KDE 4.0 Release Candidate 1 Hits the Streets, Codename "Calamity"

The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the
first release candidate for KDE 4.0
. This release candidate marks that
the majority of the components of KDE 4.0 are now approaching release quality.

While the final bits of Plasma, the brand new desktop shell and panel in KDE 4, are falling into place, the KDE
community decided to publish the first release candidate for the KDE 4.0
Desktop. Release Candidate 1 is the first preview of KDE 4.0 which is
suitable for general use and discovering the improvements that have taken
place over the entire KDE code base. The KDE Development Platform, the basis for developing KDE applications, is frozen and is now of release quality. The source code for the KDE Development Platform can be found under the "stable/3.96" subdirectory, on KDE's FTP server and mirrors.

Building on this, the majority of applications included in KDE 4.0 are now
usable for day to day use. The KDE Release Team has recently underlined this by calling
on the community
to participate in reporting bugs during the time
remaining before the release of KDE 4.0 in December.

Meanwhile, preparations for the KDE 4.0 release events are ongoing, with the main event taking place January 2008 in Mountain View, California USA. Make sure you don't miss it!

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Comments

by Bobby (not verified)

Kalamity would be better for the German speaking users (like me) because C tends to stick in the throat :D

by bull (not verified)

Yes, it is just a RC.These problems will get fixed.

by Chaoswind (not verified)

Is it possible with calamity, to write plasmaoids in python?

by Dominic (not verified)

Judging from current screenshots the active and inactive windows seem to have no visual distinction. Will KDE 4 have an option to color the caption of the active window in anything but grey? Or maybe better, frame the entire window with a thin colored line? I think the lack of distinction between active and inactive windows is one of the most serious usability flaws of Mac OS 10.4.

by Level 1 (not verified)

The default colors are configurable. In fact, most of the critizism of oxygen comes from the poor color scheme, but if you choose the other themes, its very pretty. I especially like the dark green one (moonlight meadow or something like that... its really beautiful.)

by MamiyaOtaru (not verified)

"default colors" and "poor color scheme" really shouldn't go together :(

by mllorent (not verified)

activar windows

by mikkael (not verified)

kubuntu gutsy gibbon packages available:
http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde4-rc1.php

by Kubuntu user (not verified)

But these packages doesn't contain the new panel :(... and many plasmoids are missing... I think I will go back to SUSE

by Garza (not verified)

Ugh, kubuntu packaging of kde4 has been sub par. It makes KDE4 look buggier than it really is. I suggest people use opensuse if they want to test drive kde4.

by Bobby (not verified)

I am using openSuse but I haven't been able to test rc1 properly. I updated from the latest beta to rc1 yesterday and realized that a few things were missing so I uninstalled everything and did a reinstall but I can't start kde4 anymore. I don't know if there is anyone here with similar problem.

by Sutoka (not verified)

Have you tried deleting the ~/.kde4 directory (or, move it somewhere if you've done more than just look at older versions of KDE4 and wanna keep your settings)?

by Bobby (not verified)

I found the problem. I installed the default system but forgot to install the basis system. Now it's running but I haven't had any background picture since the last beta and some plasmiods that were in beta 3 are missing even though plasma extra-gears is installed.
I also deleted the .kde4 directory more than once but there is still no background picture and the plasmiods are still missing.

by Coolvibe (not verified)

Compile KDE-svn if you really want to test kde4. It's a snap with the kdesvn-build script (yes, also in *buntu). I´m typing this comment from KDE-svn now.

It is really workable and it's friggin BEAUTIFUL.

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

What kind of word do we live in when kids can pick up software from the streets?

You don't know where that software has been.

by matt (not verified)

I don't want to sound too trollish.

What ever happened to konstruct? Not that I don't like the build instructions on the techabse website the explanations are great, it just seems a lot of time is spent building these packages when it would be great if it was still automated. It would be nice just to download, compile and install so that I can get on with the testing side of things. If something doesn't work during the compiling I'm just going to wait for the packages, which is a shame.

by matt (not verified)

Great example... Guess I'll just wait for the packages
(no i'm not going to file a bug report. I have no idea what information would be needed. Nor do I have a clue what the problem could be, especially since it is likely to be machine specific. My concern is not compiling and packaging. All I really want to do is test if my day to day tasks are going to still work and log bugs based on that, so that when the final release is available I can put it on my work desktop.)

