Here's a review I found about (open)SUSE running KDE4 I can really relate to.
It points out KDE4's faults usability-wise. Verdict:horrendous.


And it goes on to speak about the desktop icons:

And don't forget reliability....


But it ends on the lighter side....NOOOOT!


Full review

And it's true. I don't care what elitist cheerleader say, KDE4 is a usability nightmare.
Nothing, absolutely nothing to sing celestial choirs about.

KDE 4.1 is loads better

> <
^^KDE^^

Please, don't be pressed by the tiime because it is load slowlyyyyyyyy. In GUI, I'm embrassed because when you click on an icon on the desktop, it's becomr slugish and slow. Oh my god!

Fedora was supposed to be also a miracle. I said you can throw immediately the DVD on the garbage cause it's the same sh*t.

Politicly correct, KDE is bad... Gnome rulez the party

I've always hate KDE. Gnome and XFCE are so much more reliable.
Ive seen KDE as a way to emulate Microsoft window managers, its big, bloated, wastes so much resources.
With Compiz in mainstream use now I see no use for KDE. Compiz and Gnome/XFCE far out performs KDE.

I think we will have to wait till kde 4.2 to see what kde 4 will really be like. Even though compiz is very popular, I don't think it will even integrate as well as the default window manager and the only thing gnome's default window manager can do is make shadows.

You r also forgetting that kde 4 is slightly unique and doesn't work the same way as windows or OS X whereas gnome is more like windows xp, ugly and boring. Besides most people these days like a good looking GUI as well and kde has always looked better and kde 4 looks way better than gnome, gnome doesn't even have a unique look. XFCE makes me puke, its horribly ugly.

Resources? Kde 4.1 takes less resources for me than gnome does, with 10 different apps in gnome my memory usage is 450mb, with kde 4.1 and the same apps its 346, I have both installed so I can check

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I thought ALL releases of kde before 4 looked damn ugly, KDE4's window manager is ugly as well (who the hell thought boring grey 95 look would win users over?)

Gnome can look very polished...and it's ironic because KDE is the one that looks like windows, not gnome

Compiz is better than plasma in every single way, sorry, but it is.

What makes KDE4 more unique?
Also KDE4 was way slower and less responsive for me than GNOME ever was.
And I had to restart X.org(with the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace thingy) several times with (open)SUSE, and after that my desktop resolution and icons and panels were just the same as in the first boot. My settings were gone. Just gone. GNOME would never do that not the freezing nor the deletion of the settings.
It was honestly worse than any OS including Vista. And that's a big thing.
I don't care if it looks beautiful[if beauty means OSX ripoff icons and screwed up plasma icons(yeah yeah if it's in development, don't release it as 4.0.0 FFS)], the execution is poor and far from finished.

I really do appreciate the KDE devs' effort, my point is that it should be stopped treating like it's the next big thing after sliced bread.
The screenshots do look nice, but as I realized after usage, it's not that big of a deal. Far from it.

EDIT:And Compiz kicks butt over Plasma both stability and features wise. And it's a lot more straightforward as well.

I see what yoru saying, and OK, for you the apps run better in KDE. For me it was laways the other way round. (Admittedly this was with older KDE's)
I generally use XFCE and Compiz and make it look like an advanced mac. (Sometimes with gnome too)
But when i say bloated i mean, they ad this weird start menu, and this weird icon thing. If im using any GUI i want to get to the file and click on it. I dont care about any crap like that.
I guess i've not really used KDE in time enough to really pass judgement. Its just the way I remember. And i'm happy with leopard now, so itll be a long time before I do.
Each to thier own.

Kde 4 is unique cause its method of using the desktop isn't a windows ripoff, the features it offers are not in gnome.

I admit kde 4.04 isn't that great, though it didn't crash on me even once, if u want to see crashes I dare u try fedora 9 or kubuntu and its like going back to win me.

I already said wait till 4.2 for a good kde 4, I don't understand it my self why they called kde 4.0 final, I am not a developer and I can't argue with u here. Oxygen icons look better than OS X's to me and if u want to talk about rip off, isn't gnome a windows rip off, its more like windows than anything else in its looks.

