Today sees the release of Kubuntu 8.10 featuring the latest KDE 4.1 desktop. The Kubuntu developers have been hard at work, integrating this major new version into a completed desktop. The settings and artwork have been kept close to KDE's defaults to ensure the best face of our favourite desktop shines through. Desktop effects have been enabled by default for cards which support it thanks to the wonderful KWin and package management comes via a brand new version of Adept. Printer Applet and System Config Printer KDE were written to ensure a complete user experience, both are now part of KDE itself. Update Manager, Language Selector and plenty other tools have been reworked for KDE 4. Upgrade, download or request a free CD.
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I switched to KDE4 right from the beginning, I think this is coolest open source project which can bring Linux desktop to the masses! I am using latest KDE on my production laptop updating it every month and for a half a year I touched my second boot Vista only for hour or two :).
Thank you for your work.
I believe in open source!
There are too many bugs or missing feature introduce by kubuntu it's a shame.
They disabled plasma zoom without notice.
They are no migration done for kmail.
Kmail in the version 4 is buggy and cannot read some imap count.
Using Nepomuk with kubuntu is stupid because the backend is old and slow, very very slow. Because of this you can forget to use strigi and all the nepomuk nice stuff as the notation etc.
I don't understand why did they provide krita2, you cannot open any jpeg file (kubuntu specific bug).
And I probably miss most of them...
I am just coming from the Ubuntu release party from the c-base in Berlin and must admit the Kubuntu presentation was "entsprechend" horrible. So my question is what can be done to cast a better light on KDE4.x and its new features?
to be honest, you want to show people an amazing KDE build, show them OpenSUSE. OpenSUSE, in my view do a far better KDE than anyone else. I had a look at kubuntu and it really doesn't even look half as great as what OpenSUSE have in 11.1
i have used this crap . its useable , but full of bugs and slow as hell
"its useable , but full of bugs"
what the hell you mean?!
I tryed to put that thing (KDE4) to work but it was really slooooow, even though I have a Geforce 8500GT, Athlon 2GHz 64bits x2, 2Gb of RAM .... It is really slow!!!! Man, I had to install fluxbox while I install ubuntu-desktop via adept ... that's a shame.
If just we could choose which version of KDE to use, as in 8.04, but no, in this version it's not enabled (if someone knows how, I'll appreciate).
How could the people at Kubuntu make us use such a buggy and slow product? I want to choose which Windows Manager to use !!!
Oh, and besides all my frustation, the "K menu" doesn't show a "K", show other icon, as well as the "Delete icon" on the plasmoid widgets, that shows an "Edit icon" .. :S ...
If you like KDE 3.5 it still ships with OpenSUSE 11, and with the upcoming release of OpenSUSE 11.1 both KDE 3.5 and KDE 4.1 will be available for people to decide which they want to use.
even the unstable branch would not fit to what i have experienced:
repeatedly crashes, deadly slow, the good programs are kde3.5 anyway and an space wasting layout - let alone questions of taste
PLEASE debian guys! Don't drop kde3.5 in SID in favor for that ...
for testing and stable i am conviced no one even only half reasonable will do that, but even for unstable you shouldn't - it is in experimental where it belongs to, if at all!
I'm willing to accept that some of the problems with KDE 4.1 in Kubuntu might be down to config choices made by the Kubuntu packagers. But, this must have done the reputation of KDE no end of damage. It's clunky, flakey (try accessing a smb:// uri with Dolphin or Konqueror) and generally embarrassingly bad.
why would it damage the reputation of KDE? KDE is far more than just kubuntu, and from what I have heard a lot of people who weren't happy with the kubuntu release that I know, have shifted to other distro's that have supplied a better KDE build.
I'm on KDE 4.2, well, what will be 4.2 in a few months, on OpenSUSE and it is a beautiful thing. Don't judge KDE just on what one distro does to it.
Ultimately, with free software you are left with two options when a radically new release comes out:
1. Use it (perhaps even help improve it)
2. Fork the old code base
If you really think KDE 3.5 was better than KDE 4, fork the code base. Stop whining about it and take control of the situation.
Personally, I just don't understand some of the things in KDE4.
The whole desktop-folder-as-a-widget thing seems to actively interfere with any hope of having a decent looking desktop picture. It seems to imply that -- for now at least -- you can either go with nothing on the desktop except a picture, or you can go with a pattern or solid color that can have clutter on top without disrupting the visual appeal.
Then again, I totally fail to understand the appeal of widgets in the first place. I mean, why? I either want my screen covered with a set of windows, or I want the screen completely clear. What is with the widgets? Why do people think they're good ideas? Why would I want to use them? What problem do they solve? -- I just don't get it.
It doesn't help that most of the desktop-specific widgets either do something other applications do (a clock or calculator), or they do something that is a total time-sink (like games or comics). It may be that I'm just an old fuddy-duddy for failing to understand the greatness of widgets. In the end, I've no desire to fork the code-base, and I'd consider going back to ratpoison or flwm before I went back to GNOME. (GNOME actively interfered with how I wanted to use my system.) I'll put up with it, and wait for someone to convince me why I really wanted desktop widgets.
I really like the new menu in KDE4. It is different in a really nice way. Most of the time, I don't traverse things all that deep anymore, because for applications I use regularly I can type a few letters and search for them faster than I can look for them. I do wish default menus would become more hierarchical. (I tend to prefer the Debian-style menu organization to the normal one for that reason.) The scroll bars are a huge benefit there. It is really a wonder no one thought of that earlier.
I am interested in the plans for the future of KDE. I'm hoping for more genuinely useful features (like the menu improvement), and fewer features that leave me scratching my head (such as widgets).
Cheers,
Steven
Kubuntu 8.10.
Very short review:
Log in screen works but looks unfinished.
Plasma is slow (openbox is fast and KDE apps open quickly with it).
Log in the second time and the Kmenu has moved onto the other side of the taskbar and the tray.
Konqueror has improved.
Kmix crashes occasionally.
The restricted drivers app doesn't seem to work without first installing the drivers via apt or Adept.
Adept looks unfinished but it works.
I'll stress this:
If you need a dependable OS, stay with 8.04 until a newer Kubuntu is released. The decision to drop KDE3.5 is not too smart. At least Kubuntu 8.04 is still supported. Though, the Kubuntu folks should really should warn people about Kubuntu 8.10 rough state if they want to be taken seriously, as for some people computing is more than a hobby. ;)
KDE4 sucks unbelievably much.
I have been a kde user since the beginning. I never liked gnome, and I only used enlightenment for a while.
I am kind of desperate right now, as I don't have a desktop to migrate right now. I am staying with kde for now, but only with half a heart, and mainly due to inertia, a bit of hope for the next couple of releases, and lack of alternatives that I like.
KDE4 is: Many new stupid words, many more clicking for the same thing, less functionality and configurability, and easy access to "usual" actions.
If I wanted easy access to "usual" actions, I would be using winblows. There is no "usual".
Anyways, kde4 is a catastrophe, and only a miracle in the next couple releases will save it. Actually it is so bad, that I have a conspiracy theory that people from MS worked as contributors to kde, to plant bad ui/technological ideas into it and cripple it.
Sounds like you were even too stupid to keep KDE 3.5 along trying KDE 4. I can see how that sucks for you.
Please put a disclaimer in your anti-KDE4 rant, or delete you posting. Slandering KDE4 won't make GNOME any better. GNOME doesn't need your kind of "help".