SS -I/home/kde-devel/qt-copy/mkspecs/linux-g++ -DHAVE_QCONFIG_CPP -DQT_NO_THREAD -DQT_NO_QOBJECT -DQT_NO_GEOM_VARIANT /home/kde-devel/qt-copy/src/corelib/io/qtextstream.cpp
/home/kde-devel/qt-copy/src/corelib/io/qtextstream.cpp: In member function ‘bool QTextStreamPrivate::getReal(double*)’:
/home/kde-devel/qt-copy/src/corelib/io/qtextstream.cpp:1940: error: ‘qQNaN’ was not declared in this scope
/home/kde-devel/qt-copy/src/corelib/io/qtextstream.cpp: In member function ‘QTextStream& QTextStream::operator<<(double)’:
/home/kde-devel/qt-copy/src/corelib/io/qtextstream.cpp:2414: error: ‘qIsNaN’ was not declared in this scope
make: *** [qtextstream.o] Error 1

by Troy Unrau (not verified)

try http://kdesvn-build.kde.org

Cheers, non-troll :P

by Matt (not verified)

HOLY, this is fan-flippin-tastic.

Cheers

by Jim (not verified)

More importantly, how come the build instructions linked from the RC1 info page are to make an SVN build? I tried those instructions for the last beta and they just didn't work. Shouldn't the build instructions for RC1 tell you how to build RC1?

by Incense (not verified)

I just loaded the SUSE live disc, and RC1 looks amazing. Love the look and feel, the widgets look great, and the applications are running nicely! Great job devs! KDE4 looks like it's going to be a joy to use!

by turn_self_off (not verified)

about the only thing that looks interesting there is the new kmenu...

the rest? meh...

btw, does anyone have a list of whats being done with konqueror? i keep hearing that its not being neglected over dolphin but im not sure where to look for news about whats being worked on.

by Anon (not verified)

The much-requested "Undo close tab" has been written, for a start, but unfortunately it was not finished in time for the 4.0 feature freeze. Expect it in 4.1.

by logixoul (not verified)

"interesting" things are forbidden, we are in release mode and feature freeze.
IOW, get your head out of your ass.

by turn_self_off (not verified)

cute...

by Step (not verified)

I like to see some screenshots. :)
I use my PC for works so I can not install release candidates etc.

Thank you for the screenshot links.

by Xanadu (not verified)

I assume (HOPE!) that little Down Arrow in this pic:

http://www.ossblog.it/galleria/big/kde4rc1/6

on the "Turn Off Computer" button means that the KDE Log Out dialog will support Suspend/Hibernate?

M.

by Federico Gherardini (not verified)

Hi everyone!
First of all congratulation for this release candidate. The future looks VERY promising... (and the present too!). I've been installing betas for a while and I've never been able to get kwin composite effects to work with my graphics card (geforce GO5600 with nvidia binary drivers, running under OpenSUSE 10.3). Composite is enabled in Xorg and compiz fusion work for me but kwin... no luck! It keeps on saying

kwin(17309) KWin::Extensions::init: Extensions: shape: 0x "11" composite: 0x
"4" render: 0x "a" fixes: 0x "40"
kwin(17309) KWin::Workspace::setupCompositing: No compositing

Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!

by chris.w (not verified)

Did you have the Xorg header files installed at compile time? Without those headers, compositing is disabled.

by Federico Gherardini (not verified)

I'm using the OpenSUSE 10.3 packages therefore I'm not compiling kde4 myself. Anyway after much googling around I found the following message

http://lists4.opensuse.org/opensuse-kde/2007-11/msg00003.html

apparently OpenGL compositing doesn't work in the OpenSUSE packages but xrender compositing does??

I have the same problem with the gutsy packages.
kwin config shows that the effects are enabled, but they are not in fact.

My graphics hardware is the following:
Intel Corporation 82915G/GV/910GL Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 04)

It works and the effects are great! I couldn't get it working either because I had XGL (which KDE4 seems to be allergic to) enabled for Compiz Fusion. What I did was enable the composite extension in the xorg.conf file and used xorg as the default display manager. You can change that in YaST.

