The shift from KDE3.5 to KDE4
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Jul 29, 2010 9:05 AM EDT |
I tried Linux Mint and the KDE4 version and got turned off......But tonight, I got "bloody minded" as they say, and installed openSUSE 11.3 with the KDE4.4 desktop and decided to give it a really good spin. This was particularly important because I don't know Linux Mint, but I do know openSUSE. So what now follows is after a solid two hours of steady "playing".........my first experiences if you will. There are a couple of things that the welded on KDE3.5 user has to do immediately: first use folder view (right click on the desktop and select from the drop down menu.......and hope you pick the right one); second, get into personal settings and turn off ALL desktop effects......If you do that, KDE4 suddenly begins to behave like a reasonable sports car instead of a steam roller. Third, select the classical options for the menu by right clicking on the 'start button' and selecting that option. Then for real comfort, get a trash can back on the desktop with the icons and you do that by right clicking on the menu bar and opening the add widgets option. Oh by the way, do click on the blasted cashew first and make sure that moving and adding widgets is enabled....if you don't it isn't going to work nohow !!!!!!! Blankety blank thing........My comments so far are that KDE4 absolutely CAN be a useful desktop, but has been over complicated by developers for developers.......I don't like the fact that stupidly simple things in KDE3.5 need several clicks to do them in KDE4.....but I shall win...aahahahaaaaaaa..... And you can add icons to your desktop.......Just open the menu tree, right click on the menu item and select the option to add it to the desktop......but DO make sure the cashew is set to allow you do to that in the first place......stinking thing !!!!! The only real glitch I have met so far is a lulu. They say, oh yes, they SAY you can use Konqueror as the file manager......and you can even select it as the default.......my experience says: DONT DO IT !!!! Yes, it does happen that Konqueror, the delight of KDE3.5 can be selected as the default manager, but if you do, there be dragons ahead. I found it all worked and I could create a folder in my home directory.......BUT, open a terminal and it wasn't there.......nope........not in root terminal either, and I wanted to install OO3.1.1 from that newly created folder.......The only way it would work was to open Dolphin, create a new folder, copy the targz file from the "unknown folder" created by Konqueror and suddenly all was well........Now how can you have an unreal folder with real contents ? I don' t know....... But, as I said earlier..........I am going to win........I see a light ahead.........But throw a KDE3.5 user into KDE4 without a longish period of learning.........you have to be kidding..........Well, KDE4 developers, I can see how I can use your new software, but to get really good results in my opinion, it needs to be really tweaked to be made as simple as possible......and then it begins to run like a scalded cat......sorry moggies everywhere. :-) |
| mrider Jul 29, 2010 2:10 PM EDT |
I've pretty much stayed side-lined on the whole KDE thing. I liked KDE3x enough that I always figured that if I waited long enough the KDE folks would settle down and make something I like. I've tried KDE4 in OpenSuSE, Kubuntu, Mandriva, and the last time was Arch. I forget precisely what it was, but a few weeks ago something I was trying to do finally drove me over the edge. I wish I could remember now. I was trying to tweak some setting or other anyway. I'll edit this post if I have a "eureka" moment... It's really sad because I've been a KDE user for ages. The first GNU/Linux distro that I got working with a GUI was Redhat 6.0 which came with the book "Mastering Linux". The computer I had at the time maxed out at 800x600, so I tried the available DMs to see which would be easiest to tweak for such a low resolution, and settled with KDE. I had been a consistent KDE user since those days. Anyway, I had finally had enough and said **** it, and nuked my main computer. I'm now running 100% pure Debian Stable with XFCE, except that I have added a (very) few modern packages by by hand - Java, Eclipse, and Firefox. And I couldn't be happier. About the only thing I dislike is how plain-jane the default XFCE is. But I've been working on a personalized theme that I can push to any new computers I set up. I'm not trying to contradict you Ridicully, I'm just pointing out that for at least me, KDE has gone past the point where it's worth the trouble. Good bye KDE. I was patient, but now I'm gone, and I'll probably never come back. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 29, 2010 5:52 PM EDT |