I remember kde 4.0 was slow for me as well, but 4.1 works really great, u should try it.

Compiz is better but compiz is just effects and will never integrate as well as the desktop environments default composite manager, thats something everyone should understand.

Gnome doesn't have issues right now u r right and neither does kde 3, the change for kde 3 to 4 is larger than gnome 2.20 to 2.22 so gnome should obviously be more stable.

Most people who never used linux I showed 4.1 beta to and they liked it, why? Cause it was something different than what people r used to, if I showed them gnome they would think its a windows rip off.

It's still KDE...

If you have complaints, write here:

http://www.osnews.com/comments/19952

Aaron Seigo has been replying to everybody who has intelligent and meaningful remarks on KDE 4 (much more than any GNOME developer has ever done, AFAIK).

No offense, but you really do talk alot of {censored}.

KDE has always been known to look like "windows" (and is a windows rip off in many respects) thus why it has been used by distros who want to appeal to windows users, as it has a somewhat familiar layout.

KDE3 always had issues, KDE has always liked to crash alot, it has always been worse than gnome for that, right now gnome is alot more stable than both KDE and KDE4, from what i have experienced with KDE4 so far i dont see that changing, i've not found one person who likes the fact the icons are gone, it's not unique, it's annoying, why change something that has worked so well for so long? it wasnt a revolutionary move imo but a big step back (you'll find practically everyone agrees)

Also, KDE4, just like vistas UI is very inconsistent, everything looks out of place (this wont change, it hasnt in any KDE release), what's the point of having things look pretty evolutionary/great if the rest of the UI doesnt fit in, what's the point in doing that? what's the point in updating everything then going for an old ass grey look which no matter what you do some of it you just cant get rid of?

Gnome is the same in some aspects for this as well, like it or not Linux desktop environments just dont like moving forward.

No offense but u talk more than anyone else?

Did u even read the post u responded to? If u read it u would have noticed I never said kde 3 didn't look like windows. Read before u post .

Which distro r u using? I have always used suse for kde and never had a crash, but I have never had a crash in gnome either so they have both been equally stable for me, oh yeah but I hate totem movie player in gnome. Now if u use distros like kubuntu then what do u expect out of kde there?

I said kde 4 was unique and in 4.2 folder view widget will be able to expand over the entire desktop so it acts like your classic desktop.

Remember I said kde 4 was still in development as kde devs and many people admit it will be ready by 4.2 right?

The only reason gnome doesn't look like a windows rip off is cause it has 2 panels by default, any distro could package gnome with one panel put in the traditional menu bar and there is a windows rip off for u and compared to kde 4 gnome is a windows rip off.

As for compiz being better than kwin, yeah the effects r a million times better no doubt but u r forgetting what I said again cause u don't read that compiz is a separate window manager and will never integrate as well in to kde 4 as kwin it self does, get it now?

Not being rude, however you and Alessandro are the only people here whose (open)SUSE never crashed. Interesting.

About KDE revolutionary. Maybe. But not in a good way, in a buggy inconsistent usability-failure way which I doubt is good to anyone. It introduced big names like Oxygen, Plasma, Phonon etc which failed to deliver.

And I see no warnings that this is development software(it nears 4.1, WTF?), this argument only comes up when talking about KDE4's faults and stability which is, let's face it, inexistent. And it was promised it would be ready by 4.1. It may not be ready yet, but I don't see the performance & stability I expect from a DE. Let's just hope it would be ready for masses by v5.1. I don't treat KDE4 as a thing still in massive development because it gets integrated into all major distros and devs are giving no sign to the end user (not the linux enthusiast who reads all the dev blogs) that this is ongoing development.


And KDE started as a Windows desktop clone, and hasn't lost this tendency as of today. Look at the icons, the System Configuration and at the details. It was inspired from Windows. KWn is slow and can't be customized the way Compiz+Emerald+GNOME can. That's a fact. And the latter delivers the performance and exciting effects KWin users can only dream of. And it's still more stable than KWin which is so integrated.

KDE overpromised and underdelivered, and the grandiose names and tehnologies didn't impress the majority. While KDE4 has a gredient panel, GNOME gets the job done.