I am really impressed by RC1, it improved a lot over the last beta and seems to be quite stable. I had a few problems with the openSuse packages and I am still missing some plasmoids and a background picture but apart from that I can see that KDE4 is going to kick some big time asses!

by Melchior FRANZ (not verified)

The oxygen gui style, window decoration and icons have become beautiful. There are lots of really great features and applications. But while I had hoped to switch to KDE4 as soon as possible, some not so great decisions make it impossible for me. Some of the broken features will probably get fixed soon, but some are apparently broken by design and even listed as "improvements".

One missing feature that I just can't work without: panel autohiding. This black bar eats a lot of my desktop space and makes "maximized" windows a lot smaller than I'm used to. Also, I haven't yet found a way to set more than 4 virtual desktops, but I'm sure that this will get addressed soon. (Haven't yet bothered to edit the config file.) I'm aware that the whole desktop workspace is still work in progress. No need to panic. :-)

I can't stand the kde menu (forgot its name). I find it hard to believe that it has survived any usability testing, but I accept it as a fact that there was some. The hard coded size is a step backwards and reminds me of (old?) MS Windows file dialogs. It's much too easy to switch tabs by accidentally leaving the file/category area. It's easy to miss the backwards button on the left (now that it's no longer left aligned). But I hear that there's a classical menu in the works, so that's not a big problem. And most of the time I start applications with konsole, anyway.

Gwenview has become completely unusable for me, which is a big showstopper, as I use that very often. Not only does it pop up completely unwanted menus when hovering over a thumbnail (I'll patch that away in my copy), it has dropped the possibility to adjust gamma/brightness/contrast. Yes, I could keep using gwenview from KDE3, but having two Qt-libs in memory isn't exactly a desirable goal. Need to check out pixie ...

Someone will probably jump on me and criticize me for ... erm ... criticizing,
and that's OK. :-)

by chris.w (not verified)

I trust that the panel isn't finished yet and can be moved, resized and hidden when it's done. At the moment, the system tray doesn't even work for me, i.e. it seems to be there, but doesn't show any icons :-(

by Jim (not verified)

> Gwenview has become completely unusable for me

Me too. If you have a lot of images in a directory and use the detailed view, it hangs for ages because it no longer looks at the file information to get the date, it uses the EXIF information instead, meaning it has to read each and every image in the directory before it can display the list of images. What's worse is that there's no option to switch this off.

There were also regressions with keyboard shortcuts as well. Can't remember exactly what they were because I stopped using it because it got that bad compared with previous versions.

by Sebastian (not verified)

Windows' Explorer only creates thumbnails for visible icons. Therefore, it was faster than Konqueror/Gwenview since ages. Indeed, I hoped the thumbnail preview kparts will include this in KDE4 series as well. It doesn't seem so---

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

It doesn't matter that damn near everyone who tries Kickoff complains about it. It doesn't matter that users don't like it. It doesn't matter that it slows people down. It doesn't matter that people have been extremely vocal about this week after week.

A usability shows it is superior, and that is vastly more important than actual feedback from your users.

Don't ask me how something some slow and poorly designed is superior, but someone said so, and they were like official and stuff.

You just can't argue with that.

(However, the good news is that we'll have options like Raptor and Lancelot, which both look great!)

by cloose (not verified)

"It doesn't matter that damn near everyone who tries Kickoff complains about it. It doesn't matter that users don't like it. It doesn't matter that it slows people down. It doesn't matter that people have been extremely vocal about this week after week."

Facts:

-> Raptor is not done
-> Lancelot is not done
-> There is no K-Menu for plasma
-> One developer ported Kickoff to plasma

So there is only *one* choice atm. So scream, shout, cry, troll at much as you want. KDE 4.0 will ship with Kickoff as the default menu unless some other developer creates an releaseable alternative *really* fast.

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

When it was first announced that Kickoff would be rewritten for KDE, people were very vocal in opposition, and people asked for a simple Kmenu option at the very least. I'm certainly not opposed to the new Kickoff existing for those who want to use it.

However, repeatedly all the detractors were told that Kickoff is just better and that our criticism wasn't valid. Why?

Not sure.

Apparently a menu that buries items and forces you to click five times and wait boosts productivity and you're can't argue with that.

by Sebastian Sauer (not verified)

Then probably vote for http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150883 ?
and maybe even try to follow the step-by-step intro + provide feedback?

