KDE4 Plasma ? I'm not angry...Much.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Oct 20, 2015 6:03 AM EDT |
As I noted in the Latest Discussions item "Apper in KDE", my hdd collapsed on me a week or so ago. I thought I'd be very clever and forward looking and install openSUSE 13.1 with KDE4.11 on a new hdd. Fine. Never have I regretted such a move so much. The laptop hdd was worked almost constantly by various aspects of the KDE software. The removal of Apper was a temporary reduction and then it started again. I put a trace onto the system to see what was causing the enormous activity.......turns out it was the Plasma modules, oh, and Akonadi, and......well, let's just say the activity on the hdd was such that I could NOT use the laptop normally.....You had to wait for the random moments when suddenly hdd activity stopped for a minute or two......but as soon as you began to work, the hdd activity began again. The desktop froze and even the mouse would NOT move until the hdd activity ceased. KDE4.11 and iterations of KDE4 greater than KDE4.6 are, in my opinion, the most disgusting pieces of software forced onto the Linux world. KDE4 is now nothing more nor less than bloatware largely due to the developers taking on the "Swiss Army Knife Syndrome" - the ability to do everything poorly, but nothing specific very well. As for KMail.....I've already written about that piece of software and how it has been destroyed. I used it for a while, but it then showed me that I had NO way of getting my emails out of the package without them being totally distorted by the fact that they had been passed through the Akonadi MySQL(?) server. As for the Semantic Desktop - I've already said all I want to in those LXer features, and none of it is complimentary. I have noted with extreme interest that the angst against KDE4 might possibly even have penetrated to one of KDE's biggest supporters, openSUSE. A little search showed me this amazing site: https://en.opensuse.org/KDE3 OpenSUSE is actually providing a way of reverting from KDE4 to KDE3. Intriguing. If I was to suggest something though, I'd suggest that openSUSE provide a reversion to KDE4.6. It is the last version of KDE4 in which KMail still functions NORMALLY with a proper maildir setup and folders that actually contain the emails, and it also has some other advantages like the lovely file manager Dolphin, and overall, KDE4.6 performs just as well as the old KDE3, possibly because in KDE4.6, the Akonadi server has not been fully deployed and you can turn Nepomuk off completely. With that reduced setup, KDE4.6 runs like "a scalded cat" as the saying is. Right now, I have reverted back to a full installation of openSUSE 11.4 with KDE4.6. It works brilliantly, is fast, there is no extraneous hdd activity and I could not be happier. Undoubtedly, there will be those who will say: I just love KDE4.11 and later......Well, good for you. I don't and my experiences are such that I will never, never, never use KDE4.11, or later, again. As I remarked in my earlier articles, still on the Latest Discussions lists, a desktop manager should do what the user wants.........not what the blasted developers want. And in my opinion, that is now the sad situation for KDE. It's a disgraceful example of just how bloated and complex a previously wonderful DM can become when the developers just do as they darn well please. I'm purchasing a second laptop shortly, one that still has Win7 on it so that I will be faced with a normal BIOS. I intend to use it partially as a testbed for full experimentation with Xfce......but that's for the future. Agree, or disagree, those are my opinions and I won't be changing them. |
| JaseP Oct 20, 2015 8:04 AM EDT |
Reading the article, it seems like the KDE developers are suffering from the Len Poettering syndrome of developing,... Blaming others for their bugs. It's odd to me that GTK+ systems do not suffer from the same problems that QT suffers from on Intel systems, nor do other QT implementations suffer from these effects... Hmmmm. |
| Ridcully Oct 20, 2015 8:30 AM EDT |
Martin Gräßlin explains that "KDE Plasma doesn't do well with Intel hardware". Well let me inform Martin that KDE4.6 does VERY WELL with Intel because that is what this laptop uses. It's fast, stable and great to use. So Martin, whatever you have done to KDE (since that version of 4.6) has thoroughly mucked it up as to compatibility with one of the most common video setups in computing. How very, very .....sensible ?.......astute of you ?......clever ? ........damn stupid !!!!!!!!! Tick one. Again, the overcomplexity that has now been forced onto KDE renders it valueless to someone who loved its speed, simple use and flexibility. I suggested previously and say it again: There is a crying need for a "KDE4 light". One that strips out Plasma, Akonadi, Nepomuk/Baloo, Apper, desktop effects, and all the "frills". And that light version should have all the marvellous attributes found in KDE4.6. But what would I know.......I'm just a stupid user. |