mrider, Sadly, the Squeeze XFCE doesn't have the "Debian" menu, which contains every application installed, not just those smart enough to get put into XFCE menus. It's a problem with XFCE, that it's no longer recognizing some formerly-standard menu-embedding hook. I put it in as a bug, but it was sent off to "wishlist" even though I consider it a major point of Debian agnosticism that has been lost. |
| hkwint Jul 29, 2010 8:49 PM EDT |
mrider: I don't understand your limited view... There are plenty of useful, working KDE applications you can run even if XFCE is your desktop environment. There's so much more to KDE than just Konqueror and the KDE desktop environment. Why not choose the best solution for every task separate? I mean, even if someone were to use KDE, it would go without saying they'd probably still use Firefox and OpenOffice. Then, why would some XFCE user not use Dolphin or KPat? It's what I'm doing (because I decided the KDE desktop was too slow) and all KDE apps - except for KOffice and Kontact work reasonably well. Kontact also does if you just ignore the errors, and there's no reason to use KOffice when you have Ooffice. Kate crashes from time to time resulting in data loss (huge screwup in my opinion), fine, then I install an alternative and I'm happy. Amarok is far too bloated and has glitches, fine, I'm going with qmmp and I'm happy again. But abandoning whole KDE seems a bit pointless... Maybe in some time from now, KOffice 2 will be usable and won't have 5-year-long-unfixed bugs which make me want to crash my head through the wooden desktop like OOo. Maybe the KDE-frameworks Kontact uses will actually work without spewing errors and make someone manually edit InnoDB config files. Or maybe not. But that's great about the Linux desktop, you can assemble your own. Even if 80% of KDE is crap, there's no reason to abandon it all together! For the exact same reason, people use Wine. OK, when 'mixing' your own desktop you won't perceive a 'smooth integrated feeling', and it's unsure if applications will cooperate. But if that's what you want, other people integrating and choosing for you, you should be using MacOSX anyway. Or if you insist on 'free software' or have limited financial resources, you might settle for Ubuntu with Gnome. To me, that's the fun part: All these "open source OS" parts are interchangable. I don't have to run Bash, the GNU binary utilities or the Linux, gcc or the GNU Screen program kernel. But the parts of which I find useful, I may use, even if I don't like everything GNU. Why would it be different for KDE? |
| jdixon Jul 29, 2010 9:38 PM EDT |
> Sadly, the Squeeze XFCE doesn't have the "Debian" menu, which contains every application installed Bob, the version installed with Slackware 12.2 (I haven't had time to upgrade to 13.0 or 13.1) is 4.4, and it supposedly includes an application finder program, xfce4-appfinder. If your version has it, it may be in the menu or you can try running it from the command line. I seem to remember that the one time I tried it, it had the option to add found programs to the menu. Hmm, the help page doesn't list that functionality any more, but does say this: You can edit desktop menu through Xfce 4 menu editor using drag and drop from Xfce 4 Appfinder. Searching applications and adding it to desktop menu will be easier to do and faster. You have only to select an item from the appfinder list and drag it on the menu editor list and enjoy the result. |
| tracyanne Jul 29, 2010 11:18 PM EDT |
I've been looking at Manhattan It looks like they've managed to meld the best of KDE4 and the best of GNOME, it's really quite an interesting project. |
| Scott_Ruecker Jul 30, 2010 1:04 AM EDT |
For my part, I miss KDE3. There was nothing wrong with it. Call it dated call it what you want but I liked it, really liked it. I have to use Windows machines all the time and having my main machines at home running KDE3 made it easier for me to go from one platform to another and back again and keep my head from exploding.. I really hope the new KDE group that wants to keep the 3.5 line alive succeeds. |
| Ridcully Jul 30, 2010 7:23 AM EDT |
@ Scott_Ruecker........I could not agree more. My experiences so far show that KDE3.5 still continues to win hands down over KDE4.x on speed, user friendliness, stability, simplicity and just plain effectiveness when doing serious work. It just runs, you know what to expect and you can do it with the minimum of fuss. Frankly, despite my playing with KDE4.4, I can see my principal deskmanager remaining KDE3.5 for as long as it will work. If it ain't broke, why fix it ? I would like so much to ask that question of the KDE4 team that have literally forced their over-complex software onto the users. And then there are the journalist fan-wavers who cheer over the glitz in KDE4 as if that was the only thing that was important.....I have now proved pretty conclusively that all the pretty glitz does is slow your computer down.....a highly decorated snail with tinsel and stars is still a snail. I despair, actually, of ever getting this message across to the KDE4 developers, but I agree with you completely.....if the Trinity project keeps going, I'm first in line to offer support and use the results. |