Really, I am all with you on that matter but I just fail to see how complaints on the dot or whereever else could change anything. Don't waste your energy here, but participate direct at the place that is designed for it and where users and/or developers are able to fetch details, opinions, etc. related to one special case at one central place rather then seeking through the internet, the articles and the boards. Really, there is a reason why such a bugzilla ticket-system is such an essential tool.

by Mike E. (not verified)

The original standard KMenu is less usable than the Kickoff menu for one simple reason: search. Most users know what they want to get to, but it can be hard to get to it through any menu system that has more than just a few entries. The things I've seen on Raptor make it look to me like it will be totally unusable by anyone who wants more than eye-candy, like actually being able to quickly start the application that you want to, which is the whole purpose of a menu in the first place. Lancelot seems to be promising, but is obviously no where near usable at the current time. Kickoff needs some work on when to click and when a mouse hover should do, but at the moment it is far superior to anything else that exists.

by Sebastian Sauer (not verified)

The interesting part in the whole discusion is, that a few people tend to argue that there own taste is better cause the others are more worse. What I miss a bit is to accept that others may have another taste and there is no way to convince them ;)
I guess nobody ever sayed, that this or that solution will be the only one. In fact I guess we will have soon so many alternates, that I'll spend again a few hours trying them all like I did with the KDE3-themes. Well, kickoff is the vanilla-default, and? With one (or n) clicks that can be changed rather fast and probably your favorite distributor may even pick up something total different to be more unique, brand the desktop according to there philosophy or just cause they don't agree with the default, and? Well, all in all, what really counts is, that the base to allow to integrate easy additional alternates is there. Plasma does enable this.

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

How does search make a menu better for everyday use?

If I don't know where an app is, or what the name is, then search might be nice. However, KDE is very good about just dropping apps in nice logical places in the menu. The old KMenu was great for quickly navigating to the app I wanted with a few hovers.

Search seems nice at first for a new user, but in the long run, even using search is slower that a quick hover.

Kickoff is so bad, that after trying it out, I just found myself hitting Alt+F2 all the time, and the habit stuck now. My wife was trying different binary distros for her laptop (I'm a Gentoo guy) and openSUSE and Sabayon defaulted to Kickoff. kdemod on Arch uses it as well, and she hates the thing.

It isn't as bad the the Vista menu, but is pretty close.

by Erunno (not verified)

"Search seems nice at first for a new user, but in the long run, even using search is slower that a quick hover"

Disagree with that as you usually only have to enter the first letters of any application to get results and in my case when using it as an application launcher the results are in most cases what I've looking for. And entering two or three letters and hitting enter is usually done quicker than (depending how many submenus any given menu has) Plus, there are hard to measure delays during usage of menues including visual scanning of each layer for the next node/leaf to click.

It also really depends on the speed of the underlaying indexing tool. For instance, Spotlight is obscenely fast with coming up with results while Beagle in combination with Kickoff is far slower in that regard. I hope we'll see an improvement when Kickoff uses Strigi as the indexing backend.

by Cedric (not verified)

Non geeks users don't use keyboard to search apps, so searching tool is useless...

I see how people use vista, they never search apps via menu because most of the time they don't remember app name...

by JJ (not verified)

Most "normal" users don't have a clue what applications are named, so search doesn't help them. Most ordinary (non-geek) users I know remember apps by the "pretty picture" next to it (the icon) and will browse through menus looking for the picture (never the name or description, *just* the icon image).
Search is, for this (I suspect vast) group of users, completely useless.

by Anonymous (not verified)

> Most "normal" users don't have a clue what applications are named, so search doesn't help them.

You cannot only search for applications names but categories/keywords/descriptions.

by Erunno (not verified)

See, this is what annoys me about many Kickoff discussions: People have only used *any* Kickoff implementation for a very short time or not at all but still feel like armchair quarterbacking about the advantages and disadvantages of it. Otherwise I can't imagine where those misconcenptions about Kickoff's functionality are coming from.

People are likely to get better results when they type "burn cd" and get K3B as a result as with icons it's always dependent on how meaningful any give icon is and if the user interprets it in the same way as the designer. This is less likely to happen in task-based description like the aforementioned burning of cds.

by Bobby (not verified)

Kickoff is very usable and especially easy for KDE newcomers to use. It's almost foolproof. I can't understand the most of the discussions around Kickoff myself. I personally am quite happy with Kickoff, all I would like is that it would be made more configurable like KBFX. Kickoff only needs one or two screws here and there to be tighten and a few eye-candies.