| JaseP Oct 20, 2015 9:06 AM EDT |
Strip out Plasma, Akonadi, Nepomuk/Baloo, Apper, yes... But I say keep the desktop effects. They are the only reason I haven't switched to XFCE,... OK, that AND the KDE Connect (the Android/KDE connectivity thing). Seriously,... It's nice to have your desktop alert you if you have an incoming phone call or text... You can leave the phone on silent and still work. |
| gus3 Oct 20, 2015 9:44 AM EDT |
"Len Poettering syndrome".... I like it! |
| jdixon Oct 20, 2015 10:44 AM EDT |
> "Len Poettering syndrome".... I like it! The name, yes. The syndrome, not so much so. :) |
| gus3 Oct 20, 2015 12:20 PM EDT |
Well, yeah. |
| nmset Oct 20, 2015 1:33 PM EDT |
Apart for the Marble wallpaper that I miss too much, I just enjoy Plasma as much as KDE4. It remains to see how it behaves on mobile devices, I recall it was one major development concern from the devs. |
| jdixon Oct 20, 2015 2:31 PM EDT |
> It remains to see how it behaves on mobile devices, Wasn't mobile device support supposed to be one of the major reasons for moving to Plasma? |
| Ridcully Oct 20, 2015 4:36 PM EDT |
To anyone who feels like a little experiment, find yourself a copy of the installation disk for openSUSE 11.4 (I'm using the 32bit version on this old 2 core laptop) and have a taste of what KDE4.6 was like. Honestly and sincerely, I do recommend you give it a go. Any user of the KDE4.11 version and later iterations will be astounded at the incredible speed obtained in version 4.6. Turn off Nepomuk, and if you don't like them, the window effects Apper was not installed and Akonadi has NOT been fully deployed so it just sits there and does nothing. Go on, I dare you. https://archive.org/details/opensuse-11.4_release Oh, by the way......I still have an installation disk for openSUSE 11.4......wouldn't part with it. Also, the 11.4 repository for software updates to the system until it was "discontinued" are still on the openSUSE server, so you get a very good result. |
| DiBosco Oct 26, 2015 9:12 PM EDT |
KDE4 is awesome and has been for all but the first few months. I've always turned off Nepomuk and Akondi though. They just thrash away at the HDD and I never understood the need for them or what they do. I'm currently using 4.14 on Mageia 5. It's fast, feature reach and beautiful looking. It's no slower than any other version of KDE4. In general it's got faster with later releases in my experience. Whenever I've toyed with other desktops they just seem drab and lacking in features. |
| Ridcully Oct 27, 2015 2:16 AM EDT |
Nepomuk (or its later replacement of Baloo - if that has actually happened) together with Akonadi, form a "search and hdd destroy" semantic desktop. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but that is what it feels like because DiBosco is quite right: their presence DOES make the hdd thrash away and I have even been frightened that their excessive activity would damage the hdd. The semantic desktop is one of those "ideas" that come out of the KDE stable that seem good, but are sheer hell to implement and their presence adds to the excessive loads on both the hdd and the cpu. The semantic desktop is supposed, I believe, to be able to link together all the items of your data including documents, calendar appointments, emails, oh, you name it, so that you can do a search and have them all displayed together to get a full picture of a particular person, date, email set, document and associated people, etc. etc. etc. Sounds great doesn't it ? Now, in all seriousness, how many KDE users actually use that semantic function, or even know how to use it ? The answer is that I don't honestly know. I have written extensively on what I believe to be the problems and damage done to KDE by the semantic desktop and one of those articles is still on the LXer Features list about replacing KDE with Xfce.....But there are at least two other major articles in which I discuss KDE and the semantic desktop. Here's the link to the first article: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/198081/ And the second: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/198639/ They may help. |
| nmset Oct 27, 2015 5:58 AM EDT |
I am a happy user of baloo, very useful, hdd destroy is very very old, you could experiment on a spare computer. Really, you're missing a lot. |
| Ridcully Oct 27, 2015 4:11 PM EDT |
