KDE team relies heavily on QT and they simply don't have the people to maintain the 3.X line indefinitely so the switch is bound to happen. In that light, I think it's wise of them to throw in almost all of their development power on getting KDE QT4 ready.

While doing that, they reviewed QT4 and looked at what they could do with these new features as well as trying different approaches to the solutions used for KDE3 which might be kind of dated.

 

Suffice it to say, KDE4 is the result of a rewrite which HAD to happen sooner or later. The road might be a little bumpy, but not everything can be handled incrementally.

 

Yes, I know all that, but so many people believe that they didn't look at things from the end-user point of view. KDE 3xx was so damn easy to learn and use. I have tons of examples of people who never used Linux before and found themselves immediately at ease with KDE 3. KDE 4 is definitely not.

There is so much on the internet about it now.

Except for the famous call for a fork by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols:

 

http://practical-tech.com/operating-system...ime-for-a-fork/

 

For instance DistroWatch Weekly is suggesting that people change DE altogether:

 

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20080714#feature

 

Not such a bad idea. I don't love GNOME, but I can stand it. Not so with KDE 4, I can't stand it.

Gnome has already overtaken KDE because of Ubuntu. KDE 4 is the last straw.

 

Now some KDE developers have said that they don't need users. That is of course utter BS.

If your users go away, you lose motivation, feedback, fresh blood (new developers) and money. In the end your project dies. It has always happened to arrogant developers.

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fatshitcat
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Now some KDE developers have said that they don't need users. That is of course utter BS.

If your users go away, you lose motivation, feedback, fresh blood (new developers) and money. In the end your project dies. It has always happened to arrogant developers.

 

I have to agree with you on that.

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DarkCarnival
DarkCarnival
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Well, I haven't been much of a fan since KDE 2.x (which looked bloody brilliant, especially with a few easy colour changes).

After that, I felt the system sounds as well as the themes drove me off. It looks hidious imho, I blame Plastik for setting the mood :/

 

So, I went on to Gnome, then to fluxbox, then back to Gnome and that's where I'm staying if I'm looking for a full-blown DE - although flux can be pretty sweet too if you take the time to set it up.

 

Anyway. I'm pretty sure a lot of us Gnome people are actually looking at KDE4 and thinking "Whoa! They finally conjured up something decent to look at!" and as dumb as that may sound. I think KDE4 can become hugely popular once the kinks are worked out and consequently gain the userbase that the devs hope for.

 

 

Do I want to be using beta-quality software for me primary DE ? Hell no, I'd get furious if a DE crashed on me even once.

But do I want to have a look at it around 4.2 ? You bet I do!

 

 

And to the useability complaint

I've seen equally as many complain that KDE has way too many buttons exposed and that it looks a bit messy like that (not to mention the Toys 'R Us themes they have) - that's actually why most of the people I show Linux to will pick Gnome.

KDE4 though, seems to have thinned out the horde of buttons somewhat, now I appreciate the fact that this is a huge shift in strategy for KDE devs and that this will probably alienate parts of its existing userbase.

 

But don't you think there's something more to the decline of KDE and the rise of Gnome than simply the fact that it's being shipped by Ubuntu ?

 

Back in the day, we had KDE-centric and Gnome-centric distributions and to my memory, KDE was somewhat in the lead back then.

Both SuSE and Mandrake (Mandriva) had their primary emphasis on KDE while Red Hat focused on Gnome (but made every effort to also ship a solid KDE environment). This would suggest that most people would choose KDE and that Gnome wouldn't really be used.

But that's just not true at all. Even though SuSE and Mandrake were hugely popular back then, Gnome was still very much in use.

 

What I'm saying is, maybe the decline of KDE is that it hasn't really been able to move much since 3.0-3.1 wheras Gnome has made a lot of progress in many neat areas over the time.

Gnome has effectively taken the Mac approach (I'd even say they've outdone Apple) in making everything very easy for the user. Over the years nearly every single highlight of every Gnome release I've seen have been some new features which really just made a given task that much easier.

 

Seeing as the road KDE has gone down hasn't really given them a larger fanbase, quite the opposite, is it not sensible that they want to try something new ?

 

Just my 2 cents which, as always, come with a truckload of letters :/

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Alessandro17
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But don't you think there's something more to the decline of KDE and the rise of Gnome than simply the fact that it's being shipped by Ubuntu ?

 

No, I don't really think so. KDE was the de facto standard for every user friendly Linux distro, from SUSE to Mandrake/Mandriva to Xandros or Linspire or, more recently, Mepis or PCLinuxOS. I wouldn't count Fedora/Red Hat among the user friendly distros, you need a lot of extra work before you get your desktop as openSUSE or Mandriva Powerpack set it out of the box.

 

Back in the day, we had KDE-centric and Gnome-centric distributions and to my memory, KDE was somewhat in the lead back then.

 

AFAIK, the only GNOME centric distro was Red Hat.

 

 

What I'm saying is, maybe the decline of KDE is that it hasn't really been able to move much since 3.0-3.1 wheras Gnome has made a lot of progress in many neat areas over the time.

 

That is totally new to me. Everybody else says the opposite: GNOME hardly changes at all.

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vaporATX
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No, I don't really think so. KDE was the de facto standard for every user friendly Linux distro, from SUSE to Mandrake/Mandriva to Xandros or Linspire or, more recently, Mepis or PCLinuxOS. I wouldn't count Fedora/Red Hat among the user friendly distros, you need a lot of extra work before you get your desktop as openSUSE or Mandriva Powerpack set it out of the box.

 

AFAIK, the only GNOME centric distro was Red Hat.

 

That is totally new to me. Everybody else says the opposite: GNOME hardly changes at all.

 

The changes that happens with Gnome and KDE don't really excite me all that much. Most of them are cosmetic and a lot of time adversely affect real world usability. Sometime it seems like it's a contest about who can take the best screenshot and not about who can make my work more productive. The changes in the Linux world that excite me are in kernel development and stuff the goes on under the hood. If the Gnome or KDE teams develop a nice app I like that's great, but I could really care less about their bloated DEs and how much useless eye candy they can jam into it.

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(MoC)
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I dunno, KDE 4 has a lot of bugs primarily because of the userbase pushing to get a release out that they can use. Then that same userbase complains that a lot of things are broken when they in the first place most likely caused it.

 

It will take me a long time to go to KDE 4 simply because I just don't like it. The developers rushed on it and didn't take enough interest and actually let the public rush them. For now, I feel cozy in my Slackware with KDE 3/Fluxbox/Blackbox/WindowMaker/XFCE/IceWM. :whistle:

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