| mrider Jul 30, 2010 11:20 AM EDT |
@Bob_Robertson: I haven't encountered that bug. I started with a no-desktop net install, and then installed the components I wanted individually. So I haven't noticed any problems with my menu since it's so spartan. But I'll keep an eye open. :) @hkwint: I still use KDE stuff that I like. I installed K3b and K9copy for example. I'm not abandoning every single bit of KDE, I'm abandoning the KDE desktop manager for the XFCE desktop manager. I've always tried to mix the best of what I want into my system. I'm sorry I gave you that impression. @Scott_Ruecker & Ridcully: I'm with you. I could always have installed KDE 3x from Debian stable. But I wanted a path forward, and it seems likely that the next stable Debian will use KDE 4x rather than 3, and I figured I'd be better off feeling the pain now. I have great hopes for the folks forking the old KDE. It's very likely indeed that I'll use it if it becomes stable and relatively mainstream. As distasteful as I find it, I find that I have to use Windows at work (me spits). So one of the things that I do whenever I get a new computer is I sort of customize it until the Windows and Linux versions work similarly enough that I can switch keyboards several times per day without it being too jarring. I've never quite accomplished that trick with a system that has a window manager but not desktop manager. That's a big part of why I always stuck with KDE. [EDIT] hkwint: I bet the part I said about "pure Debian stable" is what threw off my message. When I say "pure", I don't mean absolutely nothing but what Debian delivers on their CD set. I mean that my apt sources don't point to any of the testing or experimental repositories, nor do I have any third party sources. At least I don't think multimedia is third party. But if it is, then it's the only one. |
| hkwint Aug 02, 2010 8:23 PM EDT |
mrider: OK, there's something I have to confess: I wanted to impress you with all the countless examples of great KDE applications you can still use, even while running XFCE. However, it's pretty hard. More programs whit 'issues' came to my mind, than programs which are "a great joy" to use. K3B - for all I know - still doesn't have a "production quality" version for KDE4. It's RC now, it seems, so there is progress. Amarok suffers from the same Database dependency as Kontact does, and has problems displaying everything right. Some 'boxes' are garbled, and I have a hard time configuring. Konqueror - well, on KDE4 it's not a good example because most people who use it miss Konqueror from KDE3. Dolphin - though nice - has some 'quirks' (features?) which make it open empty pains for no apparent reason, and I find it a bit hard to work with. KDevelop4 is only halfway, it seems. Kate always crashes on this computer, for no apparent reason, no warning or such. Koffice does very strange things to my office documents, and I can't complete some basic tasks, up to a point where I didn't dare to use it anymore. Kontact still doesn't start without errors. Sometimes, it's advised you throw away a part of your dot-KDE directory. Right, sounds like a good idea when all your emails and contacts are in that directory. Not much to consider using when you're settled on XFCE. So, what's left? I guess, the only parts of KDE bringing me joy without headaches, are Konsole, KPat and Gwenview. My 'newest' analysis of what happened, after watching some of the aKademy 2010 vids - is, with all the new frameworks, it needs time before applications using those frameworks are written. Those apps are being written as we type though, and someday, they'll arrive. Due to the limited number of KDE developers though (compared to the task they're up to), it's going to take much time. Instead of rewriting their apps for new applications, those developers could have bug-fixed their apps for KDE3.5, and that's probably what end users are blaming KDE for. KDE4 promised to make possible what was impossible in KDE3 because of the new frameworks, but after 2.5 years there's too less visible by means of apps using those frameworks, to show what the frameworks can do. |
| gus3 Aug 02, 2010 8:42 PM EDT |
I used Konqueror this afternoon. I use Slackware-current with a 3rd-party build of LXDE. Firefox is my browser of choice, but right now there's a conflict between the Gecko engine and CUPS, causing a crash every time I click File/Print. Seamonkey has the same problem, since it also uses Gecko. But Konqueror doesn't. So here's a vote for a KDE app without KDE. |
| hkwint Aug 02, 2010 11:12 PM EDT |
Glad to hear! When Konqueror on QtWebKit will be ready, I think (hope?) Konqueror finally will be 'real competition' to Chrome and FF. |
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