Nmset.......we thrashed this argument out years ago. Don't start again please......I am aware that no matter what facts I find, my impression is that you will always object and indicate KDE4 and the semantic desktop are absolutely "fabulous". Fine, enjoy. But the other fact remains that I personally, and many, many other Linux users are of the opposite opinion. Let's leave it at that please. Oh, and anyone who is interested in those arguments will find them on the threads attached to the articles themselves. |
| jdixon Oct 27, 2015 8:27 PM EDT |
> Really, you're missing a lot. Well, to that I can only reply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVFgEBq0EKM |
| nmset Oct 28, 2015 5:38 AM EDT |
> Well, to that I can only reply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVFgEBq0EKM That's good music, it rocks just as KDE5 (five, four is dead). |
| Ridcully Oct 28, 2015 8:12 AM EDT |
Oh yes.......KDE5 rocks all right - so full of "rocks" you'd be utterly insane to make it your principal DM: https://community.kde.org/Plasma/5.0_Errata Oh....and here's at least one answer to my question as to whether at least openSUSE users want the semantic desktop. Admittedly the sample is extremely tiny......but there is a trend. https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/497670-Do-you-act... And a final fascinating article......apparently the semantic desktop in KDE is now dead: http://vhanda.in/blog/2015/03/the-semantic-desktop-is-dead/ |
| JaseP Oct 28, 2015 8:55 AM EDT |
Semantic desktop dead?!?! Good riddance. I always felt it was a rather lame attempt to force a desktop operating environment to behave like a cell/mobile device. Problem is,... Android does that kind of thing better than the KDE developers could have dreamed up... and people don't generally want that sort of thing on a full desktop environment (Chrome OS not really an exception so much as a niche for people who want full desktop browsing & keyboards but with the advantage of "cloud" storage,... a hybrid between a desktop and a mobile device, if you will). |
| 750 Oct 28, 2015 10:02 AM EDT |
KDE3 was the last good KDE... |
| nmset Oct 28, 2015 10:17 AM EDT |
>http://vhanda.in/blog/2015/03/the-semantic-desktop-is-dead/ A game of words. Everything that used be felt and talked as semantic destop is still here. No RDF ? That's yet better with SQL. It's operhaps the words 'semantic desktop' that flash too much. |
| jdixon Oct 28, 2015 10:19 AM EDT |
> That's good music, it rocks just as KDE5 (five, four is dead). Whoosh. |
| Fettoosh Oct 28, 2015 11:42 AM EDT |
To each his own. To each his own. To each his own. May be you don't need Semantic Desktop, may be you do want it, may be you just despise it, but some one else might need it, want it, & love it. Is it so hard to turn it off? don't install it/remove it & enjoy the rest of what you like. Come on, be tolarant. :-) I wonder if corporate users were included in this poll? I doubt it. Any how, 15% is not so bad & could be a pretty large number. Most people don't use Inkscape, GIMP, etc. etc. So what is the point? Semantic desktop might be dead for now (I doubt it) because its before its time, but it will come back because people keep pilling information on their computer devices. Those who care about them are eventually going to need a tool to find what they are looking for quickly and effectively. Semantic search is going to be a must. Yes, Plasma 5 is rocky , I am running it on my laptop, but so was KDE 2, 3, & 4 before they became stable and enjoyable to use. No one is prevented from running KDE 4.x, which is very stable and reliable. No one is twisting arms to upgrade to Plasma 5. @Ridcully, Its OK to keep discussing this issue because it brings the best of FOSS & us. :-) |
| Ridcully Oct 28, 2015 4:10 PM EDT |
I stand corrected Fettoosh...well said. That being the case, I go back to what I said at the start of everything. KDE4.6 remains in my opinion, the best version of the KDE4 series that was produced: stable, simple, effective and very, very fast. I am using it right now to type this reponse. No hdd thrashing, no mucking around, just does exactly what I want. Especially with respect to KWallet and KMail. KDE5 ? For my money it will have precisely the same problems as KDE4........That's an opinion obviously, but given the determination of the KDE team to do what THEY want......I don't expect anything else. :-) |
| DiBosco Oct 29, 2015 8:48 AM EDT |
>> KDE3 was the last good KDE... << I suggest you actually *try* using KDE4, then, you'll soon find you're completely wrong. |
| JaseP Oct 29, 2015 10:17 AM EDT |