I agree that when kde 4 devs announced the final version 4.0.0 I was hoping it would be a feature rich meaning all kde 3 stuff and should have been a STABLE desktop, but it wasn't. I am going to try and find the link where they have a video of what 4.2 may be like and at least I hope by then it would be complete.

Have u tried kde 4's k3b? It can't even burn a cd correctly till now

Thats a sign its still in development, I was hoping all kde 4 apps would be ready with the 4.0 release.

As for suse being stable for me, even Mandriva's gnome and kde were stable for me when I tried them and I have only tried 2008.

Kde might have started as a windows desktop clone, I don't know I never used version 1 but the 3 series and 4 series have loads of features Windows doesn't have.

About the window manager, I know compiz fusion has a million times better effects but u must already know that gnome+metacity would always integrate or work better with each other and be more stable than compiz+gnome. Thats all I am saying

Windows-likeness doesn't stand in just features. I feel KDE's WinXP-likeness in how you get things. Ex. application launcher menu structure or system control interface.

Also the Oxygen icons' originality can be questionable.
Ex.


No comment.

EDIT: another one>

totally, he he

thanks for showing that, I didn't know cause I don't have a windows installation anymore to compare with, just OS X and linux.

don't u think a control center is a good idea though, even OS X has system preferences.

Not really I also had never any probs with opensuse. It looks like there is a user issue involved...
KDE 4.x is still alpha and Gnome looks like crap. So why trolling anyway?

Your the one who gets offensive if someone says something bad about your precious KDE



Yes i did, KDE3 looked like windows (old) and KDE4 has a few aspects of vista (google up, most people agree on this)



I've tried multiple distros, right now i have OpenSuse and Arch installed on different drives, KDE has crashed in every single distro i've tried (and that's been 100s), kde3 was just poor at handling things and was easy to crash.

I've had gnome crash on me a few times as well, but nowhere near the amount of KDE



You say unique, that's your opinion, my opinion is that of change unique to "{censored}" the widgets are slower than you standard icon, it's not a revolution to change the way a desktop has worked for over 20 years.



Who cares? if it wasnt ready they shouldnt of released it, KDE team made themself's look stupid and not many people like KDE4.



Gnome doesnt look anything like windows, how about you actually provide proof that it looks like windows? hard proof..not "oh becuase umm err umm it has a start menu".

If you want to start on that perhaps you should mention the fact KDE4 is trying to copy off windows (vista) AND OSX, eh? their control panel is a straight up rip off from OSX, but no, cant badmouth the desktop manager you love so much (you seem to be a right fanboy to be honest, i use multiple setups so i use what works and KDE does not).



So much bad language, how old are you, 11?

I dont care if it dont intergrate as well, wow, i have to wait 2 extra seconds to get to the desktop while compiz fusion loads, rather that than put up with a poor intergrated window manager that works...oops, doesnt work, properly. .

Not everyone is going to have the same opinion as you, get it now? only difference is they dont act like fanboys and will mention the good and bad things of window managers.

I am not being a fanboy for defending kde, sorry I have both gnome and kde installed on my linux machine, I just like kde a lot more than gnome.

So since u hate kde 4 so much, means u won't be using it ever again?

No, it's not.

Well you'd never say that if you'd invest some time to take a look into 'its' source code. Despite what KDE devs are saying that code according to my standards is still alpha.

That's EXACTLY my problem.
People don't care about your standards and they don't care about mines. KDE4 is billed as software ready for the masses, that passed beta testing(KDE4 betas were released a while ago) however, its quality is horrendous.
However, if KDE devs say it passed development, they should know it better, don't they? I'm not the one deciding about it, am I? And you're not apparently that one either.

I have dismissed the argument regarding KDE4 being in development since January 11 2008, the day when KDE was released with version number 4.0. And according to a quote from the release announcement:

The end. Get it?!

EDIT: On a side note "it's" is an informal short form used in place of "it is". And 'its' is a possessive adjective that answers to question 'Whose?'(Ex. mine/yours/his/hers/its/etc.)
So I don't see what your problem is with my grammar.

I heard MS-DOS Executive was pretty advanced. Let's all break out the floppies and squash this dumb stuff.