Quoting: >> KDE3 was the last good KDE... << I'm sure he has... That's why he has his opinion... And that brings up the thing about opinions,... Everyone's got one,... and ... [well, you can finish the thought for yourself]. Personally, I find 4.8+ to be reasonably OK... Still too many bugs to use it exclusively on all my systems, but not bad for a desktop DE for a laptop... |
| Fettoosh Oct 29, 2015 12:26 PM EDT |
Quoting:I stand corrected Fettoosh...well said. @Ridcully, Thank you but I don't look at it as right or wrong, to me it is just a matter of different opinions. we discuss and debate things so we convince each other one way or another. I was running Plasma 5.3.2 on my HP Compaq 6910 labtop, it was rocky and missing many features. Couple days ago I upgraded to Plasma 5.4.2 on Kubuntu 15.10, Many issues were resolved but still suffers from some missing features and occasional application crashes. But one thing I noticed about Plasma 5.4.x is the fast improvement in speed. For instance, When KDE 4.x was running on this same laptop, I consistently saw about 4% of CPU usage when the system was idle. Now I mostly see 1%. Personally, and just for that, I think the development effort was worth while. The main objective of Plasma development was not for speed improvement and maintainability only, but primarily to build a framework that could support different interfaces suiable for desktops & other devices to run the same suite of applications without major changes. Others chose to use the same touch interface for all devices. We will see how and who is more successful. |
| Ridcully Oct 29, 2015 4:50 PM EDT |
No worries Fettoosh - I hadn't even thought of "right or wrong", just that you made the excellent point very clearly that while it seems that the same ground may be being "raked over", the ground has actually changed so much that the raking is again worth while. It behooves me to remember that in future......Candidly though, as soon as I get the new 4-core laptop I hope to have on Monday, I will then be spending a lot of time doing what one of my articles suggested, and dumping KDE4/5 and its "Plasma" altogether: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/199397/index.html I really don't have the time or inclination to fight with KDE any more, and why should I ? The sad thing is that I really, really, really DO love using KDE4.6.....It's brilliant. When I am working like this, the whole system is silent apart from the noise of the keyboard.....I can of course, re-install a 64bit version of openSUSE 11.4 and KDE4.6 and that remains an option, but Xfce does beckon and is fast, reliable, stable and simple. In fact, Xfce strongly resembles what KDE was before it was "improved" - well, in my opinion anyhow. But as we would both strongly agree, it's all up to the choice of the Linux user.....and that's the best part of the whole thing. PS........Isn't "behooves" a lovely word ? You don't see it too often, but it sprang to mind and it expresses exactly my viewpoint. Me and my archaic English. LOL. I just love playing with words. :-) |
| CFWhitman Oct 30, 2015 10:54 AM EDT |
I have been using Xfce for most computers that I run, especially those that other people will end up using also, for a while now (the other desktops I sometimes use are LXDE, Fluxbox, and IceWM). It really seems to work well with only one real issue I have to deal with. Xfce has a built in compositor which doesn't really work very well (in my opinion anyway). It causes tearing while watching full motion video. You can disable the compositor easily enough, and that will generally eliminate the tearing for full motion video (this depends quite a bit on your hardware, but it most likely won't be as bad). However, you will get non-smooth transitions and vertical scrolling tearing in Firefox or other Web browsers. To eliminate this, you can install a third party compositor that has OpenGL support. I find Compton to be the least invasive and least trouble to configure, but some people do go with Compiz (which replaces the window manager) for all the special effects. With Compton installed I get smooth transitions, smooth scrolling in Web browsers, and the elimination of any tearing that you might still have in full motion video. The beauty of Compton for me is that it works with all the desktops and window managers that don't have their own compositor (like LXDE, Fluxbox, and IceWM) as well as replacing problematic compositors like the one in Xfce. Depending on your hardware configuration it can even improve performance by offloading some of the processing during desktop operations to the GPU. The only real downside I've run across on occasion is that depending on other factors you may have to kill Compton to run some games. |
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